Jamie Jackson writing Sancho press releases for United...

[Pexbo]

A price we'd known about for two months.

Not really sure what your point is? We knew about it, that doesn’t mean we ever had to pay it. It was above what we were prepared to pay so one of two things was going to happen: Dortmund lower their demands or we ultimately decide to look elsewhere. The latter happened in the end but it’s a perfectly normal scenario to wait out the window and see if the selling club softens their stance.

With the situation as it is now, my money is on United being correct that that valuation ultimately proves to be way above market value for a player who only had one club chasing his signature. I bet good money that when he eventually does get sold, it’s way below that valuation.

 

[Harry190]

Transfer fee alone would have been almost two thirds of what United make on selling tickets.

 

[Highfather_24]

What the club doesn't seem to realise is that it wasn't us not signing Sancho that has pissed most of us off so much. If it cost too much in these difficult times then so be it, most of us would have understood.

It's that we messed around the entire window trying to get him when we should have known quite early that it wasn't going to happen, and then switched and used that time and money to properly target other options. Instead we basically waited until 72 hours before the window closed before we seemed to get serious about looking elsewhere, and we ended up missing any players that were ready to come in and make a starting spot their own.

This. Not signing Sancho is NOT the problem.

 

[Highfather_24]

We continued trying for Dembele and Sarr on deadline day(and failed), after we failed to land Sancho. Mind you, this had nothing to do with the two youth players we signed. Even after those agreements, we kept chasing Dembele.

Which to me says, Ole wanted a first team option at RW. Which we didnt get.

So the question is not, why not Sancho. The questions is...why did you fail to bring any first team RW in?

 

[do.ob]

He's just doing the same thing for United as what all those other chaps are doing for Dortmund and their leaks about this fiasco. Except, we didn't feel the need to personally insult or defame the way they work as an organisation.

Not that they fecking needed to, we all know Ed's useless already...

As with everything in life, I'm sure the answer is somewhere in the middle of both the set of facts presented.

Dortmund got their "win" they made their public stand and they kept their player, they don't need to spin anything and even if they did they wouldn't use the English press.

 

[Rolaholic]

Really is funny and all too predictable the club's love of briefing about wages and agent fees when they fail to get a deal done

 

[Dante]

I had the Sancho thread on ignore for a good chunk of the summer. It didn't drag on for me at all. Was all over fairly quickly. No mess no fuss.

 

[Rolaholic]

Dortmund got their "win" they made their public stand and they kept their player, they don't need to spin anything and even if they did they wouldn't use the English press.

In the clubs and their fans eyes, they stood up and didn't get bullied by a big bad English club so it's an objective success for them keeping their best player. They prefer to reserve that right to their big brothers in Bavaria.

No coincidence they took such a hardliners stance weeks after Bayerns officials emasculated publicly by making fun of them for being a selling club with little identity

 

[Harry190]

It's ok. Will put that money to better use in the next 6 months by activating Haaland's release clause.

 

[do.ob]

In the clubs and their fans eyes, they stood up and didn't get bullied by a big bad English club. They prefer to reserve that right to their big brothers in Bavaria.

No coincidence they took such a hardliners stance weeks after Bayerns officials emasculated publicly by making fun of them for being a selling club with little identity

I see you like your stereotypes.

 

[Samid]

We continued trying for Dembele and Sarr on deadline day(and failed), after we failed to land Sancho. Mind you, this had nothing to do with the two youth players we signed. Even after those agreements, we kept chasing Dembele.

Which to me says, Ole wanted a first team option at RW. Which we didnt get.

So the question is not, why not Sancho. The questions is...why did you fail to bring any first team RW in?

Sarr can still be bought until Oct 16.

 

[Highfather_24]

Sarr can still be bought until Oct 16.

Honestly that doesnt give me much comfort

 

[Ubik]

Not really sure what your point is? We knew about it, that doesn’t mean we ever had to pay it. It was above what we were prepared to pay so one of two things was going to happen: Dortmund lower their demands or we ultimately decide to look elsewhere. The latter happened in the end but it’s a perfectly normal scenario to wait out the window and see if the selling club softens their stance.

With the situation as it is now, my money is on United being correct that that valuation ultimately proves to be way above market value for a player who only had one club chasing his signature. I bet good money that when he eventually does get sold, it’s way below that valuation.

