Manchester United have a concrete interest in Antoine Griezmann, according to the Guardian. We all know this, and we all know that much depends on the success of qualifying for the Champions League before players make their minds up. United need to beat City for this to become anything close to likely.
Welcome, Jan Oblak! Manchester United face a battle to keep David de Gea at the club amid interest from Real Madrid. There’s no point dragging this on any longer. Send him to Real and get enough money for a competent replacement, and then there’s no point him causing yet more disquiet over a summer. He’s excellent, but the faff is interminable.
And in the Mirror, it might have even gone further than that, with a story that De Gea has been told by Jose Mourinho that he can leave. You’d imagine that Jorge Mendes will do us a favour in the transfer window for getting this done swiftly.
The fee to expect for the player is around £60m, according to the Daily Mail. They also suggest that a shortlist of replacements is being drawn up. It’s nice to see us actually plan for transfers, rather than just let Louis van Gaal and Ed Woodward dick about, at least.
And there’s bad news. Daley Blind is expected to continue in central defence for United against Manchester City. And there’s good news. Antonio Valencia is expected to return at right-back after a little while out. So, we can assume Chris Smalling and Phil Jones remain on the naughty step for not rushing back to help out.