Manchester United have taken the young Leicester City attacker Jeff Schlupp on trial with a view to signing him on a permanent deal.

Schlupp, 20, has been training at Carrington with the permission of his parent club, who have a close relationship with United and have taken players on loan from the Premier League club in the past.

Schlupp is relatively inexperienced even in Championship football and has not played in the first team since November. He is a striker who can operate on the left and has also played some games at left-back for the club. He broke into the side last season having played on loan at Brentford in the 2010-2011 season.

A product of the Leicester academy, Schlupp made an immediate impact when he broke through into the first team at the start of last season and scored a hat-trick on his debut away to Rotherham United in the League Cup. He played fairly regularly last season in spite of injuries.

He is a senior Ghana international, his one cap coming in November last year. Previous to that he played junior international football for Germany – he was born in Hamburg before moving to England as a youngster. He underwent knee surgery last season but the club still gave him a new contract until 2015.