The Guardian.
It’s not easy being Ed Woodward. Armed with the money of Manchester United, the name of Manchester United, and the reputation of the manager of Manchester United, the pressure to actually sign people for Manchester United is more than your average human could bear. But Woodward is no average human, what with his designer beard, prominent cheeks and smouldering stare, and as such, his ability to link United with all manner of players for whom he is unable to complete deals is without compare.
When it comes to “weighing up bids”, “preparing bids” and “agreeing terms with the player”, United cannot be matched. Currently, they are thinking about considering whether to contemplate perhaps pondering a potential postulation as regards actually offering a suitable sum of money for Ángel di María. This is because Real Madrid are keen to sell and, given financial fair play restrictions, Paris Saint-Germain can’t afford to buy – clearly, what they need to do is get themselves banned from all transfer activity, like Barcelona. Anyway, Louis van Gaal has specifically referenced Di María as the kind of player United lack, so expect them to be priced out of a one-horse race in the next week or so.
And that is not all – United are also looking at Daley Blind, the world’s first footballer-newspaper. Van Gaal has noted publicly that Dutch players are cheap and good, so, most likely, Blind will join from Spurs for £174m, in two years’ time. In the meantime, a variety of types have been informed that they’ll be leaving Old Trafford – Marouane Fellaini, Nani, Javier Hernández, Rafael, Will Keane and Wilfried Zaha. The same was expected to be so of Antonio Valencia, a target for Wigan Warriors, but no one’s been able to find him since 2012.