More transfers will happen. I just think it is the fact that nobody has bought Berbatov yet which is the stumbling block.
David Gill Transfer warchest v2012
- Thread starter wr8_utd
- Start date
More transfers will happen. I just think it is the fact that nobody has bought Berbatov yet which is the stumbling block.
Whatever happens it will be on a friday , seems to be the pattern.
Are we actually letting Fabio go on loan though, wasn't that just a rumour? The one where he was going to Benfica on loan plus cash for Gaitan? That deal doesn't make much sense to be really, we need another left back next season, and we don't need Gaitan.
Yes it was confirmed by the club.
http://www.manutd.com/en/News-And-Features/Football-News/2012/Apr/fabio-to-go-out-on-loan.aspx
The Gaitan rumour I can't see happening (especially as it has been denied by the club). There were a lot of rumours that he was going to go on loan to Portugal (Benfica specifically) but lately there've been rumours of him staying in the Premier League and going on loan to QPR.
Why is this a stumbling block?
Because he earns a lot of money. c. 100k per week.
He's out of contract isn't he?
nope. we had the option to extend his deal in March for a year, which we did. So he has a year left as of now.
If he was out of contract then he'd be on a free and getting rid of him wouldn't be an issue, would it? 
Do people not use their brains nowadays? Simple logical deduction, give it a go.
Do people not use their brains nowadays? Simple logical deduction, give it a go.Which was quite a weird move; why did we extend his contract if we have no intention of actually keeping him?
This way the club risks not being able to get rid of Berbatov: his wages might prove a stumbling block for many interested parties anyway and now on top of that they'd have to fork out a transfer fee as well.
If we didn't extend he would have left for free. Now he has extended we will probably find someone who would pay around £5m - £10m for him before the window is up. It's a smart move surely?
The smart move would have been to sell him when he was PL top scorer, and if accounts are true, when PSG were after him last summer! What is the point in keeping him on for an extra 12 months, which is £5m in wages, to get £5m for him? Waste of time imo and a waste of a squad place, when SAF had no serious intention of ever really using him.
Now he is a year older and will probably take a dozen games to get back to proper match sharpness after so long out. A much less attractive proposition than last summer i would think.
Rooney and Hernandez were our only real known and dependable options. We had no idea how well Welbeck would slot into the side or if he'd be able to deliver the goods. Owen, well he's an injury on legs.
So I think at the start SAF didn't feel covered for strikers and kept Berbatov. Berbatov was freezed out due to Welbeck's excellent development I think. Also, I don't think we wanted Berbatov to leave for nothing either.
Exactly my point.If he was out of contract then he'd be on a free and getting rid of him wouldn't be an issue, would it?
The whole Berbatov saga has been mishandled by United.
We paid too much for him, when he finally delivered we should have sold him.
If we dont sell him this year then we would have paid £30m in transfer fees plus another £25m in wages and not used him possibly much in the last 2 years - ridiculous waste of money.
We paid too much for him, when he finally delivered we should have sold him.
If we dont sell him this year then we would have paid £30m in transfer fees plus another £25m in wages and not used him possibly much in the last 2 years - ridiculous waste of money.
It was a gamble indeed. But evidentally someone must have made an enquiry in Jan, or atleast showed interest when there was alot of talk about it, but we obviously wanted to wait until the end of the season as we had no depth had we sold him and picked up 1 or 2 injuries. We just want to make a few million back for him. If we dont sell well we have his services for another season, he is a profesional and will get on with it and so will we.
How much is a few million, we have paid him £5m since last summer, so if we get £5m for him now, what was the point? He is getting older, and less sellable the longer we keep him. Now every fecker knows we want him off our wage bill, so he will go for next to feck all anyway.
AS i said if we wanted a fee for him we should have sold him when he was PL top scorer, not when he hasn't played for 6 months!
Just a big old waste of time for everyone concerned imo.
Do you think SAF went into last season knowing that Berbatov wouldn't be needed? How could he possibly have known twelve months ago that Welbeck was about to have such a successful and injury free breakthrough season?
Exactly, who in their right minds could have said we should have sold Berba start of last season? No one, not even SAF, could have predicted how well Welbeck would fit in immediately. Going into a season with just Rooney Welbeck and Hernandez last season would have been a huge huge risk and I for one am happy SAF didnt take it. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
I still maintain not using Berba contributed to us losing the title more than most and Fergie will admit!
I certainly think he would've filled his boots with starts against Fulham, QPR and Swansea at home - though I think he may have had an injury at some point ruling-out starts.
We also had Hernandez, off a successful first season, and Michael Owen.
