That would need a lot of competent midfielders. Something we lack dearly.
Luke Shaw | Deal done! Almost...
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you realize ITK bullshit is against forum rules yes?
A bid is not simply a single lump sum of £27M, to which you add an extra £3M. Its made up from different bits.
There are things such as performance related payments. That £27M may include £7M of payments which get paid in chunks as the guy reaches, say, 100 appearances, a league winners medal, and so on.
If Southampton feel that the player/club is unlikely to reach these goals then they think they won't get paid, so may want more in cash and less in performance related payments. So United could agree, they could lower the goals to make it more likely, or try adding a little more money for the same targets, or even add a lot more but for higher targets.
Southampton then face the choice of getting, say, £23M in cash and £4M in extra possible payments vs £20M in cash but £13M in extra possible payments. Figuring out which is best is complicated.
There are also things like the timing of the bulk of payments. Southampton need the cash at the moment. Suppose we offer £10M in cash in year 1, £10M in cash in year 2, with £7M performance related payments. They then ask for £15M in year 1, £5M in year 2 then the rest in related payments. Knowing that they need the cash we could agree to giving them more up front in exchange for reducing the performance related payments - or making them harder to achieve, such as 200 appearances rather than 100 for the first extra payment. Combine this with point one and you have lots of different scenarios for how much and when the payments take place.
For these aspects of the bid (and I'm sure there are loads mores) you have to get your legal team to draft a contract that is totally binding, which will probably look like a telephone directory. (A friend of mine is a lawyer specialising in corporate merger contracts - contracts there fill filing cabinets)
So when a bid is put in for "£27M" and rejected and a new bid of "£30M" agreed, there are loads of ways that the £30M can be made up.
Then there's the internals to work out. For example if we do agree to give them £15M cash on day 1, we need to actually have that cash actually in the bank. I have no idea what our working balance is, but given that we're going to be buying a lot of players over the summer we're going to be fronting up a lot of cash. Think about when you move house. You suddenly have to pay for a load of new stuff. It may not be much compared to your annual salary, but its more than you can afford from what's in your pocket. Its the same for any business. We may agree an up front cash payment in principle, but find that we lack the cash to do it.
For this you need your finance team to be designing cashflow forecasts based on best and worse case scenarios, each of which can take hours or even days to produce. (as it happens we're cash rich right now, but you still have to do the checking)
One other thing worth pointing out is that these negotiations seems to be friendly. What that means is that the discussions above will take place semi-informally over the phone or face to face, and only when the negotiations reach a certain stage does the formal bid go in. Its very possible that they're talking now. However since both United and Southampton are working on other deals, they wont be able to go at it 9-5 every day. They'll talk, both parties will go away, then they'll come back and see what movement they've made. It could be days between meetings.
How is it clear? Because 4 days later he's not stood on the pitch at OT with a scarf smiling for the cameras?
Thiago afterwards said that United had never even approached him. Both the Guardian and SSN reported at one point that we'd actually agreed terms with him. So yes, they did get it wrong.
I'm not saying we won't get Shaw, but media reports of bids mean nothing. Until you see something with actual quotes from player or club, it's all just rumour.
Clearly?
The RVP and De Gea sagas were similarly quiet. We have made a bid.
Oh we've made a bid alright. I've got a hunch about these things. I had feelings that our RVP, De Gea and Kagawa bids were genuine before it was confirmed.
We're also set on getting Messi. (Probably not.)
This post should help with some perspective.
This obsession with "quotes" is a bit pointless.
Either you accept that journos might have reliable contacts or you don't bother reading anything other than official press releases from the clubs concerned.
When a story gets traction in all of the broadsheets, with respected journos talking about it with confidence then there's obviously something concrete afoot. Football journalists do have contacts within clubs and do find out about potential transfer rumours before they are officially announced. This is a long established fact.
For example, how many days before Fergie retired and Moyes was appointed was it made clear by assorted journalists what was going to happen? Ditto Moyes sacking and Van Gaal's appointment. None of these stories had quotes but they were all far more substantial than mere rumours.
No, it's not. A paper can make up a transfer rumour story without quotes out of thin air and there's really no way anyone can challenge them on it, because no-one else knows what's going on either, and a liberal sprinkling of 'it is believed that' and 'sources claim that' covers all bases.
But even in football journalism, where you can mostly write anything you want to without fear of recrimination, making up quotes or deliberately misquoting is still a serious issue.
So if you see a story with quotes from the player or either club, you know that those quotes are almost certainly real. But there's no guarantee that a story without quotes isn't just pure rumour written up to look like something more.
Personally, I don't believe anything until I see direct statements from the club, but the fact remains that there's a clear difference between the reliability of stories with and without actual quotes.
Of course there is.
My point was that it's daft to assume that everything you read which doesn't contain quotes is bullshit. This Shaw stuff has been far too widely reported by far too many reliable journalists/newspapers to not have some substance to it.
