JEEPERS KEEPERS AT UNITED

THE BIGGEST club in the world. Scrambling around for a No.2 keeper to play in today’s FA Cup tie.

If ever there was a window into the chaotic transfer policy at Old Trafford, it’s this.

Manchester United, going to Newport County, unsure who the best option is now that Andre Onana (below) is at the AFCON. Dear, oh dear.

Altay Bayindir is primed to take over with the gloves, apparently. Erik ten Hag can’t give them to Tom Heaton, or can he? Just to put the cherry on top of the cake, David de Gea STILL hasn’t got a club.

This is the bloke, after all, who held a gun to the club’s head for months and months over a contract worth over £300,000 a week. He’s not good enough now to land a gig anywhere.

If that’s the price De Gea thinks his talents are worth – and that’s the kind of money he’s holding out for – well, that would explain it.

Yet Manchester United were happy to bin him, spent a fortune on Onana and now don’t have a back-up plan for the bloke spending a few weeks away on a tournament that hasn’t just been sprung on the club overnight.

Jim Ratcliffe, Dave Brailsford and the rest might be an unknown quantity – but they could hardly do much worse, than this, could they?

PEP

Guardiola isn’t famed for his mind games. But it’s difficult not to think he’s not getting his own back on Manchester United over the defection to Old Trafford of Omar Berrada. One suit moves. So what? Is that going to bring down the entire structure at the Etihad overnight? Difficult to think so while Guardiola remains in charge. Manchester City’s recruitment has been spot on. And Guardiola saying it’s going to take more than Berrada’s influence to right all the problems at Manchester United isn’t a sly dig. It’s just a dig. And a pretty good one, at that.