Jadon Sancho

They should be accepting in these times.

It’s only reasonable if they want to sell or are under any pressure to sell, they don’t appear to be either of those things. They’ve whacked a stupid price on his head and said all or nothing. At this point United could rock up with €120m and they could, and probably would, still £#%&! us off for taking too long.

The idea that it is a generous offer they should be accepting is exactly the sort of arrogant %@#$&!s that us in this situation with every £#%&!ing transfer

Can’t wait for the window to shut.

Originally Posted by dunk

It’s only reasonable if they want to sell or are under any pressure to sell, they don’t appear to be either of those things. They’ve whacked a stupid price on his head and said all or nothing. At this point United could rock up with €120m and they could, and probably would, still £#%&! us off for taking too long.

The idea that it is a generous offer they should be accepting is exactly the sort of arrogant %@#$&!s that us in this situation with every £#%&!ing transfer

Yep. They have been seemingly been very clear from the start and would have accepted £120m.

They are entitled to ask for that. We are entitled to have our budget.

I don't have a problem with either, but it's riducousl that weve left it this late and are coming in with an offer we know damn well wont be accepted.

No wonder we seem to rub selling clubs the wrong way.

None of it is surprising either. Its what we do now. Talk of 3-4 signings was never going to happen. 1, 2 at the most. Usual net spend of between 50-£100m, when the club should be investing 200-300m if it was serious about competing.

Then, when we inevitably get left behind and frustrated, the board tell us how what they spend is very reasonable and we should all shut up and be happy.

And then Ole gets sacked and back round it goes.

We really are doing nothing of any significance again as long as Woodward and the owners are still here. No matter who is manager.

We accepting the report as gospel then? Only way they know is if the club has told them, which I doubt. Even if it was direct from the club, why would we take the club’s word about the bid details?

It’s either made up shit by journalists or the club lying about the figures. There’s zero need for this to be in the public domain if it was a genuine bid with genuine attempt to purchase the player.

Originally Posted by Jammy Dodger

We accepting the report as gospel then? Only way they know is if the club has told them, which I doubt. Even if it was direct from the club, why would we take the club’s word about the bid details?

It’s either made up shit by journalists or the club lying about the figures. There’s zero need for this to be in the public domain if it was a genuine bid with genuine attempt to purchase the player.

I think it's more to do with how we've conducted ourselves for years as opposed to one report tbh.

Originally Posted by Jammy Dodger

We accepting the report as gospel then? Only way they know is if the club has told them, which I doubt. Even if it was direct from the club, why would we take the club’s word about the bid details?

It’s either made up shit by journalists or the club lying about the figures. There’s zero need for this to be in the public domain if it was a genuine bid with genuine attempt to purchase the player.

£#%&! off you bore.

Originally Posted by Vedder

Can’t wait for the window to shut.

This.

If we actually did end up with telles and sancho (we won't) that's not a bad window, but yet again why the £#%&! are we waiting until the last minute?


If the glazers do give a shit they must wonder about upper management at the club

Originally Posted by windy waffles

f*** off you bore.

Entertaining. Would read again.

I wonder if the 15m add ons are tied to him showing up for training.

Originally Posted by Whip Hubley

This.

If we actually did end up with telles and sancho (we won't) that's not a bad window, but yet again why the £#%&! are we waiting until the last minute?


If the glazers do give a shit they must wonder about upper management at the club

Watching some of that Spurs doc on Amazon, Levy & his transfer guy both talk about how incredibly difficult it is to get any transfer over the line, let alone quality players. They do emphasize repeatedly how many moving parts there are etc. Utd trying to do multiples of that simply means we don't dedicate enough resources or specialists to getting them done.

Personally I think you have to give some sympathy to the fact that Chelsea get quoted nearly €40m less for Havertz than Dortmund want for Sancho, when there isn't that much between them. Utd's policy of wanting young English players & our consistent bellowing of being the biggest club etc means we get bent over.

I don't doubt it's a hard sell, but all of the hard yards should surely have been done between Feb & June, not now ffs.

Dortmund might be in a good place financially, they might not. But they won't win the league this year so they have to think will selling Sancho make any difference to them aside from getting the biggest fee possible? Given the landscape, I think they would have to be insane not to accept £90m / €98.5m & having Sancho's big wages off the books. They'll have someone else sourced to replace him at at quarter of the cost & they will still achieve the exact same things this season as they would with him there.

