Skip to main content

United close to signing Matic

Manchester United are close to signing Chelsea midfielder Nemanja Matic, according to Sky sources.

United hope to complete a deal for the 28-year-old in the coming days as Jose Mourinho continues his summer spending spree at Old Trafford.

Sky sources understand the United hierarchy have agreed a £40million fee for Matic, who made 40 appearances in all competitions last season.

Speaking after United's pre-season over Valerenga on Sunday , Mourinho said: "I'm waiting for news. I know that he wants that very, very much and when a player wants very, very much the chance is bigger, so I think we have a chance, but in football until it's official, I have so many things happen that I refuse to say more than I am telling you now."

Serie A champions Juventus have given up on their pursuit of Matic and have instead turned their attention to Paris Saint-Germain's Blaise Matuidi, as well as Sevilla midfielder Steven N'Zonzi, according to Sky Italia.

The 28-year-old has won two Premier League titles, one FA Cup and a League Cup at Stamford Bridge
Tiemoue Bakayoko's arrival at Stamford Bridge has paved the way for Matic to reunite with former Blues boss Mourinho.

It is understood Chelsea have allowed Matic to join United as a goodwill gesture because of his contribution to the club's two Premier League titles in the last three years.

Sky sources understand the Blues would have preferred to have sold Matic to Juventus rather than a domestic rival, but the Serbia international, who was given permission to not travel with the rest of the Chelsea squad on their pre-season tour of China, wants to move to United instead.

Matic is set to become the third new face at Old Trafford this summer following the arrival of Victor Lindelöf and Romelu Lukaku from Benfica and Everton respectively.

Sky Sports

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Boko Haram’s campaign against education and enlightenment - By Landry Signe

Nelson Mandela once said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Boko Haram, the Islamist terrorist group originating from Nigeria is frightened by this enlightening power of education. Unsurprisingly, on Monday, February 19, the group, whose name often translates to “Western education is a sin,” stormed a girls’ school in the village of Dapchi in northern Nigeria to abduct students. Of the 907 schoolgirls who were in the school the day of the attack, more than 100 are still missing as of Sunday. Since it became violent about a decade ago, Boko Haram’s actions, through these and other types of bloody attacks, have resulted in horrifying consequences. Human Rights Watch estimates that Boko Haram has left at least 7 million in need of humanitarian assistance, 2.1 million displaced, and 20,000 civilians dead. Local leaders claim the number is significantly higher. Despite such causalities, it took Boko Haram’s massive kidnapping of 276 sch...

Much ado about the foreign reserves - Nonso Obikili

I have received a lot of questions about the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) foreign reserves recently. The CBN has of course been touting the reserves growing from a low of about $24bn to the approximately $42bn it is now. The questions typically centre around why we are keeping so much in reserve when the economy is struggling, and we have poor infrastructure? Why don’t we use the reserves to reduce the poverty that is rampant? The question typically betrays a little bit of misunderstanding over what the foreign reserves are and how the entire thing works. Hopefully, after reading this we will have a better understanding of what it is and what it can and can’t be used for. First, what is the “Foreign Reserves?” It is the amount of foreign exchange that the central bank has at its disposal at any point in time. Some of this is in cash and some in other liquid assets, that is assets that can quickly be turned to cash. Some of this is in US dollars but sometimes it’s in other c...

The Cambridge Analytica files: the story so far

What are the allegations against Cambridge Analytica? The data analytics firm used personal information harvested from more than 50 million Facebook profiles without permission to build a system that could target US voters with personalised political advertisements based on their psychological profile, according to Christopher Wylie, a former Cambridge Analytica contractor who helped build the algorithm. Employees of Cambridge Analytica, including the suspended CEO Alexander Nix, were also filmed boasting of using manufactured sex scandals, fake news and dirty tricks to swing elections around the world. How is Facebook involved in the scandal? The social media company has received a number of warnings about its data security policies in recent years and had known about the Cambridge Analytica data breach since 2015, but only suspended the firm and the Cambridge university researcher who harvested user data from Facebook earlier this month. A former Facebook manager has warned tha...