What we lost financially by holding on to Berbatov would have bought half a quality young striker - or Shinji Kagawa. Berbatov was very expensive cover.
I agree!!!
Foresight perhaps? Surely it is his job to assess whether or not players are going to be required or not. He must know the direction in which he wants to move the club, and therefore should have a pretty good idea of who he is going to use or need.
Yes injuries can put a spanner in the works, but are you really suggesting we should believe he had no clue whatsoever that he was going to give chances to Welbeck last season? Come on you will have to do better than that!
If he thought Welbeck was ready, which he obviously did, why then keep a player whose game time will be limited, and who is on £100k a week? Berba was joint PL top scorer that season, and his sell on value would be far higher than it is today after having not hardly played all season, and of course being a year older.
I was one of the few who defended his decision to keep Berba last year, as i felt he was being kept to cover Rooney for the second striker role. As it turned out, apparently he wasn't being kept for anything in particular, other than to prevent him going on a free.
We kept him solely imo, to extend his contract and thus command a fee. It has also cost us an additional £5m in wages for the huge benefit of him warming the bench. So unless we get £10m for him now, which is pretty unlikely, as i said imo is a huge waste of everyone's time. If you don't agree, then fine. You may think it has been of benefit to everyone, you have your view, i have mine.
Yes, but not as risky as going into the season with only Carrick as a reliable midfield option. Yet we did that quite willingly. He took huge gambles on the fitness of both Anderson and Fletcher, and the continued good form of Giggs.
Another gamble in itself. So how do you reckon that losing Hargreaves, Scholes and O'Shea, and having huge question marks over Fletcher, as well as Anderson's long standing injury and fitness concerns, is somehow less of a risk than selling a bit part striker on a £100k a week, who has never really fit in?
He also thought Djemba Djemba was a good player. And Liam Miller. I don't see a problem if a manager believes in the best but is also expecting the worst. So for once the idea of making the most out of a player financially wasn't top consideration, but the need the team may have for him. Fine by me.
And if Rooney or Welbeck were injured last season everyone would be lamenting the choice to sell Berba. We needed to keep him and he was probably more in Fergies plans at the start of the season than he was at the end due to the form of Welbeck. It's very easy to be critical in hindsight but in reality we needed to keep hold of him for one more year.
I dont really see you point here mate. We all agree that not signing a midfielder last summer was a mistake and not signing one this summer would be one too. So are you saying that because he's settled for less than ideal cover at CM, he should have done the same in the strikers department?
Pity he didn't prepare for the worst, while expecting the best regarding the midfield using similar logic eh Amir? Funny how some of you lot seem to be very selective in judging the motivations behind certain decisions. You will happily accept his foresight regarding Berba, while ignoring the decision to sign a midfielder, despite far more predictable concerns over the fitness and availability of first team players.
So the idea of making the most out of a player financially wasn't top consideration? Strange notion, in my view we seem to have kept Berba specifically just to get a fee, but if you lot want to delude yourselves by thinking Fergie did it to give us cover, that's up to you. I'm not here trying to change anyone's mind, just giving my opinion is all.
See i was of that view myself last summer, that he was being kept a cover for Rooney in the SS role. Right up until it became evident that SAF had no interest in playing Berba whatsoever. Yet he seemed very interested in extending his contract to get a fee.
We turned down a bid of close to 17mil iirc from PSG. their manager said so himself. I highly doubt SAF expected to get a better offer for berba after a contract extension.
No i am simply questioning the logic of those who claim he was kept simply for cover. I don't buy it, because it makes no sense. Such expensive cover for a strike force whose general fitness has rarely been an issue. It doesn't make sense that he kept Berba for that reason, when while using the same reasoning, he ignored far more evident concerns in midfield.
Can you explain why we needed cover anyway? We managed the season before with only Hernandez, Rooney, Owen and Berba, which incidentally was also right after Rooney had lost the plot at the WC.
Why would it have been such a risk to manage last season with Hernandez, Rooney, Owen and Welbeck? When we had gone into the previous season with only Hernandez and Berba fit to play, and won the title.
In contrast, there were some huge question marks over the midfield last summer. Yet Fergie deemed it necessary to keep a player who from the start he showed little interest in using. We could have sold Berba while his stock was so high, and got in someone who could have been of some benefit, rather than paying him £100k a week to warm the bench, and buying no-one for midfield.
If that is true, then i have to again question the logic of not selling a player we clearly didn't intend on using.
Only to then extend his contract to ensure a fee! WTF? Just bizarre Varun, makes absolutely no sense to me, but then again i am finding it harder and harder to get my head around the reasoning at Utd in the past few years tbh.
