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Angel di Maria was fooling no one. He said Manchester United was 'the only club that I would have left Real Madrid for' last year, when anyone without rose-tinted glasses on knew he wanted to join Paris Saint-Germain.

Radamel Falcao preferred Real Madrid over United but even Jorge Mendes could not pull that one off. United's lucre helped, yet the club had proved they had no problem attracting marquee names even without no Champions League football to offer.

Di Maria and Falcao's failures have signalled a shift in transfer strategy from United. There are 20 days left in the summer transfer window and a truly eminent player is yet to arrive, though that should not be regarded as a negative.

Whereas Sir Alex Ferguson toed the Glazernomic line and bemoaned the lack of 'value' in the market, Louis van Gaal is acting like a man with a vault of money to rival Scrooge McDuck.

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"Manchester City have Agüero," he said last month. "Barcelona has Messi, Neymar and Suárez. We as Manchester United have to compete with these clubs. So we have to look also for that kind of player."

United supporters should not be disheartened that Van Gaal is determined to sign Pedro - Messi, Suarez and Neymar's understudy. Pedro, like Memphis Depay, Matteo Darmian, Bastian Schweinsteiger and Morgan Schneiderlin, would be a team-focussed addition capable of improving the starting side.

Most encouragingly, Pedro wants to join United. The last Barcelona player who wanted to swap Catalonia for Castlefield was Miguel Angel Nadal 18 years ago, back when United's record buy was the £7m Andy Cole. The last player United bought from Barcelona was Jordi Cruyff in 1996.

Pedro has scored in Champions League and Club World Cup finals and his trophy cabinet is bulging with so many awards he would need a separate plane just to fly them to Manchester airport.

He also has a credible excuse for his lack of game time and the same applies to Bastian Schweinsteiger, who faced competition in Bayern Munich's midfield from Xabi Alonso, Javier Martinez, Thiago Alcantara, Philipp Lahm and David Alaba.

Pep Guardiola decided to sell Schweinsteiger due to his fitness over the last three years, in which time he won the Champions League and produced one of the most heroic World Cup final performances.

In Pedro and Schweinsteiger, United would have two pathological winners. That pedigree has ebbed away since Ferguson retired and just 10 winners from the 2013 title-winning squad remain at United. Feasibly, four of them could leave before the 6pm deadline on September 1.

Schweinsteiger's light might be dimming but just by leaving the serenity of Munich for Manchester he has displayed genuine hunger. Pedro, too, is prepared to emerge from his comfort zone.

They are players who genuinely want to play for United and, unlike Di Maria, won't quit after a year.