Manchester United cool interest in Atletico Madrid star Griezmann

Manchester United have called off their attempts to sign Atletico Madrid forward Antoine Griezmann and are now focusing their attentions on signing a No.9 in light of Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s serious knee injury, reports BBC Sport.

Jose Mourinho’s side have been heavily linked with a move to sign Griezmann all season after the France international was earmarked as the ideal forward to bring the best out of United’s misfiring attack.

Griezmann has flirted with the idea of joining United in recent weeks and it was thought the Premier League giants would trigger his €100m (£87.3m) release clause this summer but Mourinho’s side are now understood to have cooled their interest.

News of this has emerged just hours after Atletico found out their FIFA-imposed transfer ban has been upheld by the Court of Arbitration for Sport [CaS]. Diego Simeone’s side are still able to buy players this summer but won’t be able to register them to play until January 2018.

It’s curious that United have decided to drop their interest in Griezmann now and switch their attention to someone that can replace Ibrahimovic when they’ve known the 35-year-old would not make a full recovery until the end of the year.

In the last three La Liga campaigns only Luis Suarez (85), Lionel Messi (106) and Cristiano Ronaldo (108) have scored more goals than Griezmann (60), which makes United’s decision even more debatable given the Atletico No.7 has proven to be a regular goalscorer.

For more stats on Antoine Griezmann, click here to visit his WhoScored player page