Manchester United to pay £80m for winger, Aubameyang deal edges closer

It looks like Manchester United are going to pay £80m for Antony, while Chelsea agree an Aubameyang fee with Barcelona.

ANTONY EDGES CLOSES TO MANCHESTER UNITED
You might wonder where Antony would fit into the extraordinary iteration of Manchester United that beat Liverpool on Monday night, but we’re sure that Erik ten Hag will find a space for the Ajax winger who now looks bound for the Premier League for what appears initially to be a ridiculous price.

For Brazilian newspaper Journal O Globo claim that United will pay £80m for the Brazilian winger who claimed a goal and two assists in the first two Eredivisie games of the season for Ajax before deciding to focus all his attention on getting a move to United. Now that’s a f*** of a lot of money.

Meanwhile, Fabrizio Romano tells us that Cody Gakpo ‘would be prepared to accept Manchester United in case they will submit an official proposal to PSV Eindhoven in the next days’ but clearly, the Dutchman is second choice and that performance v Liverpool might convince United that they can get tunes out of Marcus Rashford, Anthony Elanga, Jadon Sancho and Anthony Martial.

AUBAMEYANG DEAL LOOKS ON
On Saturday we reported that there was a £10.5m gap between what Chelsea wanted to pay for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (£15m) and what Barcelona wanted for the striker (£25.5m) but they appear to have settled on a sum that favours the Blues, with Sky Sports Germany saying that all parties seem to be happy with a deal that will cost Chelsea £17m plus bonuses.

Any doubts Aubameyang might have held about leaving Barcelona would have disappeared on Sunday night, when he stayed on the bench for the whole of their 4-1 win over Rayo Vallecano alongside Memphis Depay. And that’s not a club in which you want to find yourself.

And at least this should stop the Alvaro Morata talk in its tracks.

LEICESTER MOVE FOR PEPE
Well Leicester certainly need to do something. Whether Arsenal winger Nicolas Pepe is the answer is another question, but when you are starting Ayoze Perez, you know you are down to the bare bones of nonsense and need to do something.

Pepe appeared to be bound for Nice but French outlet Media Foot say that a ‘grain of sand’ in the deal could come from Premier League interest in the form of Leicester City.

Meanwhile, there appears to be a consensus that a move for Wolves winger Neto – mooted by David Ornstein on Monday morning – would be pretty impossible to pull off because his asking…