Manchester Utd Want £25m Defender But City Could Play Spoiler Role

With the next transfer window set to open by January, rumours have been making waves around most clubs with regards one player or the other. In this case, reports from England suggest that Barcelona’s Jordi Alba is now on the radar of Premier league power houses like Manchester United, Manchester City and Arsenal.

According to the reports, the player has received a number of offers on the table with Manchester United having shown serious interest in the summer when it seemed that Louis Van Gaal preferred the Spanish left-back to Luke Shaw because of their prior experience together at Barcelona. It will be recalled that Alba was an under 11 cadet at Camp Nou years back when Van Gaal was in charge of the Spanish side.Now Manchester City are reported to have joined in the race to sign Jordi.  Manchester City has been shaky defensively in some of their games this season and it makes logical sense, that they are shopping for a seasoned full back to strengthen their defence. However, of recent, the 25 year old has fallen out of favour at the Nou Camp, with Luis Enrique eager to sign a more discipline player in his position, although these rumours may also have been fuelled as a result of Alba getting benched by Coach Luis Enrique in some of their more recent matches. The former Valencia man played a major role in helping the Catalan giants lifts the La Liga title in 2013 but his appearances last season left much to be desired. Barcelona are willing to release the player for about 25 million pounds once they can arrange a replacement to fill the void that his exit will create and with the financial power that both Manchester clubs have presently, the Catalan giants will get enough funds from Alba’s deal to shop for another full back.

With Manchester United having lots of worries at the back this term, Van Gaal will be open to as many options as deemed possible, he has reportedly enquired about the availability of Dani Alves in a bid to bolster his option on the back-line. With this development, Louis Van Gaal will have a complex issue in the fact that although Barcelona are willing to let go of both players, what are the possibility that they will offload the duo to Old Trafford?So as much as Van Gaal wants seasoned players, he must start to work on various alternatives.  Another buyer lurking around the corner is Arsenal, while United are viewing Alba as an experienced left-back who can rival Luke Shaw for a place in the starting line- up, the Gunners are looking to replace Nacho Monreal who hasn’t been measuring up at the London club. With all these going down, we can expect a race to the line from all three clubs by January.