Manchester United given encouragement over Gareth Bale. Again.

Nemanja Matic has yet to be ground down by life under the Glazers and Edward Woodward, as he said he is optimistic about Manchester United’s title chances. United have been absolute guff since Alex Ferguson gave the next generation of managers a hospital pass, and have only briefly hinted at serious improvement under Jose Mourinho. Nevertheless, with Matic, Paul Pogba, Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Romelu Lukaku, United’s attack and midfield is just a competent back four from promising success.

And, after sitting out most of Chelsea’s pre-season, Matic has said that he hopes to be 100% fit for United’s Super Cup match. Given he’s 29, it won’t necessarily do him too much harm to have an extended rest between seasons. We’re going to lose though, obviously.

Barcelona have £200m or so from the Neymar transfer, and the Guardian have had a look about how that might influence the transfer market. United are pretty insulated from it all, but I suppose there will be a touch of concern that they could make Ander Herrera a seriously attractive offer, should they want to.

In The Telegraph, United have been given more encouragement for a move for Gareth Bale. Real Madrid need to raise some beans in order to fling them at Monaco for Kylian Mbappe. It would make a huge amount of sense for the transfer to get done, and perhaps explain why they’re dragging their heels over getting Ivan Perisic from Inter Milan.

What the flying eff is this?

And lastly, Andreas Pereira wants to make some headway at United this season. He’s tidy enough, and should be a useful presence on the wings if he doesn’t have the body to barge his way into people on the sidelines. At Granada, he did OK, so unless anything remarkable happens in the remaining month of the transfer window, he should get a chance.