Oranje star has five goals in the league this season.
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Premier League champions Manchester United have made a last-gasp bid for AS Roma midfielder Kevin Strootman, with the Red Devils hoping to be able to seal a deal for the Dutchman before the January transfer closes on Friday night.
United head coach David Moyes has been keeping close tabs on the 23-year-old ever since the Scot first arrived at Old Trafford to take over from the club’s previous manager Sir Alex Ferguson last summer.
Moyes is known to be a huge fan of Strootman’s ever since his time in charge of previous club Everton, when he failed with a bid for the player when he was with Eredivisie giants PSV Eindhoven.
However, initially Moyes was intending on waiting until the end of the season before making a move for the Netherlands international, only for United’s poor recent form to have made him bring forward those plans.
At first, the Premier League side were hoping to be able to either reignite their long-standing interest in Athletic Bilbao midfielder Ander Herrera or convince Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich to part company with their coveted Germany international Toni Kroos.
But United were unable to come to any sort of agreement with either the Basque outfit or the Bavarians, and so Moyes has therefore decided to instead switch his focus elsewhere towards Strootman.
However, despite United chief executive Ed Woodward facing a race against the clock to try and get the big-money deal done ahead of the closing of the transfer window at 11pm on Friday night, the club are said to be very confident of being able to persuade the Romans to allow the player to leave the Italian capital.
And that is because of the dire financial difficulties that Roma currently find themselves in at present, with the Giallorossi said to be in urgent need to offload one of their big-money players before the window closes on Friday.
The one major sticking point though to a successful deal going ahead in the remaining time available is whether the two parties will be able to reach an agreement over a fee for Strootman, who is contracted to the Stadio Olimpico until June 2018.
Roma are said to be seeking a fee in excess of £20m for the goalscoring midfielder, while United are understood to be unwilling to go higher than £18m, although that has left some room for negotiation therefore, with the chances of the deal going through in time rated as 50-50 by a source close to negotiations.
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