I am not saying i have any answers, only that i cannot see the logic of claiming we had no clue Welbeck would be ready to play, so we kept Berba. Why would that be? We saw him do very well on loan, and didn't send him out again, so what else were we going to do with him?
It seemed to me he was far more obvious choice than Cleverley to feature last season going into the pre season based on their loan spells. Only TC's early pairing with Anderson against Barca and then City dramatically changed that view.
I doubt we will get 10m for him
See, welbeck did have a good spell at Sunderland but it wasnt great enough for someone to predict he'd cement a starting berth here. He was deemed ready enough to play a squad role for a year or so to ease him into the team. I remember starting a thread on this down in the newbies then. No one had a clue he'd fit in so quickly and fastrack himself into the starting 11.
As it was, almost everyone thought that going into a season with just 1 experienced striker would be too big a gamble. Owen is perenially injured so i've never considered him an option. Hernandez was just into his 2nd season and with teams being more used to him/ready for him, it'd have been a gamble to sell berba and go into a season with just 1 proven striker + 2 young ones.
As it happened, welbeck did great and no use could be found for berba. But tell me this, had we sold him and welbeck not done as well, would you not have criticised him for putting finances ahead of the team's interest and flogging off the league's top scorer? You surely would have.
Also i dont see why you're so agitated about the contract renewal thing. He's a quality player and we're trying to sell him for a good price, thats how businesses work. The fact that we lost out on 15mil doesnt mean we should just sell him for peanuts now.
He didn't have to cement a starting role though, that's the point, he was still there as cover, which was more than we had the year before, considering Rooney's problems at that time.
The Owen point is a fair one, but as i say it was no different to the year before. you keep on mentioning gambles, with no mention of the huge gamble taken on midfield. this is what i am struggling with. We lose 3 midfield options in the summer and have serious doubts over Fletcher. That leaves Giggs, Carrick, Anderson and Cleverley, who by the way was no more a certainty than Welbeck.
So you are talking of risk in the striker department, despite very few injury concerns. Yet not keeping Berbatov is deemed more risky than allowing 3 players to leave, whilst also having serious injury concerns over Fletcher, plus Anderson is hardly Mr Fitness! Who does that leave Varun? A 38 yr old, Carrick and Cleverley!
How by any possible logic is that less risky than letting Berba go?
Me?
Seriously though, not if we had bought the midfielder i felt we needed. i would have seen the logic of it, even if it had not have worked out. You know my thoughts on it well enough. That is where i struggle, when i cannot see the logic, or the theories on the logic being offered are contradictory.I'm not really agitated, more bemused. It makes no sense to me, keeping Berba to cover an already strengthened pool of strikers (with Welbeck returning), while the midfield is already weakened by the loss of 2 places, plus Fletcher's issues, and Anderson's persistent injury record.
I just cannot fathom why an area not noticeably weak is a risk worth paying £100k a week to cover, whilest an area severely weakened by players leaving, injury doubts over others and another being 38 is not risky enough to be covered similarly. For me keeping Berba on those wages, and then not using him, while ignoring midfield is my problem. It cost us very dearly having to play Carrick and Scholes in almost every game in the latter half of the season. That for me cost us the title, as despite injuries we still managed an 8 point lead. But being unable to rest either of those 2 players on any occasion in the run in was the reason we lost the title.
I don't buy there was no place for Berba. A player with his talent, who had performed the way he had the season before, could easily have contributed something. For me there was something more, and whatever it was seemed to happen when Berba was left out of the CL final squad in favour of Owen!
If that's not a deliberate kick in the balls by Fergie, i don't know what is. You see Fergie all the time giving both young and squad players games so they can pick up medals, or share in the success of the club. Which other player ever has had a season like Berba did, who then doesn't even make the squad for a huge Cup final game at the end of the season?
Sell Berba after top scoring year, fans "WHY THE feck ARE YOU DOING THAT!?"
Sell Berba a year after keeping him as 4th choice and backup, fans "YOU WAITED TOO feckING LONG.. THE CLUB IS LOSING MONEY"
Damned if he did and damned if he didn't imo.
I have lambasted Fergie here for not taking care of the midfield, and I still worry he'll continue to do his 'Wenger' and assume what he's got will come good and take care of that.
I'm not blind to Fergie's mistakes. The Berbatov one was a tough call to make.
Surely what we should be doing when we can is keeping the players we have when we need them for whatever reason even if we know that we may not need them next season. In is case why wouldn't we also use the contract extension to try to maximize resale value when we sell at a time of our choosing?