Manchester United have always gone after top talent (or have at least been linked to it) and because of that we’ve consistently been linked to young players like Freddy Adu.

The recent announcement that Manchester United would be taking on Adu was treated as confirmation of Manchester United’s current dominance in the Premiership, and I’m sure that it will be milked for it’s PR.

But as Ian Plenderleith at the Guardian (along with other writers) wonders if Freddy Adu is any good and what impact he could have at Manchester United, I’m more interested in the reasons why he’s coming to Old Trafford.

The imminent departure of David Jones from the club shows that when it comes to youth, Manchester United are taking a very strict policy in choosing only the very best players for the club. Freddy Adu, while he’s good, is made to look better thanks to video clips, playing in a poor league and being surrounding by non-world class players.

How will Adu fare in training, where he will be playing against Ferdinand and Vidic

As a winger, he’d be a good addition to a squad that desperately needs quality backup for Ryan Giggs.

But for a club owned by Americans, signing Freddy Adu would be a fantastic marketing coup. The Glazers could, in one move, crush Chelsea’s rise in popularity in the US, grab a major chunk of fans, and … well … make a lot of money from this deal.

And even if he’s not half-good – keeping him for a couple of years at Manchester United (hell, even one year) would be good enough to pay off some of the debt, eh

How’s that for a conspiracy theory