This article was originally published on Fabrizio Romano’s Daily Briefing, a subscription service. If you would like to receive Fabrizio Romano’s exclusive articles via email ahead of publication on caughtoffside.com, please sign-up for the service here: thedailybriefing.io
We start with another hugely disappointing night for Manchester United in the Champions League, as they led 2-0, and later 3-1, but drew 3-3 away to Galatasaray yesterday evening, with Andre Onana again in the spotlight after arguably being at fault for all three of Galatasaray’s goals.
I’ve said before that my understanding is Man United will continue to show faith in Onana, continue to protect the player, and personally I’m still convinced he will have a good future at the club, even if he’s not had the best start.
He’s an important goalkeeper, as he showed with some excellent performances during his time at Inter Milan – he just needs lot of confidence to perform at top level. He needs to feel important for the team. It will take some time but I remain convinced about his value.
Staying with Manchester United, it remains their plan to invest in a top centre-back in 2024, and on the list they have some specific names: Antonio Silva of Benfica, Jean-Clair Todibo of Nice, Edmond Tapsoba of Bayer Leverkusen – these are some of the names they are scouting. Soon they will have a new director under Sir Jim Ratcliffe, so let’s see then who they’ll decide is the player they really want, but for sure they will sign a top centre-back in 2024.
Silva is on the list, for sure, as I told you months ago, but what I want to add is that Benfica believe a deal for the January transfer window is really complicated. Silva is protected by a release clause of €100m, but I’m told Man United will return to keep scouting Silva, along with his Benfica teammate Joao Neves.
The idea is to keep scouting these two talented young players in the next weeks and months, and for sure Silva is firmly on…
..