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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Man Utd are clearly having a crash car season because of all these abysmal transfer ‘green lights’. And the truth is out on Erik ten Hag v Cristiano Ronaldo.

Gripe for the picking
It’s really very clever of the Daily Mirror website to stick a picture of Erik ten Hag during his recent first interview since leaving Man Utd on a story with this headline:

‘Erik ten Hag’s gripe with Cristiano Ronaldo finally revealed by ex-Man Utd coach’

It is designed specifically to make you think Ten Hag has opened up on their relationship and offered some genuine insight. It is also designed specifically to lull you into a false sense of security before hitting you with the reality that the ‘ex-Man Utd coach’ isn’t Ten Hag at all, but Benni sodding McCarthy.

And what of this ‘gripe’ that has been ‘finally revealed’? Well it turns out that Ten Hag wasn’t convinced a 37-year-old Ronaldo was conducive to a pressing game. Which a) was something the manager alluded to at the time, b) has been common knowledge for more than two years, and c) is something Benni McCarthy himself has already told the numerous bookmakers willing to throw money at him months ago.

Brown knows
It’s really very dense of the Daily Mirror website, however, to go with this headline:

‘Man Utd have already been given Cole Palmer green light amid shock Liverpool claim’

…when the ‘green light’ Man Utd have been issued was by Wes Brown saying “I would love to see him at United but he’d already cost a lot of money”.

The famously free-spending Sir Jim will be signing the deal off as we speak.

Saturday I’m running wild, and all the lights are changing red to green
The Manchester Evening News bring another ‘green light’ to the Old Trafford table – and this one even comes from a slightly more relevant party than Wes Brown, which we didn’t know was even possible.

Espanyol sporting director Fran Garagarza has discussed the future of goalkeeper Joan Garcia. Now, the bar for a transfer ‘green light’ has already been set as low as ‘I would like Man Utd to sign this player but he is expensive’. So Garagarza has some way to go to even match that.

Fair play, he takes on the challenge:

“If an offer comes close to the clause, we won’t say no. But if it’s €8m, that would be a bad sale. In the summer, if a club meets the clause, then it’s done. But if it’s just below, we can discuss it.”

A club will definitely sanction the sale of a player if someone matches his release clause, while they would consider an offer that is close to said release clause.

If Man Utd really do these remarkably insignificant things as ‘green lights’ then it explains why they are such a car crash currently.

MORE ON THE MANCHESTER UNITED MESS FROM F365
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Echo chamber
Over at the Liverpool Echo, ‘Jurgen Klopp makes eerily accurate Liverpool prediction in new documentary’.

What is this documentary-worthy ‘eerily accurate Liverpool prediction’? Did he say Mo Salah was quite good? Or that Darwin Nunez is quite bad? Or that Johnny Heitinga would have a perfect record as manager?

Not quite.

“I am, in this moment, relatively sure that I will not work as a manager anymore. I’ve left my office for the final time. I will be fine and more importantly, the club as well. Because you saw the team now, that is a bunch of really good people and they will be fine. Or even more.

“And now somebody will come in full of dreams, full of energy and full of new ideas – rightly so – and will lead the club into that brand new future. That is great.”

He essentially said the trophy-winning team he left in third place would be okay without him.

‘Klopp’s prediction has so far proven accurate as Slot’s Reds find themselves 13 points clear at the top of the Premier League with 10 games to go, while gearing up for a Carabao Cup final on March 16 against Newcastle and a last-16 Champions League clash with Paris Saint-Germain next week.’

Klopp’s prediction was basically that they would appoint a manager to replace him. Which was, in all fairness, entirely accurate. But it would only really have been eerie if he had said at some point last season that his replacement would have them 13 points clear at the top of the Premier League table with 10 games to go, in a Carabao Cup final and the Champions League knockouts by late February.

Masters of the universe
Dear reader, would you care to accompany Mediawatch on this short journey through a Sun website story which gains sentience and soon realises the futility of its own existence? No? Absolutely fair enough. We’ve done this bit now so we’ll just leave it here anyway.

‘Prem chief offers huge update on Man City’s 130 financial rule breach charges’ is a big old headline. Strong start. Here we go.

‘PREMIER LEAGUE chief executive Richard Masters has issued an update on Manchester City’s 130 Financial Fair Play charges’ is an immediately concerning opening paragraph. This is no longer ‘huge’ once our click has been banked.

And then by the seventh paragraph – alarming in itself that it takes so long for this ‘huge’ update to be revealed – comes this:

‘But Prem chief Masters has given a brief update on the process on Thursday – suggesting the panel needs to be “given time”.’

It is a wonderful downgrade in remarkably quick fashion. But that is how you dress up “the disciplinary panel needs to be given time to come to their decision” as anything other than incredibly boring.

Silence is golden
How, at no stage in the publication or editing process, did it not dawn on anyone at The Sun website that this headline, while inevitably awful, also just makes no sense?

‘Someone’s had a talking to’ – Alejandro Garnacho breaks silence hours after cryptic post following Man Utd subsitution’

Even leaving aside the typo, the idea of silence-breaking taking place ‘hours after’ last presumably breaking silence is just nonsense.

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Besiktas boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has revealed one Manchester United summer sale “upset” him and he’s also praised two of his former players.

There have been major changes at Man Utd over the past year following Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s takeover of the Premier League giants.

