Sport Witness is normally good at reading between the lines & tracking validity
On Friday morning we covered claims from Germany's Der Westen regarding the future of Ilkay Gundogan. The Borussia Dortmund midfielder has a contract ending in June 2016 and despite the best efforts of the Bundesliga club he's shown little inclination to sign a new one. Dortmund have no intention of losing the player for free and repeating the Robert Lewandowksi situation so are open for a sale.
Der Westen said that Manchester United was set to be Gundogan's destination. They sounded pretty sure on a deal but were also cool about it, we thought a bit too cool. Gundogan to Manchester United is big news, but Der Westen were quite chilled about the whole thing. It was easy to think that the language used in the piece somewhat over exaggerated what Der Westen were trying to say or that people had misunderstood their intentions.
Well, that theory can be scrapped because they've not only reiterated themselves but gone a step further. Der Westen are clear that according to their information Gundogan will join Manchester United this summer for a fee in the region of €30m, which converts to around £22m.
More than one Der Westen journalist is claiming it. The second article today is from Frank Lamers, and Sebastian Weßling has taken Twitter to say 'According to our information, the change from Gundogan to #ManUtd is fixed, the #BVB should receive 30 million euros.'
They must just be a very chilled out lot at Der Westen. Gossip isn't usually their thing and that always gives an extra tick of reliability, especially when they're so sure on something.