You better sit down for this...
United in this Summer transfer window
- Thread starter LawCharltonBest
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
You better sit down for this...
This
On the plus side, there's almost certainly no way the next transfer window will be worse. Right?
I now know what the Americans refer as 'clusterfeck'.
Entertaining read right now 
At least we ended up signing someone who can play CM. Not our first choice, but still a good player who plenty of people were talking about wanting to bring in before fergie left.
Bit of a mess up if we have paid more than the release clause actually was though.
At least we ended up signing someone who can play CM. Not our first choice, but still a good player who plenty of people were talking about wanting to bring in before fergie left.
Bit of a mess up if we have paid more than the release clause actually was though.
Next window, I fully expect us to be offered Messi and Ronaldo for 50 million and have Woody Wood Pecker lose out by haggling over 2.5 million
You better sit down for this....
We'll probably win the league, and the big cnut will have a great season.
Hehe you made an original joke.
I'm a big believer in waiting until you have all the relevant information at hand before judging. Thus, I have felt it unwise to offer any decisive judgement on the club's transfer policy, before the window shut.
So, what the fecking hell was that? We do nothing for the entire window before just scraping through a deal for a player who had a release clause several million lower than what we paid. Is this actually happening or is this some drunk Liverpool fan's dream?
So, what the fecking hell was that? We do nothing for the entire window before just scraping through a deal for a player who had a release clause several million lower than what we paid. Is this actually happening or is this some drunk Liverpool fan's dream?
Apparently Woody is a Liverpool fan, so both probably.
Seems like Moyes had a gentlemans agreement not to use clauses to snatch Everton players this season, and Kenwright turned around on him honouring that by fleecing us.
So we offered an amount for Herrera which was lesser than his release clause to the tune amount overpaid for the afro-man. You couldn't make this shit up. Really feel for Herrera, Bilbao can be very ruthless to players who want to leave. Do we have a moral responsibility of sorts to go back in for him again in January?
If we had a proper level of class, we'd fix this disasterpiece tomorrow, first thing.
Herrera will probably have sent a very strongly worded email to Edward Woodenspoon and tell him to not even bother. "feck YOU MUCHO!", it reads.
It might just be made up. But hey, its not stopping any of us into jumping into conclusions...
Yup, and who could blame the lad, really...
Okay. I can understand that. There is something a bit questionable about activating release clauses when you were involved in the discussions that led to them being put in place.
Why on earth did we wait until the last day before deciding the Spanish lad was worth a bid?
Despair. I do.
If we'd have signed Herrera, Fellaini and Coentrao, I would have been pretty happy with the window, even though I'm not Fellaini's biggest fan, getting Herrera and Coentrao would have made us much stronger and would have been a good first window for a new manager.
The utter ineptitude that has been on display since the window opened has been breathtaking, all three of those players could have been signed within the first few weeks of the window, so to blame just the business side of the club doesn't really wash with me, it's been a collective dance of feckwittery that will live long in the memory, and imo Moyes is the man that's been leading it, it's unsurprising he was called dithering dave by some Evertonians.
The utter ineptitude that has been on display since the window opened has been breathtaking, all three of those players could have been signed within the first few weeks of the window, so to blame just the business side of the club doesn't really wash with me, it's been a collective dance of feckwittery that will live long in the memory, and imo Moyes is the man that's been leading it, it's unsurprising he was called dithering dave by some Evertonians.
It could definitely be seen as unfair, or dodgy, some criticism was levelled at Pep for the same with Thiago, before they put all the extras into their deal, and went well above the release clause. I believe they paid 25 on an 18m clause, added a friendly too.
It boggles the mind, should have had the lad picked out weeks ago, and met the release that we can *easily* afford.
The entire window seems made up. Bidding for Fabregas, bidding for Fabregas the day after Thiago leaves, letting Fellaini's release clause expire and then paying well over it on the deadline night (deadline day seems too early), this Herrera situation. I don't know where to begin.
Don't really know what to say. The whole summer as been a complete joke.
Maybe we can easily afford it, maybe we can't. Or maybe we don't think Herrera is not worth being the highest transfer fee in our club history and don't think he can handle such pressure, which is fair enough. But as hundred others have said on the matter, if that's the case, why did we string him along like a bunch of con men? It's fecking despicable behaviour, that's what it is.
Would really love to know what were the actual reasons for the colossal feck-up that was this window. Maybe it will come out one day, would really like to know who was the guy fecking it all up.
