Strange article. This line is baffling when you think about what it actually means:
His camp are at pains to point out that, out of respect to the United supporters, he has not followed the leads of Raheem Sterling or Angel di Maria in publicly agitating for a move.
Firstly, the rather unsubtle indication that De Gea's "camp" have been feeding info to the Mail in exchange for a positive article. In journalistic terms, "at pains to point out" = "told us to write this"
Secondly, the notion that not publicly pushing for a move is some how more respectful to supporters than privately pushing for a move. Makes perfect sense you think? Wrong. It's PR bullshit and people are lapping it up. It's not out of respect for supporters, it's to win public opinion. Everyone knows he's pushing for a move but as long as he doesn't come out and say so supporters are supposed to praise his behaviour? "Yeah he's pushing for a move away, but he is doing it privately and not telling us that's he's pushing for a move away so it's fine - now if he were to tell me he was pushing for a move I would be so disappointed with him!" Not to mention articles like this one that have blatantly been spoon fed to the Mail by De Gea's "camp" to put pressure on United - a far far FAR more dubious and deceitful behavior than publicly stating a desire to leave, yet people fall for it time and time and time again. It genuinely makes me angry how easily people can be manipulated by the press and PR-sociopaths.
Alright, you can put foreword the counter point that by publicly agitating for a move De Gea would lower United's negotiating power and could force a move through quicker/cheaper for Real, but honestly does anyone really believe that is what's stopping De Gea from giving a public statement? If so you live in cloud fecking cuckoo land. The only reason a public statement hasn't been given is because it would damage De Gea's reputation/status that his PR team strive to maintain and bolster. With the clock ticking down to the end of the window we will soon see how little of a shit anyone from De Gea's camp gives about how much money United get from Real - they will do whatever it takes to push it through, starting with these type of articles where they feed the scum press their shit nuggets of controversy, and if that doesn't work you can guarantee there will be a very blatant and obvious public push for a move before September 1st.
I'm not having a go at De Gea at all, his PR team yes. The thing I'd most like to see is De Gea give a statement saying something like: "I want to move to Madrid, but if a deal can not be agreed this summer I will happily stay at United and do my best to go out on a high and help United win the league, it's a great club I that I respect and appreciate, but for personal reasons I would prefer to live in Madrid" - this is the only way that I would think he's being professional, respectful of and honest to the supporters. But it won't happen. Instead we won't get a statement until after the window, and whichever club De Gea is at it will be a bland, unoffensive, media-friendly, characterless, meaningless, box-ticking, information-less, disingenuous, cliched statement of nothingness in order to avoid any potential negative public opinion. And people will lap it up, because people are stupid and like living in their little bubbles where they get told what is good and respectable and what is bad and what they should get offended by.
