Manchester United have been named as suitors for Napoli’s Dries Mertens this summer should he leave the Italian club.
The Belgian forward’s contract is set to expire in the summer and having at one point looked likely to sign a new deal; negotiations have hit the buffers.
Gazzetta Dello Sport explain that Napoli believed that an agreement was ‘almost concluded’ after holding talks with Mertens representatives.
However, after the meeting, they did not get the ‘signals’ they were expecting from the player, with him instead raising issues surrounding fines and emergency pay cuts.
As a result his agents, Stirr Associates, are ‘evaluating various possibilities’ and Manchester United are reportedly one of them.
United were linked back in December when it was made clear Mertens could be leaving in January, and it seems that interest has not gone away.
Now, Gazzetta don’t say anything more than that they are one of the interested parties, so it’s not clear if they’ve been in contact with the player or his agents at this point.
Although, given it’s stated they are evaluating their options, that would seem to suggest that there is a proposal from Manchester United on the table.
Whether a move makes sense is up for debate. United’s lack of options and experience up front have been widely discussed this season, and if the club were looking for a low-cost option to solve that issue, they could do worse than Mertens.
At 32-years-old, though, he is very much in the older category, which would seem an ill fit given United’s efforts to focus on youth under Ole Gunnar Solskjær.
