David Moyes didn’t exactly hide his intent to pursue former players Marouane Fellaini and Adnan Januzaj.
In fact, the new Sunderland manager spoke pretty openly about being interested in bringing the Manchester United pair to the Stadium of Light.
But it is a different United duo that Moyes is close to adding to his Black Cats squad.
It emerged on Tuesday evening that Sam Allardyce’s successor at Sunderland had agreed a £5.5 million deal for the defensive pairing of Paddy McNair and Donald Love.
According to a report in the Daily Mail, Moyes is close to securing deals for both 21-year-olds, adding to the signing of Papy Djilobodji last week.
Neither McNair nor Love made an appearance under Moyes during his tenure at United as both defenders were handed their debuts by Louis van Gaal.
Northern Ireland international McNair made 27 appearances in total for the Red Devils while Love enjoyed a much less fruitful time in Manchester.
They will be hopeful of getting their chance to fight for a starting place on Wearside as they were never likely to cause too many selection dilemmas for Jose Mourinho who had brought Eric Bailly in this summer to accompany the likes of Chris Smalling, Phil Jones, Marcos Rojo and Daley Blind as players capable of featuring at centre-half.
