Honestly I was ok when we walk away from Antony's deal when Ajax asked too much, I was happy we went for targets like like Sesko. I was ok if our primary target is FDJ or no one. ETH to live and and die on that hill named FDJ. I was ok with restructuring taking time.
However I am not ok with all these prolong negotiations playing out in public then either getting rejected or walking away until too late.
Linking to 3-4th choice targets that no one wants. Murtough very publicly flying throughout Europe working on deals that never materialize (ok, he may actually be on holidays and Fletcher is suppose to be the one closing deals). This doesnt look like a club with a plan or a strategy. This looks like man using company expense to chalk up his frequent flyer miles.
Did we trust ETH to only work on his target WHEN he says is ok to try? Meaning we would not have target Rabiot until 2 weeks ago when ETH gave us the ok? If this the way the club works, then the person that agrees to this deserve to be sacked.
Yes change takes time to take effect but not having transitional transfer strategy this summer smacks of amateurish planning. It may be the case where we have a fixed budget to spend, hence only one deal at a time. If this is case then why do we take so long to negotiate then before walking away or being rejected leaving us with much lesser time, and smaller pool of targets? Doubt ETH is the one doing the negotiation. Take the Rabiot case, took us more than 2 weeks and a trip to Turin to realize we couldn't pay his wages. Murtough does not report to ETH and ETH surely doesn't tell Murtough how much we can pay or should pay for Rabiot.
My point is , there is no excuse for a such badly plan transfer. We knew this back in December that we will have clear out in June. We knew back in December we will have a new manager come June. We knew who our new manager back in May. We should know way before June what is our budget and how much we can spend.
I am happy we missed out on Rabiot by the way.