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| Image from the Daily Mail |
Manchester United will always be linked with a sea of players from every league in every window and even during the current circumstances, that will not change. Adrien Rabiot was linked with Manchester United last summer as his contract with PSG was running out and with Ander Herrera reportedly Paris-bound at the time, it seemed like a perfect swap for the young Frenchman to move to Old Trafford. However, this did not occur and Rabiot moved to Juventus on a free transfer but has struggled to get into the side. Juventus have a host of exceptional midfielders with the likes of Pjanic, Ramsay, Matuidi and Khedira all fighting for spots and so Rabiot has only made 24 appearances this season (with his minutes totalling 16.6 full games).
He has stated he does not want to return to training with Juventus when the authorities permit training to resume in an attempt to force a move away – a habit that has occurred more than once in his career. Everton, Arsenal, Manchester United and West Ham have all been linked with Rabiot so far since January but would it be a good move for Manchester United?
Obviously Rabiot has talent as he has made 227 appearances for PSG from the age of 17, scoring 24 goals and setting up 17 more during his seven year stay at Paris and has won 18 domestic trophies in that time. However there are three main reasons Rabiot may not be worth signing:
Firstly, he is a ball-winning midfielder, something United have an abundance of with McTominay, Fred and, to some extent, Jesse Lingard and Andreas Pereira. Manchester United do need another anchor with Matic being the only player that can consistently play in that role and he will need replacing soon and perhaps the transfer kitty could be spent on someone who will fill that role instead.
Secondly, he has three years left on his contract and is only 25 years old so could cost a lot of money with Juventus looking for another midfielder after reports suggest Pjanic is off to Barcelona. Juventus may only sell Rabiot if Pogba is a part of the deal so that they can reduce the fee and if not they may ask for around £40-50m which would be a lot of money for another ball-winning midfielder.
Finally, the fact that Rabiot seems to have attitute problems. He was frozen out of the PSG side after refusing to sign a contract and has been dropped from the starting team twice, once for being late to training and a second time for being in a nightclub the night after PSG were dumped out by Manchester United and liking one of Patrice Evra’s celebratory posts about the win. It is now reported that Rabiot is refusing to resume training for Juventus in an attempt to push a move away from Turin. These incidents could well be for justifiable reasons but it seems that Rabiot has clashed when not playing as regularly as he would want and in a highly competitive squad such as Manchester United it would seem that Rabiot would be disappointed to be playing behind other players with Fred and probably McTominay potentially competing with the Frenchman.
My opinion is that Rabiot would cost a lot for a player we have an abundance of and could cause problems off the pitch too. It seems like a high risk, low reward option and instead, Manchester United should look for a midfielder that is more suited to the anchor role such as Thomas Partey, Ruben Neves, Wilfred Ndidi or even Declan Rice.
