Manchester United have begun their pre-season training with much the same squad as the one which flopped to a 15th-place Premier League finish last year.
There were problems up and down the pitch for manager Ruben Amorim to contend with, and while bad mistakes were all too common at both ends there was also at times a void in between.
Veteran midfielder Casemiro’s powers are waning, his supposed successor Manuel Ugarte looked inconsistent, and Kobbie Mainoo only managed limited gametime.
It’s therefore little wonder that the Red Devils are eyeing up potential reinforcements for the middle of the park to hand Amorim the tools to turn things around at Old Trafford.
New name in the frame
According to Canal 26, via Goal, United are looking to South America for a solution and are considering a bid for Boca Juniors midfielder Milton Delgado.
The 20-year-old is a new name on the Red Devils’ radar and is an unknown quantity compared to the likes of Atalanta’s Ederson or Leicester City’s Wilfred Ndidi.
The report notes that since Miguel Angel Russo took over as manager from Fernando Gago, Delgado’s playing time has plummeted.
Boca Juniors were in action at the Club World Cup, where they were knocked out in the group stage, and Delgado did not feature. United are claimed to be using this fallout to their advantage in a bid to bring the defensive midfielder, who made his Boca debut early last year, over to England.
However, it is worth maintaining a healthy degree of scepticism on this one, as it certainly seems surprising that United are desperate to secure the services of a young player who has faded from the starting lineup of a club on the other side of the world.
Overseas advantage
According to Canal 26 United are not the only team keen on the player, who is also attracting interest from Argentine Primera Division sides Independiente, Godoy Cruz and Club Atletico Tigre.
However, Boca’s preference is to sell the player abroad in the hope of obtaining a higher transfer fee, handing United an advantage.
The report claims the club are looking for more than £9.4m to secure Delgado’s signature, and United “have been tipped to make an offer in the coming days”.
But it feels more likely that the Manchester club’s name has been thrown into the mix to drum up some business and maybe even spark a bidding war between Boca’s Argentinian rivals.
Featured image Marcelo Endelli via Getty Images
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Joe Ponting
Joe has spent more than half his life writing about football and all of it following United. As a child he told a doctor his name was ‘Paul Scholes’, but could never pick a pass like him no matter how much he tried.
