The most reliable news regarding the Antony deal either came from De Telegraaf via Mike Verweij or it came from the Brazilian outlets who were very reliable regarding the whole transfer saga all summer. And in particular Jorge Nicola, a Sao Paulo based journalist with a big following on social media who reported in June 2022 about United having two bids rejected early in the transfer window for Antony. The first offer was €45m (£38m) and a second offer of €55m (£47m) was also rejected with Ajax wanting €80m according to Jorge Nicola. United after the second rejected offer seemed to have decided that the deal wasn't making any sense and they walked away only to come back very late in the window to sign the player after the opening day defeats to Brighton and Brentford. And the blame here clearly falls on the ownership who created the problem in that particular transfer window when it came to overpaying for Antony and panicked and dipped into the revolving credit facility with just weeks left in the window. It's why I say that the Glazers are absolutely incompetent at running a football club.
The tweet below citing Jorge Nicola as the source mentions everything I've posted above pertaining the information from the journo.
At any club that is well run with a DoF model in place, the recruitment should be led by the Chief Scout/head of recruitment and not the DoF. John Murtough had fired the previous heads of recruitment on the eve of the summer transfer window in 2022 for under performance in their positions as the recruitment directors. So that transfer window in 2022, required ten Hag to take a more active approach when it came to recruitment whilst John Murtough was replacing the previous head scouts with Simon Wells and a Argentine national named Jose Mayorga. That particular window was always going to be somewhat tunnel visioned until the recruitment structure at the top of the chain was in place with at least a season of scouting and analytics under their belt. Because a DoF is ultimately going to be judged on the people he puts in place within the football departments at the club. I think we're now set as a club on the recruitment side and the next transfer window should see Mayorga, Wells, Jordan and Co have a bigger influence when it comes to signing players. If they don't then I'd be very concerned but that doesn't mean we should stop signing Dutch players or Dutch based players because the Dutch market should be tapped into. There's a right winger who is playing for PSV (Bakayoko) and he looks very explosive and if our scouts flag him up as a recommendation then we should sign him. He probably wouldn't cost a lot either.
Solskjaer said in a recent interview with Andy Mitten about there being a cap on three main signings every summer. If that is the case then it's important to sign the correct three players because even with such a cap, you can create a very strong team imo with a bit of patience. And believe it or not, I don't think we are as far away as many think and I'm now expecting the recruitment department to deliver whilst being supported by the data and video analytics guys. Man Utd have failed for a long time due to a lack of methodology and not a lack of data. If you don't know what you're applying the data towards then it's very difficult to create a well oiled machine. So if know how you want to play, then it's not difficult to sign good players imo. The data and analytics will then follow.
EtH inherited a team with no central focal point in attack, a mediocre midfield, mediocre to above average CBs and a GK who wouldn't get close to the starting 11 of any team that aspired to play a more expansive game. Results usually define how long a head coach stays in his role, but imo if he survives this season then he's in a great position to significantly improve the team because the CB and midfield areas are open for improvement. Mourinho and Solskjaer signed two CBs each (Bailly, Lindelof, Maguire and Varane) and eventhough Varane has been a excellent player in his career, it didn't make a lot of sense to sign him when there was up and coming CBs on the horizon at the time.
