De Gea starts the Summer transfer farce

On his way to Old Trafford?

Ridiculous

The first person to star in this ridiculous media scramble is twenty year old Atletico Madrid goalkeeper David de Gea. He has a contract with his club until 2013 and it is believed that Atletico Madrid are keen to see him sign an extension to keep him there even longer. That is no surprise as, by all accounts, he is pretty good.

De Gea is so good in fact that he has come to the attention of Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson who sees the young Spaniard as an ideal replacement for the retiring Edwin van der Sar. If you listened to Fergie after Gary Neville’s testimonial game the other night it became clear that no only did he see him as a replacement for van der Sar, but that the deal to make it so was as good as complete.

Deal

“We’ve been working on the deal for quite a while. He is young, very quick, good composure, presence and an outstanding replacement for Van der Sar.”

That was pretty clear you may think.

Not so, according to De Gea’s lawyer or the Atletico president. According to them, they seem unaware of any imminent deal.

Lawyer

De Gea’s lawyer said,

“De Gea will not consider the contract extension offer from Atletico, or any other offer, until 30 June.”

The Atletico President said,

“We don’t know anything. Officially neither Manchester United or the player at this moment have informed us of anything. De Gea knows very well that he can negotiate with other clubs but always that they have to pay his buy-out clause.”

Helped

De Gea helped Atletico Madrid to seventh place in La Liga this season and kept twenty-four clean sheets in forty-five games. He is hot property and the buy-out clause the President speaks about reflects that at £22 million.

It will be a tough job to replace Van der Sar who has been exceptional for Manchester United. When they siad goodbye to the great Peter Schmeichel it took United a few years and a number of keepers to get anywhere near to replacing him. Fergie will be very keen to ensure a similar situation doesn’t develop now. He obviously believes that De Gea is the man to make sure it doesn’t.

Question

So the question is, have Manchester United been working hard on securing the deal as Fergie says, or have Atletico heard nothing official from United as their President says?

I suspect that a deal is imminent and I would be very surprised if David de Gea isn’t the Manchester United goalkeeper at the start of next season. No doubt before that happens we will have to read many, many stories with claims and counter claims and allegations and accusations. Whether any of it will be true or just media people filling their sports pages remains to be seen.

The Summer transfer window promises to be just as silly as ever. I can’t wait for next season to star and this season hasn’t even ended yet!