Global football is currently on pause for the most part, but the Premier League will restart again on June 17. Project Restart appears to be a success, with training returned and the UK government giving the official all clear for sporting events to resume.
Until we have football matches again, we still have plenty of transfer talk to cover and analyze. So let’s take a spin through the Manchester United rumor mill in cyberspace.
Atletico Madrid midfielder Saul Niguez teased over the weekend that he’ll announced his “new club” on Wednesday, and that has United fans everywhere on alert. After all, Old Trafford are considered the favorites to land him.
Spanish football expert Guillem Balague says don’t believe the hype. He’s almost always right about these things, and he thinks this is all just a publicity stunt for marketing purposes.
Balague said on his YouTube channel: “By the way there’s no information, nobody knows what it is, apart from the people involved of course, but it’s pretty obvious in my eyes, well that’s what I think.
“First of all, he’s a big Atletico Madrid fan, or he feels very close to the club. He has renewed his contract despite having interest from others.
“He will always tell the club if he’s leaving but that will be at the right time if he leaves. Do you think he will put a post on Twitter saying that he’s going to another club?
“Doesn’t that sound to you like a bit of a commercial exercise of some kind? It does to me. I may be completely wrong but it sounds to me like a big commercial thing. That’s not how Saul does things, that’s not how Saul does things.”
Elsewhere, Aston Villa Captain Jack Grealish is considered United’s second most prized transfer target this summer, behind only Jadon Sancho. The Villans skipper looks up to Cristiano Ronaldo, the man dubbed by a United club poll of fans the greatest United player of the Premier League era.
Grealish says that he relishes the hate of opposing fans, he thrives on it, just like Ronaldo.
“I love all that,” he said to the Express & Star. “I love when people are on my back and targeting me.”
“I always remember when I was a kid – and I am not saying I am anywhere near his level – but Cristiano Ronaldo used to come to Villa (for Manchester United ) and the fans used to absolutely cane him.”
“He used to thrive off it and that is what I try to do. I try to thrive off the hatred from the fans.”
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 contributes to WGN TV, Sports Illustrated, Chicago Now and SB Nation.
You can follow Banks, a former writer for Chicago Tribune.com, on Twitter and his cat on Instagram.