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There is no story
Ok. As I said, the extent of "unreasonably" might be debatable. I have my stance (but I am neither the first, nor the only one with it) and you have a different one. But I am sure you don't want to claim that your take on that question is the only universally valid take, right?
All that relies on you assuming that what they said, is fact. If Perez didn't want Casemiro to leave, he didn't have to accept the offer. If Casemiro didn't want to leave, he could have stayed for as long as he had a contract at Madrid. But that isn't what happened. What happened was favorable to Real, mostly favorable for the player. Thats not a story, thats the actual outcome. But such sober pragmatism usually doesn't fly - it would make Perez look a little less graceful, it would make the player look a little less connected to the club and it would make United look ...like United. To circumvent that, lets spin it slightly differently. No victim, no judge. I am a bit shocked, that this seems to be so controversial for some of you.
This isn’t what actually happened though. Fred himself shared that Casemiro had asked him about United and whether he should join MONTHS before he signed. Just because it seemed out of nowhere at the time doesn’t make it true.
I could say the exact same thing about your standpoint as well. And once again - If you want to stick to your stance, I am not going to hinder you. But you haven't heard me talking about you making up stories or acting from your confirmation bias.
I don't know whether they would have taken such offers, I personally don't think they would have. Because Kroos and Modric were the technical department in that midfield. Kroos had already shown that age didn't affect him as much since his game was more about positioning and passing than covering space. Modric mostly the same although slightly different aspects. I am pretty sure that Camavinga was earmarked to take over from one of them but he wasn't as established as Tchouameni was at the time. I do remember though seeing discussions online of Real Madrid fans who thought that it is about time to move away from those players who played their roles way longer than it usually happens. But the way forward was difficult to predict since the chances of replacing such a midfield with those exact types was clearly a very difficult task. So it is impossible to say what kind of offers they would have entertained. Only thing we know for sure is that the offer for Casemiro was accepted. And there weren't many reports about any haggling.
I haven't seen such a report yet but I agree, if there were reports like that, maybe the thing was better prepared than I think. It wouldn't change much else of what I said though - it would have still been odd to chase FDJ only to bring in Casemiro instead. And the figures connected would still be favoring Real Madrid (at least I think that they favored Madrid).
Glad I could help. If I had known, that this would be such a touchy topic, I wouldn't have brought it up.
I will. And it gets even funnier when you still think that I accused anybody of lying despite me saying that I explicitly don't do that. And for the record, I didn't label you as touchy but the subject.
Well it does change it, because all evidence points to the opposite of your argument.
So now Ancelotti was crying as well. An emotional bunch apparently.
It points against the argument that the deal wasn't well prepared. I just said that I haven't heard about that Fred quote. If it is legit then the deal seemingly didn't come out of nowhere and that part of my take would be wrong. I don't see how that changes much about the numbers and replacements.
I explicitly said, I don't accuse anybody of lying. The rumours about FDJ lasted the whole summer. You are right, I don't know if they are true. But I'd say the general consensus on here was at the time, and until today I suppose, that we wanted to bring in FDJ. A passer type that worked with ETH before also made a pretty plausible case if you ask me. It is still a rumour, I'll happily give you that. But it doesn't mean that complimentary statements after a deal should be taken at face value. Let me rephrase it: I don't think such statements should be taken at face value. I don't think, thats reasonable. If you think that position is unreasonable, thats fair. I won't try to convince you.
If they didn't want it to, why did they let him leave then? They could have asked him nicely to stick around a year longer, they could have insisted that he respects his contract.
Fair enough. I don't think Casemiro will be seen in that high regard within all the names that made that Real Madrid so special but I might be wrong here since I am not so deep into Casemiros relation with the fans.
Yeah I don’t think you’re aware how much of a legend of the game Casemiro is tbh.
sure, it’s reasonable.
I know that Madrid struggles with issues especially in the middle of the park. I think it is difficult though to put a certain extent of that on Casemiro. I know that neither Tchouameni nor Camavinga have really hit it off consistently so I have no issue to say that Madrid actually got worse when he left - but thats with the benefit of hindsight. At the time, both Frenchmen were fairly hot commodities and I was talking about the perception of the time.
Thats all reasonable. I don't think I ever claimed it wouldn't be. I just base my standpoint on my memories of the time. And Casemiros star was starting to fade - at least from my perception. And Tchouamenis star was rising. Thats why I think that Real made a pretty good exchange back then. Would they have prefered to keep him longer, I guess so, even in our club we have elements that struggle to let go of the past. And thats without the success that Real had when he was around. At the end of the day though, they made the deal with us. A deal, that AT THE TIME seemed a pretty good one for Real - adding a young promising player in Tchouameni for big money and getting big money for the player the new one was supposed to take over from. Its as if today we'd bring in Hujsen for 65 million and then the Saudis come and offer us 55 million for Maguire. Obviously it isn't exactly the same but the general notion of such a deal would be positive for us.
Options and quality
On the face of it you can't say that's not a favorable price for a player that age on high wages. Their attempts to replace him tell a different story however.
Had his day
If we are going to be moving on to the likes of Baleba and Wharton, then I'd rather stick.
Yeah. This gets my vote. Like others have said, it would be nice if he agreed to a pay reduction. Hopefully, United will be playing more than 50-60 matches next season, and Casemiro will need games off. With 5 substitutions, it's less of a problem if he can't go 90 minutes in intense games like against City. And he is only 33. As an athlete ages, they lose pace, but not strength nor conditioning. Long-distance runners often peak from their late 20s into their 30s.
Capology says the same. Sounds awfully low...
