Ander Herrera is a Manchester United Player!

Status
Not open for further replies.
jojojo said:
Fair comments from him I think, with not much speculation.

I'm automatically resistant to the term Director of Football. However if we have to recruit a football exec to negotiate football business, and we don't undermine our manager in the process, then I'm sure we can come up with a job title.
Click to expand...


We just want a continuation of the Fergie system - the manager and backroom staff come up with the targets, and we have someone that knows what they're doing going after them. We obviously thought we'd arranged that, but something has seemingly gone awry...

In retrospect, may have been an idea for Gill to stay on for one more summer and make sure everything went smoothly before getting the replacement in, but obviously they wanted to make it a fresh start.

Interval Level said:
Is it true that Moyes said that Herrera wasn't worth the release clause or something on those lines?

An Arsenal supporting colleague just said so. I refuse to believe it
Click to expand...

No, he's not made any comment and I haven't seen anyone in the press reporting anything second hand.
 
Reading some of the stuff I've read, I'm not sure United were quite as much to blame in this as I, and many I guess, initially thought.
 
Interval Level said:
Is it true that Moyes said that Herrera wasn't worth the release clause or something on those lines?

An Arsenal supporting colleague just said so. I refuse to believe it
Click to expand...

In the article further up the thread, Moyes likes to have players watched and felt he hadn't watched him enough, it is said Moyes is very very thorough, or a ditherer if you are an Everton fan. It's said he does like him, so maybe he will have him watched and he will go back in for him. It's a lot of money for Moyes to spend without knowing much about him.
 
DomesticTadpole said:
In the article further up the thread, Moyes likes to have players watched and felt he hadn't watched him enough, it is said Moyes is very very thorough, or a ditherer if you are an Everton fan. It's said he does like him, so maybe he will have him watched and he will go back in for him. It's a lot of money for Moyes to spend without knowing much about him.
Click to expand...
So then don't bid for him. Its like the club has MPD
 
Rood said:
Seems a reasonable explanation - a long way from the hysteria over 'imposters' and other such bullshit
Click to expand...

It still doesn't look good on us and suggests we pulled out because we didn't want to pay the 36 million:

Indeed there remained, for too long, an idea that Athletic President Josu Urrutia would simply roll over at the last minute and drop his price. Those who thought that clearly haven't been following the episodes of Javi Martinez to Bayern or Fernando Llorente to Juventus.
Click to expand...
 
antohan said:
My understanding is the tax thing was effectively a non-issue as it was an international transfer and the same lawyers who handled Martínez would know that. One minor issue would be the development fee being added to the release or not (couple of million, basically) but the major issue seems to be this idiotic idea whereby the release clause can't be activated if Athletic refuse to receive the money. It's rather pointless isn't it? The lawyers would have known about that "bureaucratic problem" as well.

The two things that seem critical to me are:
  1. If we really wanted him, why not pin Atheltic into a corner saying that was the problem? Nope, we chose to talk about the lawyers not having the authority to represent us, etc. Weird, unless we didn't want to burn Herrera's bridges at Athletic once it looked unlikely. Would we accept looking like fools for that? Don't think so, it must really be a case of us being unwwilling to meet the release clause.
  2. Which takes us to the insistence that the release clause wasn't value. Why the feck did we engage in this then, at all? "Sorry Ander, we are interested but you are not worth the money anyone with half a brain would know this required". It also indicates we won't be getting him in January either as it would mean paying what we are publicly stating is too much. Utterly, utterly pointless.
Possible underhand tactics or not, whichever way you look at it we are acting like fecking amateurs and are deserving of what the Spanish media is saying: that we are just throwing punches in the dark hoping something good will come out of it.

We've been owned all Summer, every Chairman out there must be loving the prospect of sparring with Ed Wood to show him up for the bufoon he is. He's like a rabbit in headlights.

Barca couldn't have spelt it out more clearly, Urrutia is laughing his arse off that a mighty CL top club has been embarassed after approaching one of his men, Kenwright showed Moyes yesterday how a proper Chairman gets his club to come out on top against those "in the big leagues", and even Dave Whelan got in the act getting a loan off us and immediately moving on to improving his deal for McCarthy.

Eddy is quite simply the village idiot of the football world, no two ways about it.
Click to expand...
So, you take a guess and extrapolate that to allot blame. Sweet.
 
The Neviller said:
Reading some of the stuff I've read, I'm not sure United were quite as much to blame in this as I, and many I guess, initially thought.
Click to expand...


We're to blame for leaving it so late, being unaware of how to push it through and for calling the lawyers "imposters", which I thought was really bad form. I'm coming round to the view though that (thankfully) we didn't kill it for not wanting to meet the release fee or because Fellaini's price got hiked. We were seemingly willing to pay the €36m but weren't ready in time to do the deal without incurring further charges. I'm hopeful now that we haven't acted so badly that Herrera's forever pissed off at us and we can do something in future. If he is speaking to the press tomorrow as was said earlier, we might get an indication of that.
 
