'He used United to get a new contract'

RedStarUnited

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Where did this notion come from and How often does this actually happen?

I had time to kill so I thought I should look at the recent transfer sagas in this forum - I ordered the transfer threads by number of replies and picked the top 20.

Player name - Year and page hits - Saga conclusion. ​
  1. Vidal - 2014 647 pages - No new contract, left the following summer.
  2. Berbatov - 2008 485 pages - No new contract, signed for United.
  3. Wesley Sneijder - 2011 342 pages - No new contract, Left Inter about a year later.
  4. Cesc Fabregas - 2013 300 Pages - No new contract, Left a season after.
  5. Ander Herrera - 2013 243 pages - No new contract, Signed a year later.
  6. Eden Hazard - 2012 222 pages - No new contract, signed for Chelsea.
  7. Mata - 2014 203 pages - No new contract, Signed for United.
  8. Luke Shaw - 2014 174 pages - No new contract, Signed for United.
  9. Fellaini - 2013 164 pages - No new contract, Signed for United.
  10. RVP - 2012 161 pages - No new contract, signed for United.
  11. Morgan Schneiderlin - 2015 160 pages - No new Contract, signed for United.
  12. Toni Kroos - 2014 141 pages - No new contract, left for Madrid.
  13. Sergio Ramos - 2015 139 pages - TBD
  14. Nasri - 2011 137 pages - No new contract, signed for City.
  15. Benzema - 2010 123 pages - No new contract, signed for Madrid.
  16. Alexis Sanchez - 2011 123 pages - No new contract, signed for Barcelona.
  17. Lucas Da Silva - 2012 123 pages - No new contract, signed for PSG.
  18. Bale - 2013 101 pages - No new contract, signed for Madrid.
  19. Depay - 2015 95 pages - No new Contract, signed for United.
  20. Falcao - 2014 92 pages - No new Contract, signed for United.

So there you have it. in the top 20 transfer 'Sagas' in here, Ramos will be the first one to actually have a U-Turn and sign a contract extension. We signed 9/20 players involved in these Sagas.

Can we stop saying players are using us for contracts now?
 
Thank you for making this thread, it is one of my pet peeves how this is thrown around so frequently on caf these days.
 
jatin said:
Dani Alves?
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But it wasnt a 'Saga' with Alves was it. We didnt spend the whole summer thinking he was coming here and then he changed his mind. He signed his extension like 2/3 days after they won the CL.

gormless said:
This year: Ramos and Alves. Ronaldo 2013. I could think of more if I wasn't so tired
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Alves see ahead - Possibly Ronaldo. But again I used Redcafe transfer forum as way of picking players and Ronaldos thread wasn't high enough.
 
RedStarUnited said:
But it wasnt a 'Saga' with Alves was it. We didnt spend the whole summer thinking he was coming here and then he changed his mind. He signed his extension like 2/3 days after they won the CL.



Alves see ahead - Possibly Ronaldo. But again I used Redcafe transfer forum as way of picking players and Ronaldos thread wasn't high enough.
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Yeah, some of the threads may have returned to the football forum? Gundogan. Hummels. Both heavily linked with United, even told we has signed Gundogan. I think Hummels agent actually mentioned Utd after he signed his new contract.
 
gormless said:
Yeah, some of the threads may have returned to the football forum? Gundogan. Hummels. Both heavily linked with United, even told we has signed Gundogan. I think Hummels agent actually mentioned Utd after he signed his new contract.
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Gundogan is still in Transfer forum but pretty low, William Carvalho has more pages than it. I dont know why people think Hummels signed an extension, he hasnt yet as of today. His contract is still set to expire in 2 years time.
 
I might get my head bit off for this but has Ronaldo not got a contract extension in one of the summers* he was linked with us?

*that said, I know that he's linked with us every summer.

Good thread btw.
 
I dont think people use us over anyone else to get a new contract, but they most definitely use us to drive up the price of their transfer and get a better contract at their new clubs.
 
When a player is negotiating a new contract they usually get linked in newspapers to other clubs. And if the negotiation starts to break down player or agent might threaten to leave(eg Keane, Rio, Rooney). That has been the case for a while. Making a list of our biggest transfer sagas does not disprove that it is a common occurrence. It could just be the situation is usually handled swiftly.
 
People are just dumb. There is on way Ramos has "used us". Who risks losing support from their home fans just to get a rumor like that going. Ramos genuinely wanted to join us - it was a possibility for him. Just because it didn't turn out to be good for us, we can't be saying he used us.

EDIT: It's not like he promised us anything. If anything, we got the better of Madrid having to fight for their best defender (if we keep De Gea this season as well)
 
shamans said:
People are just dumb. There is on way Ramos has "used us". Who risks losing support from their home fans just to get a rumor like that going. Ramos genuinely wanted to join us - it was a possibility for him. Just because it didn't turn out to be good for us, we can't be saying he used us.

