Manchester United have informed Real Madrid that they value David de Gea at £66m and will not allow the goalkeeper to leave Old Trafford unless the Spanish champions meet that asking price — or include one of Jose Mourinho’s summer transfer targets in the deal.
Mourinho’s top Real Madrid target is the Spain forward Alvaro Morata. The United manager regards him as a potential solution to the problem caused by Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s double cruciate ligament rupture. According to Old Trafford sources, United would be prepared to discount De Gea’s fee by £43m if Morata moves in part-exchange.
United’s valuation of De Gea represents a world record sum for a goalkeeper, far exceeding the £33m Juventus paid for Gianluigi Buffon in 2001. It indicates their reluctance to lose a player who has been voted the Premier League’s best goalkeeper in each of the past three campaigns.
They do not, however, wish to be dragged into a repeat of the deadline-day chaos that marked Madrid’s attempt to secure De Gea two summers ago. According to sources close to both manager and player, Mourinho asked De Gea several weeks ago if he wanted to join Madrid, and the 26-year-old replied that at some point in his career he would like to move to the Santiago Bernabeu.
De Gea’s current contract runs until 2019 with an option to extend for a further season, and in stark contrast to his relationship with Mourinho’s predecessor Louis van Gaal, he has enjoyed working under the Portuguese coach. Friends of the goalkeeper are confident that he will end up at Madrid at some point in his career, but insist a decision has yet to be made on where he will play next season.
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Madrid could have secured the Spain international a year ago had club president Florentino Perez acted faster to take advantage of a one-off option in the contract De Gea agreed with United in 2015. That clause permitted the Spaniard to join Madrid for £50m, but with Zinedine Zidane preferring to retain Keylor Navas as first-choice goalkeeper, a deadline-day switch to Madrid fell through at the last minute.
A transfer window which was always regarded by Mourinho as critical to his plans to build a squad capable of recovering the Premier League title was further complicated by the need to replace Ibrahimovic, with 6ft 2in Morata identified as one option to share the centre-forward role with Marcus Rashford.
Mourinho took the 17-year-old Morata to Los Angeles on his first pre-season tour as Madrid manager, handing the young striker his debut in the subsequent campaign and using him 14 times in La Liga during his own time at the club. A year after the coach’s return to English football, Morata was sold to Juventus for £18m, before being brought back to Madrid last summer when the Spanish club exercised a £26m buy-back clause. Morata scored 15 times in 26 league games this season as Madrid won the title for the first time in five years.