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Soon there will be a reinforcement - on Friday it should be officially announced that the team has been joined by England's national team player and midfielder Michael Carrick.
Manchester team coach Sir Alex Ferguson is celebrating his 25th birthday today, and the player, reportedly, will cost about £15-16 million. That's the amount "Man Utd" was able to offer for the midfielder Ruud van Nistelrooy, whom they sold to Madrid club for £10.3 million.
Tottenham officials tried to keep one of the best safeties of the previous season's Premier League and rejected a 'modest' £10 million offer made during the World Cup. However, offering a much larger sum, the "Red Devils" reached their goal and finally attracted the safety who should replace the departed Roy Keane in the middle of last season.
Recently participated in the World Cup, however, only appearing on the field in the quarterfinal match against Ecuador, M. Carrick did not play in the friendly matches of "Tottenham" club preparing for the new season against "Stevenage Borough" and "Bishop's Stortford". His contract with the London club was supposed to be valid for two more years, but the player rejected the recently offered new contract, as he did not hide his desire to move to Manchester.
An Englishman became the fifth most expensive "Man Utd" player of all time after Rio Ferdinand, Juan Sebastian Veron, Wayne Rooney, and R.Van Nistelrooy. Interestingly, two years ago "West Ham" team received only £2.75 million for M. Carrick.
The loss of the safety in the Tottenham team should at least partly be compensated by the recent acquisition of the Ivory Coast national team player and club star, in addition, Tottenham manager Martin Jol has already acquired 22-year-old Benoit Assou-Ekotto from the "Lens" team and also spent £10.9 million on Leverkusen's "Bayer" club forward Dimitar Berbatov.
Next week "Man Utd" will visit Amsterdam (Netherlands), where they will play a friendly match against the local team. It is in one of these matches that the new "Man Utd" player should make his debut.
