Morata - why didn't we get him?

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Sorry, wasn't sure which thread to put this into.

From what I understand Jose wanted Morata, they quoted £79.8m, we wanted to spend £50m?
Then we decided to switch target to Lukaku and spent £90m?! Whilst R.Madrid eventually sold him for £58m?

I don't understand. Why would we decide not to spend the £80m, but only to go and up it to £90m (for Lukaku)?
 

NinjaFletch

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Lukaku, just as he was Chelsea's, was our first choice.

Don't believe everything you read in the papers.
 

IrishRedDevil

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Lukaku was £75m. Stop adding all the extras to a transfer fee.

Real quoted us something like £90m for Morata and offered him to Chelsea for less than £60m. Real obviously were making the deal very difficult and this stretched on for several weeks, while we were probably negotiating with Everton/Lukaku in the background.
 

Silas

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I'd imagine Lukaku being proven in the premier league made him appear as less of a risk, meaning we were willing to spend more on him.
 

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Lukaku was £75m. Stop adding all the extras to a transfer fee.

Real quoted us something like £90m for Morata and offered him to Chelsea for less than £60m.
So at the time decision was £80m Morata (wasn't £90m I believe) vs £75m Lukaku - with extra add-ons for both?
 

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I'd imagine Lukaku being proven in the premier league made him appear as less of a risk, meaning we were willing to spend more on him.
Yeah that's what I thought too. Just unsure re: how it all unravelled, esp re: fees.
 

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ps. If we wanted Lukaku all along then hmm, we sure did dither (plus not sure where people rate Morata vs Lukaku at the time).
If we did indeed switch targets during the window then, umm even more worrying to me. Seems we didn't have a concrete plan / style with clear targets in mind that we needed to execute.
 

IrishRedDevil

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So at the time decision was £80m Morata (wasn't £90m I believe) vs £75m Lukaku - with extra add-ons for both?
Real Madrid were being extremely difficult to deal with and dragged the negotiations on for several weeks. There was reports of meetings breaking down in frustration at how awkward Real were being and other reports saying they wanted De Gea in return.

Real were being awkward with United so it made sense to go for Lukaku when he give the green light and turned down Chelsea to join United. Remeber that Lukaku to Chelsea was probably the most obvious transfer before the window opened and then Jose give him a call and he said he would come to United.
 

shaky

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Think most people preferred Lukaku at the time anyway. There was a Caf poll and Lukaku got over twice the number of votes. Both players have 10 goals for the new clubs so I'm a bit confused as to why so many people suddenly think that we got the raw end of the deals.
 

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Didn't Really basically want DDG as part of the Morata deal? To me it seems like they were totally pricing us out of him so that they could try use DDG as a bargain chip. I don't think they knew that Lukaku was actually our #1 choice and once we got him and were out of the running, Chelsea were the only club left and got him for £60m instead.

Anyway who cares? Morata hasn't done any more than Lukaku this season, and he's in arguably a better attack.
 

Greck

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ps. If we wanted Lukaku all along then hmm, we sure did dither (plus not sure where people rate Morata vs Lukaku at the time).
If we did indeed switch targets during the window then, umm even more worrying to me. Seems we didn't have a concrete plan / style with clear targets in mind that we needed to execute.
I always felt the plan was to get someone that was good in the air. Don't have anything to back it up though
 

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Lukaku, just as he was Chelsea's, was our first choice.

Don't believe everything you read in the papers.
Maybe we didn't really want him :)
Yeah, I believe we wanted Lukaku all along.
ok hoooold up, just seen these quotes from last month:

Morata: ‘I had the chance to go to Manchester United and other teams in the Premier League. The important thing is I’m part of Chelsea and I’m very happy with this and now it’s time to fight for the blue shirt. I want to play well and win with this shirt.’

interview source: http://metro.co.uk/2017/11/03/alvar...nho-but-now-hes-my-rival-7051688/?ito=cbshare
 

Amar__

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Because we are terrible in negotiations, it was pretty much clear situation from what I can remember.
 

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Think most people preferred Lukaku at the time anyway. There was a Caf poll and Lukaku got over twice the number of votes. Both players have 10 goals for the new clubs so I'm a bit confused as to why so many people suddenly think that we got the raw end of the deals.
Didn't Really basically want DDG as part of the Morata deal? To me it seems like they were totally pricing us out of him so that they could try use DDG as a bargain chip. I don't think they knew that Lukaku was actually our #1 choice and once we got him and were out of the running, Chelsea were the only club left and got him for £60m instead.

