Sky have no credibility whatsoever.
They start their own rumours and the only time they may get it right is when they say that the club have no interest in the player.
Like a blind man with a machine gun...occasionally he will hit the target.
Bruno Fernandes | Signed
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They start their own rumours and the only time they may get it right is when they say that the club have no interest in the player.
Like a blind man with a machine gun...occasionally he will hit the target.
I'm pretty sure we are penny pinching nowadays. In the early days of the post Fergie era, we signed the likes of Di Maria, Mata, Depay etc mostly without much issues.
I think the Glazers have seen that big transfers are not guarantees we get back to the top, and are just trying to minimize investment nowadays.
By 2025, we'll end up having to play our U21s in the league at the rate our senior players are being sold or let go.
I think the Glazers have seen that big transfers are not guarantees we get back to the top, and are just trying to minimize investment nowadays.
By 2025, we'll end up having to play our U21s in the league at the rate our senior players are being sold or let go.
We play like some of the Portuguese teams so he’ll fit in fine
There's an easy solution, it's called having options.
I've said it all long, Woodward and co seems to only have 1 Target and it's this all in or nothing approach which sees us get into stupid transfer sagas and getting jerked around by teams and their stupid prices.
Call their bluff and move on to the next option if we can't finish the deal quickly. fecking pathetic wankers that have made the club a joke.
We don't though. We had CL money last year and made ~20M in profit and after buying Fred and Dalot for ~70M. We already spent a net of 70M this year and were okay with spending another 55-ish in Jan, that too with out the CL money. We'll probably post a loss this year and pretty soon you'd have to borrow to fund player purchases. Lots of (admittedly smaller) clubs went bust that way. I think some amount of financial prudence and long term thinking is good.
I firmly believe that the thing that's preventing us from getting back to the top is the scatter brained recruitment strategy and not the money. Even if we had unlimited money to spend, I don't trust the people running the club to make the right decisions right now.
I don't think firing Ed does much good at this point either. They've learned a lot of hard lessons over the last five years and all we'll do is to bring in another CEO who might have to do it all over again. We seem to have turned a corner transfers wise, so I hope another 2-3 players this summer who can fit in as nicely as Maguire and AwB in the squad is what I'm hoping for.
the Maguire money wouldve been better spent elsewhere? I think most (apart from the usual resident hindsight Herberts) would agree he was as safe an investment as they come. Spend the money elsewhere and the squabbling starts all over again.
“ he’s not worth 12m because he has only played in league 1”... “oh, yes he is. He was foty twice running.”
jeez mate, you really trust this lot of tight arses to spend the clubs money on desperately needed players? Actually, we were desperate a couple of seasons back, we’re a bit more than desperate now.
Yup I don't really trust them but what else can you do? The Glazers aren't going anywhere, best we can hope for is a DoF and even if we do that, we might hire the wrong guy and end up falling even further behind.
Maguire, AwB and James give me hope that we turned some sort of a corner, 3 more like that with Pogba coming back (or replaced with someone of equivalent quality) is all I'm hoping for this summer.
All this if we don't finish something like 14th (very real possibility - we're only 4 points from 14th) then we're well and truly fecked.
Laurie Whitwell: "They're way apart on valuations (on Fernandes). I did make a check on that. I did speak to people and they're confident of two signings."
According to sky we backtracked from our agreed offer because we learnt that Sporting are desperate to sell. Who would do that? Are we such cnuts now? You don't burn bridges with clubs that way. What happens if they produce the next big thing and we're interested in him? Do you think that Sporting would be glad to sell that player to us or would they sell it to anyone but us?
I'm sure a lot of clubs would.
But if we're broadening risk to any player that commands a fee to one who might fail then every transfer should provoke this exact conversation. Was di Maria, a proven winner from Madrid a risk at 63m? Is Daniel James a risk at 15? Maddison or grealish in summer? OK they're prem proven... But so is maguire. The money should be spent on a player the manager is reported to have asked for full stop.
We need longer term planning, but we are buying for now too. Right now we are in such desperate need for a midfielder of his sort it could actually be the defining decision of the season. We're still in touch for 4th and have the europa, he's shown his quality in Europe already. As for the 80m I've only seen that figure quoted once.
If the chance of failure is what determines risk then pack in a transfer policy and promote reserves. For me risk is injury record and personality. And age.
The manager wants a player. The player wants to come. Buy him. Worry about the glazers pockets later
No they wouldn't cause its shortsighted. You don't burn bridges with club like that especially a club like Sporting who tend to produce alot of young quality talent. You have to have a decent relationship with these clubs. Lets hope that Bruno doesn't sends us to feck off in the last minute and force us to finish the season with this team. With such thin squad we won't make it to top 4, we won't win the Europa league and we'll probably ruin a player or two because we'll be forced to rush them in. That would cost us way more then 10m.
