I am both happy and utterly confused at the same time.
First - Dave stays. I don't know how to feel about this. At all. We were in a lose/lose/lose situation.
A: We sell him for a ridiculous fee early on, De Gea is happy. We're stuck with Romero, which makes no one happy. It just makes everyone sad.
B: We sell him for a proper fee on DLD, and get Keylor Navas. De Gea is happy, Keylor is not. He has been seemingly clear he had no intention or desire to leave Madrid at all. Either way we're stuck with a goalie who has no interest in playing for us.
C: We keep De Gea and block a transfer. We're stuck with a goalie who has his heart and mind in Madrid, for months already. No fee at all, and quite possibly a careless attitude towards the coming 40-50 games of the season.
Best case scenario right now, is if we give Dave an ultimatum of sorts. Sign a new contract, or remain waterboy until the end of the season, and be a GK coach in the Euros. Now, before you chop my hands and head off for this kind of morale, we have a bait in the end. Set the release clause to £35 mill. Real get their goalie, De Gea and his witch gets to live out their dreams of being booed every other weekend by their own fans, and we get a proper fee for him. This, IMHO, would be a win/win/win for all parts, and maybe this is the way it should've been handled from the very second we knew he was going anyways.
Second - where is the statement from Ed concerning this horrible farse?
Real have already posted a ridiculous statement putting all the blame on United. We had one stance from the very beginning, and as far as i understand, that remained the same stand in the very bitter end. "Pay up or get lost". They did, eventually, but they were to late and to incompetent to make it through to the other side. And, again, we would lose out no matter what.
Ed needs to step up and give us a proper explanation of the course of events. Maybe not to save face in the media, and to save the club's reputation from soaring, but i feel he owes US, the supporters, a proper explanation. We all wonder what the heck was going on, and the only explanation we've got i from the "bad guys". Keeping his mouth shut is not the way to go at least.
Third - What ever happened to the "Don't worry, we have bigger targets. The Pedro thing will eventually be forgotten" statement?
While I'm actually not too displeased with the transfer window, i can't help wonder what the heck happened here. Did he say it to save face? Did he actually have plans/serious conversations with any bigger targets at all? Or was he just throwing money at clubs to make the media forget about the whole thing? To say we have bigger targets is one thing, but it doesn't count if the targets are fecking Neymar, Müller, Bale and other stupid pipedreams. This isn't FM, and he knows that. The fact that we failed to adress wide open, gaping, suppermassive black holes in our squad tells the rest of the story.
Oh, and we shipped out Adnan (!), Chicha, RvP, Nani (who by the way would have served a purpose on the right flank), and many others without having any replacements lined up. Shouldn't it be the other way around? Get the better players before getting rid of the dead weight? Because a player is better than no player, or so I've heard, no matter how limited he might be.
We did end up splashing some cash (and no, i know this isn't about splashing cash, and that modesty might be a good deed) after all, but who had even heard of the lad 72 hours ago? He's 19, and could end up becoming the most expensive french player in history at 19 years old (yes, even more expensive than Zinedine Zidane).
Fourth - I am very, very, very happy and over the moon with our signings in total.
BFS, MFS, Memphis, Darmian and Martial are all excellent signings it seems (even though i haven't even seen Martial play, his talent seems undeniable at least).
We adressed all the holes in the squad we were talking about before the window opened, and added a mix of routine and toughness, youngsters and mentors, skywalkers and yodas, physicality and quickness. Most of these are undeniably potential world beaters (other than BFS, who's probably past the world beater stage, but is top 3 german players of all time, and has won it all).
The shame is that in this process we created new, gaping holes in the squad, which need adressing ASAP. Two steps forward, one step back. And don't get me started on Adnan. Why? I just don't understand it.
TL;DR - I'm in a semi-meltdown.I love our new players, but don't understand our strategy in either the transfer market, or squad stability/depth.
