It remains to be seen how Manchester United will attack the summer transfer window.
The Premier League club do not know exactly how their season will finish.
They are currently fifth in the table, four points behind fourth-placed Leicester City and five points behind Chelsea in third.
They are also three points ahead of sixth-placed Wolves, and a fifth-placed finish could be enough to secure qualification to the Champions League, given Manchester City’s potential ban from next season’s competition.
United have six games of the season remaining, and they take on both Chelsea and Leicester before the end of the campaign.
There has to be a question as to where United will look to strengthen but it has now become clear that they could have made a major signing in 2018.
Indeed, there was even a fee of around €60 million (£54m) agreed to bring in a new left-back.
Sport Witness carries quotes from Ciro Venerato, the RAI journalist, who claims that Napoli’s Faouzi Ghoulam could have moved to the Premier League club.
The 29-year-old has made a total of 181 appearances for the Italian club but it is said that an injury ultimately scuppered his move to Old Trafford.
He said: “Napoli had sold Faouzi Ghoulam to Manchester United for an amount equal to €60m.
“(Jorge) Mendes, on behalf of the Neapolitan company, had blocked another very good full-back for €30m: Grimaldo.
“But then the double deal didn’t go through because Ghoulam was injured.”
GIVEMESPORT’S Harry Sherlock says…
United may have dodged a bullet here.
Since the beginning of 2017, the left-back has struggled with a number of injury problems.
He has had three separate knee injuries, along with a muscle problem, and a cruciate ligament rupture, missing a total of 417 days.
That equates to 65 games in total and is actually a higher total than Luke Shaw since 2017, who has missed 44 matches in total.
This season, Ghoulam has made just seven appearances in Serie A and one has to think that United will not be cursing their luck all that much.