Manchester United and Jose Mourinho's desperate pursuit of a centre back on transfer deadline day got so intense that the club had a private jet on standby ready to fly one of their targets to Manchester, before they had to cancel it.
Jose Mourinho will be feeling a lot better today than he has in the last couple of weeks. The Manchester United manager gets to wake up on a Monday morning following a good win for his side.
The 2-0 win over Burnley, which could and should have been by a bigger margin, followed two weeks where the Red Devils lost 3-2 to Brighton and 3-0 at home to Spurs.
In previous seasons after those two losses Mourinho would have had time to go out and improve his squad but this summer the transfer window closed before the season even started.
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That said it wasn't for want of trying that the three time Premier League champion wasn't able to bring in any more reinforcements before the window closed on him and he tried particularly hard to get a new centre back in.
United were linked with moves for Harry Maguire, Jerome Boateng, Toby Alderweireld, Yerry Mina and pretty much anyone in Europe who has appeared at the back in recent times.
According to the Mirror United thought they were so close to actually signing a defender, in the form of Diego Godin, that they went as far as organising a private jet to fly him from Sardinia.
The same paper also say that the Old Trafford club are still annoyed with the Atletico Madrid player after his representatives suggested that he was interested in the move.
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That made the English club trigger his £18 million transfer release clause, a ridiculously small fee for the Uruguayan, only to be told the La Liga club had offered him a new contract with improved terms.
Their problems in defence were evident against Brighton and Spurs with Eric Bailly and Victor Lindelof struggling against the Seagulls and Chris Smalling, Phil Jones and Ander Herrera each at fault for a goal against Spurs.
The match with Burnley was a lot simpler with Smalling and Lindelof at the back but rarely troubled as they dominated against Sean Dyche's men.
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The whole Godin incident might have been embarrassing but it's not the most embarrassing private jet incident for United this season...
Featured Image Credit:Topics: Football News, Diego Godin, Manchester United, Atletico Madrid, Premier League, England, Transfer news