Patrick Rees
Manchester United have been given a massive transfer boost in their pursuit of Atletico Madrid’s Antoine Griezmann, as Mundo Deportivo (h/t Manchester Evening News) claims that The Red Devils can sign the French forward for a cut-price next summer.
The 26-year-old has long been linked with Manchester United and even came close to joining the club, only to be denied by Atletico Madrid’s transfer embargo. The deal would have easily gone through in the summer given the fact that the Los Rojiblancos had agreed to personal terms with then Lyon striker Alexandre Lacazette.
Lyon president Jean-Michel Aulas had himself confirmed the news by saying,
“Alex has a verbal agreement with a club, Atletico.”
But all went down the drain after Atletico failed in their appeal to lift the ban. United, on their part, eventually moved to sign Romelu Lukaku from Everton.
With that being done, Griezmann eventually decided to sign a new contract with the capital, until 2022, which saw his release clause hike to £178m, which all but scrapped United’s hope of landing the Frenchman. But now, the aforementioned source has claimed that United can still sign Griezmann on a cut-price deal, as his release clause will drop down to just £89m by July 1, 2018. Ateltico Madrid might well allow him to leave for a relatively lower bid as a consolation to his ‘loyalty bonus.’
United’s pursuit of the Frenchman, however, won’t be a walk in the park next summer, as reports have claimed that PSG’s on-loan attacker Kylian Mbappe wants Griezmann to join him at Parc des Princes next season. Spanish outlet Don Balon (h/t Manchester Evening News) quotes that Mbappe wants PSG to raid Atletico next summer as the youngster does not want his compatriot to join Manchester United.
Also, there have been some rumours that Griezmann himself has asked Mbappe to secure him a move to France as he has no intentions of staying at Atletico for another 12 months, given that the club have already signed Diego Costa from Chelsea. In what could have been an easy ride for Manchester United is now turning into a major hustle. It now remains to be seen what the future holds for both Antoine Griezmann and Manchester United.
