Transfer Tweets - Summer 2015 | Stop Spamming - Discussion Should Relate to Tweets

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Prepare for the backlash but this is Castles version of events on how we ballsed up the Pedro deal.
An aggressive overnight intervention enabled Chelsea to usurp two Premier League title rivals in the pursuit of Spain forward Pedro. On Tuesday evening, Chelsea director Marina Granavoskaia presented Barcelona with a formal offer of €28million plus €2m in performance-related variables. The same night, Jose Mourinho contacted Pedro to assure him of his importance to the Chelsea manager's plans for the season.

Chelsea's financial proposal trumped terms that Manchester United had established with Barcelona earlier in the month. According to sources familiar with the negotiations, the Catalan club also accepted Chelsea's offer ahead of a verbal proposal lodged by Manchester City director of football Txiki Begiristain.

Though Ed Woodward spent part of Tuesday attempting to formalize the schedule of payments on a deal that would commit United to a guaranteed fee of €26m, going as far as presenting an official offer to Barca, Chelsea's intervention reshaped the playing field.

Some lessons learned from past negotiations, Woodward had already agreed to personal terms with the Spain international, with Louis van Gaal's promise of a starting position on the right side of a reshaped attack convincing Pedro that Old Trafford was the right place to further an already trophy-laden career. Though the player was aware of City's interest as the transfer window entered its final fortnight, Pedro was clear that he preferred to join United.

His camp initially expected the transfer to be formalized in the first week of August, only for Woodward to postpone a trip to Barcelona to attend to other business. As late as Tuesday afternoon, they remained hopeful that United could satisfy Barca's new demands that the forward's €30m release clause be met and complete the move today, or at the latest, next week.

As United faced FC Brugge in a critical Champions League qualifier at Old Trafford, Barca informed Pedro that a more attractive offer had arrived from Chelsea, and that the London club had sought permission to negotiate a salary. The player's representatives asked to be given time to discuss the situation and immediately attempted to contact United without success.

Contact was eventually made after United concluded their late 3-1 victory over Brugge. Woodward consulted with Van Gaal, who is understood to have advised his club's executive vice-chairman not to improve the transfer fee. Instead, Van Gaal suggested that it was Pedro's responsibility to apply pressure to a club at which the 28-year-old has spent his entire professional career, and, if he was not prepared to do so, that he could go elsewhere.

That provoked a conversation between Pedro's agents and Chelsea in which the London club agreed to match the salary package previously negotiated with United. In the early hours of Wednesday morning, Chelsea provided tickets for Pedro to fly to London to formalize the transfer.

It did not take long for Pedro to make a final decision. Sources in Barcelona say that there had been preliminary interest from Chelsea early in the summer window, and at that point a move to a serious Champions League contender coupled with the prospect of living in the capital was of great appeal. When Chelsea's early overtures failed to crystallize, however, he committed himself to joining United. Yet their hesitation in completing the transfer became a source of increasing frustration; the self-effacing Pedro left fielding persistent questions about his Camp Nou future.

That a club as reputedly cash rich as United permitted a deal to go south over what amounts to little more than the scheduling of payments is instructive. Some close to Pedro suspect the Spaniard may never have been United's first choice for the position, and that their vacillation hid parallel attempts to secure an alternative target.
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This is slightly in line with the idea that Van Gaal had doubts about Pedro's desire to join us, I suppose.
 
My head hurts and normally I'd blame work but today it's the fault of transfers.
 
prath92 said:
Most journos were creating stories regarding Di Maria all year because of his form and subsequent benching. It should be noted that Di Maria himself said in June he is staying
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And no one believed them, they were making it all up, except they obviously weren't... He lied publicly because he was still here and it serves no purpose to get on the bad side of the fans by stating he wants out.

DesiBD said:
It's no secret we weren't ADM's first choice. It's only logical he'd want to leave if PSG came calling again and they did.
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And yet he was called a liar when that article was published.. Now proven correct it was obvious all along he wanted out. Tell that to the Caf members who were laughing off the reports from France that PSG were after him, right up until it became undeniably obvious he was leaving.
 
Dominos said:
And yet he was called a liar when that article was published.. Now proven correct it was obvious all along he wanted out. Tell that to the Caf members who were laughing off the reports from France that PSG were after him, right up until it became undeniably obvious he was leaving.
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Well, what did you expect? He was our long awaited new no. 7, people were hoping he'd recapture the form he showed initially.
 
Dominos said:
Prepare for the backlash but this is Castles version of events on how we ballsed up the Pedro deal.


This is slightly in line with the idea that Van Gaal had doubts about Pedro's desire to join us, I suppose.
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It's actually very credible.

And sound like a LvG attitude to put Pedro on the spot. An unnecessary one, imo.
 
Dominos said:
Prepare for the backlash but this is Castles version of events on how we ballsed up the Pedro deal.


This is slightly in line with the idea that Van Gaal had doubts about Pedro's desire to join us, I suppose.
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I don't buy that because Van Gaal has said in the past it is not his job to care how much a transfer fee is as long as they are at the club.
 
Pedro publicly said he didn't want to leave Barcelona a few days ago, so I've no real complaints if the boss did drop our interest.
 
If we want Mane, we'll get him. No way he's going to miss out on a transfer to United. He'll probably make it clear he wants to leave.

As for Pedro, he'd have been a decent signing. He has pedigree, but I'm not overly fussed about passing on him.

People on here are fecking hilarious though. Absolutely losing their shit.
 
Here's my conspiracy theory:
Club linked us to Mane the moment everyone knew we weren't in for Pedro. We never brief the media about transfer targets, even ones that were obvious like Schneiderlin and Depay. Van Gaal hates talking to the media about transfers, and wouldn't make sense for him to let the press know that we'd be pursuing Mane. It's not like we have a bid accepted or the deal is even close to being completed. We're going after a player that Southampton don't want to sell, and who they will do their best to keep a hold of as well.

There is no benefit/advantage in letting the world know we're in for Mane, unless of course we wanted to save face about losing out on Pedro by claiming we were looking to buy some other player long before Chelsea swooped in.

Which I don't believe we're doing, because it seems like we were never seriously in for Pedro (losing out on him over a 2 mill?!).

That leaves the option that we're trying to sign some other player and the Mane link is to keep the media's attention focused on someone else. Reason why we kept delaying the Pedro deal (probably was the backup option) and now are linking ourselves to a player who would be almost impossible to sign given how close we are to the end of the transfer window
 
Castles actually presents a fairly decent report for the first time ever, other than obviously the made up bit about what LVG said to Woodward, as if there is any possible way for him to have any insight into a private conversation between manager and VC.

But the underlying point is spot on, we obviously haggled and evaded concluding the transfer because we had eyes elsewhere, and with Chelsea stepping in a decision was forced and ultimately LVG decided he didn't want him.

Whether that was because of Muller or Mane or someone else, I suppose only time will tell. Muller would obviously be understandable. Mane could also in the context of his pace and the fact he's already proven himself in the Prem. If I had to guess I'd say the latest Mane stuff is just to divert attention away now that the scramble is on to find out who we're really after.
 
If Pedro wasn't first choice then who was? To be fair, it makes sense or else we'd have tied up the deal weeks ago.
 
simonhch said:
If we want Mane, we'll get him. No way he's going to miss out on a transfer to United. He'll probably make it clear he wants to leave.

As for Pedro, he'd have been a decent signing. He has pedigree, but I'm not overly fussed about passing on him.

People on here are fecking hilarious though. Absolutely losing their shit.
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Seriously man I like Pedro but you would genuinely think that we have missed out on Messi or something by looking at the reaction here
 
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