First Roma, then Everton and now Nice. The list of teams queuing up for Memphis Depay’s services must make the Dutchman feel quite good about himself considering he isn’t really playing at all under José Mourinho.
The talented winger, who showed all of his abilities at PSV Eindhoven before his somewhat failed move to Manchester United, remains a highly talented prospect, and at only 22, has a lot of time to turn his career around.
This is why teams around Europe are interested in, at least, loaning him until the end of the season, as they look to fill voids left by injuries or the African Cup of Nations.
Roma have seen Salah leave to represent Egypt, Everton need to replace Yannick Bolasie, who could be out until 2018 with a knee injury, and Nice, well, they just want to bolster their squad to help them remain top of Ligue 1.
On Thursday, reports emerged that Nice Matin were claiming their local team were ‘closing in on Depay’ through a loan offer with a view to buy.
While there is indeed an article on their website about the Manchester United winger and Nice’s interest, there is no mention of the Ligue 1 side ‘closing in’.
What is stated, however, is that Lucien Favre and co. are hoping that their loan offer with a view to buy at €10m will be enough to convince José Mourinho to let the forward travel across the Channel for the remainder of the season.
Considering Manchester United bought Depay for €34m, that he has two and a half years on his contract, and is only 22, it seems unlikely the Premier League side will accept to possibly let him go for a third of what they paid for him originally.
If anything, they’ll just ask Nice to increase the buy out clause, and that’s only if Depay makes it very clear to his manager that he wants to leave United.
And if that’s the case, the French side are unlikely to pay up, with the club’s president revealing to RMC Sport the player was just too expensive for them.
