WHY SAY ANYTHING?

Now that Antoine Griezmann has shown his true colours by saying it would be a low move to leave a club who are being punished for even lower moves, and Romelu Lukaku is probably going to Chelsea to replace Diego Costa, which is fine by us, we look at who may actually turn up at Old Trafford and who won’t.

The number of publications we have waded through in order to find some transfer stories with real foundation as opposed to just simply being pure invention to be used as click-bait, is exhaustive but, as always dear readers, it was worth every hour just to bring you a measure of truth to your rumours.

Firstly, Alvaro Morata. Scored again whilst playing for Spain and has an excellent scoring record for both club and country. As with many players nowadays, he thinks that the final decision rests with him and has stated that he will let the world know what that decision is within days. What this means is that he will discuss the deal with his agent, then he will tell his wife and kids what has been decided, then he will tell the football world! His agent will decide that he should sign for Manchester United.

Andrea Belotti, despite having a girl’s name, could be bought providing his release clause is met. This, however, is £87 million and even by today’s standards, he is only worth about half of that. Roma insist they are not prepared to negotiate so Belotti will be staying in Italy.

Garteh Bale is forever being linked with Manchester United. The overrated Welshman can now add injury-prone to his list of adjectives and, although there are some at Old Trafford who would welcome his addition, it isn’t going to happen anytime soon. He has just won the Champion’s League with Madrid proving that there are at least three teams in La Liga who can compete with the Premier League’s best and there is no reason for him to move.

Victor Lindelof should be joining United during this transfer window. This is another one of those protracted transfers very similar to when Ander Herrera moved from Athletic Bilbao. The player is saying he is only concentrating on his current club, as did Herrera. This will be the second transfer window in which he has been linked with United, as with Herrera, so expect a deal to happen quite soon.

Another couple of possibles about which we are not so sure are James Rodriguez and Fabinho. Everything seems to have gone quiet with the Colombian at present so this leads us to believe that a move for him could be made, and soon. Fabinho wants to go to United and United, apparently, want him so that could also happen. Watch this space!

As for players who will exit Old Trafford, the highest profile ones will be Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Wayne Rooney. David De Gea won’t be going anywhere.

Ibrahimovic will become a victim of his own injury when he is released by United. The bean counters have worked out, quite rightly, that a 35 year-old player recovering from ACL damage is not worth the insane amount of money it will take to keep him on the bench and risk the injury flaring up again every time he takes to the field.

Wayne Rooney is in danger of pricing himself out of a move back to Everton. He doesn’t want to take a pay-cut because in the totally unreal world of Wayne, he still thinks he is worth the same amount of money as United have been stupid enough to pay him for the last few years. He isn’t. In fact, he isn’t half the player he used to be so, using that logic, he isn’t worth half the money. Everton, or any other club for that matter, would be crazy to pay this now-below-average player anything other than average wages.

There are other players who we here at WSA believe should leave Manchester United and there are others we believe should be brought in but, as we said earlier, we are trying to stick to what we think will actually happen, rather than what we want to happen, so that’s it for now.