Jose Mourinho is a man with a plan, and that plan is to keep David De Gea at Manchester United.
Having launched ‘Operacion De Gea 2’ (coming soon to a cinema near you?) on Thursday, Friday sees Marca explaining that Mourinho has a specific plan to keep the goalkeeper.
Mourinho is trying to make De Gea’s life at Manchester United so wonderful that Real Madrid isn’t the pull it once was. Creating a ‘De Gea universe’, Mourinho brought in Spanish goalkeeping coach Emilio Alvarez, who worked at Atletico, and is surrounding the player with a Spanish cocoon of friendship.
Despite all of this, Marca believe that Mourinho knows a potential transfer is still likely to be out of his hands, with others making the decision. Whatever Marca say, for it to get to that stage De Gea would actually have to want to leave, and push for such a thing, so Mourinho is attempting to head that off.
There are so many subplots to this which make the oncoming transfer drama rather Shakespearean. Mourinho especially won’t want to lose a player to Real Madrid, there’s still bitterness at how it all ended and the Manchester United manager is world class at holding a grudge. Unless Mourinho could find a goalkeeper he believes is better, or could spin it that way, then he’d rather send De Gea to the moon than to Real Madrid.
Florentino Perez will have been stung by the collapse of the David De Gea transfer first time around. For all his comments to the press blaming Manchester United amateurism, Perez at best came out of it looking like he lost, and at worst, if one is to believe the last minute failure was no accident, looking like he’d been played by Ed Woodward.
Then there’s Manchester United signing Paul Pogba last summer. The Madrid press can’t make their mind up whether Pogba went to Old Trafford because Real Madrid didn’t want him, it was a matter of cost, or they simply lost out. Whichever stance it is this week, it’s clear they weren’t happy about the situation so taking De Gea would put Manchester United back in their place.
Don’t underestimate the power of the Spanish media to whip up a fan base, and put pressure on decision makers, in this case Perez. To round it all off, the Madrid press’ love/hate relationship with Mourinho has pretty much dropped the love part.
De Gea could end all of this now by saying he has no interest in a move to Real Madrid, both publicly, and privately to those who matter. If he doesn’t, then this looks set to be one of the sagas of the summer.
