Sky: Dybala in negotiations to join Manchester United

Any deal that was supposed to bring Juventus forward Paulo Dybala to Tottenham Hotspur was going to be a difficult one to get over the line. That was made clear from the very earliest rumors. After all, Spurs may have more money to spend right now, but they’re still nowhere near as rich as the richest clubs in the Premier League, and Dybala is reportedly worth £80m.

So perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised that the club now closest to signing Dybala isn’t Spurs — it’s Manchester United. Sky Sports understands that Dybala’s agent is currently in London negotiating with United officials about a deal that would potentially send the Argentine to the Theatre of Dreams in a swap deal for Romelu Lukaku.

If this is true — and it’s a pretty big if at the moment — it would clarify a couple of things. First, that United still have more money than God and can almost certainly outbid Spurs for any player with which they both have interest, and second that there may be more truth in the rumors that Tottenham’s interest in Dybala was more about Giovani Lo Celso than Juventus.

It does appear that Dybala is likely to move somewhere, since he’s reportedly not playing well with Cristiano Ronaldo. Lukaku moving in the other direction would make a certain sort of sense, since United are trying to ship him off somewhere. Lulu plus cash for Dybala would probably make everyone involved happy.

However, Sky’s being super cagy in this article, saying that a deal is a long way from being completed. So Dybala’s representatives having conversations with United doesn’t mean a whole lot quite yet. It also means it’s probably wise to put the #LevyOut pitchforks down and wait to see if Spurs’ primary target, Lo Celso, ends up in London over the next few days.