Manchester United made last minute move for Alexandre Pato, Neymar confirms talks

Alexandre Pato claims that Manchester United made a last-minute offer for him. There's every chance that Pato is talking self-serving nonsense, but given United's transfer dealings in the last few weeks altered between inertia, panic, luck and incompetence, it is entirely possible it is true, too. You can read about that on ESPNFC.

Anthony Martial's agent has had an enjoyable pop at Arsene Wenger, who claimed that the former Monaco man didn't play as a traditional striker: "There are those who follow players and those who buy them." That's in the Daily Mail, if you want to screenshot it for posterity.

Neymar wants a new Barcelona contract. You can tell because in the Mirror he has rehashed the rumours about a move to United, claiming there were talks between his people and United's. All right, yeah, we know how this goes so let's just do something else.

Lastly, the Manchester Evening News says that David de Gea had no intention of running down his contract at United, and that explains the new contract signed after the Real Madrid failure to sign him. Of course, that neither strengthens nor weakens expectations he will still leave in the summer.

We'll have a Sunderland match preview up for you later today.

Here is my review of Alex Ferguson's latest book, on Yahoo Sport.