What Manchester United need in the last weeks of the transfer window

Buy: midfielders

The Marko Arnautovic bid has made Manchester United fair game. Agents and clubs can enjoy a joke at their expense or chance their arm on the off-chance their client's salary is increased and they are paid handsome commission.

Speculation of a move for Real Madrid midfielder Casemiro is more cause for despair. He is 30, contracted to Real until 2025 and started in the Champions League final. That does not sound like a goer.

Ah, but Real have signed Eduardo Camavinga and Aurelien Tchouameni, you might say. Well yes, they have, but they are not about to discard mainstays of their Champions League hegemony. Luka Modric was on the bench with Casemiro against Almeria on Sunday.

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A midfield quintet of Casemiro, Camavinga, Tchouameni, Modric and Toni Kroos is a dream for Carlo Ancelotti in a taxing season where the World Cup impinges on club football.

Beyond that, if Real are actually willing to sell a player, United are the last club the player should join. Casemiro need only ask Raphael Varane or Angel di Maria.

Despite all that, it would be typical of United to take a 30-something off Madrid's hands in the last weeks of a window, having held discussions with Camavinga last year and scouted Tchouameni this year.

Casemiro is at least a defensive midfielder and Erik ten Hag's decision to favour a controlling option - and an almost unattainable one in Frenkie de Jong - has to change. If Ten Hag is consistent on an aesthete, he needs an artisan as well.

Buy: goalscorers

Anthony, Ten Hag's priority target in attack, tallied 10 goals for Ajax last season and the same amount the season before that. The Brazilian's Samba feet went viral at