Yerry Mina’s future is going to have to be sorted out relatively quickly, as his transfer situation heats up. The Colombian can’t remain in limbo between the Barca squad and a transfer for much longer, he needs full training and matches soon.
And with each day Manchester United are dragged deeper into the story.
A week ago they weren’t really in the running at all, and then France’s RMC, when covering Lyon interest, claimed Jose Mourinho’s club could move into the picture ‘in the coming days’.
That claim was then twisted hugely by the Catalan media, who, still crediting RMC, spent the week talking about some sort of offer and contact from the Premier League club.
Saturday brought change, with RMC then dropped from the Catalan stories. It was stated Manchester United had made contact with Barcelona, and then Mina’s entourage, telling them to wait for an offer to be formalised.
By Monday that had evolved into Mina being the club’s back-up plan in case Harry Maguire is too difficult to sign and, anyway, Leicester City would move for the Barca man if the England international was sent to Old Trafford.
Now RMC are back, and again it’s just a small snippet in an article focusing on something else. Covering comments from Mina about Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez being ‘magicians’, it’s reiterated that Lyon have made a €30m offer, without any real explanation of what happened to that offer.
RMC then state: ‘The 23-year-old would now be closer to Manchester United’
Is this Lyon president Jean-Michel Aulas helping his Barca friends out by allowing claims of a bid from the French club and suggesting Red Devil competition? Maybe.
Have Manchester United really gone through all their defender targets and are now focusing on a player they simply wouldn’t have considered before the World Cup? Perhaps.
Has this rumour become its own living organism and carried on sustaining itself all because of the original RMC claim? Who knows.
There’s only 10 days of the window left to find out.
