Alex Telles - SIGNED for United

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GoldanoGraham said:
The one thing you can be sure of is Ed and his crew FULLY understand our cash flow and balance sheet - this is their expertise - what they lack in football knowledge they certainly make up for in finance know-how.....

Could well be some truth in not spending cash until after 30th Sep so that the costs all sit in a different Quarter (Oct-Jan) - remember we have financial covenants and these are tested every quarter - would be very logical for the bankers to push any transfers into the next quarter and then allow them plenty of time to juggle finances and clear the covenants.....as inept as people think they are at transfer dealings they may actually be working to a strategy that they’ve had to adept to since our income revenue has fallen off a cliff due to Covid.....first we will know is when they tell the NYSE what they are doing though.....
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Any spending plan would allocate for more expenditure in the summer and less in the winter. That's historically always been true for any club. If spending is clearly a concern, I'd bet more on there being even less of it in January than there is now.
 
romufc said:
People are also quick to forget that the same people trying to save £1m have offered Lingard, Mata, Perreira, Romero, Jones, Dalot contracts worth up to £40m a year combined when none of them can get into our squad.
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Nail on the head. Absolutely spot on.
 
el3mel said:


So slow.. so painful.
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I guess too many United fans have bugged him about Telles. The only update there is that Zahavi's hoping for us to agree on 25 million Euros (goes against earlier Portuguese reports of 20 million Euros being an acceptable fee).
 
I'm convinced that Ed's calendar is permanently stuck on August 14th or something. No other explanation for our tiresome and sluggish negotiating tactic.
 
sammsky1 said:
Who is the other option?
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He hasn't mentioned a name for it. Luckhurst alluded to Vitaliy Mykolenko a while back, but he was the only one, and there haven't been other mentions of him since. Beyond that, there isn't much more info on this 3rd LB option.
 
#07 said:
In talks FC rides on
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Leonzo1 said:
I'm convinced that Ed's calendar is permanently stuck on August 14th or something. No other explanation for our tiresome and sluggish negotiating tactic.
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The club aren't directly involved in talks. They're going through agents to negotiate for them. Then add in the time it takes for the deal to reach Joel Glazer (who provides the final approvals), and you can see why we take a while on our negotiations.
 
We really are the most pathetically shit, transparent team at negotiating and buying players. Almost every team can see us coming and it takes an age to get a deal done, and we'll end up ripped off along the way. Literally like watching paint dry.

I miss the days of us announcing Anderson and Nani out of the blue in the same evening.

Wake me up on October 6th.
 
mazhar13 said:
He hasn't mentioned a name for it. Luckhurst alluded to Vitaliy Mykolenko a while back, but he was the only one, and there haven't been other mentions of him since. Beyond that, there isn't much more info on this 3rd LB option.
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VP89 said:
Mykolenko
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21 year old playing in Russia for Kiev. Hmm. Even if he is an outstanding talent, age and league adjustments mean we won’t really seem much out of him til 12-18 months time.

not that great an option really?
 
sammsky1 said:
21 year old playing in Russia for Kiev. Hmm. Even if he is an outstanding talent, age and league adjustments mean we won’t really seem much out of him til 12-18 months time.

not that great an option really?
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He looks like potentially a very good left back, but you're right it would be a big risk.
 
Irrational. said:
We really are the most pathetically shit, transparent team at negotiating and buying players. Almost every team can see us coming and it takes an age to get a deal done, and we'll end up ripped off along the way. Literally like watching paint dry.

I miss the days of us announcing Anderson and Nani out of the blue in the same evening.

Wake me up on October 6th.
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We're obviously trying to change that and show clubs we aren't willing to be bullied anymore. Not sure why we've picked now of all times to take a stand, we can do that when our team's actually complete.
 
We love a good chat don't we. The more we talk the more tight the board are.
 
AltiUn said:
We're obviously trying to change that and show clubs we aren't willing to be bullied anymore. Not sure why we've picked now of all times to take a stand, we can do that when our team's actually complete.
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Yeah, it's really odd. Also this new notion of agreeing terms with the player prior to agreeing a fee with the club.

The way we are currently operating in the transfer market is baffling.
 
This feels like it should be a relatively easy deal to do...player wants to join, his club wants to sell, and United want to buy. What's the holdup?
 
Thank Christ our negotiating team is top notch.

Otherwise, seemingly straight forward deals like this might become bogged down by silly things - like us trying to bargain down the asking price to a fiver and a half-smoked cigarette.
 
They're just going to drag this to a few hours before the deadline to deflect some of the pressure on us signing a forward, and look like we've pulled signing Telles out of the bag at the last minute, no use signing him now if he is going to be our last signing.

Basic playing for time tactics, United can't wait for the transfer to shut.
 
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Irrational. said:
Yeah, it's really odd. Also this new notion of agreeing terms with the player prior to agreeing a fee with the club.

