Strengthening Manchester United’s weak midfield is proving a tougher task than first thought, because of the lack of Champions League football and their list of targets keeps getting smaller.
The Guardian reports that Louis van Gaal’s first choice midfield target, AS Roma’s Kevin Strootman, is going to become a target for the 2015 January transfer window.
This is down mostly to the fact the Strootman is currently still recovering from a serious knee injury, which ruled him out of van Gaal’s World Cup squad for Brazil.
The Netherlands midfielder has been out since March, after tearing his cruciate ligament against Serie A rivals Napoli and is expected to return in the autumn.
It is situations like these, where van Gaal’s experience shines through. Although he wants the player to join him at United, he is not going to sign an injured player for a big fee.
All that does is immediately get the fans on the new manager’s back, and creates an unrealistic expectancy on the new player returing from a serious injury to perform right away.
At least this way Strootman can finish his rehabilitation where he started it, get back to training and hopefully he will be playing for Roma before Christmas.
From there Manchester United and van Gaal can assess the situation and analyse the player’s progress, to ensure that if he is signed he will be worth the fee paid.
This type of logical and analytical thinking is to be expected, this isn’t van Gaal’s first big club.
