Reports claim that Manchester United have finally sealed the deal for Borussia Dortmund’s Jadon Sancho. Paying just £73m, we have secured the signing of one of the brightest young talents in world football. Less than 24 hours after Marcus Rashford confirmed the signing on Twitter, only to claim this morning he’d been “hacked”, it appears as though United have got their man at last.

Last summer the German club were asking a whopping £108m for the player and told United if they wanted a deal to be done, it had to be organised before pre-season training began. Ed Woodward didn’t take their conditions seriously though and continued to have offers rejected late in to the summer.

This year, United have decided against mucking around and have managed to bring Dortmund down from the £85m valuation they put in place at the end of the season. With just two years remaining on his current deal in the Bundesliga, Dortmund recognised the need to cash in on Sancho this summer. Also, their business model revolves around bringing in young, super talented players, with the likely promise they’ll allow them to leave when a bigger and richer club comes calling. If they denied Sancho his desired move again, other players would be less likely to follow in his footsteps, and that of the likes of Erling Haaland and Jude Bellingham.

Rivals Manchester City will be due some of the transfer fee, after Sancho refused to sign a new contract with them in 2017 and them including a sell on clause in his deal to Dortmund. Sancho rejected the opportunity to become City’s highest ever earning academy player on £30,000-a-week and didn’t attend their pre-season tour. He returned home to London, with clubs like Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur keen on landing his signature, and didn’t come back for pre-season training at Carrington once the tour ended.

“Believe me, we tried absolutely everything,” Guardiola said after the transfer had been announced. “Even after we shake their hands and regret that shake of hands, we said, ‘No, we insist’. We made a meeting with the father and the agent and another agent and with him. But if the players says, ‘No, no, no, no,’ what can we do? It’s disappointing because he’s [from the] academy and in the academy we tried to build him, help him and see the potential. He has to know, the family has to know, and especially the agent has to know we had a lot of confidence in him, a lot. Maybe he thought he would get more minutes at Dortmund and I can understand. If the player says no what can we do?”

Sancho has gone on to have a brilliant career in Germany, with Jurgen Klinsmann stating his disbelief over Gareth Southgate not giving game time to the talented youngster this summer. “It’s a topic that us Germans, we discuss up and down,” Klinsmann said. “We cannot understand that Jadon Sancho is not playing for England, or not getting more minutes because we believe he is a very special player who has a different gear. He has unpredictability, so we are surprised he doesn’t get more minutes.”

Still, United fans won’t be complaining that their new signing gets a summer off so he can return to Manchester fit and ready to fire next season.

Awaiting the official announcement from the club…