Manchester United's third midfield signing of the summer has become the transfer saga defined less by concrete negotiation than by a rotating cast of names. Aurélien Tchouameni, Alex Scott, Manu Koné, Sander Berge, Tyler Adams — all have cycled through the conversation since Andrey Santos and Youri Tielemans arrived within a day of each other last month.
Publicly, United played down any renewed interest in Baleba specifically. That reticence made sense once the history is accounted for: the two clubs had effectively already done the difficult work last summer, when Brighton's valuation put United off before talks could properly begin.
What has changed is the price, not the appetite. Brighton's demands have softened enough that United judged it worth returning with a number, even a low one — £60m plus £5m in add-ons, an offer both sides understand falls short of what will ultimately be required.
Brighton have not accepted it, but neither have they ended the conversation, and people close to the deal expect it to progress rather than collapse.
Michael Carrick's staff have been explicit in private that the priority for this signing is defensive competence in midfield rather than further attacking creativity, and Baleba's profile as a physical, disruptive ball-winner fits that requirement more precisely than most of the alternatives discussed this summer.
He is presently working back from a pre-season ankle injury, though nobody at United regards that as a barrier to completing a deal before the transfer deadline.
Whether this now moves quickly depends largely on how far Brighton are willing to come down from a valuation that once looked unmovable. United's read of the situation is that the gap has narrowed enough to make a breakthrough realistic in the coming days.