That's actually a good plan.
Ander Herrera is a Manchester United Player!
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I hesitated to bump this thread as it has started to slide down the page. However having listened to some more stuff and done some more reading around, I do now have a plausible spin for what we did on transfer day - one that leaves us looking amateurish, but not looking like amateurish cynical bastards.
Herrera at this moment is an Athletic player who was interested in United, but who didn't try to force his way out when the club rejected the offer. Indeed, he didn't even try to exercise the release clause. He was sat at home in Bilbao, not in Madrid at the LFP and not in Manchester having a medical. His agent denied that the lawyers at the LFP were sent by him.
Herrera will do his press conference today and say that Athletic didn't want to sell him and he's proud and happy to stay. Damage limitation.
United, I believe, did give those lawyers the go ahead to get the paperwork in place in case we wanted to use the release clause. They took it as far as they could but either hit a snag (because it was too short a time to prepare) or because United finally didn't want to do the deal. Perhaps because the due diligence work was incomplete or simply that we didn't want to hand over the cash.
United's problem was trying to disown the lawyers. Instead of a, "we had advisors in place if we needed assistance on a transfer, but they weren't there do do a deal," they managed to make it sound like three chancers had shown up. This of course turned it into a bigger deal: imposters indeed. Yeah, right. In their bid not to sound like amateurs who'd left it too late, they managed to look like clowns
In fact, right now I'm visualising Woodward in big clown shoes sat on a minibike. Someone, please - make it happen
Herrera at this moment is an Athletic player who was interested in United, but who didn't try to force his way out when the club rejected the offer. Indeed, he didn't even try to exercise the release clause. He was sat at home in Bilbao, not in Madrid at the LFP and not in Manchester having a medical. His agent denied that the lawyers at the LFP were sent by him.
Herrera will do his press conference today and say that Athletic didn't want to sell him and he's proud and happy to stay. Damage limitation.
United, I believe, did give those lawyers the go ahead to get the paperwork in place in case we wanted to use the release clause. They took it as far as they could but either hit a snag (because it was too short a time to prepare) or because United finally didn't want to do the deal. Perhaps because the due diligence work was incomplete or simply that we didn't want to hand over the cash.
United's problem was trying to disown the lawyers. Instead of a, "we had advisors in place if we needed assistance on a transfer, but they weren't there do do a deal," they managed to make it sound like three chancers had shown up. This of course turned it into a bigger deal: imposters indeed. Yeah, right. In their bid not to sound like amateurs who'd left it too late, they managed to look like clowns
In fact, right now I'm visualising Woodward in big clown shoes sat on a minibike. Someone, please - make it happen
Seems we're also trying to do damage limitation with pretty much every newspaper over here suggesting that we will go back in for him in January.
I wonder what Fergie's influence as a director is going to be, because I seriously hope he will at least be able to make sure we are better prepared in such situations in the future. The club hasn't come out of this in a very good light at all.
I wonder what Fergie's influence as a director is going to be, because I seriously hope he will at least be able to make sure we are better prepared in such situations in the future. The club hasn't come out of this in a very good light at all.
SAF will make sure thus deal is hippening in January!
Thanks for the update jojojo. I'm glad Herrera seems to be ok at Athletic. Lets hope he regains his impressive form of 2 years ago, takes it up a notch & were back n for him 1 Jan. Hed be ideal. Not cup tied or anything.United's problem was trying to disown the lawyers. Instead of a, "we had advisors in place if we needed assistance on a transfer, but they weren't there do do a deal," they managed to make it sound like three chancers had shown up. This of course turned it into a bigger deal: imposters indeed. Yeah, right. In their bid not to sound like amateurs who'd left it too late, they managed to look like clowns
In fact, right now I'm visualising Woodward in big clown shoes sat on a minibike. Someone, please - make it happen
Yeah, everything makes sense & would've sounded much better - until we denied any knowledge of the advisors bringing the whole impostor spin on things.
Leaving all these mysteries aside for a second, anyone have a clue as to why we decided to go for him so late?
We could have been negotiating for ages, but the press only just got wind of it.
Looks like we just didn't fancy paying 36m + V.A.T for a player who was not our first choice. I guess maybe we will go back in again in January if we really are interested.
