Real Madrid interested in Juan Mata and David de Gea

The Guardian have a blog in which they analyse the reasons for Manchester United struggling away from home. It is, they say, that because they are not scoring goals that they are not winning games of football. The best thing to do is to contact Jose Mourinho immediately and suggest that he tries the brave and ground-breaking new tactic of scoring goals in football matches, and who knows where such a ploy might take him?

More Real Madrid rumours: Florentino Perez fancies bringing Juan Mata back from England to play at the Bernabeu, which I sometimes incorrectly spell the Bernebeu. That’s the kind of hot, hardcore analysis you can expect until Brent sacks me.

According to this story in the Daily Mail, Jose Mourinho is considering selling David de Gea to Real Madrid. Real have been keen on the ponytailed goalkeeper ever since they realised that David Seaman retired several seasons ago. The rub is that Mourinho wants to sign Raphael Varane in return. Given the relative lack of availability of decent defenders, it makes sense that Mourinho would prefer to sign a new ‘keeper and get Varane to help out the brains trust of Chris Smalling and Phil Jones.

The Telegraph examine David Moyes’ opening gambits with his new clubs, now that the Manchester United managerial legend has secured new employment at West Ham for the next three months (it’s a six-month contract, but let’s be realistic here). God, remember Moyes? Remember Louis van Gaal? What horrendous days they were.

And some good news, as Mourinho is optimistic about what he can do with the return of Marcos Rojo, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Paul Pogba and Michael Carrick. The first three are needed back soon for regular action, but Carrick would give the side some alternatives to Nemanja Matic and Ander Herrera over the upcoming busy period.

306 words, invoice enclosed.