Transfer Update: Borussia Mönchengladbach’s Manu Koné not a player being discussed at Bayern Munich right now

Last week, reports had suggested that Bayern Munich was monitoring the possibility of potentially trying to sign midfielder Manu Koné from Borussia Mönchengladbach during next summer’s transfer window. The player himself is showing a preference to wanting to make a move away from Die Fohlen by next summer, but new information suggests Bayern is not really interested in him concretely at the moment.

Per an update from Sky Sport journalist Florian Plettenberg (as per @iMiaSanMia), Koné is not a “hot topic” at Bayern right now. Gladbach is still very much open to selling the midfielder, and they would be asking for roughly €40-45m for his signature. The club had recently triggered a clause in his contract that pushed his current deal through June 2026, meaning that they could very well ask for a higher price than they would have before triggering said clause. In that sense, they hold all of the cards and could easily price Bayern out if they were to come back in with a concrete pursuit of the player.

As early as the January transfer window, Thomas Tuchel still wants to try to sign a defensive midfielder and a right back. Former club president Uli Hoeneß does not agree with Tuchel that the club needs to sign a No. 6 midfielder, but the rest of Bayern’s front office seems to be aligned with Tuchel. At the very least, the club was so close to signing Portuguese international João Palhinha from Fulham on the last day of the German summer transfer window, and they have not entirely ruled out going back in for him this winter, even despite Fulham getting him to sign an extension earlier this season.

There are still more options to explore for Tuchel, but for the case of Koné, getting priced out by Mönchengladbach makes it seem that it will be other clubs going in for him next summer. For Bayern, they need to focus on getting a clearly-defined defensive midfielder, so the fact that they have shown interest in Koné shows that they are on the right path, though he, arguably, is not as high of a profile player as Palhinha.