Yes and you can hold on to a limit but then at some point you move on. Most important for us should have been to get in players required for the positions before the start of the season so they can embed and we can have 100% focus on the football. Now we are scrambling to get the deal done with no guarantees and could end up having a nightmare finding a last minute replacement if it doesn't happen with fdj. It's bad planning and bad management of the transfer market.
I can only imagine why we are 'holding on' is because FdJ has given ETH assurances that he wants to come to United. And he has to negotiate with Laporta on the deferred salary owed.
Its out of our hands in reality.
If we pull out at this point, then Mactough can be accused of not being supportive of ETH, especially his Priority #1 target.
Business is never linear. I do start ups for a living -- what you have planned in your B-plans is usually like 20-40% of reality once it all starts.
Plus in this case, we lost our internal transfer/scouting heads and also ETH came in right at the start of the transfer window. It was never ever going to be a simple transfer window.
We had to catch up on the requirements of ETH (since he has never seen the current players live) and its unfair to compare to the more established managers either.
Judge the Football department (Murtough) and ETH next summer's window. I bet they will be more precise on what they want and know by then.