UNITED SWING INTO TOP GEA
Keeper to be offered £250k-a-week long-term deal while Jose still has high hopes for Zlatan
MANCHESTER UNITED are ready to hand David De Gea a lucrative new deal to keep him at Old Trafford for the rest of his career.
De Gea has 18 months left on his £190,000-a-week deal, with the option for United to extend that agreement by an extra year to 2020.
But United boss Jose Mourinho revealed the club are already planning to keep De Gea – a long-term target for Real Madrid – way beyond that with the offer of a new contract.
And as he prepared to face Stoke tonight, Mourinho also revealed he still has big plans at Old Trafford for Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
United executive vicechairman Ed Woodward plans to open talks with De Gea’s representatives over a new agreement that will see the goalkeeper earn an estimated £250,000-a-week.
“It’s obvious that we’re not going to let the option disappear,” said Mourinho.
“A goalkeeper like he is and obviously a club that wants to be better and better, we’re not going to let that year option go away. But obviously we’re going to try.
“Mr Woodward is not on holiday. He barely has holidays. Of course he’s going to try to give him a contract that keeps him here for much longer than that option that, of course, we’re going to execute.
“I don’t know if talks are already under way. I just trust the board and the work they do.
“I don’t negotiate players, I don’t discuss numbers and contracts. I just say what is obvious. Anyone of you would say the same – David is to keep.”
De Gea’s move to Real Madrid collapsed on transfer deadline day in August 2015, with the Spain international then committing to a new four-year deal with United.
The 26-year-old has since developed into arguably the best goalkeeper in world football and United are determined not to lose him by putting him into their top paybracket with the new deal.
Mourinho also insisted Ibrahimovic can make it back from the careerthreatening knee injury, despite the forward being sidelined for a further month since making his comeback last month. Asked if he feared Zlatan, 36, was finished at the highest level, Mourinho said: “No. I was his manager when he was 29 at Inter Milan. We can’t stop time, and for players time means a lot.
“Zlatan knows that. He knows that at the highest level he’s in the last part of his career, but his dream, his desire, his fight was always to end at Manchester United – his career at the highest level. And, using the words he repeats all the time, being useful for me, for the team, and that I think he can.
“He just needs to feel really happy with his knee, with his condition and that I think he can. “As a leader in the dressing room, as a leader and as a quality player on the pitch, I think he can do that, he deserves that and I’m here to try to help him do that.” On his ongoing war of words with Chelsea boss Antonio Conte, Mourinho said the feud was over for him – before lobbing one final verbal grenade in the direction of his managerial rival. “I don’t enjoy them,” said Mourinho. “When I start them I take the responsibilities of that. “When I don’t start, it’s quite funny for me to see other people on the other side acting like victims when they’re not the victims. But, really, I don’t enjoy. That’s why, for me, it’s over. “Sometimes it’s my fault. Sometimes another manager’s fault. In my case, when I think it’s my fault and I should behave in a different way, I’m the first one to apologise, like I did with Claudio Ranieri when I had the chance. “That’s when our relations went from bad to good and from good to very good because I was man enough to apologise.”