David Moyes does too little, too late for Manchester United's good
Dithering over transfers and last minute-scrambling before the window closed fall short of the club's tradition
Jamie Jackson
The Guardian,Tuesday 3 September 2013
David Moyes has found his first transfer window at Manchester United tough. Photograph: Martin Rickett/PA
To end the transfer window having bought only Marouane Fellaini for £27.5m, an embarrassing £4m more than the Everton midfielder's buyout clause, heaps unwanted ignominy on Manchester United and Ed Woodward, the new executive vice-chairman.
This was the summer that began with David Moyes being billed as the Chosen One as Sir Alex Ferguson's successor and Woodward proclaiming there were sizeable funds at the manager's disposal. Yet three months later Monday's 11pm deadline was only minutes away and Moyes and Woodward faced having no major signing to parade in a doomsday scenario that was averted by Fellaini's arrival, but with the deal to buy Athletic Bilbao's Ander Herrera having collapsed.
Against a bizarre backdrop of imposters supposedly posing as United representatives, Woodward had decided Herrera's €36m (£30.5m) buyout clause was too much and continued to haggle even when it was made clear the Basque club would not budge.
This all followed the earlier failures of United's transfer policy. At the start of the window Moyes told Woodward to target Barcelona's Cesc Fábregas and Thiago Alcantara, while some sections of the executive wondered how sorely the experience of David Gill, the vice-chairman's predecessor, would be missed.
When Alcantara chose Bayern Munich and Fábregas decided to stay at Barca, an answer began to emerge. To his credit Moyes was always conscious this would be the trickiest window of his tenure due to the surgery needed on the squad – two central midfielders, at least, were needed – and the challenge presented in attracting players now the Ferguson factor was gone. Yet the strategy adopted by Woodward appeared scattergun and formed on the hoof, at best, with furious United fans characterising it far more scathingly.
The move for Herrera occurred only late last week when Athletic's president, Josu Urrutia, revealed a €30m (£25.6m) bid had been rejected. Given what Woodward's research into the 23-year-old and Athletic would have shown, he should have known the offer would be knocked back. As the club use solely Basque players the logical conclusion was it would only sell if forced to by a bid for the full €36m amount of the clause.
Yet though Woodward continued to believe the player was over-priced, given the earlier failures over Thiago and Fabregas, a strong argument runs he might have decided that Herrera was, indeed, worth paying €6m more than United's first bid to ensure Moyes's midfield was strengthened.
Here, he might have learned a lesson from the earlier dallying over Fellaini. When Moyes finally decided he wanted the Belgian, the ploy the manager and Woodward came up with was to wait until his £23.5m buyout clause expired on 31 July and then try and buy him on the cheap. This was further confused by marrying the offer with a move for Fellaini's club colleague Leighton Baines in a barely credible £28m joint valuation that Everton described as "derisory" and "insulting", a description aimed squarely at Moyes as their former manager of 11 years.
That was in mid-August. Fast forward to this weekend and United were still pursuing the twin-offer approach despite all the noises from Goodison Park being that Everton's chairman, Bill Kenwright, was intent on keeping Baines but less resolute regarding Fellaini.
Only on Monday did Woodward finally decide to split the bids. Yet the £15m he proposed for Baines was rejected – probably because it was exactly, and bafflingly, the same valuation of the left-back turned down in the weekend's joint £40m offer – to leave United pursuing Fellaini, who finally arrived for £4m more than his release clause. Given Moyes, as the former Everton manager who signed Fellaini, had inserted the clause and knew the Belgian's contract intimately this does not seem great business.
Woodward, in particular, comes out of United's experience in the summer market bruised, having endured a tough baptism as the lead mover and shaker in the cut-throat arena of global transfer dealing.
As Arsenal's Arsène Wenger landed Real Madrid's Mesut Ozil for a cool £42.5m to throw off his mantle as ditherer-in-chief of the Premier League, Woodward – and Moyes – have been left with their hopes of making a marquee signing to begin his tenure as manager in tatters.
After Sunday's 1-0 defeat at Liverpool, Moyes claimed no concern if no-one was bought. This was avoided in Fellaini's acquisition, but he and Woodward will have to think seriously about January's winter window and beyond. A sizeable section of the United support took to Twitter late on Monday evening to describe their club as a laughing stock. Woodward and Moyes will be determined there can be no repeats in future.
