United make offer for Goram

SPL side Motherwell say Manchester United have asked to sign their goalkeeper Andy Goram.

The former Glasgow Rangers and Scotland player has been told by the club that a loan is not an option at the moment but Goram could soon join United.

Goram was part of Rangers' nine championships in ten years but joined Motherwell two years ago. The 36 year started his career in England with Oldham Athletic and Sir Alex Ferguson has maintained close links with Rangers, the club he supported as a boy, and knows Goram's game well.

The player has a controversial history with poor discipline problems and he quit the Scottish team five years ago but he has often been regarded as one of the best British-born goalkeepers of the last two decades with his excellent form for Rangers helping them to the Champions League semi finals in 1993.

United may now need to pay a fee to sign Goram as Motherwell are not keen to see him leave the club on loan but United are keen on a deal for the deal to help them through an injury crisis.

Goram signed for Rangers from Hibernian in 1991 in a £1 million record transfer deal for a goalkeeper paid by then manager Walter Smith but the deal itself was set up by Graeme Souness before he quit Ibrox to join Liverpool.

The goalkeeper is intensely superstitious and has the same pre-match mean, wears the same gloves and boots at every match until he finishes on the losing side which did not happen often in his Rangers heyday.

Goram has won three cricket caps for Scotland and used to have ambitions to be a specialist batsman. Oldham allowed him time in the summer to play cricket.

His private life fills pages in the Scottish press and just last week he told how a Caribbean holiday ended in trouble when he was on a plane that was hi-jacked by gunmen and then sormed by troops.

The Premiership leaders want a new goalkeeper as cover as they prepare to face Bayern Munich in next month's Champions League quarter finals.

But United are optimistic that goalkeeper Fabien Barthez will recover from a thigh injury to take part in the knockout phase of the Champions League next month.

The club sent the French international for a second scan on the muscle injury and are waiting for results of the tests but Barthez is not needed in European action for two weeks.

Blackburn Rovers have denied that their Irish international goalkeeper Alan Kelly has been in talks to join United.