Manchester United Receive Boost from Barcelona in Juan Cuadrado Pursuit

Manchester United have been handed a huge boost in their quest to sign the much-coveted Juan Cuadrado after Barcelona have reportedly ended their interest in the Fiorentina winger.

Having already signed Luis Suarez, Ivan Rakitic, Marc Andre Ter-Stegen, Claudio Bravo, Jeremy Mathieu and Thomas Vermaelen, the Catalans had planned to complete their summer overhaul with a new player on the right-flank to replace Dani Alves.

According to reports they had earmarked Manchester United target Cuadrado as their top priority with the versatile winger set to move to the Nou Camp.

However, following unsuccessful negotiations with Fiorentina over a deal to secure his services Spanish newspaper Sport claims that unless there was some unexpected twist in the coming days "Barcelona are not going to sign Cuadrado" – paving the way for United to resuscitate their interest.

The Spanish newspaper reports that the Catalans are not keen to meet Fiorentina's £32m demand and that they have now set their sights on Brazilian Douglas Pereira dos Santos from Sao Paulo as a cheaper alternative.

So with Barcelona trying to looking elsewhere and Fiorentina recently securing a loan deal with Chelsea for Marco Marin to replace Cuadrado, Sport suggests United are now in pole position to secure his services.

Louis van Gaal has never hidden his intention to sign a winger this summer with Cuadrado and Real Madrid star Angel Di Maria topping his wish-list.

"At this moment, we have five No 9s and four No 10s – and we don't have wingers to give us attacking width, Or, I should say, we don't have wingers of the highest level, like [Cristiano] Ronaldo or [Angel] Di Maria or somebody like that," Van Gaal observed recently.