June 11th passed which means that David De Gea will remain a Man Utd player because that was apparently Real Madrid’s deadline.
It amuses us how newspapers can report something one day and not follow up with anything on it afterwards. The pursuit of credibility has officially vanished from some media sources, because today, June 12th, we see nothing of the supposed consequences. Did Keylor Navas star turn in direct opposition to David De Gea mean he’s now number 1 for Real? No, we expect this to rumble on and on. It becomes less about the player and more about the promise that this would all be over.
The Sun (say the Daily Star – we’re not paying to unlock the Sun, sorry) say that Old Trafford ‘chiefs’ have been locked in negotiations for TWO MONTHS with Real Madrid over various players, with Gareth Bale and David De Gea prominently mentioned. Two months and you couldn’t sort something out?
The best United have apparently managed to do is convince Real for a ‘first refusal’ option on Bale. Which, if true, is tremendously weak.
Mark Ogden of the Telegraph (one of those you can trust) says that alternatively, Madrid will wait until Spain’s international on Sunday before making a formal bid, but they want the deal done in time for De Gea to join up at the start of pre-season.
The Star also say that Liverpool want Radamel Falcao.
They also say ‘Messi makes shock Man Utd claim!’ WHAT COULD THIS BE?! We ask. He basically says that Wayne Rooney is technically as good as any player in Europe. We thought that’s a bit strange, slightly generous, until he followed it up by saying that there’s been no rivalry between him and Cristiano Ronaldo (honest!). At the time of posting, we’re still trying to discover if yesterday was an ‘April Fools Day’ in Argentina.
Did you miss it yesterday – Roberto Firmino is poised to have a medical after United agreed a fee for the Hoffenheim attacking midfielder. We doubted it at the time, we doubt it now.
BWin posted a tweet a few days ago saying that Ilkay Gundogan was signing for United. Some blogs went with that for da hitz but it’s only today that a couple more of your debatable sources are going with it too. So we thought it was worth a throwaway mention.
James Robson of the MEN continues with the belief that Harry Kane is a prime target for United. We don’t disbelieve James, but the response to that opinion is that we are ‘in for him’ from other sources.
And while we remember, the below list of targets that we have been adding to every day for the past week is meant to be a round up of all the names linked to us in the close season. We added a few prominent names in there before to avoid constantly regurgitating. So, we put Gareth Bale in, but guess what, we forget to put Mats Hummels in, so he’s now added to the list.
Players linked to United : Dani Alves, Hugo Lloris, Mats Hummels, 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, Roberto Dourado, Roberto Firmino