I agree it's too much, but it was also pretty firm on Dortmund's side that the price wouldn't budge. I think we spent way too long on a dead horse and I don't think it's a healthy sign when we sign four players on deadline day. I'm not actually as down on the window as most people are - I like the look of Donny, Diallo is very interesting, Cavani is a decent gamble and we've needed a fullback that can attack for a while. My main disappointment is that we insisted that they'd relent, locking up most of our funds for the window, and we didn't add further quality to the starting 11 at centre back or defensive mid. It's possible we just decided that the right players weren't available there, we'll have to see, but right now I don't think we made the right call to go to the bitter end with Sancho.

 

[Hansa]

Chelsea leaked out agents wanting 50m

I'm still a bit puzzled why these kinds of payments have become the norm. What if a club refuses - is the agent going to kidnap the player Mikel-style, preventing him from signing? FIFA and UEFA have rules against a lot of things, and something that so clearly pulls money away from the sport should be highly regulated. If they work around it by paying the player more per week, before he in turn pays the agent, fine. At least that would make the player a bit more aware of the money involved.

 

[Kostov]

Those "250 millions" would be better spent in Glazers pockets as you can imagine, while we watch how City bring him back next season and get a generational talent.

 

[izzydiggler]

I think it shows the Glazer's thinking - singular massive transfers are much riskier and ultimately unlikely to recoup anything close to the outlay. Whilst paying out £10m - £20m or so for highly rated talents could mean great bargains with lower wages and bonuses, a possible future profit and even if it doesn't work out, you could probably sell for a similar price you paid.

I suspect the Glazers look at Sancho and someone like Dembele and think 'feck that'. For what it's worth, I'm not sure Sancho is worth that and I don't really blame the club for walking away...but they should have done it months ago and moved on. The excuses now are embarrassing.

 

[Crimson King]

Dortmund got their "win" they made their public stand and they kept their player, they don't need to spin anything and even if they did they wouldn't use the English press.

Shame they don't give trophies out for that "win".

Anything they say to the German press will make it into the English media, especially in the age of Twitter. And every club is trying to spin the news, that's just the way it works. They have the right to protect their interests, and they have done.

Anyway, well done for keeping Sancho for one more season. It'll be harder and harder to keep hold of these players though, Dortmund have practically set themselves up as an elite feeder club, that's practically how they sell themselves to these talented kids. If they're going to suddenly start making it unrealistic for them to leave when they want to then they might be more hesitant to join in the first place, or only signing contracts with release clauses.

Maybe if they discover another Klopp that'll change, but even then Bayern kept taking your best players, so I'm not betting on it.

 

[V.O.]

I was never anywhere close to as married to the idea of getting him as most seemed on here, and definitely not for the price it would take. If anything I'm pretty satisfied with the club's decision not to be taken to the cleaners, even if not having a plan B lined up is obviously fecking criminal.

While a guy his age putting up hatfuls of goals and assists in the Bundesliga is incredible, I'm still not really sold on him being at the absolute top level of prospects, and probably not as a stylistic fit for us. So many of his goals and assists from last year seem to be from situations where the other side has sent up suicidal numbers to chase a game and it's 3 attackers vs 2 defenders or whatever and a situation where you'd be disappointed if any PL level forward didn't grab himself a goal or assist.

I don't think his pace, dribbling and ability to take people on is quite as the level you'd want for a winger to be paying that kind of sum for, either. He seems a very 'reactive' type of dribbler who holds the ball and waits for the defender to do something fecking stupid before going past him. I'm not sure he really has it in him to go past a defender who is being more sensible and containing like a more explosive winger such as an Adama Traore or Saint-Maximin type can.

His eye for a pass and ability to find space is at an elite level, but much of this seems to be better coming off the left or drifting into central areas into positions that are already congested in our side anyway. He doesn't seem the type to really give the natural width on the right side we've needed forever, and need specifically from our RW if we're sticking with AWB at right back.

He looks more like a right footed Bernardo Silva or young Mata type of a forward more than anything to me and I'm just not sure he's a £120m player, let alone the answer to our prayers that the muppet community reckon he automatically would be.

 

[GazTheLegend]

Don't personally mind if the club walked away from a deal that was deemed financially non-viable.
No excuse though for not redirecting those funds to get a CB, RW in though in a timely manner. Nor why we didn't manage to shift out some more from our bloated squad

We got two RW's. Nobody is buying our CB's in this market, doubt we could give them away for free.

 

[el3mel]

Is this Woodward briefing this summer?

 

[sullydnl]

Walking away from a deal that expensive is fine.

