nuanced
loves geopolitical narrative
- Joined
- Oct 14, 2020
- Messages
- 479
Never said there wasn't enough money to buy Fellaini - United did buy him eventually, didn't they. Chasing Bale and Cesc is fine, but I doubt Moyes didn't have any backup targets. Splurging on Fellaini on the last day suggests to me they were trying to sign some other midfielder throughout the summer.You can do a hard disagree as much as you want, doesn't really change the reality here. Fact is we spent the entire summer chasing after players Moyes wanted, problem was that they weren't interested but Moyes still wanted us to push for them.
“I wanted Gareth Bale to be my first signing at Manchester United. But it was already down the road a bit with Real Madrid. I tried to hijack it. I tried to get him. Manchester United offered more money than Real Madrid. They offered more money to the player. “We did everything we could to try and get the player. We even had a helicopter at the training ground to take him and bring him back. We thought we had a chance. But he chose real Madrid and he made a brilliant decision because he went on to win four Champions Leagues. He’s had a brilliant career.”
He also insisted on waiting as long as possible with Fabregas, as he might decide to join us.
"The other one was Cesc Fabregas, who we thought we would get right up until the last minute," Moyes said.
So we were trying to sign Baines, Fellaini, Fabregas and Bale, offering significant fees for the last two, we signed Fellaini and then Mata for a record fee. The following summer under LVG we spent the odd £180mill, but apparantly you reckon we couldn't have forked out the fee for Fellaini at any time during that summer That's some hard fecking fantastic imagination that.
I wouldn't focus too much on the big names being bandied about, if the management isn't willing to pay the market rate for the players. The summers prior to that United were interested in signing players like Hazard and Silva. It was Fergie chasing them, so there isn't the excuse of players not wanting to play for the manager. The reason why the midfield was in such a poor shape, despite the need for proper midfield signings for multiple summers prior to that was due to the sustained under-investment.
Yeah, let's not ignore the 132mil pounds of outgoings: https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/manchester-united/alletransfers/verein/985Continuing to be the case during Van Gaals time, christ. We spent fecking £320mill over two seasons bringing in the players that Van Gaal wanted.
I'd expect the world's biggest club™ being able to attract top talent like Ramos, and Muller. But signing players of this ilk from other top clubs is never easy, so I'd agree that they were mostly pipe-dreams.His imaginary list of players he wanted is a fantastic hindsight list, but if you spend 5 minutes looking at the players he mentions and what their situation was at the time, it's fairly easy to see he's full of shit. People just tend to gobble it up, like you do.
I see no reason why LVG wanting to sign players like Lewa (while at Dortmund), Hummels, Mane, Kante should be *imaginary*. I unfortunately don't happen to work in the United transfer department like you, so I just have to gobble up whatever explanations managers give for their failures, and connect the dots based on the way the management has conducted itself over the years.