When did United say they were "imposters"? I thought that came from Ballague?I hesitated to bump this thread as it has started to slide down the page. However having listened to some more stuff and done some more reading around, I do now have a plausible spin for what we did on transfer day - one that leaves us looking amateurish, but not looking like amateurish cynical bastards.
Herrera at this moment is an Athletic player who was interested in United, but who didn't try to force his way out when the club rejected the offer. Indeed, he didn't even try to exercise the release clause. He was sat at home in Bilbao, not in Madrid at the LFP and not in Manchester having a medical. His agent denied that the lawyers at the LFP were sent by him.
Herrera will do his press conference today and say that Athletic didn't want to sell him and he's proud and happy to stay. Damage limitation.
United, I believe, did give those lawyers the go ahead to get the paperwork in place in case we wanted to use the release clause. They took it as far as they could but either hit a snag (because it was too short a time to prepare) or because United finally didn't want to do the deal. Perhaps because the due diligence work was incomplete or simply that we didn't want to hand over the cash.
United's problem was trying to disown the lawyers. Instead of a, "we had advisors in place if we needed assistance on a transfer, but they weren't there do do a deal," they managed to make it sound like three chancers had shown up. This of course turned it into a bigger deal: imposters indeed. Yeah, right. In their bid not to sound like amateurs who'd left it too late, they managed to look like clowns
In fact, right now I'm visualising Woodward in big clown shoes sat on a minibike. Someone, please - make it happen
Why the hell have his words been taken as gospel? He's normally 100% wrong in his gossip mongering.
The collapse of the deal was one of the topics on yesterday's Revista de la Liga on SkySports (click for video).
No the club did release a statement.
Ballaque's source was an AS journalist, it wasn't him who "found out".
Where's this statement from United?
Not sure if the club retracted it since then but from the BBC:
EDIT: To be fair, it wasn't actually a "statement", just confirmation.
Ben Smith, BBC SportMANCHESTER UNITED LATEST
"Confirmation from Manchester United that three men who reportedly attempted to negotiate a deal to sign Athletic Bilboa midfielder Ander Herrera were not acting on behalf of the Premier League champions and were, for want of another word, imposters.
"Reports in Spain claim three men dressed in black suits and claiming to be United "representatives" spent an hour at the La Liga offices attempting to negotiate a deal. The move collapsed at the 11th hour."
Whatever about Herrera, will this Laffel(that right?) crowd want to help us in January after we essentially called their people imposters? We've got ourselves into a mad situation.
We didn't call them imposters. Ballbag did and the press jumped on it.
So United didn't call them "imposters" in any statement. As regards whether they were acting on their behalf, or merely did not have authority to sign a deal on Uniteds behalf would be the key point.
Yeah I already said it wasn't a statement, I highly doubt the BBC would "confirm" anything fake though, but carry on believing what you want to.
Ha, as we've already seen, people will take the version that makes them most pissed off...
By rights, they wouldn't have been working on our behalf anyway, since technically we had no part in the buy-out clause as Herrera was buying himself out and we'd have presumably been signing him on a free once he was out of contract. If anything, they'd have been working on his behalf.
No?
No?
Whether we backed out at the last minute due to price/Fellaini or just were out of our depth and out of time we look pretty unprofessional after this.
Really disappointed by the club's conduct. And completely baffled.
Really disappointed by the club's conduct. And completely baffled.
Quite possibly.it would make more sense that way.
I guess United would not be responsible for them. But the player himself would probably want to deny responsibility for them now as well!
Daniel Taylor amongst others were told they were nothing to do with United. Did we actually use the word imposters? No idea, but somebody at the club briefed the press, not just Balague, that we didn't know them (not just that we weren't employing them to hand over the cash)
Based on the Martinez case - no. The tax and contract lawyers worked for Bayern and the player as it was Bayern's money that was being used.
Also based on the Martinez case, if we were actually about to spring the clause, the player (or at least his normal agent) and an actual United employee would be there - not just some go-betweens.
I suppose the icing on this shit sandwich will be if he does actually end up at Barcelona or somewhere similar and turn into a superstar or something...
Mind, that could end up being quite funny... in a sick sort of way.
Mind, that could end up being quite funny... in a sick sort of way.
