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De Gea

De Gea

I’m not sure that anyone – not even David De Gea himself – knows where he will be playing for the remainder of this season. The only thing that’s certain is that, be it Old Trafford or the Santiago Bernabeu, this is going down to the wire.

For weeks the player’s agent, Jorge Mendes, has told De Gea and Real Madrid that everything will happen on the last day.

Deadline for Spanish clubs is tomorrow (August 31) at 11.00 pm UK time. Any deal will have to be done before then.

As I write on Sunday evening (August 30) there has still be no communication between the two clubs. No offers, counter offers, negotiations or rejections – nothing. This truly is the transfer version of what Sir Alex Ferguson used to describe as ‘squeaky bum time’.

Mendes expects that Manchester United will put a figure on the table that they can negotiate. But United are waiting to hear from Madrid and see how much they are willing to pay for him. Talk at the moment is around the 40 million euros but the English club has not put a price to him because Real have not asked how much he cost.

There is a cold war going on.

So who wants what so the deal can be done?

First of all Real Madrid would like the price reduced or preferably that Keylor Navas be included in the deal to get the price down, maybe something like 30 million plus Navas.

Alternatively what Real may decide is that 40 million euros is a lot of money to spend on a player that will be out of contract, and a free agent, in a year.

Privately, however, the arrival of De Gea, sooner or later, is part of the Florentino Perez master plan, and Madrid are saying that either Navas is included in the deal or the price goes down, except for a few little issues that complicate matters.

Firstly, Navas, at the moment, doesn’t want to go to Manchester United and if he isn’t part of the deal, when De Gea arrives, Madrid will be left with hardly any time to move him on and almost certainly three top goalkeepers at the Bernabeu. United have not made contact with Navas at all.

Things could have been done differently. Kiko Casilla, who will be number two to De Gea if he comes, but could, as was planned, have been Madrid’s number one until he arrived.

With Navas on the bench, moving him on would have been easier. Now, having saved a penalty against Betis, having done nothing wrong and with the Bernabeu crowd singing the Costa Rican keeper’s name from the terraces, it will be a bit trickier.

Over at Manchester United, Ed Woodward however is running a club that doesn’t give the impression that it needs the money at the moment, and could if it chose to, make life very difficult for De Gea. Put simply this is a club that on this occasion might be more inclined to lose money rather than to lose face.

Madrid and the Spanish media are ramping the situation up saying that this is a player being kept against his wishes, ignoring the fact that when United inquired about Sergio Ramos the same people accused them of trying to tap up their player.

According to the De Gea entourage, in the Spring of 2014, Manchester United were going to present him with a renewal offer that he was going to accept, at which point it was blocked by Van Gaal who expressed a preference for Keylor Navas. Does he still feel the same way?

There is also talk about a personal agreement between De Gea and Madrid, which if it doesn’t happen means that Madrid will have to pay De Gea 10 million euros and similarly should the deal be done and De Gea decides not to go then it will be De Gea that will have to pay Madrid.

This however is the type of ‘arrangement’ that can always be ‘set aside’ should De Gea decided that he will go to Madrid next season.

What we have here is a player who once Madrid had decided he was their man, made his mind up there and then that a move back to Spain was the best thing for his career.

So, stay tunned. Nobody can really predict what will happen but when calls start being made on Monday, all kind of skills will be needed to get everybody happy with the outcome.