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As you may have noticed, the names "Nemanja Vidić" and "Manchester United" have been floating around one another recently. Rumour has it that United, desperately seeking some reinforcement at the centre of defence, might turn to their former captain in their hour of need, and look into some kind of short-term January loan. Just to get through to the summer, when they'll buy Ayphaël Godmels and everything will be fine.
Sounds plausible, no? Well, we don't like it. We don't like it one bit.
The first thing to be wary of is the source. In England, the only paper reporting it — as opposed to repeating it — is the Daily Star, the august organ responsible for such recent scoops as "Terrifying Plague of Black-Eyed GHOST Children" and "50ft CRABZILLA Spotted Lurking in Brit Harbour". They ascribe it to tuttomercatoweb, an Italian website whose reliability tBB knows nothing about, and who in turn cite an "English source". So, it looks very much like one of these circle-jerk transfers, that begin everywhere and nowhere.
At the time of writing tuttomercatoweb is leading with a quote from new Inter manager Roberto Mancini, which basically says that Vidić, with all his experience, can be useful. When he's healthy. Vidić hasn't started a single game under Mancini and will apparently miss tonight's game against Qarabag with some manner of fitness problem, though Google Translate isn't quite giving us the full details.
Which brings us on to the bigger problem. Ultimately, Vidić, while once brilliant for United, spent much of last season struggling for form and fitness. Since moving to Italy, he's ... struggled for form and fitness. Of all the possible solutions to the fact that United's central defenders are all struggling for form and fitness, it seems like precisely the least sensible. Guys! We've got a problem! Let's make it bigger!
That's before we even consider the fact that he was quite keen to go to Italy, and hasn't given any indication he wants to come back. And the fact that if Vidić were in the kind of shape where he'd be any use to United, then there's no way Inter would be letting him leave. Nothing about this one adds up, to our mind: it makes sense for literally nobody involved. We'd be very, very surprised.