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The Portuguese newspapers are awash today with stories of Manchester United’s interest in gifted 19 year old midfielder, João Neves.
Yesterday Correio de Manhã reported that United and Paris Saint Germain had had bids of €70 million for Neves rejected by Benfica.
Specialist football paper Record partially corroborated their story this morning, claiming that United, but not PSG, had indeed offered that amount.
“The Red Devils have returned to the plate with an offer of €70 million, but accompanied by a warning: this is their final offer and they will not be going higher,” the report claims.
“The ball is now in [president] Rui Costa’s court, who has insisted on referring interested parties to the €120m release clause, admitting he would only start negotiations from three figures [€100m+]”
Given Neves’s massive importance and “leadership”, Benfica’s preference is to sell centre back Antonio Silva this summer, keeping Neves in Lisbon for another season.
Record admits, however, that Silva’s woeful performance for Portugal in their Euro 24 group match against Georgia will have sewn seeds of doubt in the minds of prospective suitors.
Silva also has a three-figure release clause (€100m) and it seems highly unlikely that any club will be contemplating anything like that amount now.
Meanwhile, a slightly different version of events has been put forward by the usually more reliable publication, O Jogo.
The outlet reports that “with Jorge Mendes mediating, contacts between those responsible at the English and French clubs with Rui Costa are intensifying, but so far no-one has reached the €100 million mark.”
O Jogo insists that “there are still no official proposals on the table” but both suitors are now “taking firm steps toward completion of the deal”.
The outlet also mentions Antonio Silva as being another possible source of much-needed revenue and conclude by saying Benfica want €100 million for Neves but “also know that none of the competitors will arrive at that figure”, with PSG switching their attention to Bayern Munich’s Joshua Kimmich and United going for PSG’s own Manuel Ugarte.
Putting the two reports together with that of yesterday, it seems that United may have indicated their willingness to bid up to €70 million, without having made a formal offer as such, for the star known as “the midfield strategist”.
Benfica for their part will need to sell Silva or Neves this summer. Silva’s Euro horror show, and the difficulty in gaining huge transfer fees for defenders, could mean that they struggle to shift him and may, in the end, have to cash in on Neves instead. However, whether United and PSG are willing to wait long enough to find out is another question.
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