De Gea wants assurances over transfers
DAvID DE GEA wants reassurances about the club’s future transfer policy before committing to a new long-term contract at Manchester United.
The Spanish goalkeeper’s contract is set to expire in the summer of 2020 and the keeper remains minded to stay at Old Trafford despite the club’s refusal so far to meet his wage demands and the agent fees of Jorge Mendes. The club and player are expected to reach a compromise over a wage package worth £350,000-per-week.
De Gea would prefer to stay at Old Trafford than head to Spain, where Real Madrid president Florentino Perez has considered another bid to prise the keeper to the club. However, manager Zinedine Zidane is keen to give goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois another year to prove himself at the club, while De Gea himself feels his form and confidence in a Spain jersey has been affected by negative relations with sections of the Spanish media.
De Gea, however, is one of several players who has privately held concerns over United’s sporting direction in recent years and particularly a haphazard approach in the transfer market under Ed Woodward. De Gea has been at the club for eight years and has won only one Premier League. The club have also reached the Champions League quarter- finals only twice in that time. De Gea and his entourage highlighted these very concerns before he signed his previous contract in 2015 and United have, if anything, deteriorated since. On that occasion, United were even forced to install Emilio Alvarez, De Gea’s preferred goalkeeping coach and a Mendes confidant, to Jose Mourinho’s backroom staff. De Gea is now 28 and this may be his last long-term major contract. He wants assurances that the club will have the structure and ambitions to not only qualify for Champions League football but also challenge for the competition over the next five years.
De Gea’s trump card remains Paris Saint-Germain. PSG are prepared to meet his wage demands and De Gea, who has previously been privately dismissive of a move to the French league, is believed to be warming to the move amid United’s miserable campaign.
De Gea’s personal form has dropped over the past month and he has been at least partially responsible for goals conceded against Arsenal, West Ham, Barcelona and Everton.