Blog: Lucas MOURA: Hit or miss?

Earlier this transfer season, Eden Hazard was the most sought after player in European, maybe world football as I wrote in my earlier blog.

After flirting with just about any team that sought his footballing services, he eventually signed a £32m (Ksh 4.5 Billion) deal with European champions Chelsea.

Among the teams that were interested in signing the diminutive Belgian, Manchester rivals City and United had also apparently agreed terms with Lille (Hazard’s former club) and the player’s camp. This left it down to the player’s decision and understandably, he chose the kings of Europe.

At around the same period of time, Manchester United signed Shinji Kagawa and many thought he was signed as an alternative after missing out on their first target.

High price tag

However, it seemed that Sir Alex Ferguson had been pursuing both and after missing out on Hazard, seemed to turn for some time to Colombian James Rodriguez until he was put off by Porto’s £45m (Ksh 6 billion) valuation of their young winger.

Reports worldwide currently claim that United are now pursuing young Brazilian sensation Lucas Moura and are reportedly ready to part with just about the same amount they would have paid for Hazard for the signature of the Brazilian attacker.

Of course after four-odd decades in football, there are few better recruiters of players out there than the old grand master; Sir Alex himself. That doesn’t mean that he hasn’t had his bad days and truth be told, he has done better with relatively cheap signings who turn out to be world beaters than with the record-breaking, mint-splashing big signings he has made.

Will he do well?

All this brings to question his apparent pursuit of this current promise in Lucas Moura; is he the next big thing to hail from Brazil or just an expensive version of one of Fergie’s not-so-successful signings, Gabriel Obertan?

Of course in this day and age when newspapers will write just about anything to sell, there may not even be much truth in the story of this bid by the Red Devils. After all, there seems to be more wanting areas of this United team other than the wide berths, which Lucas would most likely occupy if signed.

But as they say, there is at least some ounce of truth behind every rumour. Converse to that of course is the fact that Sir Alex never seems to shy away from splashing the cash or even breaking records to acquire the services of young players so long as he thinks they are good enough to be winners with United, as was the case with Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney or even in his bid to sign Eden Hazard.

Watching highlights of Lucas’ performances for Sao Paulo, it is obvious the talent the young lad has  but that was also the case with Gabriel Obertan.

Already an international

Even so, Obertan was not even in the starting line-up of his club, Bordeaux at the time of his capture by United while Lucas is already a Brazilian international.

If Lucas does join his countrymen Anderson and the da Silva brothers at Manchester United, I expect his manager will want to gradually groom him into the team as he has done with Nani over the years other than thrust him into the deep end. Whether he can end up being as good, or even better than Nani or even the bigger United stars past and present remains to be seen.