With a 48 hour transfer deadline period hanging on their heads, United went ahead and offered a last-minute deal to secure the Lille defender.
Arsenal were conducting their medical for the 22 year old defender – and the deal seemed to be done – but United didn’t want to let that happen. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side went in and made a new offer in their effort to change the centre back’s mine.
And they managed to achieve that very thing. Now Magalhaes is confused between the two clubs.
Lopez told talkSPORT on Thursday: “I think it’s fair to say that Arsenal are a high interest to him, Napoli is a high interest to him.
“We’ve given him plenty of time to make up his mind. We’ve always said, ‘look if we have an agreement with two clubs or three clubs and the agreements are the same then we are not going to create a bidding competition’.
“It’s always fair. We always say ‘whenever we have the number that we want you are free to choose’.
“And that choice, I don’t think I’m giving up too much if I tell you that that choice is probably today or tomorrow.
“I’m unable to tell you what that choice is. We’ve given him some recommendations but we don’t like to talk about it in public because we don’t want people to feel bad.
“We’ve talked about where he should go but at the end of the day he and his environment make a choice and we support that.”
When asked if Arsenal was his first choice, he said: “I don’t want to say that and I don’t want to speak for the player.”
It is no longer clear whether Magalhaes shall be Arsenal bound or not – maybe he will go for United, looking at the situation now.
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