Confirmed: Young defender heading to Manchester United

Manchester United are on the verge of adding another youngster to their books after the signing of Swiss wonderkid Nishan Burkart, with hot Belgian prospect Keith Groeneveld reportedly having a trial with the club’s academy.

They however face competition from Belgian giants Standard Liege, who are believed to have already offered a contract to the youngster. Keith Groeneveld, 16, who is the captain of KV Mechelen’s Under-17 side trained with United three years ago as part of an exchange programme when he was playing for United’s former partners Royal Antwerp.

Keith Groeneveld was born in Kimberley, South Africa and relocated with his family at the age of five to Belgium and started out his youth career at Royal Antwerp. A central defender by trade but started out as a midfielder at Antwerp, has drawn similarities with Real Madrid’s Raphael Varane because of his dominate physical displays and his ability to cover every blade of grass on the pitch.

United’s head of Academy, Nicky Butt, who was appointed in February amidst fears that the clubs academy was on the verge of collapse as they were a distant 30 points behind Manchester City in January, is already looking to bolster the squad as they already added Irish defender Lee O’Connor and American Matthew Olosunde and are now handing a trial to the Belgian.

Although he has yet to declare his nationality, he is yet another promising talent from Belgian to join the Red Devils, and will be looking to follow in footsteps of Ritchie De Laet, Adnan Januzaj and Andreas Pereira in making his first team debut.