A huge overhaul is ongoing at Old Trafford as Ruben Amorim looks to bring the good times back to Man Utd, while Scott McTominay was a casualty during last year’s summer transfer window.

The Scotland international was one of United’s better performers during their dire 2023/24 campaign but was sold to Serie A giants Napoli in the summer for around £25m plus add-ons.

McTominay has been a revelation at Napoli as former Chelsea and Spurs boss Antonio Conte is getting the best out of him. He has seven goals and four assists in his 28 appearances this season.

READ: Man Utd crisis, CL race among five saviours of the 2024/25 run-in with title, relegation drama over

The midfielder’s exit “upset” Solskjaer for two reasons, while he’s reserved praise for two current Man Utd stars.

“It’s still good to see Bruno Fernandes and Harry (Maguire) doing well,” Solskjaer said in an interview with The Athletic.

“And Scotty [Scott McTominay] is doing well at Napoli. I’m upset that we let him go because he was important last season when he kept popping up with goals. His heart and his knowledge of the culture were important.”

Earlier this season, he said: “I’m very happy for Scott.

“As I said, when he left, I didn’t want this but that’s the rules the club had to deal with. The rules are, I would even say, bad, but that’s the situation created. It forced us to make this decision.”

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When asked whether Man Utd need to show more patience with their managers, Solskjaer answered: “That’s for the people at the top (of United), but an issue is that the manager plays with the previous manager’s players.

“I just remember a great time at United apart from the last six weeks. Great people — and the culture is in the people. Going back to United was like going back to my family, like I’d never been away.

“But Besiktas also feels like a family club, with respect for each other. There are members of staff who’ve been here for 10, 20, 30 years.

“It’s good to be back and at a club like this, with this level of players. I want to test and try what made me successful before, and I’ve got my core beliefs and a way of coaching, but also the new things I’ve learned when I’ve been out of a job — tactical tweaks and trends in the game.

“Football is always evolving and I need to build a style of play. We’ll get this season done, do as well as we can and then, from the summer, we kick on.”

Man Utd are the biggest threat to Newcastle’s potential deal to sign Burnley goalkeeper James Trafford in the summer, according to reports.

The Red Devils are having a season to forget in the Premier League with their win over Ipswich Town on Wednesday lifting them up to 14th in the table.

Ruben Amorim’s side have been worse under the Portuguese head coach than his predecessor Erik ten Hag with Man Utd only winning five of their first 15 matches with the new boss in charge.

Their attack has come in for lots of criticism this season with Joshua Zirkzee and Rasmus Hojlund scoring just five Premier League goals between them, while only five sides have scored fewer goals than Man Utd this term.

The Red Devils have conceded 39 goals in 27 Premier League matches this campaign with Andre Onana’s form coming in for scrutiny over the last few months.

Onana has the ability to pull of wonderful saves, which has done on a number of occasions, but there are other parts of his game that have failed to impress, while he is partial to a big mistake.

His performance in the win against Ipswich was highlighted again after he was partially at fault for both the visitors’ goals and reports on Thursday reckon Onana’s future is now ‘hanging in the balance’.

MORE MAN UTD COVERAGE ON F365…
👉 Man Utd stars ‘angry’ at Amorim with ‘frustrated’ squad ‘blamed’ for redundancies amid internal ‘fear’
👉 Marcus Rashford makes Villa transfer ‘decision’ as two Euro giants ‘enter race’ with three reasons given
👉 Amorim ‘private talks’ with ‘sulking’ Man Utd star revealed after ‘attitude’ causes ‘problems in the dressing room’

And now Caught Offside claims that Man Utd are ‘ready to hijack’ Newcastle’s move for England Under-21 international Trafford as ‘both’ Onana and Altay Bayindir ‘could leave this summer’.

The report adds:

‘CaughtOffside understands Trafford is emerging as one of Man Utd’s top targets, while Newcastle are also long-term admirers of the 22-year-old.

‘United’s interest could pose a serious threat to the Magpies, though, with sources telling CaughtOffside that they’d be ready to offer the player a five-year contract.

‘It seems a new ‘keeper is growing as a priority inside Old Trafford as Ruben Amorim looks for an upgrade on Onana, while backup shot-stopper Bayindir also seems likely to move on.’

But transfer expert Fabrizio Romano insists that Man Utd see Onana’s current poor form as just a “bad moment” for the Cameroon international.

Romano told GiveMeSport: “It’s a difficult season for many players, not only Onana. Strikers are not scoring, wing backs are suffering… it’s part of a difficult season, this is how they see this bad moment for Onana.”

Man Utd legend Gary Pallister is hoping that Bayindir can provide more of a challenge to Onana before the end of the season.

Pallister told Betano: “I certainly hope Altay Bayindir can challenge Andre Onana for the number one position at the club. That’s why you have more than one player in the position – you’ve got to put pressure on the goalkeeper who usually starts.

“That’s been the way things work at most clubs for a long time – you don’t want players becoming complacent about their position if nobody is threatening them.

“Onana will look at Bayindir having the game he did on Sunday and think, ‘right, I need to up my game to make sure I keep my place’.

“I think Onana has had a pretty good season but has made a couple of blunders recently, so you always need competition for places. Bayindir made a couple of great saves on top of the penalty stops as well, so I think it’s great that he’s putting pressure on Onana.”