It’s the summer of 2024 and there are innumerable reports surrounding Manchester United’s chase of Manuel Ugarte, featuring?long lists of alternatives as Paris Saint-Germain refuse to budge from their €60m valuation in?the midfield filling to the Red Devils’ doughnut.

They need an upgrade on Scott McTominay, who’s consistently proved himself not quite good enough for a club that still stands alone as The Greatest In English Football History, and for Casemiro, who’s just been told to “leave the football before the football leaves you” by Jamie Carragher.

Names are put forward, but all pale in comparison to a man who’s who’s not good enough for PSG but is still very good (promise), as proven by him thriving at Sporting under a manager not yet attractive enough to unseat Erik ten Hag at Old Trafford.

Burnley’s Sander Berge and Wolves’ Joao Gomes are on their radar, but chief among the alternatives is Atalanta star Ederson. If only the Serie A side weren’t asking for just as much as PSG want for an evidently superior midfielder in Ugarte.

In quite the catalogue of midfield recriminations at Manchester United, the summer of 2024 is a doozy. Pushing McTominay to Napoli for him to be named Serie A MVP while winning the Scudetto and signing Ugarte in his stead is extraordinarily poor judgement by their own extraordinarily low standards.

Eventually PSG dropped their price for Ugarte to what was at the time thought to be a €50m bargain but has since proven to be a gross overpayment for a footballer who’s at best a midfield passenger rather than the fighter the United hierarchy were hoping for, and more often than not an ally to opposition teams in their routine bypassing of the Red Devils midfield.

But United have now been offered an opportunity to right that landmark wrong and sign Ederson, albeit a glimmer of one owing to the Brazilian’s almost comically bolshy agent making no bones about the preferred destination for his client, whose contract expires in 2027.

“It’s an opportunity because his contract is expiring,” Andre Cury said. “His side didn’t want to sell him despite very high offers. I think they will do it in this January window or in the summer.

“Atalanta were asking for a lot of money, between 60 and 75 million euros, but now his contract is almost up, they could even halve the price, between 30 and 40 million.

“He’s a spectacular player with some of the best statistics in Europe for his position.”

“I’m friends with Deco and the Barcelona president. I do my job. I will always help them with transfers because I have a very special affection for Barcelona.”

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A man claiming “I do my job” before immediately revealing he “will always help” Barcelona with transfers is someone very evidently not doing his job of working on the best outcome for his client. But that, along with this pretty grim come-and-get-me-plea 18 months out from Ederson’s contract expiry, suggests Cury could perhaps be encouraged(if you catch our drift) to vote in favour of a move to Old Trafford.

And at, say, €35m [￡31m], Ederson would be well worth the outlay for a football club currently regretting him being the alternative rather than the top target 18 months ago.