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Manchester United are confident that Ander Herrera will sign a contract extension in the coming weeks.
Herrera’s representatives started talking to Ed Woodward, the executive vice-chairman, a few months ago about a new deal for the midfielder, who is out of contract in June.
The Spaniard rejected the club’s initial offer, which was only a marginal increase on his pay packet of £75,000 a week, but discussions have progressed well since.
Herrera has no desire to leave United, where he is settled, and the 29-year-old is expected to commit his future to the club in the next few weeks.
He has no interest at this stage of his career in returning to Athletic Bilbao, where he spent three years before joining United for £29 million in 2014. Herrera has made 118 Premier League appearances for United, scoring 11 goals.
Woodward and José Mourinho, the United manager, want the Spaniard to remain at Old Trafford despite criticism of the player, who has won two caps for his country, from Paul Scholes. The United legend hit out at Herrera for his performance in the 2-2 draw with Southampton on Saturday.
“You have to question the quality of the player,” Scholes said in the BT Sport studio on Wednesday night before United’s draw with Arsenal, which left the club in eighth place.
“Rio [Ferdinand] asked the question there when he said, ‘Is Ander Herrera capable of playing that ball to [Paul] Pogba?’ Now, he’s in 15-20 yards of space, it’s probably a 30-yard ball — a simple ball. If he’s not good enough to play that ball then he shouldn’t be at this club.”
Marouane Fellaini has escaped a ban for pulling Mattéo Guendouzi’s hair in Manchester United’s 2-2 draw against Arsenal.
Many Arsenal fans were outraged when Andre Marriner, the referee, did not send the United midfielder off for the 87th-minute incident and only awarded a free kick to the away team. The FA has the power to hand out retrospective bans if the referee or his officials do not spot such an incident but given that Marriner saw the tug, it cannot punish the Belgian.
The FA banned Robert Huth, the former Leicester City defender, for three matches in 2016 for pulling Fellaini’s hair after the referee missed the incident.
Huth joked on Twitter yesterday: “Looks like I taught him well..#playon.”