According to a Guardian exclusive, Manchester United are ‘targeting’ Chelsea midfielder Andrey Santos, and are exploring a move with an ‘offer anticipated’ in the near future. No word on how much to anticipate that anticipated offer, but Chelsea are anticipating a number ‘in the region of £50m’. Santos himself is said to be ‘open to leaving’ in order to get ‘more regular minutes’.
United tried to make plays for Elliot Anderson and Mateus Fernandes, but the former has joined rivals Manchester City
while the latter has done a madness and chosen to join Tottenham Hotspur instead. So United are now looking at Santos, as are Newcastle United who need a replacement for Sandro Tonali, who is also inexplicably heading to Spurs.
Santos is one of the better success stories of BlueCo’s recruitment policy, getting signed out of the Brazilian second division and becoming part of the first-team a couple years later, after a productive season and a half at RC Strasbourg. But even though he made a career-high 43 appearances last season, he only started 25 of them (and only 13 in the Premier League). And with Enzo Fernández possibly staying, Santos’ prospects of minutes aren’t likely to improve in next season’s Europe-less campaign.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that Santos is definitely leaving or that United are definitely going to pay up. And at age 22, he’s still go plenty of time to become the main man at Chelsea. But I can understand the appeal of wanting that now, and if United were to offer that, it could be hard to reject.
So, I guess we’ll see.