Of course, and I would never assume that it's bullshit. I just don't assume that it's true either. I also don't buy that all-too-common line about the number of outlets reporting it. They parrot each other, especially during transfer season. Every transfer saga on here that comes to nothing is full of people claiming that the number of sites/papers reporting it proves that it's not bullshit. 'No smoke without fire'. But that's not how transfer rumours work. The quality of the report is what's important - whether it has quotes, whether it's direct or uses a 'sources suggest/it is believed' type disclaimer, whether it gives a clear date when something will be announced, etc etc. Volume means very little.
You're arguing against a bunch of points I never made so I'll probably leave it here. One last point, though, I heard a journalist once point out that the phrase "sources at the club" usually means that they've been told something directly by a player or his agent but asked not to mention their name. So they shouldn't be dismissed out of hand, despite the absence of attributable quotes.
If this season has taught me anything it's that a large amount of football fans know next to nothing about the media.
"NO QUOTES DAMN IT... WHERE AREEE THE QUOTES?"
I also laugh when a report by Ian Ladyman is dismissed by the virtue of him working at the Daily Mail, as if the journalist in question is therefore redundant even though he works the same patch, and holds similar if not the same contacts, than those at the esteemed broadsheets.
"NO QUOTES DAMN IT... WHERE AREEE THE QUOTES?"
I also laugh when a report by Ian Ladyman is dismissed by the virtue of him working at the Daily Mail, as if the journalist in question is therefore redundant even though he works the same patch, and holds similar if not the same contacts, than those at the esteemed broadsheets.
It's fully understandable also from my side. We have a middle of May and deals can be agreed but not fully completed. There's also countless linking to legions of players which I'm sure some of them is fantasy.
It's just I'm not convinced that Woodward would made such a mistake and just lie to millions of supporters that there won't be any significant signings as his reputation was already hanging from the cliff not that long ago.
Journalists at least trying give us a hints but perhaps after Van Gaal will be announced, he'll confirm Woody's words and throw something from him exclusively.
Good post, worth reading.
Hope we can get this deal wrapped up ASAP.
All good points, I'll try to keep them in mind during the many interminable delays.
That's largely bollox as Brightonian has pointed out, 'sources at the club' usually translates to 'we're making this shit up as we go along'.
'Sky sources understands' i fecking hate that.
Put it this way, they wouldn't stick their neck out if there wasn't more than a 60% chance it was accurate. We've either bid or enquired if they would be willing to accept a sum around that figure. Something along those lines I'd guess. What do I know though.
You're clearly not a student of Sky. 'Sky sources understand' is about as accurate as the man on the Clapham omnibus, Doris at the hairdressers or the Spurs-supporting cabbies who always seem to pick me up (to their dismay).
United have done sooooo many deals according to the press, yet so far we have done naff all.
Gonna be a long summer...i'm glad we have the World Cup to get in the way for a while.
Gonna be a long summer...i'm glad we have the World Cup to get in the way for a while.
That will probably make it worse, any Defender or Midfielder that has a remotely good game will be linked with a move to us.
This is the first in years that the WC will have almost zero interest for me. I cannot stop thinking about Man Utd, the new head coach and the new players. Only France interest in the WC, the rest can piss off.
Come Netherlands first match you'll be there just like the rest of us!
I really hope we get at least 2 big signings finalized before the world cup or I will start to worry. Last season taught me that getting your business done early, is the way to go. Don't mess around, bid what is necessary in order to attract the players, we simply can't dither this time, or we'll miss out. I'm expecting us to be very active this transfer window.
Most players are off to the world cup in two weeks - it'll be mid-July before the shit goes down.
I doubt it mate but then again I've been known to make 180° turns. I just hope none of the Utd players involved pick up an injury.
Fat chance of that! For the last 2 seasons our lot haven't been able to get thu a training session without injuring themselves every week!
I know, whatever happens I hope it won't be too serious.
Was there anything more on Liverpool's Lallana bid?
I just hope with all these "supposed signings" we dont end up like Spurs blowing all that money.
Well I've been living abroad for the past two years so I've probably missed a lot. Every time I've been in London and got in a taxi the driver has always been a Spurs fan, must be a cabbie thing?
Mine have mostly been West Ham supporters, though I've had a few Spurs fans as well. One West Ham cabbie even tried to convince me that selling Ravel Morrison to them was the biggest transfer blunder in history.
Bizarre. That accolade should go to 35million man Andy Carroll, of course.
This is one of the best posts I've seen in this forum. This ought to give all the speculative on here some perspective. This is real world news. Great job man.
Speaking of London cabbies, I had one that was both a Spurs and West Ham fan. He supported them both and went to both of their games. How do you do that? I thought they were rivals?
He must have a huge weakness for really really shit chants??
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