The title to this thread is so shitty, I hate this new craze of irrelevantly changing it to match whatever gay inside joke is spread over the last dozen pages.
I highly doubt the BBC would "confirm" anything that they weren't told. It's not the mirror or daily mail that are saying this.
It's funny sometimes, mostly ends up looking lame as feck.
This is under the assumption that United knew all of this and knew what was required. By the sounds of it, United were clueless.
If the lawyers were acting on behalf of the player, not United,then Uniteds "statement" would make sense wouldn't it? United never said they were "imposters" as you thought, merely may have told the press that they did not act on their behalf.
But there is no way United can come out and state that the lawyers were representing the player, as it would only put him more in the shit.
I already said it wasn't a statement. What are you finding so difficult to comprehend here? Clearly they confirmed it to the press/BBC, that's all.
You started out saying I was wrong that the club stated these guys were "imposters"!
And you were wrong. If United merely told the press that these guys did not work on their behalf, then that would be perfectly valid if they were representing the player himself.
I was answering your question you tit, how was that trying to prove you wrong? Ask a question, receive an answer. I already said after that it wasn't a statement but you're the one persisting with that in order to try justify being right, even though it was a question and I assumed it wasn't a case of you being right or wrong, but I guess you always set out to belittle other posters with your condescending shit so I should've known better, eh?
Twat.
Hey, you were wrong. United never called these guys imposters. If people are losing their shit because they have it in their heads they did then its important to point that out. And that's all I'm doing.
They told the press/BBC that they didn't represent the club and the BBC interpreted it (or maybe were told) as them being "impostors", it's not difficult to piece together really.
I only answered a question, and admitted it wasn't a "statement" by the club, yet you're saying I'm wrong, just to do what exactly, justify a point I never tried arguing with in the first place? Whoopy fecking doo?
Hey this isn't personal. But people on this forum are almighty pissed off at United for calling these guys "imposters". So is bloody important if they were words being formed by the press, not United.
There is a massive difference between claiming these guys were falsely representing United, and them merely representing the player, not United.
The imposters bit, right down to the wording ("for want of a better word") was uttered by someone on TV/Radio from what I can recall when reading it. It wasn't a statement by United, who don't appear to have used the word "imposters" anywhere at all. Someone has thrown that word in "for want of a better word", and as usual the press and fans have taken it to hysterical extremes. These lawyers are based in Bilbao. Is it beyond the realms of possibility that they weren't brought in by United, and actually don't represent us in any way, like we've said?
But going by that, isn't that basically what the club did say? No mention of representing the player, in fact it's the press who are saying that. If anything that confirmation is the most concrete thing we have cause everything else is based on what the press have said.
The whole thing seems like a massive clusterfeck of which we'll probably never know the full story, personally I think the club made some sort of feck up along the way, but if that's not what you think, fine.
It's a cluster feck to leave it so late. No one can deny that. If United really wanted this player they should have started a month ago.
But how can United state that the lawyers represented the player without making things worse for him? The only thing they can say is that they were not representing United. And that is nothing like saying they were falsely representing United.
I bow to your superior knowledge with Spanish football, but is it not possible that these guys were brought in by someone else, and simply don't represent Manchester United in this transfer?
Is there no truth in the suggestion both here, and in other %Spanish release clause" discussions in other threads that the player can end up having to pay his own release clause, which then opens up the tax issue? Is it.not possible that Bilbao made it hard for us to do the deal, and left the player paying the release as the only option open to us, with these guys working on it from his side? If the money has to come from the player, then are United technically involved at that stage?
Are you sure that's been confirmed? Lots of stuff has been floating around but nothing really concrete. As many press outlets are saying that they were acting on behalf of Utd, external lawyers who worked on Javi Martinez to Bayern that the club wanted in to help.
Nobody knows, but the clubs confirmation is the most reliable thing amidst a load of mental stuff going around.
How the lawyers would have been working on Herrera's behalf? Where the hell would he get 36m to buyout the clause?
And the clubs "confirmation" was that the lawyers did not represent them.
As you say, there's plenty of stuff floating around beyond that. But if the lawyers represented the player it's not going to be in his interests to take any responsibility for it either.
The feckup here is leaving things so late, if the club really wanted the player. And that's the question United must answer. Everything else is just fallout from a failed transfer.
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