New names are exciting and exotic and we have some today.
We’ll be honest, we were a little captivated by the thought of Dani Alves. Then he went and spoiled it all by doing something stupid like signing a new contract with the European Champions. We were sad but reporters were not because, after hedging their bets as far as the Brazil wing back was concerned, they can now dig in to their treasure trove of ‘potential right backs’ for Man Utd.
The Mail are saying we’ve turned our attention to Gregory van der Wiel of PSG. He may be available for £7m. We are NOT doubting the credibility of this rumour but how convenient that this news comes the day after Alves signed a new contract.
The Express aren’t quite so inventive. They have us as BACK in the race for Clyne.
The Sun say we wish to sign Atletico Madrid’s 29 year old striker Mario Mandzukic. Another new name. And that’s we have to say about that.
Of course if you were following the news from earlier in the week then you know that today is the day that Real Madrid want to sign David De Gea. There is notably little about this in the press except (drum roll please) the Metro. They are reporting Marca as saying the deal is in the final stages after the clubs agreed a deal which could end up as much(!) as 25m Euros. So approximately a £2m profit on a player who has become one of the very best in the world at United. It does seem like a very United thing to do, selling very marketable players for staggeringly low prices to Madrid, though we are caught in a tough position.
We’re not in charge of transfers at United or contract renewals but we are fans of schadenfreude and think it might be a little funny if Madrid were hit with an 18 month transfer ban (hypothetically) and we refused to be low-balled.
Anyway, we’re on bad terms with the Metro. We’ve got no reason to doubt their credibility but they did tell us that we had signed Raheem Sterling and yesterday they were forced to remove a story that claimed we had agreed a deal for Roma player Radja Nainggolan.
The Express have us in for another midfielder more familiar to Reds, Spurs’ Christian Eriksen ’89. Oh sorry we just assumed that was his full name. There is nothing of note to add to that but we expect the Metro to be saying he’s set to move to Old Trafford within 3 days.
Elsewhere – Nicky Butt is tipped to take over a new Academy role at the club after the departure of Brian McClair. Steve McLaren is poised to take over at Newcastle. Chris Smalling says he thinks his partnership with Phil Jones has ‘proven’ the pair can be a centre back pairing for United, seemingly callously disregarding the weekly heart attacks for supporters.
Players linked to United : Dani Alves, Hugo Lloris, Nathaniel Clyne, Gareth Bale, Morgan Schneiderlin, Nicolas Otamendi, Felipe Anderson, Petr Cech, Raheem Sterling, Ilkay Gundogan, Lorenzo Gonzalez, Bastian Schweinstiger, Harry Kane, Karim Benzema, Cristiano Ronaldo, Fernando Muslera, Asmir Begovic, David Alaba, Carlos Bacca, Arturo Vidal, Joseph Colley, Gonzalo Higuain, Radja Nainggolan, Gregory van der Wiel, Mario Mandzukic, Christian Eriksen ’89
RetroUnited that would be a bad signing
RetroUnited I think we should try and take Zlatan away from PSG