Real Madrid, Barcelona and Chelsea have also shown interest in Mesut Ozil. The Germany international is in the last year of his contract with Werder Bremen. Photograph: John Macdougall/AFP/Getty Images
Manchester United are considering turning their interest in Mesut Ozil into a formal offer providing Sir Alex Ferguson can convince the club's owners that the Germany international represents a bargain, available from Werder Bremen for as little as £13.5m.
Ferguson tonight responded to questions about Ozil after the 3-1 defeat of Chelsea in the Community Shield by repeating that he was happy with his current squad and "did not need to add to it".
However, the United manager, who was at Craven Cottage on Saturday to see Ozil's team play Fulham in a pre-season friendly, was particularly ambiguous when he was asked directly, on four occasions, whether it was true the deposed Premier League champions were after the man who helped to eliminate England from the World Cup.
Ferguson deflected the questions with his first response that "a lot of clubs are interested in Ozil". He said he was "happy with the squad" and pointed out United play Fulham in 13 days. Yet it is rare these days for Ferguson to watch United's opponents – he usually leaves it to his scouts to compile reports for him – and when he was asked to clarify if the club would make a bid, there was another oblique answer. "I didn't say that," was his first response, followed by: "I don't know."
United's information is that Chelsea, Real Madrid and Barcelona have all approached Bremen, though Ozil's representatives are said not to have been overly impressed during talks with the two Spanish clubs. Ferguson is more concerned about Chelsea, with their superior finances, hijacking the deal, which might explain his reluctance to be drawn further on the issue.
Ozil, one of the outstanding performers in the World Cup, is available for a fraction of his true valuation because he is in the last year of his contract with Bremen and the Bundesliga club risk losing him on a free transfer next summer.
However, the matter is complicated because Werder Bremen have been handed a difficult tie, against Sampdoria, in the Champions League qualifiers and the German club are deliberating whether it would be better to keep Ozil for those games because of the vast sums they stood to lose if they were knocked out. Even though the 21-year-old is available on the cheap, Ferguson would also have to convince the Glazer family of the player's worth at a time when United are beset by financial issues.
Ferguson was otherwise effusive in his praise for his players after a victory against a Chelsea side who have lost four successive fixtures and whose manager, Carlo Ancelotti, conceded it had "not been a good pre-season".
Antonio Valencia opened the scoring, the new signing Javier Hernández scored an unorthodox second and Dimitar Berbatov ensured the win in stoppage-time after Salomon Kalou's 82nd-minute strike for Chelsea.
There was also an impressive 45-minute performance from Wayne Rooney, including a brilliant assist for Valencia's goal. Rooney's poor performances in the World Cup led to him being barracked by the Chelsea fans and Ferguson said: "All good players get booed these days, but it was a fantastic goal – the making of it was superb, and Antonio really couldn't miss."
Ferguson also identified Paul Scholes, the man of the match, for special acclaim, but Berbatov was the first player he embraced after the final whistle.
"He needed it [a goal] given the adverse publicity he had last season. It's an old problem when we pay big money for someone and they are not scoring three goals a game and making 50 passes, they get slaughtered. But there's no disputing his talent; he can be a genius. He had a mixed season by his standards but maybe this will be his season."
With his squad for England's friendly against Hungary at Wembley on Wednesday in mind, Capello did manage to express his surprise to Michael Carrick that he had been involved only 48 hours after the Unitedmanager ruled the midfielder out for a fortnight.
"I can only apologise," Ferguson said later. "On Friday I was certain he was out for two weeks."
