Jose Reina Rumours: Manchester United Should Sign Manuel Neuer Instead

Pepe Reina has seemingly opened the door to leaving Anfield for Old Trafford in an interview with some Spanish radio station.

Now, assuming Liverpool don’t continue their return to form and the players fall out of love with Kenny Dalglish, and that Reina actually does want to leave the club which made him the player he is, and assuming Alex Ferguson is happy to meet his buyout clause, and assuming he was not mistranslated, is he really the keeper United want anyway?

Obviously, the wind-up merchants amongst our fans would absolutely love us to snap up one of Liverpool's best players for below market value. As a moral and symbolic victory, in addition to claiming the 19th League title, it would be second only to signing Steven Gerrard.

But as a keeper, is he really the guy? For me, there are far too many similarities to Barthez to contemplate signing him.

He’s a great shot stopper, granted, and a fabulous distributor of the ball, possibly the best in the business, but does he command his area in the way that Peter Schmeichel did or Edwin van der Sar does?

He sometimes has runs of consistent form, but too often, stupid mistakes blight his game and cost his team points. Who can forget his howler against Arsenal at the start of the season?

In hindsight, it was worth far more than the two dropped points to Liverpool, as, wind out of their sails, they embarked on a horrid run of form thereafter.

He has experience, but has he any of winning a big trophy? Liverpool had Dudek in goal in 2005, and they won the FA Cup against West Ham in 2006 (barely).

Compare this to van der Sar, who arrived at Manchester United with four league titles and a Champions League with Ajax under his belt, and you’ll see what I mean.

Spain’s triumphs of late are fair enough, but he’s their No. 2 goalkeeper behind Iker Casillias.

Now, it’s probably because I have already set my heart on signing him, but I’d still prefer us to stick to our guns and go for Manuel Neuer.

He is far closer to the kind of goalkeeper that we are used to having (at least in terms of the successful ones) and, at 24 but with 15 caps under his belt already, he is going to be gaining bucketloads of experience.

At 24, he has got four years on Reina yet, although considering top goalkeepers continue into their late 30s, age is not an obstacle for either.

I just think that Neuer, arriving without baggage and with all the attributes required to be a great keeper at Old Trafford, would be the smarter pick.