Manchester United are edging closer to sealing a deal for David De Gea after Atletico Madrid admitted they may be forced to sell him in the summer.

As revealed by Sportsmail last week, the Spain goalkeeper is on the verge of a £17.8million switch to join the Barclays Premier League giants.

Sir Alex Ferguson had identified the 20-year-old as the replacement for retiring Edwin van der Sar and the clubs are understood to have reached an agreement which will see De Gea sign a five-year deal at Old Trafford.

Atletico retain some hope of keeping De Gea, who was also targeted by Chelsea, but the club have admitted that they will sell him if they cannot tempt him to sign a new deal.

Chief excecutive Miguel Angel Gil Marin said: 'We have met with him to negotiate a new deal on two occasions.

He has a contract with Atletico for three more seasons, so it is necessary to renew it and reasonable to revise his salary, which is well below his current performance. But at the end of the season there will be two choices - to renew or to leave.'

De Gea narrowly missed out on a place in Spain’s World Cup squad last summer but is considered the long-term replacement for current No 1 Iker Casillas

Meanwhile, another United goalkeeping target - Manuel Neuer - is set to leave their Champions League semi-final opponents Schalke to join Bayern Munich in the summer.

Neuer, who has refused to sign a new deal, said: 'I took my decision without any influence from the outside. The decision had nothing to do with a coaching change or a person at some other club.

'I want to keep the possibility of change open after 20 years of being true to one club,.'

Schalke sports director Horst Heldt said: 'We accepted this decision with a heavy heart and we must respect it. What will happen now with Manuel will be decided in the coming weeks or months.'

There's still nothing wrong to discuss about them. You can skip reading if you're unhappy. Doesnt make sense if they stop discussing because of you. Relax.

Sneijder is an example of the long running "discussions" than we have. everytime theres a search on midfield, the news will report him, and us fans will be like hyper. But wind is just wind. Neuer is just one of those long going transfers too, since last season even when people are speculating if VDS gonna retire.

there's nothing to warn. At the end of the day, when these transfers doesnt happen, and the team ends up having a bad run, then u will see what kinda posts comes out. "Oh we should have bought Ozil, our midfield lacks creativity". Where do we end up now? top of the table, 7 points on top. whose player tops the assist chart? NANI, our existing player.

Sneijder, Silva, Di Maria, Dzeko, Aguero, Ozil, who else did I miss out.......IIRC, Silva was the most talked about one in manutd fanzone

Messi!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hamsik.

Messi!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

not really about their rivalry...most of the fans prefer current no.2 thomas kraft to take over butt's role as no.1...but the upper management  keen to sign Neuer...Kraft will leave if Neuer sign with Bayern...

if i live in wonderland i would buy all of them just to trade Ronnie back

OH YA PASTORE!!!!!!!

CAVANI!!!!!

SUAREZ!!!!!

woi.. mana nak taruk Amri Yahya.. he scored two goals against United and made Foster look like an apam balik seller...

oh shiiiiii......no wonder that was foster last season    jkjk

if he ever joins bpl, "Amri Yahya will take the premier league by storm" kata Shebby Singh.

Amri Yahya ? My friend saw him eating 2 packets of nasi lemak.
say he's freaking unhealthy. stamina damn low and all.