Personally, I think too much is being made of this, trying to paint it as a binary Ed vs. Jose conflict, as if there is nobody else involved internally in evaluating transfers.
I’m not interested in blindly defending Woodward, and certainly there’s some concern that it seems possible that the club has certain player profiles that Jose either isn’t aware of, or disagrees with. However, I contend that the club (read Woodward if you feel so inclined) reasoning is, at the very least, sound and sensible.
We can only really talk about what we hear from the media, so let’s start with that. Now again, a disclaimer, I certainly am not a fan of considering what we hear from the media as a matter of fact. However, it’s all we have to discuss the matter. So, I’m NOT stating this as fact, but illustrating points.
What we’re hearing:
Couldn’t get Varane, but would push out the boat for him. Whatever, a waste of time most likely, but we’re notorious for this under Woodward. Hardly anything to get bent out of shape about.
Pretty much everyone else the media was talking about involved premium £50 mil+ Fees. Alderweireld, Maguire, Willian, etc. Or Martial / Mata included to lower or offset the fee.
Alderweireld: Why pay a premium for an out of favour player running down a contract? Why not try again in January? Or wait and get him for £25 mil release clause and bypass Levy altogether?
Maguire: Good player, but will his price ever be higher than it is right now? Is he really worth close to, if not breaking, a world record, also Leicester probably didn’t want to sell.
Willian: Who knows if we were even in.
Look, I think Jose’s CB pursuit makes sense, and here’s why: Jose values strong, reliable CB as the base for his teams. He’s bound to be furious if you lose a FA Cup Final because your CB makes stupid mistakes. I think Jose has lost faith and patience in Smalling, Jones, and Rojo as experienced, reliable options at the back to lead the back until Lindelof and Bailly are ready.
As for the anti-Mourinho crowd, why aren’t we signing a LB, RB, and RW then? Well, were we really going to bench 2 of our most senior players and leaders on the team simultaneously? Sure, they’re limited, but did we really want to bench them or try, most likely unsuccessfully, to flog them off unceremoniously? RW, I agree we should upgrade. But should we pay a premium or Willian or Perisic?
On the topic of premium £50 mil+ players. It’s not just the transfer fee, it’s the wages and length of contract to consider as well. Perisic or Willian on a 4 year contract of ~£150,000/mo is not a “short term fix”, that’s a major investment.
Finally, look at the overall squad picture. Valencia and Young replacements are required, very soon (fair play to those who would argue it’s already required). However, like I mentioned earlier, I think it will be more likely we extend for 1 year on much lower wages and an understanding they’ll transition to the bench, or reward them with a free transfer for their service. Either Shaw and possibly Dalot make an impact, or next Summer we are spending big on FBs. We’ll have to.
None of this to me seems like the club and Woodward are incompetent, rather that it’s sensible. If Maguire has a fantastic season, yeah, maybe he is worth a VVD fee next Summer. January is Levy’s last chance to get one penny over Alderweireld’s release fee, if he doesn’t get sold to the continent. Mina, if he’s great at Everton, we’d have a much better perspective on by next Summer.
It’s not a great window, and we didn’t get Mbappe, Bale, Sandro and Varane to chase down City. It is what is. Buckle down, get the most out of what we have and do our best to challenge and look to reinforce in January and next Summer.
Getting mugged by paying way over the odds for players who had a good World Cup, or paying a premium for a disgruntled CB running his contract down, only set precedents that will haunt us in the future.