EDIT: It's not like he promised us anything. If anything, we got the better of Madrid having to fight for their best defender (if we keep De Gea this season as well)
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But that stuff happens all the time during contract negotiations. I really don't believe that is as big a part of thought processes as you make it out to be. Part of it is that fans are fickle. Ronaldo said after the 2008 summer transfer window that the fans would cheer for him again once he starts scoring goals for United, and he was exactly correct. Rooney handed in a transfer request and used the interest from Manchester City and Chelsea to get a larger contract when he was the most important player at the club. He fought a battle with the club and with the club's most popular figure by questioning both their ambition. People think that SAF won the public relations war in that situation, but Rooney and his agent knew how indispensable he was at that point, and they used his place in the team, as well as the interest from other clubs, to get Rooney a fat new contract. Now he is the club captain and probably the team's most popular player. Players and their agents know that time heals most wounds

Every time Ronaldo needs a new contract he speaks about his love for United. I don't see how you can disregard the reality that players and agents do use interest from other clubs to get better contracts. It happens with every top team
 
Wittmann45 said:
I don't see how you can disregard the reality that players and agents do use interest from other clubs to get better contracts. It happens with every top team
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And I do not think that this is something you usually can blame agents and players for.
 
Blackwidow said:
And I do not think that this is something you usually can blame agents and players for.
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No that is very true, and there is nothing wrong with that really. My point was just that players and agents do not necessarily think about their relations with the fans when they are playing hard ball in contract talks.
 
IMO it's a pointless argument put forward by antagonized muppets. In fact, in a lot of cases our interest would just be paper crap talk.

Even if this does happen, so what? Isn't it a common corporate practice to bring forward offers from other employers to force your current employer to match/improve on it?

The only time that this does hamper a team is when they have dithering fools like Moyesy in charge.
 
Wittmann45 said:
But that stuff happens all the time during contract negotiations. I really don't believe that is as big a part of thought processes as you make it out to be. Part of it is that fans are fickle. Ronaldo said after the 2008 summer transfer window that the fans would cheer for him again once he starts scoring goals for United, and he was exactly correct. Rooney handed in a transfer request and used the interest from Manchester City and Chelsea to get a larger contract when he was the most important player at the club. He fought a battle with the club and with the club's most popular figure by questioning both their ambition. People think that SAF won the public relations war in that situation, but Rooney and his agent knew how indispensable he was at that point, and they used his place in the team, as well as the interest from other clubs, to get Rooney a fat new contract. Now he is the club captain and probably the team's most popular player. Players and their agents know that time heals most wounds

Every time Ronaldo needs a new contract he speaks about his love for United. I don't see how you can disregard the reality that players and agents do use interest from other clubs to get better contracts. It happens with every top team
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First of all, I never disliked Ronaldo and Rooney actually wanted to leave the club so in that case having a bad relation with the club wasn't as big a deal. Even then, they were upfront and public with it so many of the non fickle mans (such as myself and I guess most of us on here) did not hate on any of them for wanting to go to another club but at least being open about it.

I'm not denying that players use interest from other clubs to get better contracts, but the way it's pictures is that these players tell United they want to join them getting our hopes high only to reveal they were signing a contract with Madrid all along.

Even if they do that, we lost nothing from it but apart from a few players here and there this has never been the case. Ramos, Vidal etc did not use us. Deals just didn't go through.
 
shamans said:
I'm not denying that players use interest from other clubs to get better contracts, but the way it's pictures is that these players tell United they want to join them getting our hopes high only to reveal they were signing a contract with Madrid all along.
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But we seldom find out how much any of this players is really tempted or the reasons why he did not take that offer etc.

Sometimes you find out after a couple of years. Like Xavi told recently that he was near joining Bayern in 2008 but then he had a talk with Guardiola. There were players that did not go to Bayern because the wife did not want etc.

I think there is exactly the same stories with United.

And - we should not forget that about 90 % of all the talk is written because the writer was bored and needed a story...
 
Raoul said:
Its just a convenient excuse for cynics to dismiss why we don't buy a certain player.
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It's a myth, alright. I don't think people running the club are stupid enough to fall for the 'Trick' repeatedly, every freaking summer.
 
In 2013 Dante wanted a new contract. His agent and even him talked about interest from Manchester United on some Brazilian radio. Within a month he signed a new deal at bayern

Ramos wanted to leave for us so he has been reportedly given a new contract.

Muller was linked to us and it seems a pay rise has been offered to him too

Rodrigo dourado, an unknown player from Brazil, was linked to us and he signed a new contract a few weeks later.

Ronaldo doesn't need to be told.