So fine in fact that pretty much every other club in Europe did so before the summer even began.

Shame we were incapable of doing the same and spending the transfer window targeting players we could actually afford.

 

[Chief123]

That article has the smell of Utd briefing BS to soften the blow. Did someone at Utd just pull out a calculator in the last week of the window and do the numbers?

Even if Utd wanted him for less than 120m euro. Did they really think they’d get him for even 90m euro? That’s still only 30m off this supposed 200m+ euro figure.

They screwed it up and now trying to cover their tracks.

 

[dabeast]

Hmmm, this is a PR exercise for the club by the mug journalist Jamie Jackson. The question he should be asking is why the club’s finances are not 1.5B higher than they show and, even if we accept the current bled-dry figure, why some of the future dividends and debt payments of the club couldn’t be used to pay for the Sancho deal. 250m over 5 years is a snip for a talent like him.

Shame on you, Mr Jackson.

 

[ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg]

Sarr can still be bought until Oct 16.

He can but we would need to buy him today to register him for the CL. Although the next registration is presumably in January, so only 3 months away.

 

[HackeyC]

That’s still only 30m off this supposed 200m+ euro figure.

There is always a price at which you have to be willing to walk away, because the next time they will ask for even more. Frankly in some respects it's about time united showed they aren't willing to fold. Sure, Dortmund could get more next year, and so could Sancho and his agent. Alternatively COVID financial impact could go on until 2022, Sancho could get injured or his form could drop. Heck, he could even get long COVID for all we know, so they are also taking a risk in not completing now. The fact that Sancho has tried to secure c. 40m of fees for his agent i.e. 30% of the transfer fee has impacted his ability to move and that is on him.

 

[simmee]

Dortmund got their "win" they made their public stand and they kept their player, they don't need to spin anything and even if they did they wouldn't use the English press.

Congrats Dobby!! You must be proud of the "Keep a player one more year"-trophy.

 

[Dr. Dwayne]

They should have concentrated on other areas of weakness instead of spending all their engery and time dicking about with Sancho.

Maybe they did and we just didn't know about it? Well, everywhere but CB. Seeing as the perception is it takes us ages to complete a deal, getting so many over the line on deadline day suggests that plenty of work went into things. People like to claim panic buy because the main target wasn't acquired but I don't see the logic there based on what we seem to know about our executive team.

 

[Chief123]

There is always a price at which you have to be willing to walk away, because the next time they will ask for even more. Frankly in some respects it's about time united showed they aren't willing to fold. Sure, Dortmund could get more next year, and so could Sancho and his agent. Alternatively COVID financial impact could go on until 2022, Sancho could get injured or his form could drop. Heck, he could even get long COVID for all we know, so they are also taking a risk in not completing now. The fact that Sancho has tried to secure c. 40m of fees for his agent i.e. 30% of the transfer fee has impacted his ability to move and that is on him.

Yes but the key point is why did it take till the last week of the window for Utd to calculate this. It’s not like Dortmund surprised them with a mind blowing price. If anything, it made the transfer easier to plan as they knew exactly where they stood.

 

[Ikon]

Don't personally mind if the club walked away from a deal that was deemed financially non-viable.
No excuse though for not redirecting those funds to get a CB, RW in though in a timely manner. Nor why we didn't manage to shift out some more from our bloated squad

Exactly this^^
If Sancho was too expensive, the board should have been aware of this months ago.
Europe has been in lockdown since March, there is no good reason why negotiations couldn't have began that far back, and yet nearly 8 months on from March, we are still pissing about trying to stare Dortmund down.
Just how much did United think Dortmund were going to cave in for, £50m quid...?!?!

All those wasted months, time that should have been used to good effect, identifying an alternative RW, and should have been used to get a top CB and DM too, because by saving the allocated funds for Sancho, we could have easily afforded 2 of those 3 positions.

The infuriating thing is though, we did absolutely bum feck nothing, we failed to address any of those positions, but we continued to hopelessly trail after Sancho.
It's absolutely damning and I find it incredible that some are defending the club over this debacle.

 

[Chief123]

Dortmund got their "win" they made their public stand and they kept their player, they don't need to spin anything and even if they did they wouldn't use the English press.

I didn’t know Bundesliga gave out trophies for “public stands”. Not sure how Dortmund “wins” by keeping a player against his will for one more season to end up with 2nd place again and lose the same player next summer. Interesting strategy of “winning”.

