Barcelona tracking Manchester United’s Nemanja Matic in cut priced deal | OneFootball

Barcelona are keeping their eye on Manchester United’s Nemanja Matic as they look to strengthen their midfield.

The Catalan club currently find themselves in financial ruin after years of mismanagement and poor financial decisions, a mess that saw the legendary Lionel Messi depart this summer.

A cut-price deal for Matic is the kind of transfer Barcelona have to target now they no longer can compete with the other footballing superpowers.

The Serbian midfielder has around 18 months left on his current £140,000 a week contract at Old Trafford.

A fee in the region of £10 million or under would be what Barcelona would be prepared to pay according to The Sun, but it remains to be seen whether United would accept such an offer.

United’s midfield is already threadbare as it is, so letting their only real defensive midfield linchpin leave would seem a baffling decision.

Matic featured in United’s crushing 4-2 defeat to Leicester in what was only his third Premier League start of the season and had the following to say post-match:

“Of course, we are disappointed, everyone is sad, everyone is with their head down at the moment. But when you play for Man United, if you don’t win the game of course you are disappointed, but we have to stick together.”

“We are sorry for them [the supporters], they support us, especially away and they are top. They deserve much, much better than this.”

“We will do our best to make them happy in the future. But we have 14 points – we are still in the title race. We don’t want to give up until the end.”

United’s lack of quality in central midfield always looked likely to cost them dearly this season after they chose not to add another player over the summer.

While Matic is no longer at his peak, and can’t play every game, allowing him to leave without bringing in a replacement would weaken United significantly.