The Manchester Evening News is reporting that Jose Mourinho's pursuit of Jose Fonte is leading to a stand off with the Old Trafford hierarchy.
The local paper is usually the closest to any football club and in Manchester it is no different, so when the Manchester evening news makes a comment about either United or City, then you have to take a little more notice of it than you would most media outlets.
Today the MEN is saying that Jose Mourinho is in a standoff with the Manchester United board and the reason for that stand off is his attempts to sign Jose Fonte.
The issue is the number of central defenders who are already at Old Trafford, Mourinho already has Phil Jones, Marcus Rojo, Daley Blind, Chris Smalling and new signing Eric Bailly who can play in the centre of the defence and the United board want to see one possibly two of these off loaded before they sanction a new central defensive signing in.
The situation is compounded by the fact that there are players surplus to requirements in other areas, notably in the centre of midfield where last summers purchases of Sebastien Schweinsteiger and Morgan Schniederlin are already seen as being surplus to requirements and with a combined transfer fee of £40 million for the pair and very large wages, United are keen to see them off the books as well.
So far this summer United have spent approaching £150 million and have recouped only around £6 million in transfers, the issue with the United board is not just transfer fees though, but as mentioned the salary's being paid to players who will not see much first team action ths season.
Jose Mourinho is not bothered about this, he is used to Chelsea where money is no object, so he is intending to continue on in that vein at Old Trafford and is surprised that he is being questioned.
The United board have seen much money wasted in the past few seasons and without Champions League football they do not have the income to sustain big wages as they did in the past.
There is also the question of whether the board actually consider £12 million for Fonte a good deal, they know that if they sanction it and the deal is actually done, this is money down the drain, it is a stop gap signing from Mourinho and that at best Fonte will play games this season and not many after that.
However he would be on very big wages that he would not get elsewhere and therefore the Unite board would find as they are now doing with Schweinsteiger that the player is relucutant to take a massive pay cut to leave and that no other clubs willwant to pay anywhere near what he is on at United.
The feeling around the club is that this is Mourinho doing a favour for his old mate Jorge Mendes who in turn is doing a favour for his client Jose Fonte, Chelsea were concerned in the past that Mourinho and Mendes were too close and that too many deals done by Mourinho were for clients of the Portugese agent.
All of this is of course good news for Saints, the MEN say that time is running out for Mourinho to clear out the players not in his plans and that being the case he will struggle to get any more money from his board unless it is in a position that does not have the quality options available, in the centre of defence that is certainly not the case.