From Spain: Manchester United now want to sign 23-year-old Spanish international

Manchester United are keen on recruiting Alvaro Morata from Real Madrid, according to leading Spanish sports daily Marca.

The 23-year-old has been on loan at Juventus but the received wisdom on this is that Real Madrid will trigger his buy back clause and then sell him on for around £40m.

Marca says:

A new dawn is rising at Manchester United, and boss Jose Mourinho is targeting a reunion with his former Real Madrid striker Alvaro Morata at Old Trafford this summer.

Morata may not be the paciest player in the world and he hasn’t been a prolific scorer in his early career. As such he may not be seen by some Manchester United fans as the best choice for number 9. But he is a technically brilliant player with a stone cold first touch and is a scorer of big goals in big games.

And his goals ratio will improve as he continues to learn his craft. At 23 he has played 9 times for Spain and scored 3 goals. At club level he scored 11 in 52 for Real Madrid and 27 in 93 for Juventus – so the goals to games ratio has improved from club to club.

But his potential signing may leave Manchester United fans scratching their heads about the possible roles of Zlatan and also Marcus Rashford, who exploded onto the scene last season.

While TFF can easily imagine Rashford’s pace being employed out wide next season, Zlatan and Morata are both specialist number 9s.

The Swede scored a career high 51 goals last season and while Morata can play wide, he doesn’t have the pace to be an effective Premier League winger, as we have seen with Juan Mata over the last two years.

Chelsea and Arsenal are also credited with an interest in the player from the report.

Here are some of Morata’s best moments in his young career so far.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xc1kMkl_xbU