With one week left, here's how Manchester United transfer negotiations stand

Alex Telles

You’ll doubtless have seen that United have been trying to strike a deal for the Porto left back, Alex Telles, for a good couple of weeks now. The transfer is being brokered by the super agent, Pini Zahavi, who has been doing a lot of mediating between the clubs.

Telles has a €40 million (about £36.3m) release clause in his contract but there was never any chance of Porto getting a fee close to that given that the Brazilian is out of contract next summer and will be free to talk to foreign suitors from January.

United have been slowly getting Porto down on price and, at present, the two clubs are at least £5 million apart. Porto want around £18 million but that is still considered excessive by United. All signs point towards a compromise, not least as Telles has made clear his desire to move to Old Trafford and has been urging Porto to be reasonable on price, but we’re not quite there yet, or at least we weren’t as of first thing on Tuesday morning.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer believes Telles would provide quality competition at left back for Luke Shaw, who has had his injury problems and fluctuations in form, and that, in turn, would free up Brandon Williams to provide cover for Aaron Wan-Bissaka at right back. Which leads us to Diogo Dalot . . .

Diogo Dalot, Andreas Pereira & Chris Smalling

Dalot hasn’t had a future at United for some time — Solskjaer established early on that the Portugal Under-21 defender wasn’t for him despite his predecessor, Jose Mourinho, claiming the club had found their right back for the next 10 years — and there has been interest shown in him by AC Milan.

United, I believe, would prefer a straight sale but that looks a little optimistic and it’d be hard to see them getting back in this window the £19m they paid Porto, but I could be very wrong. A season-long loan with an option to buy might be more feasible but the priority will surely be to get him out of the building, playing football again, and his wages covered elsewhere.

Things are much further down the line with Andreas Pereira who, all being well, will join Lazio in the next 24 hours or so, on a season-long loan with an option to buy.

Roma have come back to the table to discuss buying Chris Smalling. A £12m bid from Roma was dismissed out of hand a week or two back with United demanding £18-20m. It’s basically the Telles situation in reverse. Smalling wants the deal to happen and Solskjaer does too, so I think something will have to give. If Smalling has made up his mind he wants out, so be it, but I still think a Smalling-Harry Maguire or Smalling-Eric Bailly partnership would be better than what they have now with Victor Lindelof partnering Maguire. Anyway, that’s a conversation for another day.

Ismaila Sarr & Jadon Sancho

*Reaches for tin hat.* A little background on Ismaila Sarr first. Watford gave an agent a mandate to try to find a buyer for Sarr and, about a month ago, there was a meeting with United officials. Watford need the money and are looking for at least £40m for the Senegal winger.

The trail went cold for a while but United are thought to have signalled that they would only favour a loan deal for now — you would assume a stopgap in the event that Sancho stays put at Borussia Dortmund for this season and United wait a year before going back in for the England winger.

United have been offered all manner of forwards in recent months — Ivan Perisic, Douglas Costa and Gareth Bale, before his move to Spurs, among them — and Sarr seems to be one of those potential temporary options who have cropped up.

The big question, though, is whether United make a move for Sancho before the window closes on Monday week. If they do and fail to get him, you really have to wonder why they have left it so late given that he’s been a priority target for Solskjaer for so long. Perhaps they have some intelligence that Dortmund could back down but it’s not clear if they have even tested the water yet on price.

Then again, the more players United can get off the wage bill and out of the door, the looser the purse strings are likely to be and that could also be a factor here. Either way the word from inside Old Trafford has been pretty consistent for some time: they will not be meeting Dortmund’s £108m valuation, a stance often accompanied by a reminder of the financial impact the Covid-19 crisis has had on the club.

When they set their sights on something, United have had a habit of usually seeing the deal through to the end, even if that means paying more or less what the selling club wanted. Leicester, for example, got the £85m they wanted on Maguire and Crystal Palace the £50m they wanted for Wan-Bissaka, albeit with £5m of that fee payable in add ons. Covid has been a curveball, though.

United certainly need Sancho, that’s beyond any debate, but then that team and squad still needs a lot of things.