Jamie Jackson writing Sancho press releases for United...

[ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg]

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.

Why to people make things up to try and get their point over.

It’s fairly widely reported that we either bid or were willing to bid £90m+ so why do you exaggerate your point by making up that we thought they would cave £50m?

You can still make the point that we were not willing to pay what they wanted without making things up.

 

[croadyman]

Exactly - so I don’t really buy it. I think it was pure hubris thinking/expecting Dortmund to roll over for us.

Yeah unbelievably naive on our part

 

[The White Pele]

All makes sense, but why wait until yesterday to close 4 deals if we weren’t waiting on the Sancho one.

We were clearly hanging on to some ridiculous hope that Dortmund would budge.

 

[Raoul]

Glad it didn't happen as we shouldn't be held to ransom by pompous, self-important feeder clubs like Dortmund, nor by greedy agents. We should have however had other options in the pipeline earlier in the process to avoid leaving it late yet again.

 

[Mercurial]

At the end of the day, Sancho was the dream signing that most Utd fans could pull off the top of their head.

But I don’t think any manager or club ever has got a 100% success rate with their first choice transfer. SAF regularly had to settle for alternatives in the 90s. Couldn't get Collymore so got Cole, Couldn’t get Shearer so got Solskjaer, Couldn’t get Kluivert so got Yorke, Cantona launched a surprise retirement so had to get Sheringham in... and all of those guys contributed to a winning team.

Sancho isnt the be all and end all for right wingers, but surely we had more alternatives to him rather than a high risk punt on Ousmane Dembélé? I’m hoping Diallo and Pellistri are those alternatives because this is where it is getting difficult for us. We can’t let the likes of Diallo or Pellistri go to places like Lyon, Dortmund or a top half Premier League team anymore because they’ll demand stupid money (previously in the noughties we could just bid £30m and they’d accept). We have to get those potentially awesome players before they do and develop them ourselves. We’ll have to risks on these boys rather than get stumped by other clubs who beat us to them and hold us to ransom, when they actually live up to their potential and we’re interested.

Its a shame we can’t use Diallo until the new year, otherwise I’d be a bit more upbeat about it. Pellistri will need time to acclimatise to European football I think. If Diallo comes in in the new year and he’s looking like he can handle it then yeah the club did well to identify a good alternative to Sancho. He could very well end up being just as good as Sancho or even better. Sancho isnt even a fecking cert to be good for us either.

If we signed Pellistri and Diallo a month ago, I think we’d all be intrigued by how well they would do and be more assured when all these people who’ve watched them speak about them in glowing terms, but the timing makes it look like we shat the bed over the Spurs loss and Sancho/Dembélé not coming, when wed actually been watching them for a while.

Nice post!
Guess some pieces fell in place in this very odd saga. Sancho and his agent expecting bosman/freeagent money on top of the 120m deal and 4% EPL fee is taking the piss during these times. Seem more and more that him and his agent threw a ludicrous chance hook out there and Dortmund entertained it take it or leave it short deadline. Suckers swallowing the playstation besties dream of MUFC angle hook line and sinker. If so he would have come to us when he left City. Agent failed to get a taker and shrugs it off. His heart wasn't in it and he was unwilling to budge on his excess agent demands, its not exactly Ronaldo leaving with a D'or and UCL type player we are bidding on to break every bank, cant blame us for trying to haggle under those circumstances, but should have called quits much sooner. So glad we are learning from old mistakes and building a foundation on people wanting to play for us for reasons other than just cash and stay hungry and grow instead a bit more trough the academy. Model professionals and mentally strong players like Cavani, Bruno etc will set the bar for them on practice. Hopefully some well needed harmony will be granted to us now that this transfer window for whatever its worth is over. Glazer/Ed problems aside, my respect for us as a club rises that we didn't smear Dortmund back the way they smeared and leaked defaming attacks on us.

 

[Ikon]

It’s fairly widely reported that we either bid or were willing to bid £90m+ so why do you exaggerate your point by making up that we thought they would cave £50m?

So only £18m less than the £250m...!!
Do you see where that doesn't have a feel of realism?

 

[Houdini]

If the rreported total spent on Sancho is 250€ then no thanks he is no Messi. Still an unacceptable window.

 

[Neil_Buchanan]

Why bid for him then? Makes no sense.

 

[Apokalips]

To be honest, I think our approach was that we believed Dortmund would become more realistic with their demands later in the window. I can only assume that, as reported by a few outlets, Sancho is prepared to wait until next season to join if need be. This would lead United to have enough confidence to not take the risk of spending so much on just one player in such uncertain times. If fans do not return to stadiums this season then Sancho will likely cost less because Dortmund will no longer be able to pretend they are not feeling it.

