Old Trafford wide-man strongly linked with surprise move to the Emirates Stadium.
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Arsenal are now the surprise favourites to sign Man United winger Nani according to the Daily Star.
The 26 year old Portuguese international played a limited role in Man United’s Premier League title winning campaign, making just seven starts, and will perhaps be chiefly remembered in 2012/13 for the harsh red card he was handed during the club’s Champions League defeat to Real Madrid.
Nani’s first team involvement, already constrained by the presence of Danny Welbeck, Luis Antonio Valencia and Ashley Young ahead of him in the pecking order, will be even further limited by the arrival of Wilfried Zaha.
Galatasaray had looked likely to sign the Old Trafford wide-man but their £6m bid was turned down flat by Man United and the Turkish club have elected to give up their chase to sign the experienced attacker.
Nani has just a year to run on his current contract and Man United would presumably prefer to garner something from the sale of a player that cost them £17m in 2007 rather than see the player leave on a free transfer in 12 months time.
Arsene Wenger does have a fair few wide attacking options but may feel that Nani is of sufficiently quality to warrant an interest.
Though Arsenal have the likes of Theo Walcott and Lukas Podolski as their first choice options in these roles it’s fair to say that Gervinho is not a hugely effective alternative and given that Nani would be available for a relatively low fee it’s certainly a possibility that Wenger may consider making a move for the Man United winger.
Nani is however on £90k a week at present and such a wage could be problematic for the North London side to justify. Juventus, PSG and Monaco are also said to be monitoring Nani’s situation.
Nani has made 212 appearances for Man United, scoring 40 goals in the process.