Wagner Ribeiro, the agent of Brazilian attacking midfielder Lucas Moura confirmed that the Manchester United boss Jose Mourinho wants to bring the Paris Saint-Germain player to Old Trafford. Mourinho wanted to sign the player when he was the manager of Spanish giants Real Madrid. Manchester United and Paris Saint-Germain was also in the pursuit to sign the Brazilian star. However, Moura chose to sign for the latter three years back.
According to Ribeiro, Mourinho himself called the player hoping to lure him away to the Bernabeu. “Who called Lucas Moura (from Real Madrid), who wanted Lucas Moura wasn’t Florentino Perez, it was Mourinho,” he revealed to The Sun. He also said that the current Manchester United manager rates Moura highly and wants to sign the Brazilian for Manchester United.
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“Mourinho was, and is, passionate for Lucas Moura. So much so that now at Manchester he wants Lucas as well," the agent said when asked about Mourinho’s current intentions regarding the player.
Moura scored 26 goals in 167 games playing for the French giants whilst playing on the wings. The Brazilian can play on both the wings and is one of the best dribblers in the Ligue 1.
Manchester United is currently without the services of an expert winger with Memphis Depay yet again disappointing, Adnan Januzaj failing to make the cut and a recent drop of performance in Anthony Martial’s game. Lucas Moura is now looking like one of Mourinho’s three primary transfer targets next summer. The other two of the three being Antoine Greizmann and James Rodriguez respectively.
All the three players have a similar style of playing, a direct approach which Mourinho wants adopt Old Trafford into.
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Jose Mourinho signed Zlatan Ibrahimovic on a free transfer this summer whilst also signing Paul Pogba, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, and Eric Bailly for a combined fee of £150m this summer.
Manchester United CEO Ed Woodward is also believed to be preparing to sanction a deal to sign the midfielder from the French capital. However, it is yet not clear if Unai Emery, the newly appointed Paris Saint-Germain manager would let Moura go or not after losing the services of talisman Zlatan Ibrahimovic this summer.
The 24-year-old midfielder has scored three goals in five appearances for Paris Saint-Germain in all competitions this season. Paris Saint-Germain is believed to be holding Moura’s price in the region of €35 million.