Everton would be making a mistake by returning to Manchester United with an eye on signing Marcos Rojo in January, despite the Argentine being left ‘fuming’ at his Deadline Day deal collapsing, according to the Daily Mail.
The Blues were in talks to sign the centre-back on loan having failed with a similar approach for Chris Smalling, when the Red Devils slapped an eye-watering £30million asking price on the former England international.
United preferred to part company with Smalling permanently, it at all, as Harry Maguire’s World record transfer for a defender meant Ole Gunnar Solskjaer boasts seven centre-backs.
Toffees chiefs believed an agreement had then be reached in principle for Rojo to move to Merseyside for the season, but the Red Devils moved the goalposts on Thursday morning, leaving the defender in a state of limbo as we refused to match their £25million valuation.
The sudden change left the 29-year-old furious at missing out on a move away from Old Trafford, and the Mirror note the surplus to requirements defender was absent from a club meal organised ahead of his side’s curtain-raiser against Chelsea on Sunday.
Given the wealth of options Solskjaer has to hand, it would be highly unlikely that Rojo sees more minutes this season than he did last term, when he featured just eight times across all competitions for a total of 355 minutes of action.
His continued life on the fringes at United could see the 59-cap international push for a move away in January, despite having two years remaining on his contract and the club holding an option for a third.
Should he do so, Everton cannot return with renewed interest, no matter how well or poorly Yerry Mina, Mason Holgate and Michael Keane perform between now and the turn of the year.
As Blues supporters rightly pointed out when our interest emerged on Deadline Day, the one-time FA Cup winner is an erratic defender that is prone to making errors, and his severe lack of game time will mean his fitness level will be nowhere near match sharp.
Across his career 73 Premier League appearances, the 6 ft 1 centre-half has also lost 258 of his 608 duels, while losing 111 of his 263 aerial battles. Rojo has only been successful in 26 50/50s, as well, while holding a 72% tackle success rate from 137 attempts and has committed 79 fouls for 22 yellow cards.