The ifs and buts in this thread are indicative of a downtrodden and desperate fanbase who are so browbeaten they would accept anything roundabouts now.
Conditioning at its finest.
What's a genuine concern here is the strain only Dembele coming in puts on Rashford and Greenwood. He breaks down, and they will have to play more games than is healthy for either of them, otherwise we're left with players Ole doesn't even want to field as backups.
Strong squads can bear the brunt of Dembele whether he turns out to be a steal at the 'bargain' price, or not. For us, however, him breaking down has severe consequences across the season.
I rate the player, and have plenty of posts stating such, but we are not in the position where him being our only wing signing (loan or otherwise) makes sense. Is he better than getting nothing at all? Of course, but how has it come down to this? Dembele is by far, far the most talented player we can get in if it's not Sancho, but he is also by far the most unreliable and precarious, to the point him missing a huge portion of the season should be seen as a given and not blind hope and optimism that he can come to a harsher league and magically turn into a bastion of fitness.
The knock-on effect of Dembele breaking down here is Greenwood having to play more games whether fit to do so or not. Handling a teenager's playing time is a genuine thing, so burdening him, as we would be, is such bad diligence.
If any of this Dembele talk is true, we've gone in trying to strong arm another club and got the treatment back, making us look like fools, again. Because if we're buying Dembele instead of loaning him, we're taking on the burden of fixing him completely blindly. At least a loan would give us a chance to look at his physiology and response to certain treatments before then pulling the trigger; a straight purchase, even for the discount, palms a crock onto us with no out for a solid 2.5 years, at least. Falcao, Sanchez, Schweinsteiger, Jones... have we learned nothing?
To be clear, as part of two-wingers coming into the club, or with an already strong squad, Dembele is a player you try to get all day long, hence Liverpool and Juventus' attempts, but in our predicament, and as a straight, standalone purchase, it is negligence that compromises 1, if not 2 of our starters and also puts the spotlight straight back on players who shouldn't even be at the club as they then are back to being stand-ins, just as they were last season whilst Dembele is almost certainly out injured.
Whatever you think of Ole, the club have royally fecked him this window - and it's him that will be held accountable if anything happens to Greenwood, or Rashford goes down once again due to them not getting the downtime they would've with proper attacking reinforcement.
