A round-up of news and gossip relating to Manchester United over the past 24 hours.
The Brazil Football Confederation singled out Rafael da Silva’s mistake in the Olympic final loss against Mexico but urged the player to learn from the mistake and improve. Rafael’s hesitance on the ball led to Mexico’s first goal but coach Mano Menezes and his teammates refused to blame the right-back. The Brazilian football auspices have however marked out Rafael’s mistake as crucial to the eventuality of the Olympic football final.
United stepped up their progress in pre-season with a 4-3 victory against Hannover on Saturday. After a slow start to their preparations for the new season including two consecutive goalless draws, United recovered from a 3-1 deficit to eventually win 4-3. Javier Hernandez equalised after Hannover’s opener before two further goals from the German club left them with a 3-1 lead with only 25 minutes remaining. A Wayne Rooney free kick and penalty levelled the score and he set up Shinji Kagawa for the winner with 5 minutes to go. Manchester United begin their campaign away at Everton next Monday night.
Wayne Rooney spoke to MUTV after the friendly and the striker was satisfied with the squad’s improvement throughout pre-season: “Thankfully tonight we’ve got the four goals, which we’ve maybe been lacking in pre-season and it’s great to get them in this game with the season coming.”
Rooney also praised Shinji Kagawa after the Japanese international scored the winner in the friendly and spoke of his excitement of United’s attacking play next season with himself, Javier Hernandez, Kagawa and Tom Cleverley linking up well in the match.
Wayne Rooney was named man of the match for the Hannover friendly but Tom Cleverley likewise impressed. The midfielder, who played for Great Britain in the Olympic football tournament, told MUTV that his participation in the Games had been advantageous to his preparations for the new season with club Manchester United.
Polish media sources are reporting today that Dortmund striker Robert Lewandowski is subject to a €30m from Manchester United. One.PL believe United want Lewandowski to be the second Dortmund player to join United this summer following Shinji Kagawa’s arrival and have made an official offer for the Polish striker after growing frustrated in their attempts to sign Arsenal’s Van Persie.
The true value of Manchester United may be a quarter of what the Glazer family had hoped for upon lukewarm interest in their flotation on the New York Stock Exchange. The share price at the close of business on Friday was $14, which was less than the expected $19, but the price could have been even lower had it not been for investors underwriting the IPO. PrivCo, an independent financial analyst, estimated the true value of the United shares should be at $5 that would value the club at the same $800m for which the Glazers bought the club.
The Manchester Evening News are speculating that Sir Alex Ferguson could be readying an increased offer for Arsenal’s Robin Van Persie. The United manager missed the friendly against Hannover owing to ‘club business’ and is the second time in a week the manager has been absent for a pre-season game. Ferguson has been frustrated in his efforts to sign Van Persie but hopes a £20m offer could be enough to convince Arsenal to sell their star striker who only has a year left on his contract. Arsenal’s Arsene Wenger maintained yesterday following Arsenal’s friendly win over Cologne that the club still harboured hopes on holding on to Van Persie.
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