 

[croadyman]

Honestly that doesnt give me much comfort

What if it was Benrahma or Buendia?

 

[Stacks]

a lot more reasonable posts here than I thought

 

[ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg]

So only £18m less than the £250m...!!
Do you see where that doesn't have a feel of realism?

Get a grip. Now your mixing up reported total costs, inc wages and agents costs etc.

I’m calling you out for stating that we tried to get Dortmund to cave to £50m, when every man and his dog know that’s BS. You can make a perfectly valid argument without posting figures that are made up to exaggerate your point.

 

[Highfather_24]

What if it was Benrahma or Buendia?

Buendia would be a good signing tbh.

 

[HackeyC]

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.

I'm reminded of this quote (if unknown origin but sometimes attributed to Shaw (George Bernard, not Luke before anyone asks!)

Man to woman: Would you sleep with me for one million dollars?
Woman: Sure.
Man: How about for ten dollars?
Woman: What do you think I am?
Man: We’ve already established what you are. All we’re doing is bargaining about price.

Dortmund had signalled their willingness to sell, regardless of anything they might have said about the timeline. They may posture, they may even blame us for not completing, but nobody else was in the market to buy him at the total cost they were trying to sell at (including Sancho's wage request and agent commission). We were simply negotiating and their starting point don't forget, was a UK transfer record during the most challenging financial the world has seen in the last 80 years. I am guessing that United assumed that towards the end of the window Dortmund would come closer to our valuation, presumably with continued pressure from COVID, pressure from the player and a lack of other suitors in the market. Financially we may have had a relatively hard line over which we weren't willing to step and thought it was highly probable that Dortmund would compromise. Honestly I think there was plenty of evidence to indicate that this would be the case so can't blame the club for taking this late in the window before walking away.

In the end it doesn't have to be anybody's fault. If I want to buy a £400k house and it's £10k over what I think it's worth I might still go for it, if it's £40k over I will likely walk away or wait for the seller to come to their senses in a few months. This is no different and yes, financial conditions could be better in January/June and there may be more competition for Sancho at a later date, but alternatively Dortmund could be in a much worse financial position and may need to accept a less palatable offer.

 

[croadyman]

Buendia would be a good signing tbh.

Yeah but hard to see us signing another RW now,so frustrating we pissed about on Diallo and now gotta wait until Jan.

 

[Mercurial]

Chances are Dortmund didn't want to sell to begin with and the players agent stirred up shit onto the scene and Dortmund slapped a win scenario only price for him. Kinda makes sense they weren't willing to budge if the initiative didn't originate from them and that short deadline as to bury it quickly if it lacked substance.
The more after-details about this transfer leaking the more Sanchos agent seem like a Raiola worshipper, except he fails at deploying Raiola level shitstirring tools that forced so many hostile transfers. Dortmund probably won't care to subsidize any deal, and rightly so, they will be stronger for one more season and revenue from on field advances matter more in absence of opening day money.

 

[Stacks]

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.

All we need is 2 of the signings to hit the ground running and the mood will change. Hoping one of the youngsters will shock us

 

[arthurka]

I get that we aren´t going to sign players for everything that clubs and agents ask for. But why the hell haven´t we got any alternatives?
Buying two unknown players with 5 games between them isn´t even debatable as alternatives. We are being run by knobs.

 

[Amir]

In other words, we are no longer the financial behemoth that we once were. Under Woodward we have gone backwards. A total disgrace.

We paid huge sums of money in recent years. Woodward isn't responsible for the virus, which affected everyone.

 

[starman]

I don't prescribe to the same thought process about we should have moved on ages ago.
There should have been a better plan in place, sure, but leaving the option there for Sancho to come, would and should have always been the case given that he was the number 1 target, and the economy is getting worse by the day, it's a viable theory that Dortmund might have caved in.

 

[11101]

It's a nonsense PR piece and about as transparent as our regular Director of Football briefings. Sancho cost exactly the same yesterday and he did two months ago. If we really did think it was too much why didn't we say so in August and move on to other targets?

 

[Chief123]

I'm reminded of this quote (if unknown origin but sometimes attributed to Shaw (George Bernard, not Luke before anyone asks!)

Man to woman: Would you sleep with me for one million dollars?
Woman: Sure.
Man: How about for ten dollars?
Woman: What do you think I am?
Man: We’ve already established what you are. All we’re doing is bargaining about price.