The way we are currently operating in the transfer market is baffling.
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That's pretty much standard operating procedure on all transfers, isn't it?
 
Can you imagine if our negotiators were involved in hostage negotiation?

"We're going to need you to let go of one hostage, and then we'll look at seeing if we can get you that helicopter, million bucks and your Redcafe account unbanned."
 
mazhar13 said:
The club aren't directly involved in talks. They're going through agents to negotiate for them. Then add in the time it takes for the deal to reach Joel Glazer (who provides the final approvals), and you can see why we take a while on our negotiations.
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Why? Why does that take this much time? There are no reasons in your post there.
 
Are we penny pinching with all these deals because we're saving up for Sancho? Or we're still worried about the financial impact of the pandemic? It's all a bit Kafkaesque...
 
Can you hurry up please, I think if you don’t sign him he will come to us...

to be fair you can’t blame United trying to lower the fee, he can sign for another club in January for free, the longer the transfer window goes on the more twitchy Porto will get, I think this is a battle you’ll win but it’ll go to the wire
 
KristianMackle said:
Are we penny pinching with all these deals because we're saving up for Sancho? Or we're still worried about the financial impact of the pandemic? It's all a bit Kafkaesque...
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Money lost and we don't have owners that want to spend their own capital. Given the facts, they are acting like they are trying to spend zero on this transfer given that Smalling does finally go.
 
Higgy74 said:
Can you hurry up please, I think if you don’t sign him he will come to us...

to be fair you can’t blame United trying to lower the fee, he can sign for another club in January for free, the longer the transfer window goes on the more twitchy Porto will get, I think this is a battle you’ll win but it’ll go to the wire
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That can't be right, he's not a Mendes client or Portugese!
 
mazhar13 said:
The club aren't directly involved in talks. They're going through agents to negotiate for them. Then add in the time it takes for the deal to reach Joel Glazer (who provides the final approvals), and you can see why we take a while on our negotiations.
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Serious question: what does Joel Glazer know about football?
 
UnrelatedPsuedo said:
Why? Why does that take this much time? There are no reasons in your post there.
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I reckon every time a correspondence is made they personally walk between Portugal and Manchester, then get a small canoe to go over to US to ask Joel if the offer is ok then he says no and the cycle repeats. Someone needs to let them know about Zoom or at least buy them a pushbike and a power boat
 
UnrelatedPsuedo said:
Why? Why does that take this much time? There are no reasons in your post there.
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If you add extra bodies in any bit of communication, that communication tends to get delayed. I've seen this in corporate work environments on many occasions. Each body in the middle will have their own view of the matter and provide their own feedback accordingly. The little bits of constant back-and-forth in between different people add up the time it takes for a message to get through at the end of the day.

Example (with a bunch of hypotheticals based on my experiences in a corporate work environment; get ready for a block of text):
  • United give their demands to our third-party representative via, say, email (15 million Euros).
  • The email is read after, say, one hour (because they're busy with other matters as well).
  • Our rep then sends an email back stating that Porto may not accept that and that they'd accept something like 25 million Euros. That email is read by United after some time (because United are also busy with work and not just twiddling their thumbs). Whoever's negotiating this on our end comes up with a counter-proposal that is then sent up to Judge, who then provides his feedback. After some more work, the proposal is sent to Woodward. After some more work, the proposal is sent to Joel Glazer. After some time (and updates via feedback), Joel approves on a new proposal.
  • We then send this new proposal over to our rep. Rinse and repeat this until we come up with something that the rep's happy enough with.
  • Our rep then sends this bit of info over to Porto's rep via email. Porto's rep read the email after some time as well.
  • Porto's rep comes back and then provides their feedback. We go back into the same communication loop highlighted previously. Rinse and repeat until Porto's rep is happy with something.
  • Porto's rep then sends this to the club. The club provides their feedback, and the info is eventually passed all the way back to United. Rinse and repeat until we come up with a deal that Porto are happy with.
  • We finally submit a formal offer to Porto, which they'd accept once they see said offer.

If you want a footballing example of this, see the Koulibaly transfer saga. Napoli and City aren't directly dealing with each other; both clubs are going through Koulibaly's agent, and that's slowing down the talks.

Contrast this to a situation without intermediaries. United send an offer directly to Porto. Porto acknowledge the offer. Porto then goes through the deal on their end and provides feedback to United. United then offer a counter-proposal (after some internal assessments). Rinse and repeat until Porto are happy with something that we offer.

Why does going to agents take longer? Agents themselves have some idea of what the other party could accept, and we'd need to come to an agreement with them before something gets back to the club. If we negotiate directly with the club, however, we'd get instant feedback of what they'd want instead of what agents think they'd want. Fewer bodies => more direct and transparent communication => fewer delays

Hopefully that explains it. If not, then let me know what's contentious for you.
 
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