Manchester United were on the brink of signing Barcelona winger Ousmane Dembele during the latter stages of last summer’s transfer window.
The French attacker was reportedly identified as a last-minute alternative to number-one target Jadon Sancho.
Sancho deal between Manchester United and BVB is still at the same point, right now. BVB always asked for €120m or nothing – it’s up to #MUFC.
One of the backup options is Ousmane Démbélé – Man Utd are negotiating with Barça, offering a loan and trying to convince the player. 🔴— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) October 1, 2020
Despite United’s last gasp approach, a move for the French World Cup winner failed to materialise and after hearing his most recent interview, fans will be thankful.
Speaking recently, Leeds United striker Patrick Bamford relayed a conversation he had with team-mate Illan Meslier, who wanted to relay a message from Dembele.
“Mate, he’s actually so unreal,” Bamford said (as quoted by CaughtOffside). “He’s so funny as well. He’s really down to earth, but when he’s taking the p*ss – he’ll pretend that he’s too big time to take shots against in goal and stuff, just winding people up.
“He is funny, he’s a good guy.
“He’s got me a present actually, he FaceTimed me the other day at midnight, in bed, bear in mind France are an hour ahead and he’s away with the national team…
“But after the Fulham game he was like ‘I need your shirt please’, I said ‘yeah, it’s fine’, I said ‘who for?’, he said ‘Ah, Dembele’, I said ‘wait who?’ and he said the guy from Barcelona.
“I was like ‘what, he wants my shirt?’, he was like ‘yeah, he wants yours and Kalvin’s (Phillips) shirts because he’s a massive fan of Leeds and watches every game’.
“I was like ‘you serious?’ and I said ‘okay, but you’ve got to get me his shirt then in return’, so he FaceTimed me at midnight the other day and showed me this Barcelona shirt that says ‘To my bro Bamford, from Dembele’.”
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