Man Utd Missed Out On World Class Attacker After Refusing To Pay Extra £10m

With the summer transfer window now closed for business, it’s time to start looking at those deals that failed to get over the line. Today, Manchester United missed out on Marco Reus…

Manchester United held talks over the signing of Marco Reus on deadline day but missed out after refusing to meet Borussia Dortmund’s £60m valuation, according to ESPN.

Louis van Gaal was in the market for another attacker during the closing stages of the transfer window and his need for reinforcements was heightened after he allowed Adnan Januzaj to join Dortmund on a season long loan.

While United were being linked with a number of players throughout Europe, it appears the Dutch boss made a bold attempt to lure Marco Reus away from the Westfalonstadion on deadline day.

ESPN claim that sources close to the club have told them that United asked Dortmund about the availability of Reus during the negotiations over Januzaj’s loan.

The news outlet says that Dortmund weren’t totally against the idea of cashing in on the attacker and quoted United £60m, but the Red Devils refused to go any higher than £50m and the proposed deal collapsed.

United ended up signing Anthony Martial from AS Monaco in a reported deal worth an initial £36m, although the BBC claim that figure could rise to £58m depending on various performance based add ons.

While Martial is no doubt a huge talent and should have a bright future ahead of him, he’s nowhere near the level Reus is at right now so it’s interesting that United were prepared to pay such a large fee for a relatively untested teenager but weren’t willing to pay £60m for an established world class player.

Only time will tell whether this was the right decision but my guess is that most United fans would have preferred the club to push the boat out to sign Reus rather than take a gamble on a player like Martial.

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The German international has developed into one of the worlds best attackers over the past few years and has scored 59 goals in 128 games for Dortmund since joining the club in 2012, so he’d certainly have added a much-needed goal threat to van Gaal’s side had they agreed to meet his £60m asking price.

But it wasn’t to be so United are going to have to hope that Martial settles in quickly and hits the ground running as there is now a lot of pressure on van Gaal’s shoulders after another huge summer of investment at Old Trafford.