Bharath Rammr
Spanish football journalist Pilib de Brun claims that a deal between Manchester United and Antoine Griezmann has already been stuck. He also claims that the Premier League giants will be making a move for the Atletico Madrid star in the summer.
Griezmann has a £83 million release clause in his contract, and United are reportedly ready to trigger this without any hesitation. However, a deal is unlikely to be announced officially until the summer.
Griezmann has already made his mind about moving to United and de Brun says that it is evident from the recent interviews where he has mentioned the Red Devils, Paul Pogba, and life in the Premier League. The 25-year-old is in line with the reputation of being a top class centre-forward from the Vicente Calderon. Several big names like Fernando Torres, Diego Forlan, Sergio Aguero, and Diego Costa have preceded him. All have been a success in the Premier League at various stages.
De Brun tweeted:
“Utd are very confident of signing Griezmann in the summer having already told him they’ll meet his buyout. No way back for Rooney IMO.
“Contact was made with Griezmann a while ago actually. As you’ve probably noticed in the last month or two Griezmann did an interview where he said some encouraging things about the Premier League, about Paul Pogba and Manchester United.”
Despite Griezmann’s contract running until the summer of 2021, the presence of the release clause makes him vulnerable to other clubs. Even though there is interest from a number of other parties like PSG and Bayern Munich, Manchester United appear to have stolen a march on these clubs largely as a result of possessing Paul Pogba. Pogba and Griezmann are not just teammates at the French national team level, but they also have a close friendship to the extent that Griezmann claimed that he wanted to play more with the 23-year-old midfielder.
United have reportedly made Griezmann as their number one target to replace Wayne Rooney in the summer. De Brun says that there may be no way back for the England international, who has fallen down the pecking order in the last few months. He continued:
“It looks like Griezmann will be brought in as a replacement for Rooney.
“I also said a while ago that [Jose] Mourinho had said to [Wayne] Rooney if he wanted regular football be would have to leave to get it. That is still the case.”
One of the few problems that United could encounter in a potential deal would be the presence or lack of Champions League football. Despite the 2-1 win over Crystal Palace, doubts still remain if the club can actually dispossess Tottenham and one of the current top four – Manchester City, Liverpool, Arsenal, and Chelsea – in order to finish in the Champions League qualification places. Apart from taking a severe hit in terms of the shirt sponsorship deal from Adidas, failure to qualify for the Champions League group stages is also known to severely impact attractiveness in the transfer market.
Griezmann, though, is understood to have little issues with this regard, as he remains confident that the huge club like United will not be away from the top tier for long.
