The Neviller
New Member
The Lewandowski stories are about again but just like with the Falcao ones it appears to be nothing more than journalists shuffling for room on the latest bandwagon The Falcao rumours were taken almost as gospel, despite Marca themselves never following up on their own major scoop, and if we're to believe everything we read, even from the broadsheets, Manchester United have been lining up Falcao, Lewandowski and half of Portugal for the last few months.
Much is a guessing game, any sensible observer can see as much. For example, if Manchester United one day sign Leighton Baines then every newspaper in the land will tell you that they had the news years ago. They'll be right, they've been saying the move was as much as nailed on every transfer window since January 2011. There was the farce last year when within 2 days, in one newspaper, the price Manchester United were going to pay that summer fluctuated from £5m to £15m and back down to £10m.
It's not for us to say that people don't have sources, just that when these things are picked apart, as we often do, it would appear that some of these sources spend quite a lot of time on the sauce. And given that the infamous Rob Beal was unmasked after the Dream Football League farce, we know these things spread to even the country's very best newspapers and journalists. For every Rob Beal caught, it's easy to assume there must be a whole lot of others still feeding horse meat to hungry news outlets.
Think of Mario Gotze and the repeated reports of an Arsenal bid for him, from our mainstream press, after he'd already agreed to join Bayern Munich this summer and the recent embarrassment with Dede when outlets were saying he was England bound after he'd already signed for Cruzeiro. And let's not get started on the Guardiola claims. Sources on the sauce again, eh?
So, back to Lewandowski and the latest rumours. There is every possibility Lewandowski could be signing for Manchester United this summer, but also every likelihood that he couldn't. It's just as likely he'd end up at Manchester City or Chelsea, if they fail with Falcao. Unfortunately for Arsenal, this is the kind of race they stepped out of some time ago.
Who would want him? Well, if the media this week is anything to go by he's now the world's greatest striker, taking over from Falcao the previous week and Cavani several weeks before that, and Robin van Persie a month previously and... you get the gist. An amazing performance midweek is now all which characterises him, much in the way Zlatan Ibrahimovic was seen as something of an overrated enigma by much of the English media before he took those doubts and overhead smashed them back down the throats of those who had the 'nerve' (an imagination of his emotion, not ours) to doubt him.
Lewandowski is now the must-have handbag and the queues outside the Selfridges of Borussia Dortmund could be something of a distraction to the quality goods being peddled elsewhere at the moment. What 'Lewy' does have on his side is age, he has that magic sell-on factor and regardless of what any club says, paying £25m for a 24 year old is always more fiscally responsible than paying £25m for a 29 year year old. He also has the dreaded 'one year left of contract' advantage, or disadvantage if you're Dortmund.
Then there's goals, and bucket loads of them, in the Bundesliga this year he's scored 23 which sees him top the table, but that's only two ahead of Stefan Kießling who plays for Bayer Leverkusen. We're not suggesting everyone should be chasing Kießling, just pointing out that a largely unheard of, by many here, striker is also smacking them away in Germany. Last season in the Bundesliga, Huntelaar scored 29, Gomez scored 26 and our man Lewy got 22, even Lukas Podolski got 18 as his beloved Koln were relegated.
Gomez has this year scored just the 10 in the Bundesliga, but he's only started 8 games, Huntelaar hasn't hit the same heights and Podolski has managed 9 league goals for Arsenal.
What sets Lewy apart this season is his Champions League goals, he's got 10 of the things with 4 coming against Real Madrid last week. Last season he got 1 goal in the competition over 6 games, in a defeat to Olympiakos.
To be clear, this isn't saying Lewandowski isn't going to be a good signing for someone, it's simply putting things into perspective and pointing out that if there are other areas of your wardrobe which need attention, that the new 'must-have' handbag may only be the most fashionable accessory for a short time.
Now to what we do know about Manchester United and Lewandowski, aside from the all the English newspapers who have deep trusted sources with a Polish striker and his German club. Again, worth pointing out here that the Shinji Kagawa deal was confirmed first and covered best in Germany by some way.
If our press have contacts with Lewandowski's representatives then they've done a good job of hiding that. Back in February many news sources had quotes from the player's agent, Cezary Kucharski, saying that he'd been speaking to Manchester United and Bayern Munich about a transfer this coming summer. After a little detective work we found those were quotes referring to last year and the quotes had been twisted to say something which had never come from the agent's mouth in the first place. That everybody happily ran with them and didn't question them clearly showed that they had no idea what Cezary Kucharski was thinking, they probably didn't care.
The most concrete thing from his agent confirming Manchester United interest came from that interview, but the media were too interested in misquoting and misrepresenting to actually report it correctly. Cezary Kucharski told Natemat in a very lengthy interview:
"During the summer I had an interesting conversation with Sir Alex Ferguson, coach of Manchester United. He asked me, "Why did not you come to me with Lewandowski two years ago, when he was much cheaper?".
"...he asked, "have you got another player who can be as good as Lewandowski?". I think so. "I have Rafał Wolski." Ferguson took a piece of paper, wrote down the name of Raphael down, put it in the notebook. "Now we're going to watch him."
and
"Interest was very much (In Lewandowski last summer), and bids can be easily more, but yes - there were two clubs who much wanted Robert. The first was Manchester United, and Bayern Munich the second. However, at this level it is Robert, he will choose the club."
and
"Of course I know more than you, but I will not comment on any media speculation."
So we know that Ferguson was interested but that appears to be before the club got Robin van Persie, unless Ferguson plans to play with two out and out strikers (which is a concept in danger of becoming extinct) he'd have to move Van Persie wide and it's questionable as to how likely that would be. But, and perhaps it's a big but, Ferguson does like returning for players and sniffing around those he's been interested in before. With Lewandowski it just appears to be the right player at the wrong time.
He is likely to leave, and his agent told Poland's Radio Zet this week he'd be joining an even bigger club than Borussia Dortmund. But all these 'EXCLUSIVES' and 'SOURCES' - pinch of salt required all around.
http://sportwitness.ning.com/forum/...ester-united-what-ferguson-said-to-his-agent-
Going to be a long long Summer.
fecking hell. So, is it on or not?
