At least there’s some good news for Manchester United fans this morning.
Hard as it must be for Manchester United fans to see the light at the end of the tunnel after yet another bad night last night, there is some solace to be found in the impending arrival of Juan Mata at Old Trafford over the coming days.
Practically all of today’s papers are reporting that, despite numerous suggestions on Twitter last night that he had turned his car around on the motorway and that he had slapped in a transfer request (at Manchester United), the Spanish international will join United in a £37million deal and could have a medical at the club as early as today. Mata’s arrival should pave the way for Wilfried Zaha to move to Cardiff on loan, which will make a nice change from warming the bench for United’s under-21 side as he did earlier this week.
Jose Mourinho’s willingness to let Mata leave has prompted suggestions that Wayne Rooney moving to Chelsea might be in the pipeline, but the papers are conflicted in their accounts of that deal this morning.
The Times claim that Chelsea will try and sign him in the summer and for a reduced price because he will only have a year left on his contract, but the Mirror say that Rooney wants to stay where he is and that contract talks will be resumed once the Mata deal is finally completed.
Whatever about Rooney, Chelsea are going to have money to spend once they let Mata go and after hijacking Spurs’ move for Willian in the summer, the Daily Mail reckon they’re going to do it again with a last-ditch move for Basel’s Mohamed Salah, who has been attracting interest from Liverpool for quite some time now. The Star, on the other hand, say that Salah’s switch to Liverpool is as good as done.
The Sun, meanwhile, think that Mourinho wants Real Sociedad’s Antoine Griezmann and, staying in Spain, Atletico Madrid want to to secure goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois on a permanent basis. Finally, with regard to the Blues, the Telegraph speculate that Chelsea will put the Mata money towards a bid for Everton’s Ross Barkley, with Roberto Martinez on record as saying that it will take crazy money for him to be let leave the Toffees.
Those rumours aside, there is very little in the papers that hasn’t appeared at some stage already this month. There is further talk, for example, of a potential Arsenal move for Julian Draxler in the Mirror, while Everton’s move for Lacina Traore could be in jeopardy after a serious injury to his Monaco team-mate Falcao which will threaten his participation in the World Cup this summer.
As far as Irish interest is concerned, Wes Hoolahan is practically on his knees begging for a way out of Norwich, while Shay Given wants to stay on loan at Middlesbrough until the end of the season (The Mirror).
And last but not least, the Daily Mail say that Yaya Toure has admitted to being tempted by PSG and while that will alarm Manchester City fans, the thought of him in the same team as Zlatan, Levezzi and Thiago Silva amongst others is one that should excite the neutrals if nothing else.
