It’s no longer a secret that the Italian media think Stefan De Vrij is Manchester United bound.
The 25-year-old already had a chance to join Old Trafford back in 2014, when a certain Louis Van Gaal, who had just managed him during the World Cup, took over from David Moyes at the Premier League club, but the centre-back chose to go to Italy instead.
Deciding to prioritise Serie A instead of the Premier League to grow as a defender, De Vrij is reaching a point in his career where the next decision he makes could be the most important one.
With a contract expiring in 2018, this season is expected to be his last in Rome, and we have two newspapers strongly pushing for him to join José Mourinho in England in Il Messaggero and Corriere dello Sport.
It all started back in December when the former of the two outlets published an article claiming the player was ‘a step away’ from joining the Portuguese manager.
Knowing the Dutchman would never leave in January, talk of an exit then was rather calm, but as soon as it closed, it started up again.
Corriere dello Sport relaunched everything on the 2nd of February claiming Manchester United were ready to ‘gift’ the player to Mourinho in the summer, with Il Messaggero continuing what their colleagues had started the following day by revealing the Premier League side had ‘first refusal’ on the defender.
Now the 28th of February, and the story is pretty much the same, except Corriere dello Sport seem to think Louis Van Gaal was behind the player’s transfer to Lazio, ‘advising’ him to go to Italy to continue his progress.
That doesn’t matter anymore, though, as the Italian newspaper make it clear Manchester United are the favourites for his signature, and Mourinho is already ‘waiting for him’ back at Carrington.
Chelsea, Manchester City and even Tottenham have been thrown into the mix here and there in the past, but there’s none of this in this Corriere article.
It’s Manchester United, and that’s pretty much it.
