Manchester United and Newcastle are both eyeing a move for Adrien Rabiot, who is a free agent after leaving Juventus over the summer.
Their hopes of signing the midfielder have received a boost after Rabiot rejected approaches from Galatasaray and the Saudi Pro League and United's new sporting director Dan Ashworth could get one over on his former club if he seals the deal.
Ashworth left Newcastle to become United's sporting director this summer after a drawn-out process which required arbitration, with the 53-year-old placed on gardening leave in February before an agreement was finally reached for him to join the Red Devils in July.
His successor at Newcastle, Paul Mitchell, has openly criticised Ashworth and accused him of implementing a transfer strategy that was not "fit for purpose". When discussing his first transfer window in charge, Mitchell said: " I think it's difficult coming into a predefined strategy.
"Should our scouting and recruitment be driven more extensively with a wider reaching net? It definitely should, because this is becoming a really nuanced space now, when you can't just capitally fund everything every year and buy loads of players at peak age and peak price.
"Of course it needs to be, and that's the responsibility of me, the scouting team and Eddie [Howe]. Is it fit for purpose? Not last winter gone, the winter before that. Is it fit for purpose in the modern game?
"Because other clubs that have adopted a different approach over time, with more intelligence, more data-informed than we are, actually prospered in this window. That's where we have to grow to be now.
"You look at the money we have invested up to this point, £250m net over the last two-and-a-half years. Was our model in place to be able to spend more to the levels we would have liked to enhance the team?
"I don't think it was, because we haven't sold a player during that time, barring what we were forced to do through PSR."
Mitchell's comments are said to have left Ashworth 'hurt and bemused' and he now has an opportunity to get one over on Mitchell as both clubs chase Rabiot.