It’s not the popular view, but as supporters we’re in the worst position possible to be making definitive judgements on all this. We simply don’t know the truth of anything because the ‘information’ we’re getting is incessant, ill-informed claptrap from sources who are simply using our name to sell papers or get clicks. We all knew Chelsea were in for Havertz, but we didn’t see it play out in the most minor, nit picky, speculative way that this one is, so it creates the impression that Chelsea just go about their business quietly and efficiently; yeah, it’s quiet because no one cares. Didn’t stop them getting their pants pulled down over Kepa though, did it? Or Drinkwater.

Our motivations as supporters are simple - improve the £#%&!ing team, get us competing and buy the best available. Outside of that we really don’t give a shit, so it becomes highly frustrating when we don’t, or it drags on; but we simply don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes. We don’t know what restrictions the Glazers are putting on this deal - we can’t bid more than they allow - so if Ole has made this kid his priority, how long do we give it before moving to plan B, or C, because once we do it’s unlikely Sancho comes here ever.

The pressure’s starting to ramp up on Woodward now, and you’ve got Judge being outed by Evra on social media. These people are not going to enjoy being on the back pages, but I find it highly unlikely that Ole hasn’t had direct contact with Sancho and that we only send lawyers in to do these deals.

Originally Posted by utd99

It’s not the popular view, but as supporters we’re in the worst position possible to be making definitive judgements on all this. We simply don’t know the truth of anything because the ‘information’ we’re getting is incessant, ill-informed claptrap from sources who are simply using our name to sell papers or get clicks. We all knew Chelsea were in for Havertz, but we didn’t see it play out in the most minor, nit picky, speculative way that this one is, so it creates the impression that Chelsea just go about their business quietly and efficiently; yeah, it’s quiet because no one cares. Didn’t stop them getting their pants pulled down over Kepa though, did it? Or Drinkwater.

Our motivations as supporters are simple - improve the £#%&!ing team, get us competing and buy the best available. Outside of that we really don’t give a shit, so it becomes highly frustrating when we don’t, or it drags on; but we simply don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes. We don’t know what restrictions the Glazers are putting on this deal - we can’t bid more than they allow - so if Ole has made this kid his priority, how long do we give it before moving to plan B, or C, because once we do it’s unlikely Sancho comes here ever.

The pressure’s starting to ramp up on Woodward now, and you’ve got Judge being outed by Evra on social media. These people are not going to enjoy being on the back pages, but I find it highly unlikely that Ole hasn’t had direct contact with Sancho and that we only send lawyers in to do these deals.

Agree on the point of us following every bit of drivel.

Rival fans do the same and they think it all drags out for their team too.

Liverpool fans for example were freaking out over Thiago and Liverpool's refusal to stump up just £30m for him

The 'developments' in these deals are probably few and far between, but we're told each day that there's a change.

Nobody really knows.

All we can go on is the net result though and once again we seem to be left short in key areas.

We sign one or two each summer, with every departing manager coming out with a story about how they were promised x and got y.

And in broader terms, we can see the team, what it needs and so can the manager. And it's rarely resolved in a way the demands require.

You use Chelsea as the example, and I'm sure they have their ups and downs as fans, but they've built on a similar campaign to us with a huge investment and, what, 6 new players?

We need something similar.

In a nutshell, do we ever come out of a summer happy with what we've got? ....

We love to bang on about how big we are, but we really don't act like it.

And that's before we even get into how late we always seem to do our business. Our season is always suffering as result of that and it's only a week old.

Since Fergie retired we’ve bought 28 front line players for God knows how much money; players that should have been first teamers from the start. Far and away the biggest indictment on Ed Woodward should be that he hired, trusted and backed the wrong managers, not that we don’t buy players because the facts are there for everyone to see, we do. If you listen to David Moyes, Louis van Gaal and Jose Mourinho speak you’d conclude they’ve never done a bad day’s work in their lives.

Originally Posted by utd99

Since Fergie retired we’ve bought 28 front line players for God knows how much money; players that should have been first teamers from the start. Far and away the biggest indictment on Ed Woodward should be that he hired, trusted and backed the wrong managers, not that we don’t buy players because the facts are there for everyone to see, we do. If you listen to David Moyes, Louis van Gaal and Jose Mourinho speak you’d conclude they’ve never done a bad day’s work in their lives.

We buy, but we tend to invest the most when we're chasing. When we panic, sack the manager and get a new guy in. We spend when the threat of dropping out the CL is apparent, but not when we're trying to move up a level and compete with the best. I think that points to where the priorities are.

Reactive rather than proactive.

Moyes et al: I'm more inclined to see a collection of managers who all failed and all cited similar problems with the club. The more managers we go through, the more it's on the club.

