Manchester United have triggered an option to extend David De Gea‘s contract by one year, according to reports.
The goalkeeper’s contract was due to expire at the end of this season, which meant he would have been free to talk to any non-Premier League club from January and leave for free next summer. United were keen to avoid that scenario, and have thus triggered the extension clause on Thursday, according to the BBC’s Simon Stone.
Contract talks between club and player have stalled recently, though after Tuesday’s Champions League win over Young Boys, a 1-0 victory made possible by another outstanding save from De Gea, manager Jose Mourinho said the player “wants to stay” at the club, hailing his star shot-stopper as the “best goalkeeper in the world”.
“He is a world-class player,” Mourinho said in his post-match comments. “He is the best goalkeeper in the world and, if our ambitions are to be a big club, to be a winning club, you need the best goalkeeper in the world – and you need also some other players the best in the world.
De Gea option triggered. Contract to 2020. Just housekeeping. Key point is talks over new deal, which continue. Obvious that Sanchez salary is benchmark. And how does DDG see future? Coming up to eight years. Won 1 title. If he wanted to go finding a club wouldn’t be hard.
— Simon Stone (@sistoney67) November 29, 2018
“In this case, we have the best goalkeeper in the world and I know that he wants to stay.
“I know that his agent (Jorge Mendes) is happy to do what the player wants and I also know that the board wants him to stay and they’re working on that, so hopefully sooner or later they arrive into good conclusions.”
Those comments were a reversal from the manager’s position last month, when Mourinho said he was “not confident” about De Gea renewing his contract.
Reports suggest that the goalkeeper, who won the Premier League Golden Glove last season and has been named United’s player of the year in four of the past five seasons, is looking to be paid on par with Alexis Sanchez, rumoured to be the highest-paid player at the club on £300,000 per week.
Never stop believing at the ‘Theater of Dreams’ 🗣 pic.twitter.com/SxIutJu8I2
— David de Gea (@D_DeGea) November 27, 2018
