Manchester United have had a soft spot for French supremacy since the days when Eric Cantona tried to literally kick xenophobia out of football and left the rest of the country foaming with impotent rage as he lifted a title every season. José Mourinho knows his history, it seems, as he is turning United into a mini-France faster than you can say “Brexit means Brexit”. He already has Paul Pogba and Anthony Martial, and now he is planning to buy Antoine Griezmann in the summer!
Griezmann has a buy-out clause of €100, which by June will be the equivalent of about GBP four billion, but that won’t deter Mourinho. The Independent says Griezmann has already verbally agreed his wages and squad number. Mourinho is also planning to sell Luke Shaw in the summer, possibly to Chelsea or Spurs, and will replace him with Monaco’s Bernard Mendy. He’s French, you know.
Memphis Depay won’t have to wait as long as Shaw for a P45 and a montage of his best bits at Old Trafford (provisional running time: four seconds): he is set to move to Lyon this month.
With Diego Costa already on page 324 of Learning Chinese The Easy Way, Antonio Conte has started to consider replacements. Michy Batshuayi is an option, but then so is setting yourself on fire to keep warm in the winter. Conte prefers the idea of Real Madrid’s Álvaro Morata or Everton’s Romelu Lukaku.
Josep Guardiola has decided to disband the Manchester City Defensive Troupe. The two men top of the list for his non-singing, non-dancing, all-competent defensive unit are Southampton’s Virgil Van Dijk and Valencia left-back José Gayà.
Leonardo Ulloa wants to leave Leicester. West Brom, Sunderland, Hull and Swansea have set up an RSS feed for him. West Ham have offered £15m for Brentford striker Scott Hogan; Marseille want to give Yohan Cabaye a loving home; and AC Milan want to address the disturbing consonant/vowel ratio in their squad by signing Gerard Deulofeu from Everton.
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