Anyway who cares? Morata hasn't done any more than Lukaku this season, and he's in arguably a better attack.
Not about Morata vs Lukaku at all btw, I was (and still am) in camp Lukaku.
Just wanted to see how it unravelled and if I can deduce anything from it.
 

NinjaFletch

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Ok so Morata was always a smokescreen for Lukaku anyway?
Sorry I lost track of what actually happened during the two transfer sagas and wanted to dissect!
I'm fairly certain no clubs ever go after players as a 'smokescreen'.

I believe we were talking to both players as a contingency plan for one another, why wouldn't you do that? We then chose which deal to go with, which was obviously Lukaku based on the fact we went with it, and didn't sign the other one.

I think any other interpretation is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how football transfers work.
 

Bojan11

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Senior Perez was trying to play games and drum up the price exclusively for us. So I guess the club got fed up.
 

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I'm fairly certain no clubs ever go after players as a 'smokescreen'.

I believe we were talking to both players as a contingency plan for one another, why wouldn't you do that? We then chose which deal to go with, which was obviously Lukaku based on the fact we went with it, and didn't sign the other one.

I think any other interpretation is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how football transfers work.
Umm, plenty do it. We did it with Morata and Fabinho in the summer. It's very logical that a club would let others think they have other targets should the other club try pricing them too high for their player.
 

Devil may care

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I think Real Madrid made it very difficult for us because of faxgate, plus we needed to get rid of Rooney who only wanted to go to Everton, things dragged on so long with Chelsea also refusing to meet Everton's valuation of Lukaku, and thus we ended up trading places, Morata thought he was coming here, he dyed his hair red ready for the unveiling, he was the #1 target IMO, but circumstances saw us end up with Lukaku.
 

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So basically one turned out cheaper than the other based on the first sale and thereby elimating the other club from the other transfer battle?
 

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I believe we'd have got him if Real hadn't dicked us about. They tried to be clever prolonging the whole thing into a saga and trying to squeeze every last penny from us. In the end they ended up with their tails between their legs selling him to Chelsea for two thirds of the price they were trying to get from us.

So in conclusion, feck Real.
 

NinjaFletch

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Umm, plenty do it. We did it with Morata and Fabinho in the summer. It's very logical that a club would let others think they have other targets should the other club try pricing them too high for their player.
Clubs do have other targets, they're not thick and they know players will be talking to other clubs as well. They'd be downright daft not to have a contingency plan in place if a deal fell threw and it harms them in no way to be talking to different parties simultaneously. Do you think Chelsea initiated contact with Morata when their Lukaku deal fell through? Of course they didn't, they'd have been talking to both players as well.

That's not a smokescreen, that's just not putting all your eggs in one basket.
 

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M.E.N. Sport understands Mourinho was concerned Madrid were dragging out negotiations with United in order to eventually offer Morata a new contract... United worked on a Morata deal over the last month but once it transpired Lukaku was amenable to reuniting with Mourinho rather than rejoining Chelsea Ed Woodward parked negotiations with Real....Senior United sources insist Lukaku was always United's 'principal target' and the club had pursued the Belgium international for months...
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co...sfer-news/man-utd-news-lukaku-morata-13294601
 

AshRK

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Honest question, Do people seriously think Morata would have made much difference considering he would not have got the service he gets at chelsea and from what I have seen he is no Henry/Sanchez/Suarez who can change the game on his own.
 

haram

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Lukaku was both United's and Chelsea's first choice.
 

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ps. If we wanted Lukaku all along then hmm, we sure did dither (plus not sure where people rate Morata vs Lukaku at the time).
If we did indeed switch targets during the window then, umm even more worrying to me. Seems we didn't have a concrete plan / style with clear targets in mind that we needed to execute.
Still a bit worried by this btw.
 

Canagel

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Lukaku was the first choice all along. This was reported by Sky and other sources.
 

Judas

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He'd have been a better choice than Lukaku, thought that in the summer and stand by it, but he's still not the level of striker we should be looking at signing. He's not the top bracket, and that's where we need to be shopping.
 

Zlatattack

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Because we signed a striker who's scored ~20 goals a season for the last 4 years in our league. He's done this whilst being a young player and playing for smaller clubs.

Our problems are not just transfer signings, it's more than that - its largely the manager, don't let him deflect it all away from him.

Lukaku at Chelsea would have even more goals.
 
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