Manchester United to move for Ilkay Gundogan as contract talks stall

Manchester United will make moves for several high-profile signings in January, according to reports in several UK newspapers.

The Guardian and The Sun both state that Ander Herrera and Leighton Baines remain priority signings for the club, who will look to follow up their failed summer moves in the next transfer window in three months by making fresh bids to sign the pair.

More intriguing, however, is the more bold prediction in The Times which states that David Moyes could be granted as much as £100 million to spend in the window, and also mention the prospect of Ilkay Gundogan being among United's targets, along with Eliaquim Mangala and an optimistic monitoring of Andres Iniesta.

The mention of Gundogan's name should be the most intriguing, however. As well as being a perfect player for United, the club's position will also be strengthened due to reports from Kicker in Germany suggesting that contract talks have stalled for the player at Borussia Dortmund. The player's current deal expires in 2015, so already the stage has been reached where the player's value is beginning to drop considerably. Shinji Kagawa made the same move on a cut-price deal after only having one year to remain on his contract, and given the obvious restrictions of Glazernomics, it could be easy to see come off.

There are two main potential barriers, however. The first is that Dortmund may play hardball as they had with Robert Lewandowski, although it's more difficult to see them taking such a tough stance with the player moving abroad rather than to their greatest rivals domestically. The second is that United are unlikely to be the only club interested, and could face some pretty fierce competition.

Nonetheless, all this is fairly encouraging. Let's just hope that competence, rather than will, doesn't prove to be the problem, as appeared to be the case in the summer.