Benteke agent or villa linked him to us and within 2 days he was bought after his release clause was met in full. Can also be said for firmino maybe

It's generally the players we aren't interested in that use us to get contracts.
 
Plus we're namedropped when clubs negotiate between each other and the selling club wants to increase the price, it's nothing new really and it happens. I think that even Fergie mentioned it one day so there's nothing ridiculous to suggest that we're being used as a leverage.
 
that and that player has used United to get a better deal - its such a ridiculous thing.
So every time we get linked by the media to that and that player and he signs an extension it means he has 'used us'.

Also Alves story is ridiculous, he never used us to get a contract. It lasted shortly until he signed and there was paper talk we were interested and then it autolatically meant he used us to get a better deal..
 
Diego Costa used us to get a better contract out of Atletico.
 
RedStarUnited said:
Where did this notion come from and How often does this actually happen?

I had time to kill so I thought I should look at the recent transfer sagas in this forum - I ordered the transfer threads by number of replies and picked the top 20.

Player name - Year and page hits - Saga conclusion. ​
  1. Vidal - 2014 647 pages - No new contract, left the following summer.
  2. Berbatov - 2008 485 pages - No new contract, signed for United.
  3. Wesley Sneijder - 2011 342 pages - No new contract, Left Inter about a year later.
  4. Cesc Fabregas - 2013 300 Pages - No new contract, Left a season after.
  5. Ander Herrera - 2013 243 pages - No new contract, Signed a year later.
  6. Eden Hazard - 2012 222 pages - No new contract, signed for Chelsea.
  7. Mata - 2014 203 pages - No new contract, Signed for United.
  8. Luke Shaw - 2014 174 pages - No new contract, Signed for United.
  9. Fellaini - 2013 164 pages - No new contract, Signed for United.
  10. RVP - 2012 161 pages - No new contract, signed for United.
  11. Morgan Schneiderlin - 2015 160 pages - No new Contract, signed for United.
  12. Toni Kroos - 2014 141 pages - No new contract, left for Madrid.
  13. Sergio Ramos - 2015 139 pages - TBD
  14. Nasri - 2011 137 pages - No new contract, signed for City.
  15. Benzema - 2010 123 pages - No new contract, signed for Madrid.
  16. Alexis Sanchez - 2011 123 pages - No new contract, signed for Barcelona.
  17. Lucas Da Silva - 2012 123 pages - No new contract, signed for PSG.
  18. Bale - 2013 101 pages - No new contract, signed for Madrid.
  19. Depay - 2015 95 pages - No new Contract, signed for United.
  20. Falcao - 2014 92 pages - No new Contract, signed for United.
So there you have it. in the top 20 transfer 'Sagas' in here, Ramos will be the first one to actually have a U-Turn and sign a contract extension. We signed 9/20 players involved in these Sagas.

Can we stop saying players are using us for contracts now?
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Surely a Ronaldo transfer thread is in the top twenty? Because he definitely used us for a new contract.
 
Remember when Keane and Giggs used Italian club a,b or c to get a better contract? Or when Rio used Chelsea to get a better contract?

That was annoying too.
 
It's just in most cases, standard negotiation tactics in all honesty. And those links are not always necessarily "from the player or his agent's" side. It could be the player's club as well - putting the news out there to put pressure on the player to sign an extension (i.e. making the fans turn on him etc. etc.).

Alternatively, it could just be papers filling their columns - and who better to link a player with than United? "Biggest supported club in the world", one of the richest and possibly one of the most loathed amongst oppo fans as well (especially under SAF due to all the success :lol:).

So whilst I agree that the saying is getting sort of used a bit recklessly/lightly by the pessimists on here, it's nothing unexpected in the market.
 
Wait, where's the Thiago Alcantara thread? For some reason, I remember that thread being massive. Surprised it's not in the top 20.
 
Classical Mechanic said:
Remember when Keane and Giggs used Italian club a,b or c to get a better contract? Or when Rio used Chelsea to get a better contract?

That was annoying too.
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Yep. Was Giggs Juventus or Inter?

Kind of off topic but I do remember Massimo Moratti saying around 2008 or 2009 that he once wanted to sign both Giggs and Scholes. Problem with Scholes is that he didn't have an agent, and thus Moratti had trouble even contacting Scholes about any sort of preliminary contract talks. He said he gave United a "blank cheque" and Scholes replied by saying something to the effect that the only way he would play for Moratti's club is if Moratti bought Man United.
 
It is not a big deal really. Just part of negotiations. So what if they do?
 
That young goalkeeper from Barca did it too, didn't he?

And the length of the 'saga' or amount of pages on the Caf isn't relevant. Dani Alves still touted himself around to get a good deal from Barca. We were linked with him as far back as December last year.
 
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