So just to catch up on all this. Sporting valued the player at xyz. Utd were offering a flat sum, plus unrealistic bonuses to meet that valuation. These including balon d'or and Premier league titles, which Sporting quite rightly found unrealistic. Utd have walked away.
The Sky story of us agreeing a fee and then going back with a lower bid just surely cannot be true. Even though the clubs a mess theres just no way we could be that stupid surely?? 
Just disgusted with this fecking club, the way it is run by these fecking imposters.
cant be arsed with watching this shit show anymore. Watched the reds since 1959.
cant be arsed with watching this shit show anymore. Watched the reds since 1959.
Think it's safe to only believe the reports we're in discussion. After that, PR machines and shite outlets are just pumping out nonsense.
What people? The Mad Hatter and The March Hare?
People within the club i'm assuming.
No point rushing it through to play Tranmere. Every week we delay we save £100k+ in wages
We did it with Ronaldinho and Robben under cuddly Pete.
80m buys you almost any defender in the world, as far as I can tell, and Maguire never looked like a world class defender. We decided it was worth paying a premium for having proven himself in the PL, which I can't argue with. But I think we made him the 2nd most expensive defender of all time because we thought he was a lot better than he was, too. No hindsight from me on that one.
That’s a cheapskate move.The Sky story of us agreeing a fee and then going back with a lower bid just surely cannot be true. Even though the clubs a mess theres just no way we could be that stupid surely??
Glazers are known cheapskates.
Ed is a Glazer tool.
Checks out for me.
Like grannies bargaining for pennies and dollars at the market.
Pete was sabotaging us as he aimed to go to Chelsea. Also we could rely on players we already had or move for other options. The scenario is different now. Our squad lack the numbers, the January sales are closing soon and the only alternative to Bruno is to keep playing knackered players to the ground potentially risking their career.
You get a lot of stick, but you're posting a lot of sense lately.
I wouldn't believe Sky on us potentially lowballing SCP. If that was the case our Portuguese friends would've been reporting the same, which hasn't been the case. Even Duncan Castles who was ahead of the rest in Britain hasn't said anything remotely similar.
In my head I was genuinely thinking that.
Woodward will want to have the contract start on the last day possible to maximise contract length, and pay the least amount of wages required in the window
It's worth noting Sky Sports especially and other outlets have embarrassed themselves over this saga, as none of them have got anything right and are simply guessing. Not only in this January transfer window but the last summer window, Sky Sports got nothing right either and can't be taken as the credible source they used to be (even though they were hit and miss back then, ie Benatia).
So let's not get carried away with this 'report' as it's probably been plucked from their arse to add to the hysteria coming off the back of a poor result for United.
So we are the point where we can only sign players if no other big clubs are interested. Sounds about right.
I wouldn't believe it either if it was an isolated case. However its not the case. Time and time again we keep hearing how our deals went tits up because of greedy clubs who 'suddenly' hyped their demands, greedy players who asked for ridiculous demands or greedy agents who want this or that clause inserted +/or ridiculous agent fees to get the deal done. Which really makes you think. Are we so unfortunate to constantly encounter these sticky situations or are we simply playing the victim here? Meanwhile the squad is getting thinner, the demands are constantly lowered, the stadium's roof is leaking water and the only signing we've done so far is a PR guy. I guess that's down to ridiculous demands as well.
You see I've read this script before at AC Milan. When I was a kid, there was no team better then that side. They had world class players all over the pitch apart from the GK department, which, Berlusconi himself argued that he left it like that because 'you don't need a WC goalkeeper when you got Baresi, Maldini, Costacurta, Rijkaard and Tassotti in the team'. Then suddenly the squad's quality started to gradually get lower. Players were kept past their expiry date, big signings became rare and were usually the Falcao/Redondo/Ronaldinho type meant for fans to shut their gob, the quality of the coaching staff declined significantly as puppets like Seedorf and Inzaghi were hired as managers and the the club started to rely heavily on the 'not being taken into ransom' and 'buying local' narrative. Does that ring a bell for you?
The only outlet that is getting embarrassed week after week, year after year is Manchester United. We reached a point that even Liverpool fans are starting to feel sorry for us. But hey, lets give this club the benefit of the doubt despite mismanagement being rife for the past 7 years or so (I'd say more)
I find it quite odd that a club that needs money would wake up and ask ridiculous demands after they had previously agreed with a fee. It can happen of course but we're getting unusually quite unlucky lately (Dybala image rights, Raiola's demands on Haaland, Bruno's deal etc)
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Then I was right in who it was
You were spot on.
It is fecking hilarious and terrifying that on 24th January, with 1 week remaining and the squad in the worst state it's been in decades, we have made one signing. A PR/Spin Doctor.
It's very telling about this football club and the future plans they have in store.
It's very telling about this football club and the future plans they have in store.
This is a sunken cost fallacy. How much longer does he get exactly? If he's crap for 3 more years then surely he'll have learned even more lessons.
that's the only deal we didn't seem ready to walk away from.
Everything you need to know is in this.
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