The average Man United fans could be forgiven for feeling excited when picking up this morning’s copy of The Mirror, which displays the headline ‘Seven Man Utd deals that could happen on transfer deadline day.’
We are presented with five outgoing names – Sergio Romero, Marcos Rojo, Diogo Dalot, Brandon Williams and Daniel James – and two incoming, Sergio Ramos and Jules Kounde.
Is there any credibility to any of The Mirror’s claims? Let’s take a look.
Marcos Rojo: 95% chance
It will be a surprise if Rojo does not leave today. The deal to take him to the champions of his home country, Boca Juniors, has been in place for some time, but both clubs have been happy to leave it until the last minute; United, in case an alternative offer involving a transfer fee comes in and Boca, to save a few weeks of Rojo’s salary before their season resumes in two weeks’ time. Unless there is some unforeseen last-minute hitch, expect this to go through today.
Sergio Romero: 25% chance
Romero is a strange one, in that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has confirmed that the keeper has been asked to find another club, yet said at a press conference three days ago that ‘Sergio, I’ve not heard anything apart from that he’ll be with us for the rest of his contract.’ Indeed, the papers are not reporting very much activity other than, as The Mirror mentions, Mundo Deportivo in Spain, which claims he could be taken on by Crystal Palace if Real Sociedad’s pursuit of current Palace keeper Vicente Guaita is successful.
Brandon Williams and Daniel James: 0% chance
Solskjaer has already confirmed that there will be no more loan exits from the senior squad and even mentioned Williams by name, confirming he would not go out on loan.
Diogo Dalot: 0% chance
Dalot is on loan at AC Milan, who are happy with his progress. But the idea of a deal in this window has not been reported anywhere – The Mirror quotes The Sun on this, but the original article says Milan might make a move for the Portuguese star in June, not this month.
Jules Koundé: 0% chance
Assuming United would not be willing to just pay the Sevilla star’s €80 million release clause flat out, without negotiation, which it’s safe to say they wouldn’t, there is not a snowball in hell’s chance of them landing the talented centre back in this window. A summer move could be possible, although as we said here yesterday, even that will be difficult.
Sergio Ramos: less than 0% chance
Any papers running with this story must be pretty desperate. It would be an odd enough story even if the little blighter hadn’t used United’s name once already to get a better contract at Real and left us with egg on our faces as a result. There is no way on earth that this one is happening, now or ever.
So we feel pretty confident that the Rojo deal will be United’s only deadline day activity, with a slight chance of Romero leaving as well. There could, however be some other outgoing loan activity today, with centre back Teden Mengi set for Derby as we reported yesterday and Ethan Galbraith, Dylan Levitt and Matej Kovar all potentially grabbing last minute deals as well.