The Daily Star has been open to a bit of hyperbole in recent weeks. Old Trafford has been rocked, shattered, shaken to its very core, and today they say the club are ‘raging’ at Sergio Ramos.
They may have a point for once.
‘The club was led to believe he wanted to join them and was willing to leave Real Madrid,’ a United source apparently told Starsport. ‘He was urged to make his feelings public to help speed up the transfer, but it now looks like he was playing a game all along. In the end it appears all he wanted was a new contract at Real and it looks like he’s going to get one as well. It’s not the sort of behaviour you’d expect from a player of his standing in the game. It’s like he’s betrayed United.’
Well, maybe. Although considering there were only two outcomes – he would stay or leave – United can’t have been that surprised, unless they had significant re-assurances from the player. It was suggested that Florentino Perez had taken advantage of the bonding atmosphere that often occurs on pre-season trips to ram home Ramos’ importance to the squad although the news leaking out of that meeting suggests that he told the player in no uncertain terms he wouldn’t be leaving Real Madrid.
Raging may be overdoing it but Louis van Gaal could probably have done without the headache caused by Paris St. Germain, who have apparently offered a tad over £28m for Angel Di Maria. Di Maria is keen to move and United seemed content with the reported £46m offer but it’s almost certain that they won’t accept that the players value has dropped in half in a year.
And, unlike the other reports, this comes from the Guardian, so we tend to believe it a little more. Louis van Gaal said yesterday that he still hoped Di Maria would stay and so if Paris do not engage United appropriately it may well be that the club’s record signing is given a second chance.
