Patrice Evra will leave Manchester United this week for a fee believed to be between £1.2m and £2m, after Manchester United announced they will not stand in the Frenchman’s way and won’t try to block his move to Juventus.
Evra had recently signed a 12-month extension but his wife’s desire to leave Manchester coupled with Juventus’ offer of two-year deal worth £55,000-a-season look to have convinced the 33-year-old that it’s time to bring the curtain down on his United career after a eight and half stint at Old Trafford.
Having signed Luke Shaw from Southampton, United were keen for Evra to provide cover for the former Southampton left-back as well as act as a mentor for the 19-year-old, but the Frenchman is now set to join the Serie A champions who, unlike United, are granted to offer him a regular spot in the starting XI as well as Champions League football.
With Nemanja Vidic and Rio Ferdinand also leaving the club and Ryan Giggs retiring, after Evra’s departure United will have lost some 2,000 appearances and the huge lack of experience in the squad could well prove to be one of the main issues Louis Van Gaal will have to address if he’s to bring United back to the summit of English football.
Having begun his career in Italy with spells at Marsala and Monza, Evra then moved to Monaco, club from which he joined United in January 2006 for a mere £5m.
Despite enduring a nightmare debut in United’s 4-1 defeat at Manchester City, Evra soon established himself as a regular in United’s starting XI and went on to become one of the club’s best ever left-backs, collecting five Premier League titles, three League Cups, the Champions League and the FIFA Clubs’ World Cup during his nine seasons at Old Trafford.
Over the last couple of years, however, the Frenchman has become a defensive liability and while still a threat going forward and still revered by the majority of fans, the feeling was that United needed a new left-back as part of their long-awaited overhaul.
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