Now that José Mourinho is back in football, two weeks after he left it, the Italian media are having a field day with his potential transfer targets for AS Roma.
Two Tottenham players have already been linked in Eric Dier and Pierre-Emile Højbjerg, but there’s also two Manchester United men whom the Portuguese manager likes.
Those are Juan Mata and Nemanja Matić, two players currently on the fringes of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s squad these days.
It’s explained by Gazzetta dello Sport that Mourinho ‘will not want a large squad’ at Roma since he complained about that at Tottenham, but he could still want some players brought in.
They state the Portuguese manager ‘has long liked the Austrian midfielder Marcel Sabitzer’, currently at RB Leipzig as well as ‘two players Roma will find as opponents tomorrow: Matić and Mata’.
Mourinho ‘had them with him at Manchester United’ and ‘one of the two could find him in the capital’, meaning Rome.
Something to keep an eye on, especially as Mata could be free, seeing as his Old Trafford contract expires in the summer (although the club have an option for a further year).
As for the Serbian defensive midfielder, the 32-year-old is tied to Manchester United until 2023, but hasn’t started a league game since the 0-0 draw against Crystal Palace, and could be the casualty of a potential summer rebuild.
