Tottenham Hotspur could bring former Manchester United winger Angel Di Maria back to the Premier League after starting talks about a possible free transfer at the end of the season.
Di Maria will turn 33 next month, but remains one of Paris Saint-Germain’s most important players and will be without a contract at the French club next summer.
A report from L’Equipe notes that PSG want to keep the player, but talks over a new contract have not resulted in a deal. They reportedly made an offer last year which Di Maria rejected because a pay cut of € 250,000 per week was offered.
The Argentina international is believed to be closing a two-year deal that would take him to his 35th birthday. The suggestion is that he would be happy to stay with PSG because he and his family are based in Paris – something he never did in 12 months at Manchester.
But if the terms of the contract are not correct, there may be an opening and Spurs are said to be the first club to contact Di Maria’s side to express interest.
Di Maria sadly spent the 2014/15 with Manchester United following a record UK transfer of £ 59.7million from Real Madrid. He had played at the 2014 World Cup with Argentina and had finished the previous season with a man of the match in the Champions League final.
He started the campaign in stunning form, but those performances have dried up. It quickly became apparent that he had never wanted to leave Madrid, as the struggle to adjust to the complex systems demanded by Louis van Gaal and the inability to settle off the pitch made life difficult.
United cut their losses after just one season, selling to PSG for just £ 45million and Di Maria has since become one of the best attacking players in the world again.
Spurs were previously linked with Di Maria in 2013. A year later, he revealed that speculation had ‘hurt’ him because he was so eager to stay at Real.
But Di Maria has of course already worked with Spurs manager Jose Mourinho. It was Mourinho who was in charge at the Bernabeu when the player left Benfica in 2010 and in 2013 he credited the coach for making him a better player.
“He showed me a lot of things and made me grow as a footballer. He helped me to change jobs, to sacrifice myself more for the team, ”Di Maria said of Mourinho at the time.
“I am very grateful to him. He told me that at Real I was a striker who could also defend and that I couldn’t rest when they were on the attack.
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