Having all gone so well for Red Devils fans up until the Arsenal defeat on Sunday afternoon, everyone connected with Manchester United now has the current international break to stew on where it all went wrong against the Gunners.
Blown away in the first twenty minutes by Arsene Wenger’s side, Louis van Gaal’s United team just couldn’t respond to the wave after wave of Gunners attacks with Petr Cech in inspired form also.
Prior to that however, United were steadily building momentum and on the face of it, perhaps the Red Devils are in with a realistic shout of lifting the Premier League title this season with the race wide open right now.
A lot of the positivity has centred around Anthony Martial who has started his Red Devils career in the best way possible scoring four goals in quick succession but elsewhere around the team, others such as Wayne Rooney do need to be contributing more.
Having splashed the cash in the transfer market in the summer, if United are within touching distance or indeed at the top of the table come January, you can imagine that van Gaal would capitalise upon this by striving to sign those extra one or two reinforcements to get the Red Devils over the line come May time.
One player linked intensely with a United switch of late has been Southampton’s Sadio Mane who was again at his best in an eye-catching goalscoring performance against Chelsea last weekend.
With the Senegalese attacker linked with an Old Trafford switch right now, we’ve devised a list of five more players who could end up following him to United in January.
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Click on the image below to reveal the five players who could follow Sadio Mane to Manchester United in January.
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Shkodran Mustafi
Everton supporters could have never foreseen the rise to stardom as enjoyed by Shkodran Mustafi with the one-time Toffee having never really been given regular opportunities in his time at Goodison Park.
Now rated as one of the very best centre backs in La Liga with Valencia, the now senior German international has been linked with a £22 million January switch to Manchester United.
Described as making a major effort to land his services in January, we all know that Louis van Gaal added no defensive additions to his squad in the summer bar Matteo Darmian and despite Chris Smalling’s rapid improvement, you still feel as if United would benefit from another top class addition at centre back.
The days of the Nemanja Vidic and Rio Ferdinand partnership need emulating and adding another tough tackler such as Mustafi in addition to Smalling would certainly be an improvement on the half solution which is Daley Blind right now.
Nabil Fekir
When you think of Lyon, many people immediately think of star man Alexandre Lacazette but one man who has also been receiving many plaudits in France is Nabil Fekir.
Scoring 13 goals in all competitions for the Stade Gerland club last season, Fekir’s performances earned him a breakthrough into Didier Deschamps senior French international side and the player himself has fuelled speculation of a transfer lately by talking up a move following Anthony Martial’s initial impact in English football.
Still just 22-years-old, Fekir is entering the peak years of his development and given the player’s versatility as either an attacking midfielder or centre forward, the Lyon man is somebody who could be brought in to give the Red Devils a second wind if they’re within touching distance of the top in January.
Jose Luis Gaya
English clubs have been linked with the signature of Valencia’s exciting young full back Jose Luis Gaya for a while now and it’s usually Arsenal who are rumoured to be interested in signing him but more recently, Manchester United have entered the conversation.
With Luke Shaw now a long-term absentee following his horrendous double fracture, Louis van Gaal should be interested in landing a new left back with Ashley Young, Daley Blind and Marcos Rojo all half solutions at present.
Gaya would be difficult to prise away from the Mestalla given Valencia’s tough stance regarding parting with their star players as we saw with Nicolas Otamendi in the summer but in both Jordi Alba and Juan Bernat before Gaya, the Spanish club have eventually given in, in the past.
Mario Gotze
Still something of a bit-part player at Bayern Munich despite being the man that ultimately delivered the last World Cup for Germany, Mario Gotze is in something of a dilemma regarding his career at present.
Starting just six games for Bayern in all competitions so far this season, Gotze hasn’t really made any inroads into becoming more of a regular starter under Pep Guardiola.
Back at the end of August, we read that Bayern’s sporting director Matthias Sammer called for an end to the speculation over Gotze’s future but if the German international is still in and out of the team come January, we think the papers will again jump on the fact that he could be jumping ship mid-season.
While you wouldn’t imagine that Gotze would be signing up in addition to Sadio Mane potentially coming in, he could be somebody who van Gaal will also be concentrating upon and after all, nobody thought United would be signing both Bastian Schweinsteiger and Morgan Schneiderlin this summer but they did complete a double switch as we all now know.
Jerry St Juste
A lesser known name who has been linked with Manchester United of late has been Heerenveen’s Jerry St Juste who is a 18-year-old Dutch centre back who can also operate in defensive midfield.
With Louis van Gaal boasting an extensive knowledge of the Eredivisie, United scouts were deployed at Heerenveen’s fixture against PSV Eindhoven this season ahead of the Red Devils facing the latter side and the club are most definitely interested in the teenager.
A first team player in the Netherlands right now, it remains open to question whether St Juste could make the transition into United’s first team right away but as we’ve seen with Anthony Martial so far, age is just a number and if you’re good enough, you’re old enough.
