The dream team went all the way to Barcelona to grovel and it made no difference... What is a club to do!
Frenkie de Jong | The last muppeting lap
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The dream team went all the way to Barcelona to grovel and it made no difference... What is a club to do!
New times now and I don’t believe for a minute that we are shit and naive in negotiating deals.
This time last season it was hailed as our best squad in forever by most. Granted we lost a few players, but most of them didn’t really contribute much last year anyway.
I think it’ll be Eriksen, deJong, Martinez and a forward - in that order. I hope that’s flurry enough for you.
That still might not be enough, long season ahead with a mid season World Cup. Let’s assume we make all these signings. The First 11 is; D De Gea, D Dalot, R Varane, L Martinez*, L Shaw, FDJ*, DVB, Bruno, Rashford, Ronaldo, Sancho - 9 subs Named T Heaton, *T Malacia, V Lindelof, H Maguire (capt) so unlikely, Fred, *C Eriksen, A Elanga, A Martial, A Garnaucho or a new CFW like Brooby or the Peter crouch clone we are all of sudden interested in.
We are only 2 or 3 injuries away from being not much better than Arsenal, West Ham, Villa or Leicester and definitely behind Spurs and Chelsea, ironically had ETH had last seasons squad swapping out Pogba for FDJ and E Bailey for L Martinez I would have been hugely confident but after the year we’ve just had which will have an impact on the players, memories of getting thrashed 4-0 and 4-1 by Brighton and Watford , 4-0 and 5-0 Liverpool, they downed tools and in reality we might have 3 at most new signing in the staring 11. We need much more than that and with some reasonable free signings available, I don’t see why we don’t replace like for like for no transfer fee and modest wages.
We should get Andrea Belotti or M Icardi as back up CFW and sign P Dyballa on a free, we need more attacking options from the bench as the new 5 sub rule in this season was the only reason we came second two years ago, our squad strength and financial power bought us the second place because we won a lot of tight games by the odd goal with Ole making attacking subs late on in games as teams tired. Plus we had Elite pace with James, Rashford, Martial and Greenwood, plus Cavani bang in form with 17 goals, teams were genuinely scared of united.
Compare last season bench of 7 with 3 subs allowed; D Henderson, E Baily, A Telles or AWB, Pogba, Rashford, Cavani, Matic, plus all the infighting and leaks due to players having less time on the pitch.
The season Before with 9 named Subs; D Henderson, B Williams or D Dalot , E Bailly, N Matic, J Mata, O Igalho, D James,A Martial or M Greenwood , J Lingard
My point is ETH may be one of the top 5 or 6 managers in the game, only time will tell but he’s not fixing that United team with 4 or 5 signings this summer, he needs 2 years to fully impose his methods on the squad and buy at least another 7 or 8 players over 3 more transfer windows. Man United with all our resources should have 2 players for every position, currently we have one and half at best. Now go back two years and your find we actually did have much better competition throughout the squad.
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This even looks a bit like Frenkie
This should be threadmarked as a summary of the last 2 months
Yeah, it's not as though we got an update from a reliable Barca reporter yesterday that a deal was agreed.
fecking moaners.
Why? If this deal falls over, its not because of Arnold/ Murtough.
Great to see him in training, just in time for the Aussie tour
Shame on who?
If this deal cannot be completed, it won’t be because of any failure on Utd’s part.
Arnold, Murtough and whoever else is involved on the Utd side, have seemingly done their part and can only wait on Barca and FdJ to settle their dispute, in one way or another.
If ETH wasn’t so keen on getting Frenkie into the squad, as we are led to believe (remember, we don’t know anything for sure) Utd should not and probably wouldn’t have, hung around while Barca pissed about like this.
It doesn’t matter who the player is. We should have moved on, quickly.
We clearly are playing a waiting game, because it’s considered worth the effort in this case.
If we don’t get the player, so be it.
It's possible that Barca are doing this to pile on the pressure on FdJ to forgo some of his wages. Not sure this is in the bag just yet.
Going to bed last night I thought this was almost done. Wake up, and we're back to square one.
Why were they there if they didn't think they could influence the deal then? Hopefully it's just b*llocks from Romano and that Spanish reporter, as if they're correct then we've not got anywhere. And according to another report yesterday, they have actually been in Barcelona since last Thursday.
Yes and we seemingly have set a deadline of Friday, which is great because we need to plan for the season ahead. The Barca PR piece on De Jong training can mean many things so I am not going to conclude anything based on that.
Going to bed last night I thought this was almost done. Wake up, and we're back to square one.
It's like Groundhog Day this deal.
