Man Utd to ‘fight’ Man City in ‘£58m derby’ as ‘Galactico’ is ‘taken away’ from Barcelona
Man Utd will battle it out with Man City to sign AC Milan winger Rafael Leao in the summer transfer window, according to reports.
After spending around £180m on summer transfers, the Red Devils chose to sack Erik ten Hag at the end of October and replace him with Ruben Amorim.
Results and performances have been even worse under the Portuguese head coach with Man Utd winning just five of his 16 Premier League matches in charge.
Amorim’s players are struggling to grasp the style of play, formation and philosophy that the former Sporting CP boss is trying to implement at Old Trafford.
Man Utd are currently 14th in the Premier League after 27 matches and the Red Devils are now closer to the top four again (in terms of points), after beating Ipswich, than the relegation zone.
Amorim was able to sign Patrick Dorgu from Lecce in the January transfer market and now the Man Utd boss wants more of his own signings in the summer.
And now reports in Spain have claimed that Man Utd and Man City will compete in a ‘€70m derby’ – which is around £58m – for Leao as they ‘fight for a Galatico’.
After both Manchester clubs have gone through disappointing seasons, they both ‘share the same objective’ in signing Leao, with the winger’s relationship with Milan boss Sergio Conceicao ‘totally fractured’.
Despite demanding €100m fairly recently, the Serie A club are now ‘willing to negotiate for a much lower figure, around 70 million’.
Both the Premier League sides ‘would be delighted to add Leao to their ranks , and they have the financial potential to be able to meet the cost of the operation without any problem’ and ‘take him away’ from Barcelona’s clutches.
Liverpool legend Mark Lawrenson insists that the hierarchy at Man Utd should “sell” Old Trafford in order to get the club back on a stable financial footing.
Lawrenson said: “If I was on the board at Manchester United, the first thing I would do is sell the ground! They’ve bought loads of players and played different systems, but I would also keep hold of the manager.
“This predicament has been going on for a while and at some stage, one of the managers has to be given the time to sort it out. He doesn’t have the players to play the way he wants in a 3-4-3 and they’ve got a few out injured for the rest of the season.
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“If they can get Luke Shaw fit, they’ve solved a problem because he can play on the left of a three, and at left back in a four and we know he’s a good player. It’s quite comical at Manchester United in many ways and the problem is that they’re not playing well and not getting good results. That goes hand in hand with the owners’ decisions to just sack people while Dan Ashworth is getting a £4 million payout!
“It seems as though the board fell out with Ashworth and that’s the most worrying thing to me because they’re not happy with what he did despite him being successful everywhere he’s been.
“When you buy a football club, you have to let the people who know how to run it, run it. Don’t get involved unless you really have to. INEOS did well in cycling, but they just need to stay out of it and stop cutting staff behind the scenes.
“They’ll be thinking ‘why on earth did we buy this club?’ I just hope they keep the manager because if they keep sacking people and changing things, it’s never going to work. Settled football teams at that level is an absolute must.”
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