It seems to have become a recurring theme where we decide we want a player, but don't want to pay the necessary price for him because we have this bizarre evaluation of what each player is worth, which we've stolen from 2008, and which no other club on earth except us seems to agree with.
The days of United being able to make a bid and then sit on their thumbs knowing no one else will be willing to pay more, are long gone.
I'm not really sure how much can go on between "we'll pay you this" and "well we think he's worth a bit more"....apart from loads of pointless timewasting and fecking around.
It makes it hard to figure out whether we can't really compete in the current market, or are just too arrogant to think we have to. I suspect the former, but then we should stop wasting time and effort on unrealistic targets.
It's not hard at all. The reality is we can't compete with the likes of City, Chelsea and PSG. Nobody can. Not when it comes to head to head battles over a specific player. Not without the player himself bending over backwards to make it happen (something which is increasingly unlikely with the latest generation of cash-obsessed young footballers)
It seems to have become a recurring theme where we decide we want a player, but don't want to pay the necessary price for him because we have this bizarre evaluation of what each player is worth, which we've stolen from 2008, and which no other club on earth except us seems to agree with.
It seems to have become a recurring theme where we decide we want a player, but don't want to pay the necessary price for him because we have this bizarre evaluation of what each player is worth, which we've stolen from 2008, and which no other club on earth except us seems to agree with.
The days of United being able to make a bid and then sit on their thumbs knowing no one else will be willing to pay more, are long gone.
I'm not really sure how much can go on between "we'll pay you this" and "well we think he's worth a bit more"....apart from loads of pointless timewasting and fecking around.
It makes it hard to figure out whether we can't really compete in the current market, or are just too arrogant to think we have to. I suspect the former, but then we should stop wasting time and effort on unrealistic targets.
But then why does Fergie sit in press conferences admitting we're interested in players we know we can't actually afford?
Our whole strategy seems somewhat at odds with reality. It was the same with Sneijder last year. "We really want you, but we're not going to pay you as much as what your current club does"
How does that work? If we think he'd cost too much, we obviously don't really want him, or can't afford him...but we apparently spent half the summer wasting our own time anyway.
But then why does Fergie sit in press conferences admitting we're interested in players we know we can't actually afford?
Our whole strategy seems somewhat at odds with reality. It was the same with Sneijder last year. "We really want you, but we're not going to pay you as much as what your current club does"
How does that work? If we think he'd cost too much, we obviously don't really want him, or can't afford him...but we apparently spent half the summer wasting our own time anyway.
So the bottom line here is Lucas is worth far more to PSG than he is to us. I don't think you will find too many who would think PSG's valuation is accurate either. We did as much as we could in this transfer imo. We made a good bid, more than fair considering his age, but if someone is willing to pay 50% more to land him then they are welcome to him.
But then why does Fergie sit in press conferences admitting we're interested in players we know we can't actually afford?
Our whole strategy seems somewhat at odds with reality. It was the same with Sneijder last year. "We really want you, but we're not going to pay you as much as what your current club does"
How does that work? If we think he'd cost too much, we obviously don't really want him, or can't afford him...but we apparently spent half the summer wasting our own time anyway.
It's hardly 50% more by all accounts, but this is the point. It's not just PSG who can and will do this. There's City, Chelsea, Barcelona, Madrid, Juve...Basically all of the clubs we want to compete with, and as a result aren't competing with. If we want the best players we have to be willing to meet the same sort of evaluations that these clubs will.
If we can't afford their prices then we're just wasting our time over and over again, and if we can then we're both wasting our time and being extremely ignorant.
It's hardly 50% more by all accounts, but this is the point. It's not just PSG who can and will do this. There's City, Chelsea, Barcelona, Madrid, Juve...Basically all of the clubs we want to compete with, and as a result aren't competing with. If we want the best players we have to be willing to meet the same sort of evaluations that these clubs will.
If we can't afford their prices then we're just wasting our time over and over again, and if we can then we're both wasting our time and being extremely ignorant.
But what if.....we could afford him, prompting Fergies statement, but they weren't ready to sell. Now PSG come in and offer considerably more than we can offer, and now we can't afford that price. Do you expect him to predict the future?
It seemed to be made pretty clear in public, and repeatedly by Sao Paulo, that we weren't quite willing to match their evaluation...now someone else has, and we've spent weeks wasting our time over a player that we never had a realistic chance of signing. Although wasting our time doing what exactly I'm not sure...I'm just going by Fergie's claim that we're "working really hard"
noodle does have a point to be fair, we did never meet their valuation, we seemed to constantly be a few million underneath. You have to wonder that if we did just offer the £30m they wanted then instead of floating around the £26m mark repeatedly that we might have had him before PSG ever got involved.