Barca marketing team obviously didn't get the memo that they're supposed to be forcing him out of the club
Perhaps they were being genuine when they said he can stay if he reduces his wages, and that is their preference.
I don’t think anything is sorted, just that the usual bull shitters have come out of the woodwork after the United lads were spotted in Barca..
this deal is dependent on Frenkie coming to an agreement with Barca, they are trying everything they can to push him out without paying him everything they owe
this deal is dependent on Frenkie coming to an agreement with Barca, they are trying everything they can to push him out without paying him everything they owe
Someone should ask Punxsutawney Phil Jones which way it's going to go so we can get closure one way or another.
I don't read all the transfer gossip out there but it does seem like we are the only club out there that regularly gets into nonsense like this deal, could be we get more media attention, other clubs have similar issues but nobody in the press cares, and/or we are completely incompetent.... i reckon it is probably 30/70
Barca marketing team obviously didn't get the memo that they're supposed to be forcing him out of the club
Perhaps they were being genuine when they said he can stay if he reduces his wages, and that is their preference.
I think there's no question that Barca want De Jong to stay. It's an odd one, the three parties all want different things primarily.
Barca - FdJ stay on reduced wages
Utd - want FdJ to come
FdJ - Stay at Barca and earn what's owed
Let's just hope his coming here is part of an acceptable compromise.
This is a Barcelona issue, not a United one. Loads of clubs get drawn into situations like this, more than likely you're just focusing on United so you may filter it out when other clubs have issues like this.
Ultimately, we have to decide if FDJ joining will be transformational enough to the team. If the answer to that question is yes, then money or deal structure should not be an object, no matter the situation of the selling club. If the club believes FDJ will truly transform the fortunes of the club on the pitch, this deal will be done by the end of the week. If not, then there is still doubt over how truly transformational his potential arrival will be and if there is doubt, then it is not worth the stress to continue to negotiate. This sort of stress should be reserved for only the best of the best of the best.
That's all well and good but we're not the ones holding the deal up.
Pretty much their most reliable reporter, no less.
Such a weird transfer. It seems to go from done deal, to not even close in a few hours.
Not really. This deal can also be done if United is willing to pay what Barca owes to Frenkie. It is 17m but i believe it's on installment over the course of his contract there (another 4 years?). Which we can model similar payment scheme to FdJ if he moves here.
We can make a deal with Barca by reducing those 20m (?) add-ons.
He's not a midfielder. According to ETH no less
I cannot recall any clubs getting into situations like this, and this is not a one off for UTD every window it is the same, even when we buy a player like Hererra, Maquire etc... there is nonsense more often than not we either get rammed or walk away red faced having spent an entire window chasing our tails
I think that's a good summary.. what I don't get out of this scenario though is how does Frenkie staying on reduced wages (say $100k less) help them register any new players, as surely they are on more than that.
All I know is the Chas and Dave better come back from Barcelona with more than a tan.
ok.
Approaching midday in Barcelona.. Murtough and Arnold will be going for a siesta soon and we'll get big updates again around 2-3pm. They're not leaving without him.
Shades of Fergie picking up Berbatov to make sure nothing goes wrong
What happened to the rampa
I think it's more like:
Barca - Reduce wages or FdJ leaves
Us - FdJ leaves
FdJ - Leave & get what I'm owed
Leaving is right for all parties concerned, it's just the terms of him leaving that are the issue. We won't have chased him this long without the understanding that he's open to the move, we have his former manager who clearly has had a strong influence on his development and who he is likely to still be in contact with.
Of course, the player may change his mind or go against his word, as has happened to us in the past. But there's no way that we're chasing a lost cause
We should have sent Riggs and Murtaugh to sort these thieving cnuts out once and for all!
well yeah true, we can just pay it for them
i personally don’t think we should even consider doing that though, it’s their problem and we shouldn’t solve it for them
Is his WC place secure? Not sure if he starts on a regular basis under Xavi because I haven't watched them last season but if Xavi decides to play Kessie instead of him, would LvG play him at the WC or is the rule only applicable for Utd players?
VVD aside, he's by far their best player, of course he plays
Yeah, I think there were a few comments yesterday from journalists saying neither they nor the agents involved in any proposed incoming transfers have a clue how Barca finance these moves. I guess whatever they do will lead to a similar and more dire situation in the years to come. They really are appallingly run. It seems like FdJ's transfer will barely scratch the surface of what's required.
I don't think there's any suggestion that he wants to leave Barca, if there was this would have all been done a long time ago. That's not to say he doesn't want to come here, but I get the sense that he would sooner find a way of staying that doesn't mean him losing out massively financially.
It's probably under more jeopardy if he joins United, knowing van Gaal.
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