 

[do.ob]

I didn’t know Bundesliga gave out trophies for “public stands”. Not sure how Dortmund “wins” by keeping a player against his will for one more season to end up with 2nd place again and lose the same player next summer. Interesting strategy of “winning”.

I put it in quotation marks for a reason. I was responding to the notion that somehow big bad Dortmund were still "briefing" British journalists to spin a story that went according to plan for them.

Maybe you can learn from this and won't spend next summer making 20 posts a day about the Sancho train, because those guys on twitter take you for a ride.

 

[Dr. Dwayne]

Europe has been in lockdown since March, there is no good reason why negotiations couldn't have began that far back

Not sure if serious. Hindsight is skewing your perspective madly here. March saw the entire western world go into lockdown. Clubs were scrambling trying to determine their short term future/existence but you think we should have started negotiating a 250m player deal? Incredible.

 

[Chief123]

I put it in quotation marks for a reason. I was responding to the notion that somehow big bad Dortmund were still "briefing" British journalists to spin a story that went according to plan for them.

If anything as a seller and a selling club, I’m sure Dortmund are far from delighted with the outcome. They entered the summer market with the expectation of selling their best asset for an expected 120m euro. The fact that Utd screwed it up is irrelevant as it still led to an outcome Dortmund did not expect or desire.

I’m pretty certain Dortmund didn’t expect Utd to screw it up that badly. They would have been expecting to have sold him by the end of the window and cashing in 120m euro. I’m sure there public show of confidence of getting the same amount next summer isn’t so assured deep down.

 

[Ikon]

Not sure if serious. Hindsight is skewing your perspective madly here. March saw the entire western world go into lockdown. Clubs were scrambling trying to determine their short term future/existence but you think we should have started negotiating a 250m player deal? Incredible.

No mate, we could have discovered the asking price. Not so incredible, its just called prudent financial planning.

 

[UNITED ACADEMY]

I didn’t know Bundesliga gave out trophies for “public stands”. Not sure how Dortmund “wins” by keeping a player against his will for one more season to end up with 2nd place again and lose the same player next summer. Interesting strategy of “winning”.

Dortmund & Bayern are two different type of club. One is just a good club with purpose to develop young players and sell them for massive profits as well as stay in CL. While the other one is big club aiming to win trophies. In Dortmund point of view this is their victory. Unlike Bayern or big club, winning trophies was never their aim, they achieved their purpose, keep their star player or sell them for mega profits.

 

[Dr. Dwayne]

No mate, we could have discovered the asking price. Not so incredible, its just called prudent financial planning.

Maybe you've forgotten what the world looked like in March?

Prudent financial planning would not have included summer transfer spending. First and foremost clubs needed to figure out when and how they could start playing matches again, how to pay their staff, what costs they would have to cover or eat for suppliers, broadcast arrangements, etc; indeed, a slew of things more important to their immediate existence than how much they could afford to spend in a transfer window that was months away. With so much uncertainty this would have been one of the last things the club would care about let alone be able to plan for.

 

[mu4c_20le]

I put it in quotation marks for a reason. I was responding to the notion that somehow big bad Dortmund were still "briefing" British journalists to spin a story that went according to plan for them.

Maybe you can learn from this and won't spend next summer making 20 posts a day about the Sancho train, because those guys on twitter take you for a ride.

That's only because we all know Dortmund is a selling club, and still is. We just aren't a buying club, at least at the moment.

 

[croadyman]

What the club doesn't seem to realise is that it wasn't us not signing Sancho that has pissed most of us off so much. If it cost too much in these difficult times then so be it, most of us would have understood.

It's that we messed around the entire window trying to get him when we should have known quite early that it wasn't going to happen, and then switched and used that time and money to properly target other options. Instead we basically waited until 72 hours before the window closed before we seemed to get serious about looking elsewhere, and we ended up missing any players that were ready to come in and make a starting spot their own.

Yeah if it wasn't viable then the club should have had the sense to have moved on to alternative targets weeks ago rather than leaving it to the last couple of days and scrambling round

 

[The Urban Goose]

They could have let this be known weeks ago. That’s what pisses me off the most

This. If we couldn't afford it, move on; don't spend the entire window gazing longingly at him while slipping notes through press briefings hoping he'll do our job for us and get his price reduced.

 

[clarkydaz]

We dropped the VDB singing from nowhere, for around 35m. the deal was clearly over with then. No chance this board were coughing up an extra 100m after that