Ferguson buys another player, even though he swore he wouldn’t!

Sports News - February 20, 2009

Mame Biram Diouf, a 21-year-old Senegalese striker who currently plays Norway for Molde, has been signed by Manchester United – despite the fact that manager Sir Alex Ferguson insisted he would not be buying any more players this summer only days ago.

Diouf is set to join the English champions in January, pending a medical, and will remain in Norway until then, Molde said on their website.

“Mame Biram Diouf will go through medical checks at Manchester United next week and will join the club in January,” the club said.

Speaking at a press conference in Kuala Lumpur today, Ferguson said: “We’ve been looking at him for two years.

“We weren’t intending on signing anyone else after last week – we feel we have a full squad – but the situation accelerated to a point where other clubs started to make bids, so we had to decide whether we acted or didn’t act. “We decided to act and he’ll be the last person we sign.” (Daily Mirror)

I am sure that when United fans saw headlines spreading across the internet and the red top backpages about the club signing Diouf they must have done a double take and perhaps even had mild heart-attacks, turns out it was Senegalese youngster Mame Biram and not El Hadji they had snapped up.

Yes Sir Alex had said he wouldn’t be buying any more players, but I am sure that many realised that this was in fact not entirely true. Whether club’s spending stops here is in question, after all there will be many fans who don’t think that Michael Owen and Luis Antonio Valencia constitute an effect replacement pair for Cristiano Ronaldo and Carlos Tevez.

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