Says it all. An absolute embarrassment, led by an obvious novice in Woodward. For some reason, when I imagine Woodward. E.B. Farnum from Deadwood springs to mind. Hope he gets fired asap.
Worst summer I can remember.
Fergie gone.
Spent most of the summer being rejected.
Made fools of ourselves on deadline day screwing up the one deal everyone wanted to go through.
Signed fellaini for 27.5 million. (Beautiful football here we come!)
All the while we watch arsenal sign one of the most gifted and technical footballers around.
I normally don't give much of a shit, but this has been a terrible summer.
Fergie gone.
Spent most of the summer being rejected.
Made fools of ourselves on deadline day screwing up the one deal everyone wanted to go through.
Signed fellaini for 27.5 million. (Beautiful football here we come!)
All the while we watch arsenal sign one of the most gifted and technical footballers around.
I normally don't give much of a shit, but this has been a terrible summer.
A worrying thing after the way we've gone around this transfer window... Who will be willing to do business with us? This will for sure have hurt our relations with Bilbao, and other teams and players will have seen how we screwed Herrera over. I doubt many teams will be keen on dealing with us.
I'd agree with this. I'm not usually one for doom mongering but its been utter shambles.
I'd asked for a voluntary ban since I had too much work. Hence I've largely been away from the hysteria. A completely neutral analysis says that this is utter incompetence.
Did the Herrera deal fallthrough because we refused to stump up or did we not have his power of attorney?
I think one of the problems is we think you can still haggle with "smaller" clubs, but you can't, if they have a player with a buyout clause you have to pay it or they will just stand firm as there's every chance that another club will come along that is willing to pay it because there are so many more clubs with money to spend these days.
The real frustration sets in when you look at the deals that were doable. we could have gotten Luiz Gustavo, a better player than Fellaini, for nearly £10M less but we weren't even in the hunt. For a piddly €6M more we could have had Herrara, he actually wanted to come by all accounts, but we tried a penny pinching game of chicken and got ran the feck over. Then there's Ozil, he's a good deal better than any creative player we have, but we either weren't interested or we low balled him depending on which story you believe.
The real frustration sets in when you look at the deals that were doable. we could have gotten Luiz Gustavo, a better player than Fellaini, for nearly £10M less but we weren't even in the hunt. For a piddly €6M more we could have had Herrara, he actually wanted to come by all accounts, but we tried a penny pinching game of chicken and got ran the feck over. Then there's Ozil, he's a good deal better than any creative player we have, but we either weren't interested or we low balled him depending on which story you believe.
Apparently some Everton fans have a nickname for Moyes: Dithering Dave.
We're a big club, not THE big club. Hope we realize this. Players have different options to go to, clubs have different options to sell to, what this summer has taught us is that the time to act high and mighty in the transfer market has well and truly gone. Even Arsene realized the fault with his ways and actually bought a genuine world class player.
Yep. I respect Arsene for this deal big time.
Yep, we get to see Ozil in the Premier League
Of all the Real Madrid players, he was the one I liked to watch the most. Ronaldo is a machine and all, but Ozil is so aesthetically pleasing to see play. I'd rather it was us buying him, but it will feel so much better beating an Arsenal team with Ozil in it.
A comedy of fecking errors this has been. Moyes and Woodward should be fecking ashamed of themselves for this farce of a summer.
Did anyone bump the Canales thread last night?
But for arsenalYep, we get to see Ozil in the Premier League
Of all the Real Madrid players, he was the one I liked to watch the most. Ronaldo is a machine and all, but Ozil is so aesthetically pleasing to see play. I'd rather it was us buying him, but it will feel so much better beating an Arsenal team with Ozil in it.
A constant reminder that we could have gotten him.
Would rather he stayed at real.
Can't believe we've bought a player for 27.5m and I feel so underwhelmed by it. I'd take him over signing no midfielder but I don't think he's gonna take us forward that much, hope I'm wrong but can't see it. Can't believe how cheap the club has been this summer. Haggling over a few mil just seems unneccessary especially when you weigh up the benefit of getting players in early. Reckon we've massively overpaid for fellaini as well but what can you do, just hope that it's not restricted the budget so much that if we could get someone like Herrera in January we still can.
A lot of questions will no doubt be directed at the new staff for United, their transfer business was not handled in a manner befitting a big club, IMO. At times, it was downright embarrassing