You are right, it doesn’t matter now. It’s just that both years Dortmund came up with an initial asking price and last year they didn’t show any flexibility but this year they did. That behaviour is inconsistent with what Bundesliga fans were claiming last year that Dortmund will set the terms of the transfer and the buying club has no power - either pay up or move on. Isn’t it surprising that the hard stance they took just reversed itself completely in a year?
No, not really, actually, because they were key differences between both Summers, three off the top of my head:
1. Contract length. There is a notorably softer drop in fees between players with three years left on contract and between two yerars and one year. In the former scenario the negotation position of the seller is usually stronger for obvious reasons.
2. Timing. This Summer there was actually some urgency on Uniteds side to get the deal done rather sooner than later. Last Summer there was a hectic period right before the start of Dortmunds pre season camp, but the weeks or even months before then United was in their famous "preparing a bid"-phase. They might have thought that by dragging it out and maybe Sancho putting some pressure on Dortmund, the latter might eventually cave but that did not happen.
3. Valuation of the player: This might actually be the most important point. The few figures I saw last Summer coming from United were in the ballpark of what he goes for this Summer. That was just too far off from what Dortmund demanded then so negotiations never went into an advanced stage. I actually never really got the impression that United really tried to challenge Dortmunds resolve to deny a transfer.
We know exactly why they don't want to believe it. In much the same way as we knew what they were doing when they were in here playing billy big balls on the wum, and then again when they were crying foul about how mean and intolerant the caf is when they were called out for their wumming.
I've nothing against Dortmund or the Bundesliga, but there were a few heads in here who let themselves down last summer and up until very recently. There's no point in acting like it doesn't feel good to watch them squirm now with egg on their face.
You might even go so far as to say you love to see it.
I get that desire, but why not take it to the people who actually involved themselves in that manner instead of dragging all surrounding people with in it? It is even spreading further with time. It started with "the Dortmund supporters" went on to "the Bundesliga fans" and by now often enough it is just "the Germans", which is pretty funnny as there are quite a few German United supporter on here.
It has just gotten exhausting to have posts met with the same tired and lazy stereotypes over and over eventhough they don´t even have anything to do with the content of what was written. You could argue that this is just the nature of a football forum, but quite frankly if I just want to engage with one liners and catch phrases all the time I could also go to the echo chambers of Reddit or god beware the cesspool that is Twitter.
More often that not that has lead to a certain fatigue, where I actually see an interesting topic but don´t end up commenting on it because I think "Why bother?". Quite often another poster then voices similar thoughts and is met with exaclty the response I thought it would get. It is actually quite sad how predictable it has gotten.
It is funny actually, I would have thought that if one supporter base would have learned the value of sensible and differentiating discussion about football it would have been Uniteds after the fiasco that was the ESL. In these threads you had a loud minority championing this idea as the future of football instead of the abominiation it actually was. The vast majority was vehemently against it, but it would have been all too easy to use these posts as ammuniation to paint Manchester United and its supporter as poorly as possible.
The Caf has seen better times of football debate between United fans and opposing fans, I would like it to get back to that, because it made talking about football simply more fun.
But whatever mate, we'll see who'll have trusted the right sources in the end.