Ipswich Town striker Liam Delap’s reasons for rejecting Manchester United have been revealed.
United have had a rather positive start to their transfer window with a deal for Matheus Cunha already confirmed.
What’s more, news broke last night that Brentford’s Bryan Mbeumo has given priority to a move to Old Trafford over both Newcastle United and Arsenal.
The Red Devils also agreed personal terms with Delap but he has decided to move to Chelsea instead of United or Newcastle.
Speaking on The Athletic’s Talk of the Devils podcast, reliable journalist Andy Mitten has gone into detail on why Delap rejected United’s offer.
He stated, “I was told a couple of weeks ago with Delap that he had doubts about Manchester United, A, because of the obvious, the way the team is, the league position, et cetera.”
Whilst this has seemingly not negatively influenced the club’s pursuit of Cunha and Mbeumo, their 15th place finish is also hardly ideal in convincing potential signings.
Mitten also claimed that another major factor in Delap’s preference for Chelsea was “because of the mixed messages coming out around the manager as to whether he will be in charge or not.”
The journalist elaborated, “so I think that is a negative of when the manager comes out with these really brutally honest assessments of himself. And the headlines the next day are ‘is Rúben Amorim going to be Manchester United’s manager?’.”
Mitten was of course referring to Amorim’s statement after the Europa League final that he would leave the club if the board and fans lose faith in him or his methods.
He also referenced the inconsistent messages being put out by the head coach as he asserted, “and then the next time he speaks to the media, he’s like, no, no, I didn’t quite mean it like that. This could be a negative effect to that.”
Finally, Mitten claimed that United are “a very turbulent, unstable club” at the moment and that is making them “less attractive” to certain players.
Featured image Jan Kruger via Getty Images
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Alex Browne
Alex is a huge Manchester United fan, inspired by greats of his homeland such as George Best, Harry Gregg and Norman Whiteside. Proud owner of such niche shirts such as Kleberson, Eric Djemba-Djemba and Gary Neville. Grew up pretending to be Ruud van Nistelrooy and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in the back garden, with little success.
