We absolutely love briefing the press man.
Dembele has not impressed in 3 years, Raphina would be rotational here, Lewa is just Ronaldo, Busquets has been washed up for a couple of years now and wouldn't make the bench, Kessie and Araujo would get minutes but not start most games.
The whole Chelsea link is to do with Boehly having dinner with Barcelona. It’s a total non story. Unless we are replacing anyone, we don’t need a midfielder. On top of that, this summer in particular, Tuchel is helping to sign players. He wants defenders and forwards.
No, that’s never how it works. Systems optimise players, and in highly specialised roles like De Jong has, conditions have to be right from the outset or you’re losing half the player from the outset.
Not really true. More so now a days then before, but even before, every player had to be used correctly, to their strengths, to get the best out of them. Clubs make mistakes often in thinking one player can adapt to their style seemlessly, as every system is different. That's why great players flop in certain systems all the time (Veron?). Just how it is. Sancho is a world beater in the right system. He's a random ineffective player in a different system. Its probably the hardest task in world football to clearly identify what players you need to suit your system and improve your system. Luckily for us... Ten Hag has had Frenkie de Jong excel on the European stage in his system, so it's a low risk move.
Well people just saw that it was from the Athletic and that was it. Meltdown ensued. Still nothing solid said, all from another source, just this one seems to think ten Hag and de jongs relationship wasn't anything special. Not sure how anyone would know what their relationship is like to be honest but hey
Notice how there’s been plenty of turbulence at Old Trafford, but not at the fecking shipwreck in Barcelona
Note how the author's opinion that "De Jong is likely to share Cristiano Ronaldo's view on playing in the Europa League this season" has turned into " Frenkie does not want to play in the Europa League" being reported all over now.
Nail on head here mate. Totally agree. A totally nonsensical article based on speculation and opinion.
But really would you not prefer to find a player who actively wants to join Utd not one who begrudgingly joins us because he is given no options, ok sure if FDJ joins he may well knuckle down and be a fighter, great but he may alternatively be out of sorts at least to begin with or more importantly if things don't get turned around in the space of a season.... I mean ok he accepts coming here (hypothetically) but wants CL football, what happens if we do not finish top 4 next season?
Forgot he wrote for the Athletic. My bad.Tweet
— Twitter API (@user) date
Literally 30 mins ago
What part of this are we at ....or back at?
No, but we'd brief that we'd ended interest or that we'd walked away.
There's unreal delusion on show in this thread. The writing has been on the wall for a long time.
Now it's time to start asking what the plan actually is because the weakest and possibly most important part of the team is going to be neglected once again. I wouldn't have minded if we have some of our youngsters a shot but it looks like they're all being loaned out.
Misread the quote part. Is it normal to believe that a player is always interested in joining a club unless he emphatically states in public that he doesn't want to join the club? There have been numerous reputed journalists who have said he doesn't want to join Utd. Pretty much every paper in Spain has said he doesn't want to join Utd but people decide to disregard them because they are from Spain. Now The Athletic, one of the most reliable sources for transfer news, are also reporting that he doesn't want to join Utd. If it was another club in the exact same situation trying to sign FDJ I doubt anyone here would think this is still going to happen.
We still have no idea of his state of mind.
That we haven't given up is not exactly an endorsement of anything given our track record over these protracted sagas.
Completely forgot about Bruno, he will probably claim a spot. I think our fullbacks are equally as shite as theirs, don't rate Dalot at all and we don't know what version or Shaw we're getting (same with most of our players)
Wrong!
This is all true and, for me, more concerning than if we don't end up with the player. As it suggests that, despite the bluster and briefing, nothing much has changed about how United do business. You can go all the way back to David Moyes trying to sign Fabregas for examples of how United, post-Fergie, have been led up the garden path.
We can't know this for sure. However, I am slightly concerned that the club is not offering Ten Hag alternatives to De Jong. When he was appointed all the coverage from the Manchester press pack was that, part of his attraction was, Ten Hag's a head coach not a manager. So he would fit in with the new structure. So why aren't the club able to identify players of similar profile to De Jong and present those to Ten Hag as alternatives? Now, in fairness to the club, maybe they have and we just don't know cos its not in the media? However, when you see the names of Milinkovic-Savic and Tielemans dropping in the media it makes you wonder what's going on. Those players, good as they are, are not deep laying playmakers like De Jong. So, either the media doesn't know anything, or the person briefing that they're alternative targets doesn't know anything. If Ten Hag has talked to the club and said: 'What are the alternatives to De Jong?' And the response was genuinely: 'Tielemans'. You can completely understand him saying: 'That is not a midfielder who can do the things I want De Jong to do.' What is really surprising is the fact the club offered him the job months ago. Yet, despite everyone knowing how his Ajax teams played, despite being witness to his training drills, the club seemingly hasn't been able to compile a list of connecting midfielders who could be an alternative to De Jong. Its very odd.
I agree with you. Its not looking pretty.
There's unreal delusion on show in this thread. The writing has been on the wall for a long time.
Now it's time to start asking what the plan actually is because the weakest and possibly most important part of the team is going to be neglected once again. I wouldn't have minded if we have some of our youngsters a shot but it looks like they're all being loaned out.
In what will always be remembered as the day it all came crumbling down for Pretzel, it took just 19 minutes to go from apology to calamity.
Are we choosing between De Jong that wants to join United and De Jong that doesn’t? Or is it a hypothetical choice between a (significantly) lesser talented player and De Jong?
Ornstein's paper just said he doesn't want to join. The fees been agreed for ages now as has been reported by Romero numerous times. If he really wanted to join he'd have agreed a deal by now. What's causing the delay? People will say his deferred wages, and what is delaying the transfer going to solve in this regard? He's suddenly going to get all his deferred wages in 1 month when they haven't paid it already?
One tweet says that even if United sorted de Jongs contract issues he'd still likely not come, is that based on the views from the Barcelona dressing room? Or does the article specifically say he doesn't want to come. I'm not paying to view
Yeah but these sort of fees are never reported in the transfer sums, not just not for City.
He needs to tell us once. He never has and so this remains very much on until he says otherwise.
I want quality players that fit the system the best. Sure, at some level of player comparison, you get into "who wants it more", but for the most part, that's irrelevant. Frenkie de Jong is a dream midfield signing for us, I'd rather sign him and nobody else than sign a group of other midfielders for half of the price total. Our potential is far higher with Frenkie than without. If he comes, you know Ten Hag will use him properly too. So that's all there is to it. Whatever he wants or doesn't want doesn't matter if he comes. A player will only down tools if they fall out with the manager pretty much. If they trust the manager and have a good relationship, then they'll give their all even if they want to eventually leave (like Ronaldo with Sir Alex). So that's not a worry.
Are you kidding me? Of course what you do in that situation is say that you’re not prepared to do anything until you have a guarantee that those deferred wages will be paid. Barcelona are desperate to have a sell him or to make him reduce his wage, I close it becomes deadline date the more deaths but they will become. So yes a month would make a difference.
Maximus was a great general but a difficult personality.
Just find it a bit boring at this stage. After 2 months would you not prefer to talk about a different potential transfer? After 1043 pages I'm not sure what else you could possibly have to talk about. I don't think the deal will happen, I think we're wasting time, I'm not happy we seemingly have no alternatives lined up. Are we only allowed to post in these threads if we believe a transfer is going to happen or should happen? A lot of people on here seem to take anything that isn't remarkably positive as a personal insult when it's simply an opinion.
The Pogba agents fee was reported though, and Hazard’s because we do talk about fees when they are way beyond the norm, which this clearly was.