Dortmund had signalled their willingness to sell, regardless of anything they might have said about the timeline. They may posture, they may even blame us for not completing, but nobody else was in the market to buy him at the total cost they were trying to sell at (including Sancho's wage request and agent commission). We were simply negotiating and their starting point don't forget, was a UK transfer record during the most challenging financial the world has seen in the last 80 years. I am guessing that United assumed that towards the end of the window Dortmund would come closer to our valuation, presumably with continued pressure from COVID, pressure from the player and a lack of other suitors in the market. Financially we may have had a relatively hard line over which we weren't willing to step and thought it was highly probable that Dortmund would compromise. Honestly I think there was plenty of evidence to indicate that this would be the case so can't blame the club for taking this late in the window before walking away.

In the end it doesn't have to be anybody's fault. If I want to buy a £400k house and it's £10k over what I think it's worth I might still go for it, if it's £40k over I will likely walk away or wait for the seller to come to their senses in a few months. This is no different and yes, financial conditions could be better in January/June and there may be more competition for Sancho at a later date, but alternatively Dortmund could be in a much worse financial position and may need to accept a less palatable offer.

Great post and you’re totally right. I’m just peed off right now and being a spoilt brat!

 

[Maureen-yo]

I mean the total outlay on pogba is surely close to 200 million euros over his contract. Its not like they are paying it in one go and also can't add value to it or even recoup some of it with sales.

I get your point but Pogba wasn't purchased or negotiated upon during the worst pandemic in over 100 years causing a massive loss in revenue for the footballing world.

 

[fps]

Pogba in 2020 isn't selling for 90 million pounds that's for sure.

He has proven very poor value for money. Sancho was so exciting, he seems so United like, and so many United kinda players haven’t moved to United the past few years.

 

[Moiraine]

At the end of the day, Sancho was the dream signing that most Utd fans could pull off the top of their head.

But I don’t think any manager or club ever has got a 100% success rate with their first choice transfer. SAF regularly had to settle for alternatives in the 90s. Couldn't get Collymore so got Cole, Couldn’t get Shearer so got Solskjaer, Couldn’t get Kluivert so got Yorke, Cantona launched a surprise retirement so had to get Sheringham in... and all of those guys contributed to a winning team.

Sancho isnt the be all and end all for right wingers, but surely we had more alternatives to him rather than a high risk punt on Ousmane Dembélé? I’m hoping Diallo and Pellistri are those alternatives because this is where it is getting difficult for us. We can’t let the likes of Diallo or Pellistri go to places like Lyon, Dortmund or a top half Premier League team anymore because they’ll demand stupid money (previously in the noughties we could just bid £30m and they’d accept). We have to get those potentially awesome players before they do and develop them ourselves. We’ll have to risks on these boys rather than get stumped by other clubs who beat us to them and hold us to ransom, when they actually live up to their potential and we’re interested.

Its a shame we can’t use Diallo until the new year, otherwise I’d be a bit more upbeat about it. Pellistri will need time to acclimatise to European football I think. If Diallo comes in in the new year and he’s looking like he can handle it then yeah the club did well to identify a good alternative to Sancho. He could very well end up being just as good as Sancho or even better. Sancho isnt even a fecking cert to be good for us either.

If we signed Pellistri and Diallo a month ago, I think we’d all be intrigued by how well they would do and be more assured when all these people who’ve watched them speak about them in glowing terms, but the timing makes it look like we shat the bed over the Spurs loss and Sancho/Dembélé not coming, when wed actually been watching them for a while.

Top post. Mods this deserves a like !

 

[VeevaVee]

It’s time to end these fecking agent fees. The player should be paying for those. Let’s see how much they’re able to charge when they can pick and choose who they work with. How that has managed to be part of the deal, I have no idea, but it’s part of the reason football is going to the dogs.

 

[ChaddyP]

He has proven very poor value for money. Sancho was so exciting, he seems so United like, and so many United kinda players haven’t moved to United the past few years.

I meant the 23 year pogba we bought from Juventus. Not the one currently plying his trade at Manchester United

 

[fps]

I meant the 23 year pogba we bought from Juventus. Not the one currently plying his trade at Manchester United

Ah ok. I agree with that too, but don’t think he’s a massively different player.

 

[VeevaVee]

Glad it didn't happen as we shouldn't be held to ransom by pompous, self-important feeder clubs like Dortmund, nor by greedy agents. We should have however had other options in the pipeline earlier in the process to avoid leaving it late yet again.

Yeah agreed. We should have been the ones setting the deadline, and that deadline should’ve been ages ago.

