Finally, Manchester United appear to have agreed a deal to sign centre-back Harry Maguire.
The Telegraph report a fee of £85 million has been struck with Leicester City, stating the transfer is complete.
Pending official confirmation from the clubs, this is long overdue, whether you agree or not that Maguire is the right player, signing a centre-back is essential.
Maguire brings leadership qualities as well as defensive nous and reinvigorates a defence which struggled last season, conceding 54 Premier League goals.
The price is a talking point, it’s high, probably too high. But convincing Leicester to sell, a side with top six aspirations themselves, was always going to be difficult.
Timing
The timing of this is really important. While overdue, it’s not quite too late.
Nobody involved wanted this transfer saga to run and run until deadline day next Thursday.
Crucially it allows us time to pursue further transfer deals. We talked yesterday about how logistics meant it was crucial we got one of these transfers done immediately, to allow time for others.
Also in the pipeline is a potential swap deal involving Paulo Dybala and Romelu Lukaku. Tuttosport claim Mario Mandzukic could be involved in these negotiations too.
Also on the radar is Bruno Fernandes, as he has been all summer. There have been mixed messages over this, but Di Marzio has insisted this is very much possible.
Aside from these, a winger or a back-up left-back would be nice, but at this stage we should just be thankful the Maguire deal is done and Dybala might be close.
Whatever happens after that, we’ll take, frankly, having been staring in the face at a summer which threatened to yield just two transfers.
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