Ubik said:
We're to blame for leaving it so late, being unaware of how to push it through and for calling the lawyers "imposters", which I thought was really bad form. I'm coming round to the view though that (thankfully) we didn't kill it for not wanting to meet the release fee or because Fellaini's price got hiked. We were seemingly willing to pay the €36m but weren't ready in time to do the deal without incurring further charges. I'm hopeful now that we haven't acted so badly that Herrera's forever pissed off at us and we can do something in future. If he is speaking to the press tomorrow as was said earlier, we might get an indication of that.
Click to expand...
We didn't call anyone imposters, Guilleme Ballague did.

Are we just making stuff up now?
 
shaggy said:
It still doesn't look good on us and suggests we pulled out because we didn't want to pay the 36 million:
Click to expand...

Well that is not really what is says - more that we were unsure until too late because Moyes hadnt seen enough of him first hand.
 
Guillem Balague reported it first, a lot of other journos checked it out and corroborated, including at the BBC.

shaggy said:
It still doesn't look good on us and suggests we pulled out because we didn't want to pay the 36 million:
Click to expand...
That passage is preceded by this one:

What transpired, however, is that United weren't equipped to take a firm decision early enough about how hard to go in for Herrera and, once the bean-counters at the top of the club did indeed decide to pay €36 million, there was insufficient corporate savvy about how to get that done.
Click to expand...
In other words, we took too long to decide that we would pay the fee and when we did, it was too late.
 
How does a DoF help? I though the role of the DoF was only to identify the targets and let the moneymen get on with signing the players?
 
Ubik said:
We were seemingly willing to pay the €36m but weren't ready in time to do the deal without incurring further charges.
Click to expand...
It was nothing to do with tax, Bilbao refused to deposit the money into their account. No matter how much money we offered it was impossible for that deal to go through yesterday because Bilbao were determined for it not to happen. You're right in saying we should have moved earlier, and in that sense the club is to blame, but the main reason I, and I'm guessing many others, were so annoyed yesterday was because of how unprofessional we acted by pulling out at the last minute, thankfully it now appears that wasn't the case, and I'm hopeful we'll sign this lad in January.
 
DomesticTadpole said:
We were bidding for everyone. Any midfielder that was breathing and still had two legs.:lol:
Click to expand...
:lol: True that. But I've said this before: We've been so uncharacteristic this summer. Its like the club has multiple personality disorder.

We don't speak of transfers in public. We are trying for Fabregas.
We have 100 million. This is too expensive.
Certain areas are lacking. I'm happy with what I have.
United bid only for world class players. Bid for everything that breathes.
 
mickeza said:
It was nothing to do with tax, Bilbao refused to deposit the money into their account. No matter how much money we offered it was impossible for that deal to go through yesterday because Bilbao were determined for it not to happen. You're right in saying we should have moved earlier, and in that sense the club is to blame, but the main reason I, and I'm guessing many others, were so annoyed yesterday was because of how unprofessional we acted by pulling out at the last minute, thankfully it now appears that wasn't the case, and I'm hopeful we'll sign this lad in January.
Click to expand...

We don't know that.
 
Interval Level said:
:lol: True that. But I've said this before: We've been so uncharacteristic this summer. Its like the club has multiple personality disorder.

We don't speak of transfers in public. We are trying for Fabregas.
We have 100 million. This is too expensive.
Certain areas are lacking. I'm happy with what I have.
United bid only for world class players. Bid for everything that breathes.
Click to expand...

My agent told they tried to contact me but only to realize it was past the deadline.
 
Ubik said:
Guillem Balague reported it first, a lot of other journos checked it out and corroborated, including at the BBC.


That passage is preceded by this one:


In other words, we took too long to decide that we would pay the fee and when we did, it was too late.
Click to expand...


Ok, nice one. Hope it's true and we were just late. We should know more by Herrera's / Bilbao's response.
 
antohan said:
My understanding is the tax thing was effectively a non-issue as it was an international transfer and the same lawyers who handled Martínez would know that. One minor issue would be the development fee being added to the release or not (couple of million, basically) but the major issue seems to be this idiotic idea whereby the release clause can't be activated if Athletic refuse to receive the money. It's rather pointless isn't it? The lawyers would have known about that "bureaucratic problem" as well.

The two things that seem critical to me are:
  1. If we really wanted him, why not pin Atheltic into a corner saying that was the problem? Nope, we chose to talk about the lawyers not having the authority to represent us, etc. Weird, unless we didn't want to burn Herrera's bridges at Athletic once it looked unlikely. Would we accept looking like fools for that? Don't think so, it must really be a case of us being unwwilling to meet the release clause.
  2. Which takes us to the insistence that the release clause wasn't value. Why the feck did we engage in this then, at all? "Sorry Ander, we are interested but you are not worth the money anyone with half a brain would know this required". It also indicates we won't be getting him in January either as it would mean paying what we are publicly stating is too much. Utterly, utterly pointless.
Possible underhand tactics or not, whichever way you look at it we are acting like fecking amateurs and are deserving of what the Spanish media is saying: that we are just throwing punches in the dark hoping something good will come out of it.