Of course, none of that is based on overly concrete 'facts' I guess.
It seemed to be made pretty clear in public, and repeatedly by Sao Paulo, that we weren't quite willing to match their evaluation...now someone else has, and we've spent weeks wasting our time over a player that we never had a realistic chance of signing. Although wasting our time doing what exactly I'm not sure...I'm just going by Fergie's claim that we're "working really hard"
Yes, apparently we should be able to predict the future, and take into account all future bids that aren't known to us.
You think it's likely that PSG only became aware of him as a potential signing in the last week or so?
From their point of view, all they had to do was find out what sort of fee Sao Paulo were willing to accept then blow it out of the water. They would have done this whether or not a fee was agreed this last weekend, or a month ago. The only difference would be the size of the sum they eventually gazumped us with.
It's also a record sum for a Brazilian transfer.
It's hard to be too bothered about losing out on a guy who would rather play in the French league than for one of the best clubs and managers in the world. If money is enough to convince him to spend at least a couple of years in a second rate league then it's not unreasonable to question the ambition and desire of the player.
I reckon. €45 million euros to Sao Paulo, they get to keep the player until January and they also pay the agent and everyone else involved. Going to be well over €50 mil by the end of it.I'd say it's a record sum for a player under the age of 21 too is it?
noodle does have a point to be fair, we did never meet their valuation, we seemed to constantly be a few million underneath. You have to wonder that if we did just offer the £30m they wanted then instead of floating around the £26m mark repeatedly that we might have had him before PSG ever got involved.
Of course, none of that is based on overly concrete 'facts' I guess.
We must have agreed or at least been very close to an agreement with the club in order for Fergie to skip a pre-season match in order to close the deal.
If the media are to be believed.
Never wanted him anyway. Time for us to go for our real target of the summer, Christian Eriksen
I think we were definitely VERY close, but I also think that we were drawing it out for a long time and constantly falling a little short of what they wanted so as to save a few million. If we had just said "ok, here's the 30m" instead of constantly offering 2 or 3 million less than we may never have ended up in a situation where PSG came along and offered 50% more than that.
We did the same with Kagawa, but we were luckier with him because he had a year on his contract and no other clubs seemed overly interested, he also seemed to want to come here more than Lucas does.
Again, if the media are to be believed.
That's how negotiations work. Always have done, always will. Would be foolhardy in the extreme to approach them differently.
That's how negotiations work. Always have done, always will. Would be foolhardy in the extreme to approach them differently.
Yes, but we're doing it to the absolute extreme.
Really? I'd love to know what you think a "normal" bit of negotiating would be.
From as far back as I can remember, when it comes to signing the really expensive players we've always had to engage in protracted negotiations. Like I said, it would be foolhardy to approach them any differently. There are huge sums of money involved.
And how many of those sagas were we actually involved in throughout the whole summer? My point being, just because the media makes a transfer into a 'saga' doesn't necessarily mean it is one.What other big club in Europe has had the sort of sagas we've had with players in the last few years though? Nasri, Sneijder, Benzema, Hazard, now Lucas. Who out of the other clubs has missed out on as many big signings as we have through not quite managing to meet the valuations?
Hard to say as with the Hazard signing we met the vauation as we did with the Benzema. Hazard wanted to go to Chelsea. Benzema only ever wanted to go to Madrid. Sneijder by the sounds of i we weren't willing to meet his valuation of wages and it was dead n the water very early on just the papers kept it going. Nasri we'd agreed a deal and he came back afterwards saying city had offered him more wages so we told him to feck off. This Lucas deal is ridiulous thouhg. Can we compete against Chlesea , PSG and City when they are willing to throw money at as if it means nothing. No we can't and as I said it looks like the Lucas deal will be over £40 million pounds all in which is absolutely insane. We could have met Sao Paulos valution and still been blown out of the water. All of them seem to be complications that occur after we make our move and we're not willing to match it. I'm dying to see how FFP will work though as there is no way in hell PSG can afford this outlay. Even City have decided to calm down this summer.What other big club in Europe has had the sort of sagas we've had with players in the last few years though? Nasri, Sneijder, Benzema, Hazard, now Lucas. Who out of the other clubs has missed out on as many big signings as we have through not quite managing to meet the valuations?
What other big club in Europe has had the sort of sagas we've had with players in the last few years though? Nasri, Sneijder, Benzema, Hazard, now Lucas. Who out of the other clubs has missed out on as many big signings as we have through not quite managing to meet the valuations?
