Second motive for Sir Alex’s Spanish scouting trip?

Sir Alex Ferguson opted for Spain over Scunthorpe last night, as he left the squad in the hands of assistant manager Mike Phelan for the Carling Cup tie at Scunthorpe United while he did some in-person scouting of next week’s Champions League opponents, Valencia.

However, the gossip mongers at the Daily Mirror are speculating that there was an ulterior motive for the manager’s trip to the Mestalla.

While Tomasz Kuszczak was busy denying Scunthorpe United’s attempts on goal time and time again in United’s 5-2 triumph, the Mirror says that Sir Alex was busy assessing Atletico Madrid keeper David De Gea as he did the same to Valencia and is now ready to make his move for the highly-rated youngster. The 19-year-old kept Valencia at bay with multiple fine saves, which had the Europa League holders in line for a big away win until Aritz Aduriz beat him seven minutes from time to earn Valencia a 1-1 draw.

De Gea has been mentioned as a United target on multiple occasions before, and understandably so. He’s an extremely talented young keeper, as he showed with some nice stops last night, and he’s set for a very bright future, wherever it takes him.

That being said, there’s nothing to read into this, just the papers trying to make a story out of a fortuitous coincidence.

De Gea picked a fine time to do well, but Fergie being witness to his performance can just be considered an added bonus on top of getting an up-close look at an upcoming opponent. I might well be speculating myself, but I highly doubt we’d have seen this come up today had De Gea allowed three goals and had a horrific howler. Just a guess.