 

[noodlehair]

I still don't understand what people see in Sancho that makes them think he's even that good.

Even at £90m I think it's a completely ridiculous price for a teenager who's been average to decent on the many times I've watched him, and who doesn't seem to possess any explosive abilities.

The issue is with spending the whole transfer window faffing about with a player who we were never going to sign, and who should never have been top of our priority list in the first place, and then signing two random wingers and a striker on deadline day who we literally could have signed in June, and after turning down the chance to sign a much better suited striker in January who would have cost a fraction of what we were willing to pay for Sancho!

Meanwhile our best centreback (whichever one you want to pick) isn't good enough to play for us.

 

[Snuffkin]

Problem is Germany has got their shit together regarding covid response. Football teams aren't going to the wall.

 

[VorZakone]

It’s time to end these fecking agent fees. The player should be paying for those. Let’s see how much they’re able to charge when they can pick and choose who they work with. How that has managed to be part of the deal, I have no idea, but it’s part of the reason football is going to the dogs.

I'm just curious, would banning agent fees really help?

What's stopping clubs from artificially paying a higher sign-on fee to the player who then pays his agent? Same end result, just a different method.

 

[Adamsk7]

I have no issues with waking away from Sancho - the deal was massive and it seems he would have been on huge salary and his agents would have got a massive payment - the fact of the matter is for all his potential, kid hasn’t made it YET to be demanding so much. The issue I think for a lot of us is then why not move on earlier? Well actually if you think about it, if he was our top target I see no issue with waiting further along the road to see if the demands of any party changes and that was a decent strategy. It seems Dembele was option 2 but he wasn’t interested until the last minute. My theory is that Sarr was option three and the reason we left Sancho and Dembele so late was because we knew we had until the 16th for Sarr. If we do get him, I can only see that those assumptions are correct.

my one criticism if that is indeed the case is that we should have moved some of that money to strengthening the CB position. My only counter there is that perhaps we see Upamencano as the priority and we know he’s not moving until next year.

 

[sammsky1]

Chelsea leaked out agents wanting 50m

How does an agent justify such a fee? What do they do to be worth so much? I mean a player had to play 50 games a year for 4 or 5 years to get that. I don’t understand how the industry has allowed for such a phenomenon to be so powerful.

 

[He'sRaldo]

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.

Sensible post.

 

[devilish]

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.

Do you think it's wise to spend the entire Summer working on this deal only to end up with two 18 year olds and a 33 year old player whom only god knows if he can still play at this level anymore?

 

[LoneStar]

Who is supposed to buy this bullshit? Did the board realise that he would cost a lot in transfer fee plus wages just at the last minute?

The timing and the story reeks of a press release intended to do god knows what (appease fans that they tried?)

Even if they had valued this at a lower fee, surely they’d have run the scenario that it could be higher. We had so many months after the lockdown to assess this whole thing and keep solid backups in place. The fact that we signed a couple of players right on deadline day when we could have signed them anytime prior reeks of panic buying. We are the worst run football club in the last decade without a doubt. Sir AF was holding it together on the football end, but this rot has been there for longer.

 

[devilish]

Not getting Sancho is hardly a tragedy. The money attached to him was indeed high especially for a player who only excelled with a team that even Dembele, Kagawa and Mkhitaryan were great with. What is kind of stupid is waiting till the end to close that chapter.

If I was an Ole in guy I'd be furious. Cavani is 33 and injury prone which means that the chances of him being useless for us is high. Pellestri and Diallo are promising but insanely raw. Which means that Ole would not be able to rely too much on them. Which lead us to Telles and VDB as the only signings that for the first team. A better manager would see the bigger picture. He'll see Henderson as an upgrade over a DDG whose a shadow of his former self, he would have probably treated Smalling (aka the most consistent CB we had since Sir Alex left) better which means he would have options to pair that incredibly slow CB he bought for 80m, he would probably see VDB as a better option in the deeper role then Pogba is and he would occasionally go in a 4-3-2-1 formation which would get the best out of Mata while giving Greenwood some rest. Unfortunately we know that Ole and his coaching staff lack that tactical know how. He'd run the team to the ground and expect individual brilliance to save the day.

 

[cyberman]

Do you think it's wise to spend the entire Summer working on this deal only to end up with two 18 year olds and a 33 year old player whom only god knows if he can still play at this level anymore?

And VDB and Telles..

 

[devilish]

And VDB and Telles..

VDB was signed earlier on and Telles is a LB. I explained myself better on the post before this.