Originally Posted by Dr Stranger

We buy, but we tend to invest the most when we're chasing. When we panic, sack the manager and get a new guy in. We spend when the threat of dropping out the CL is apparent, but not when we're trying to move up a level and compete with the best. I think that points to where the priorities are.

Reactive rather than proactive.

Moyes et al: I'm more inclined to see a collection of managers who all failed and all cited similar problems with the club. The more managers we go through, the more it's on the club.

Correct, they know the investment needed to close the gap from 6th to 4th is far less that that required to move from 3rd to the top. Everyone knows that the target is 3rd or 4th place

Originally Posted by doudou

Correct, they know the investment needed to close the gap from 6th to 4th is far less that that required to move from 3rd to the top. Everyone knows that the target is 3rd or 4th place

Is it though?

Allowing that drop usually results in getting a new manager, which turns out far more expensive. It's more expensive to gut it out and start again.

If we sack Ole and hire whoever the £#%&! we gamble on next, they'll spend way more trying to put it right.

It's just short sighted IMO.

Most of the money we spend (waste) is the new guy ripping it out and starting again.

Originally Posted by Dr Stranger

We buy, but we tend to invest the most when we're chasing. When we panic, sack the manager and get a new guy in. We spend when the threat of dropping out the CL is apparent, but not when we're trying to move up a level and compete with the best. I think that points to where the priorities are.

Reactive rather than proactive.

Moyes et al: I'm more inclined to see a collection of managers who all failed and all cited similar problems with the club. The more managers we go through, the more it's on the club.

It’s on the club that we hired them in the first place for sure. They were all given players and support and they all failed. Between top tier buys, fringe players and academy products how many are we talking about, 50+? We should be so much better than we are now. If Jose Mourinho tells the board we need Paul Pogba, Romelu Lukaku, Alexi Sanchez and they all turn out to be shit whose fault is it? Yet he’ll still bang on about how he didn’t get an endless stream of centre backs. Same with van Gaal. £#%&! them; they never should have been hired in the first place, and that’s on Woodward.

Originally Posted by Dr Stranger

Is it though?

Allowing that drop usually results in getting a new manager, which turns out far more expensive. It's more expensive to gut it out and start again.

If we sack Ole and hire whoever the f*** we gamble on next, they'll spend way more trying to put it right.

It's just short sighted IMO.

Most of the money we spend (waste) is the new guy ripping it out and starting again.

Good point that. Woody appears to be obsessed with the transfer fees we pay, but has seen the wage bill spiral and paid out a fortune in severance.

Missing the (ahem) wood for the trees, as you point out

Originally Posted by utd99

It’s on the club that we hired them in the first place for sure. They were all given players and support and they all failed. Between top tier buys, fringe players and academy products how many are we talking about, 50+? We should be so much better than we are now. If Jose Mourinho tells the board we need Paul Pogba, Romelu Lukaku, Alexi Sanchez and they all turn out to be shit whose fault is it? Yet he’ll still bang on about how he didn’t get an endless stream of centre backs. Same with van Gaal. £#%&! them; they never should have been hired in the first place, and that’s on Woodward.

There's an overlap between the two issues IMO. They're hired out of panic....given money...but then not really trusted (rightly or wrongly).

The whole summer where Woody was over ruling Jose on transfers was ridiculous. Ultimately, I actually agreed (and I'm sure most would too) that they were the right calls, but that isn't the point. He shouldn't be overruled. And it came down to the fact that they didnt believe what he was doing was right. Because he was being Jose Mourinho. Who they decided to hire.

No planning. No real vision and the panic decisions end up costing.

They'll point to the outgoings and say 'look! We spent loads!', but it's never from a position of strength. It's usually when the managers are first hired, rather than when they actually do well

Last season ended quite well. Most of us agree that we are on the right trajectory and a few good signings would progress us further.

Now is the time to invest. Even if Ole isnt the man, you then have a squad that is better placed to be coached. And coached by somebody with at least a similar 'philosophy', so there isn't a need for complete overhaul.

Originally Posted by doudou

Good point that. Woody appears to be obsessed with the transfer fees we pay, but has seen the wage bill spiral and paid out a fortune in severance.

Missing the (ahem) wood for the trees, as you point out

Yep. We are HOPEFULLY putting that right now with Ole and I genuinely don't mind missing out on certain targets (Dybala, Bale) in other to maintain that standard.

But you could easily see them throwing all of this out and hiring someone the polar opposite.

The 'big picture' cost of missing out prime targets like Sancho will be far more than the few million we're trying to save.