Manchester United spent the most of the window looking for a centre-back but in the end, they couldn’t get one. At first, they looked in England and targeted Toby Alderweireld. However, when that didn’t turn out too well for them, they looked afar and eyed Yerry Mina as one of the candidates for Mourinho’s refurbished defence.
However, even that supposed deal didn’t come to fruition as Mina joined Everton instead. As a result, there were claims that agent fees played a role in United refraining to get the deal over the line – but someone dismissed these claims.
Everton director of football Marcel Brands has revealed that the club didn’t pay any sort of excess agent fees to bring Yerry Mina, contrary to the claims made by Manchester United.
Brands stated that things were “simple” and that Barca insisted upon waiting until the final few days of the transfer window to complete the deal.
“No, no, it was really simple behind the scenes,” he said. “I put the offer in and Barcelona asked for a totally different amount that we would never have paid.
“Then they said: ‘Okay, we will wait until the end of the market’. We never changed our offer. That was a bit of gamble because everyone was writing about Man United and Barcelona used that, agents used that, everyone used it.”
He then added that he is not sure about the involvement of the Red Devils and revealed that Yerry Mina assured him that he wanted to join the Toffees.
“I don’t know exactly if Man United were in. The player said constantly to me: ‘I want to go to Everton.’ That was a great thing for us but you never know if Man United comes in and offers an extra £150,000 a week – every player would like to do that.”
Finally, he claimed that Barcelona made him aware of United’s interest but wasn’t sure if it was legitimate, insinuating that it was perhaps a way for the Catalans to extract as much money as possible for the Colombian.
“I don’t know exactly the situation with Man United, but of course Barcelona used it. “They said to me, ‘Man United are coming in’. I don’t know if they did but I took a bit of a risk with that.
“That’s why we were also keen on back-ups, you never know, but after the weekend before the market closed I had a confident feeling about it.”