On Monday morning, we covered claims from the Portuguese media which said Manchester United had a scout at the weekend match between Vizela and Porto.
In our piece, we pointed out that it wasn’t revealed who the Red Devils had been watching, and even mentioned a few names who may have impressed the emissaries.
It turns out that as newspaper A Bola now has a story about that scouting mission, they claim Manchester United’s target was Porto goalkeeper Diogo Costa.
The outlet writes that the Red Devils keep their old interest in the player, and could make a new move for him in the January transfer window.
Well, it’s always interesting when Portuguese reports reveal who the scouts from English clubs had been watching, but in this case, it’s hard to find any sense in what they claim.
Manchester United have just spent over €50m on signing Andre Onana from Inter Milan, and despite the Cameroonian’s mistakes in his first months, his improvement has been clear, as he made many important saves in the derby against Manchester City, not to mention the penalty save against Copenhagen.
Even if Erik ten Hag was thinking of keeping Onana on the bench for a while, the Red Devils signed Altay Bayındır from Fenerbahce this summer.
So spending €75m on a new goalkeeper would be one of the strangest moves Manchester United could make. It’s well known they watch lots of games in the Portuguese league, and Costa may continue to impress there, but definitely not enough for an investment in the January window.
