A relationship which has grown for almost eight years has now come to an end as Dani Alves is all set to leave Barcelona. The Brazilian has won almost everything there and he will be looking for a new challenge in the summer.
The 33-year-old was a surprise departure from Barcelona, but this has been coming for a while as the former Sevilla star had been linked with a move away from the La Liga giants for a number of years. The funny fact is that only Juventus has made a move to sign him and one team that could do well with a quality defender is Manchester United.
The Premier League club have just announced Jose Mourinho as their manager and the former Chelsea man would not mind to have a lot of quality to choose from but should the Red Devils try to sign the multiple La Liga winners?
A brilliant attacker, but not the best at defending
There have been many suggestions that Dani Alves is not the best defender in the world and his defending inadequacies have actually been overlooked thanks to his incredible work-rate in attack for Sevilla and then for Barcelona.
Time and again, he has been caught out while defending, but there is no denying his quality in the attacking third of the game. Barcelona were lucky to have someone like Alves, who was almost playing as an extra winger on the right for the Catalan club.
Manchester United on their part had a poor season last time around and were not the attacking threat that many would remember them during the time of Sir Alex Ferguson. The one thing that former manager Louis van Gaal got right was the defence, and with Jose Mourinho coming in, that defence is only going to get tighter and better.
Do they really need more attacking impetus? Of course they do, but that should not come at the expense of their defensive solidity. Jose Mourinho might want to bring in quality at the club but Dani Alves wouldn’t help the team out in the defence all that much.
The Red Devils have Matteo Darmian and Antonio Valencia who could play as the right-back and we are pretty sure that the Portuguese manager has a couple of better defenders than Dani Alves on his mind as he looks to make Manchester United the top club they once were.
There is another problem with Alves and that is his character, something that has gotten him into trouble many times at Barcelona. He is a little larger than life and that would not be accepted by Jose Mourinho at all.
The new Manchester United manager might actually be looking at players he can control, as we have seen, Mourinho has to be the main man at the club and we don’t see that changing any time soon. Alves could be set for a big move to Italy or even to PSG and that would suit him well.
Manchester United might be one of the biggest clubs in the world but they do not need Dani Alves and neither does Alves need them.