We've been owned all Summer, every Chairman out there must be loving the prospect of sparring with Ed Wood to show him up for the bufoon he is. He's like a rabbit in headlights.

Barca couldn't have spelt it out more clearly, Urrutia is laughing his arse off that a mighty CL top club has been embarassed after approaching one of his men, Kenwright showed Moyes yesterday how a proper Chairman gets his club to come out on top against those "in the big leagues", and even Dave Whelan got in the act getting a loan off us and immediately moving on to improving his deal for McCarthy.

Eddy is quite simply the village idiot of the football world, no two ways about it.
Click to expand...

This isn't true. This story emerged today but it can't be true. If it is so, Barca wouldn't sell Thiago to Bayern. Barca didn't need to sell, neither wanted to. Yes, they made a deal with Bayern to get a bit more money but if the solution was simply to refuse receiving the money if Bayern decides to use the clause, they wouldn't even enter the negotiations. And no-one could have forced Barca to receive the money. So simply that is either just part of a bigger story, or is a false story.

Agree with your post. Spot on.
 
mickeza said:
It was nothing to do with tax, Bilbao refused to deposit the money into their account. No matter how much money we offered it was impossible for that deal to go through yesterday because Bilbao were determined for it not to happen. You're right in saying we should have moved earlier, and in that sense the club is to blame, but the main reason I, and I'm guessing many others, were so annoyed yesterday was because of how unprofessional we acted by pulling out at the last minute, thankfully it now appears that wasn't the case, and I'm hopeful we'll sign this lad in January.
Click to expand...
Yup, looked like we were after making utter arseholes out of ourselves. Doesn't seem so true today, just foolish to attempt this on such short notice.
 
Revan said:
This isn't true. This story emerged today but it can't be true. If it is so, Barca wouldn't sell Thiago to Bayern. Barca didn't need to sell, neither wanted to. Yes, they made a deal with Bayern to get a bit more money but if the solution was simply to refuse receiving the money if Bayern decides to use the clause, they wouldn't even enter the negotiations. And no-one could have forced Barca to receive the money. So simply that is either just part of a bigger story, or is a false story.

Agree with your post. Spot on.
Click to expand...
Thing is, at no point did Barca look like they gave a damn about keeping Thiago, they got well above the release clause and a friendly thrown in. Also, it's not really known how long Bayern were talking with them. Seemed to all be pretty friendly and amicable.
 
I'm now a tiny bit relieved at the new reports (if they're true), because even though they still suggest that we were absolute amateurs in the whole situation, but at least it was still Bilbao who were the cnuts, not us.

I just hope three things now:
1- We learned a lesson from this Summer (to avoid repeating it).
2- We teach Bilbao a lesson (if the secret loophole story is true then I'd like us to make it public so everybody knows about it).
3- We show some appreciation for Herrera's stance (even though I haven't been among his biggest admirers as a player).

2 and 3 can be achieved by swift activation for his buy-out clause in early January, if he proves that he's indeed worth the money during the first half of the season.
 
First, Herrera has all the quality, all the drive, all the technical skills to be a dominant figure in Manchester United's midfield and, in due course, a captain.

Second, I know that he firmly wanted the deal to take place.
Click to expand...
I know it's only one person's opinion but it makes yesterday's feckery much harder to stomach.
 
Earthquake said:
Thing is, at no point did Barca look like they gave a damn about keeping Thiago, they got well above the release clause and a friendly thrown in. Also, it's not really known how long Bayern were talking with them. Seemed to all be pretty friendly and amicable.
Click to expand...

It wasn't friendly at all. Barca vice president and many of Barca players said that Thiago should stay. Then Pep 'forced' the Bayern board to get the deal done. Rummenige said to Barca that Bayern was willing to pay the clause but instead they came with an another silution that allowed Barca to get a bit more money and Bayern got the deal less complicated, got the player 2-3 weeks earlier than it would have been if they forced the clause and didn't ruin the relations with Barca. Thiago didn't burn all the bridges with them too.
 
Danny1982 said:
I'm now a tiny bit relieved at the new reports, because even though they still suggest that we were absolute amateurs in the whole situation, but at least it was still Bilbao who were the cnuts, not us.

I just hope three things now:
1- We learned a lesson from this Summer (to avoid repeating it).
2- We teach Bilbao a lesson (if the secret loophole story is true then I'd like us to make it public so everybody knows about it).
3- We show some appreciation for Herrera's stance (even though I haven't been among his biggest admirers as a player).

2 and 3 can be achieved by swift activation for his buy-out clause in early January, if he proves that he's indeed worth the money during the first half of the season.
Click to expand...


Can you elaborate a bit here? How did we teach Bilbao a lesson yesterday and how we have shown some appreciation for Herrera by not making the deal even after he decided to low the proposed wages and force the release clause.

The only thing the club has learnt yesterday (hopefully) is that if you act like clown, people will call you clown.
 
Things should be clearer in the due course of time but we really left the lad in a bad spot. I hope recent reports of us being tight cnuts not being the reason for this debacle is true and we can do a deal in January.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.