Keeper Lee says players in constant club contact
LEE Grant says all United players have been in constant conversation with club coaches as they continue to train at home.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s squad are all training individually away from club facilities amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
United will continue to assess the situation day by day but are not using the Carrington training ground following government advice issued earlier in the week.
English football authorities have postponed the resumption of the season until April 30 in the hope matches can kick-off on May 1, and United have pencilled in a training return date of April 10.
However, that could all change rapidly, and Grant reiterated the necessity for safety at this time.
“We have been in constant contact with the coaches and, of course, I have been in touch with the goalkeeping coaches,” Grant told the club website.
“We have got our own special programme and, really, it just centres around doing as much as we can within the confines and the safety of our own houses. “Of course, we are utilising what equipment we have and the garden has come into play as well. Of course, I will be dragging the kids into being involved with me as well next week, seeing as they will be off school, so it will be a total family fitnessslash-PE, extravaganza in the mornings! “So, we are really just doing what we can and trying to follow, as closely as we can, the programmes that the club have given us.”
SIR Alex Ferguson said Italians invented the smokescreen yet he was the master of it. United’s meetings with Mino Raiola and Paul Pogba in 2012 about a new contract were bookended by Ferguson dubbing Raiola a ‘t---’ and accusing Pogba of a lack of respect.
“I don’t think he (Pogba) showed us any respect at all, to be honest,” Ferguson told MUTV in July. On the same platform three months earlier, Ferguson was triumphant.
“We’ve agreed a deal with his agent. It’s now down to the boy. I think he’s about to make his decision soon.” Nobody remembers that. They remember Ferguson’s venomous putdowns.
The Pogba saga was ‘complicated because he has changed his agent a couple of times’ (February 2012) and the buck was passed on to Pogba with the emphasis on ‘the boy.’ Ferguson was transparent when it suited him.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer uncannily mimics Ferguson with his own brand of opaque musings on contract and injury matters. The mention of Nemanja Matic’s contract situation in late January prompted Solskjaer to reply United were ‘talking to him,’ when the option of an
WAYNE Rooney has joked part of him thinks it would be ‘good’ if the season was cancelled to prevent Liverpool becoming champions for the first time in 30 years.
Liverpool only need two more wins to secure their 19th title and first since 1990 but English football has been suspended until April 30 amid the coronavirus pandemic. additional year rendered any conversations irrelevant. United triggered the extension this week.
Solskjaer has struck a familiar note whenever he has discussed the futures of Angel Gomes and, until a fortnight ago, Tahith Chong. Now Chong has committed, Gomes is the academy outcast. James Garner, Mason Greenwood, Brandon Williams, Dylan Levitt, Ethan Laird, and Chong have signed paper over the last 13 months.
Boxing off Chong appeared to give Solskjaer license to use more forthright language regarding Gomes, 19, in Linz last week. “With Tahith we’re very happy he sees his
The English football authorities reiterated their commitment to completing the 2019-20 season this week following calls from West Ham United vice-chairman Karen Brady for the Premier League to be declared void. West Ham are level on points with 18th-placed Bournemouth.
Premier League clubs have either nine or 10 fixtures left to fulfil and, should the league resume in May, it future here. We can see a very good player there and we’ll give him time to develop.
“That is the same with Angel. We hope we can convince him in the near future and long-term future that he’s a Manchester United player.”
United have gone about their contract renewals commendably this season; tying down first-teamers David de Gea, rewarding Dean Henderson and Axel Tuanzebe, and investing in the Carrington talent pool. Keeping Chong in the midst of an 11-match unbeaten run with United competing for two trophies and Champions League qualification attainable suddenly paints a different picture of Gomes.
United no longer appear a tough sell to Gomes and, in an interview with this newspaper, the head of first-team development Nicky Butt referred to Gomes’ wranglings as a ‘contract dispute’ and no exception was taken by club staff.
Pogba pinpointed the re-emergence of Paul Scholes from retirement could extend into July. Boyhood Evertonian Rooney spent 13 years with United and insists the right decision has been made to finish the campaign, even if it means Liverpool become champions.
“Liverpool will win the Premier League,” Rooney told The Sunday Times. “Now, as you can imagine, I have Everton fans phoning me up saying: ‘The season has to be cancelled!’ And, of course, as an as the death knell for his United career and, whatever you think of Raiola, he puts his clients’ ambition ahead of avarice. Chong is on the books of the Stellar Group agency that advises Gareth Bale, Jack Grealish, Saul Niguez, Daniel James, and Luke Shaw, among other reputable internationals. In Football Association documents detailing agency transactions over a 12-month period between February 2017 and January 2018, Gomes’ father, Gil, was listed as his official intermediary. Nelson Gil Gomes was ‘authorised to represent minors’ until July 26 2019, the document stated and an updated document listing intermediaries that was released this month does not feature a date next to his name. The FA says: “If an intermediary does not have a date besides their name this means that they have not been authorised or that their authorisation has expired.” The majority of intermediaries’ names are not accompanied by a date.
We hope we can convince him in the near future that he’s a United player
Evertonian and someone who played for United for 13 years, there’s a bit in me that thinks that would be good...But no. Liverpool have been fantastic. They have put so much work in. They deserve this title. Can you imagine waiting 30 years and then having it taken away like this? The right decision has been made.
“It’s also right in terms of promotion and relegation and Champions League places.”