The off-season is here, but the silly season is in full effect. With Manchester United linked to approximately 17,832 players in the 2019 summer transfer window, there is always a lot to talk about regarding transfer narratives.
We also have some on-the-pitch news and notes, regarding former players, to cover in this segment too. Thus, we begin there with another Major League Soccer reunion of two former Red Devils, Bastian Schweinsteiger and Wayne Rooney.
Schweinsteiger’s Chicago Fire (4-5-6, 18 points) and Rooney’s D.C. United (7-4-5, 26 points) played to a wild 3-3 draw in MLS regular season action last night. Given how the Fire have been mediocre and residing on the postseason bubble thus far in the 2019 campaign, whilst D.C. are leading the Eastern Conference, this road draw was essentially a win for Chicago.
Neither Schweinsteiger nor Rooney scored in this match, but both contributed assists. The German set up Francisco Calvo’s scoring strike in the final moments of the match that salvaged a point for the Fire.
Meanwhile Rooney assisted on Ulises Segura’s goal just before halftime.
Moving on to current players, it was thought that central defender Eric Bailly, the team’s very first acquisition under Jose Mourinho, was on his way out this summer. According to ESPN however, the Ivory Coast international is set to be handed a fresh opportunity to establish himself.
United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer will give Bailly, as well as Phil Jones, Chris Smalling and Marcos Rojo, a chance to solve the centre back crisis from in within. That is definitely not something most United fans want to hear, and neither is the next sentence.
According to the report, Solskjaer has cooled on pursuing Napoli’s Kalidou Koulibaly or Leicester City’s Harry Maguire as an exterior upgrade at the position. While that sounds disappointing, neither player was really likely to come over to Old Trafford anyway.
Solskjaer reportedly prefers to try and solve the issue in-house, and well, you know how that was worked out lately. Then again, you also know how much of a failure the club has been in the transfer window when it comes to this problem too.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly appears on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, also contributes to Chicago Now. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram. The content of his cat’s Instagram account is unquestionably superior to his.