Football transfer rumours: Aleksandar Dragovic to Manchester United?
Today’s tittle-tattle is suited, booted and on parade for your reading pleasure
Is Aleksandar Dragovic, left, on his way to Manchester United?
After the surreality of the weekend’s FA Cup action, it seems weirdly fitting that Monday night’s draw for the last 16 will take place on the strangely entertaining but often downright weird BBC television programme that is The One Show, with warmly grinning hosts Matt Baker and Alex Jones poised to invite Gary Lineker and the Football Association tombola into their eclectic domain of ... whatever.
Whether or not the national broadcaster’s bearded face of football will be joined by Donny Osmond, an elderly Tarot card reader from Cheltenham and consumer champion Matt Allwright blowing the lid off a possible timeshare scam in the Outer Hebrides remains to be seen, but the Rumour Mill will certainly be tuning in to find out.
But before all that there’s work to be done, with no shortage of potentially baseless speculation to report on the penultimate Monday of the transfer window. Having almost certainly failed in their bid to bring Gabriel Paulista to Old Trafford, Manchester United appear to have fended off interest from Liverpool, West Ham, Zenit St Petersburg, Roma and Juventus in their quest to sign Austria captain Aleksandar Dragovic. Dynamo Kiev are rumoured to have accepted a bid of £15m for a central defender who once cited his ambition “to retrace the steps and the career of my model Nemanja Vidic”. Here’s hoping he has a happier time of it when he eventually moves on to Internazionale.
The hubbub of chatter concerning a potential move to Manchester United for Real Madrid winger Gareth Bale refuses to subside, with the Express saying the club will insist on getting the Welshman as part of a player-plus-cash deal in the event of United goalkeeper David de Gea deciding his future lies at the Bernabéu.
Tough-tackling midfield enforcer Sergio Busquets is another player United fancy getting on board, while Manchester City, Arsenal and Chelsea are also keen on securing the services of the 26-year-old, who may well stay at Camp Nou if his current contract talks go to plan.
Having made what is likely to be his final appearance in a Chelsea shirt during Saturday’s FA Cup humiliation against Bradford City, Mohamed Salah had been tipped to spend the rest of the season on loan at Roma but could now join Steve Bruce at Hull City or David Moyes at Real Sociedad instead.
In one of the most difficult-to-spell tidbits of transfer speculation the Rumour Mill has ever had to grapple with, Everton want to bring Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk winger Yevhen Konoplyanka to Merseyside. A target of Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur in previous windows, the Ukraine international is available on the cheap because his contract expires next summer and Roberto Martínez sees him as the ideal replacement for unsettled Belgian Kevin Mirallas.Danny Ings is another man who’s available on a free transfer this summer and several media outlets report that while Burnley have shown no sign of being prepared to cash in on their star striker during the current transfer window, Tottenham might test their resolve with a bid of £5m.
Elsewhere in the north-west, the curtain continues to inch down on Darren Fletcher’s long and distinguished career as a Manchester United player. The midfield grafter is expected to bid farewell to his colleagues in the coming days and has been heavily linked with a move to West Ham. In the wake of his team’s FA Cup win over Bristol City yesterday, Hammers manager Sam Allardyce claimed he has no idea what Fletcher plans to do.
“I don’t know whether he will come, to be honest,” he said. “It’s in Darren’s hands. I haven’t spoken to him. I’ve spoken to his agent. He’s got quite a few clubs interested in him so when he makes his mind up everyone will know.” West Brom and Valencia are also said to be considering Fletcher, who is currently negotiating the terms of his release from the final six months of his contract at United.
Eager to sign Fletcher but unlikely to match the 3½-year deal being offered by West Ham, West Brom are more hopeful of luring Callum McManaman to The Hawthorns from Wigan Athletic and are expected to pay around £4.5m for the Scouse forward, who has scored five goals in his 23 Championship appearances this season.
Marcelo Brozovic was spotted at San Siro watching Inter’s 1-0 reverse at the hands of Torino yesterday afternoon, in a state of affairs that will prompt dismay at Arsenal and Liverpool, who have both been keeping tabs on a 22-year-old Dinamo Zagreb midfielder, who appears to have lobbed his hat into the Inter ring. The two Premier League clubs, along with Manchester United, also look likely to miss out on Paulo Dybala in this window, after Palermo president Maurizio Zamparini announced the Argentinian striker is close to signing a new contract that will keep him in Sicily until the summer at the very least.
Guardian
