Manchester United FC Thread

Shit loss today.

Lacking creativity again in the final third. Injuries and unfit players really hampering there.

Rio fucking up defending a corner not helping either.

 

Clumsy is probably a understatement from United's POV.

 

Athletic Bilbao not so innocent in Herrera to Manchester United collapse, claims Spanish journalist

“What a mess”. Those were the words quickly doing the rounds on Twitter last night when news trickled through that the deal for Ander Herrera was called off. Newly appointed Manchester United CEO Edward Woodward was blamed thousands of times for multiple things, but one word came up more than once: “incompetent”. It's hard not to agree with the accusations, but a question everyone wants answered is “what actually happened?”.

First of all, it's worth nothing that the “three wise men” spotted walking in and out of the LFP (Liga de Fútbol Profesional) headquarters were not impostors, but a group of Bilbao lawyers who had dealt with Athletic Bilbao (especially in the Javi Martinez transfer) before.

Other than talks of the deal breaking down over the release clause, it appears there was an obstacle that even Bayern Munich struggled to overcome when they attempted to sign Javi Martinez.​

Lartaun de Arizmendi

, a journalist for Cadena COPE (the radio station who first broke the news that Manchester United were interested in Ander Herrera), has revealed in a post on his ​

personal blog

that, irregardless of the reported clause, the Herrera deal was near impossible to complete and that Bayern Munich needed external help to force through the Javi Martinez transfer.

He says that after much reflection on the Javi Martinez case, Athletic Bilbao came to realise that the player depositing the cheque on Bayern Munich's behalf (even if Athletic were against the move) wasn't enough to make the deal 100% go through. Once they had discovered this detail, Athletic used it to their advantage and told Bayern Munich that for a unilateral deal like this one to go through, the club has to agree to receive the fee in their bank account.

If Bilbao refuse to receive the money, and there was no obligation for them to do so, the will of the paying club (Bayern Munich) and the player (Javi Martinez) counted for nothing. In order to force the deal to go through, Munich contacted the Financial Council in Bilbao to tell them that this offer was being refused. The Financial Council, who would benefit from this deal going through, pressured Athletic Bilbao in accepting the money by telling them that if they did not do so, they would be required to immediately pay all the debts they owed the Financial Council and would not receive anymore help from them in the future.

It is only after this happened that Athletic Bilbao accepted the offer for Javi Martinez and have the money placed in their bank account.

Returning to the Herrera deal, it appears that there was never any panic on Athletic Bilbao's side and it was reported many times that they were confident the deal would not go through. If what Lartaun de Arizmendi has written is true, Bilbao knew that Manchester United would never have the time to get the Financial Council on their side in time for a similar process to happen.

If Bilbao refused to accept the money in their bank account, this would explain why the three Laffer lawyers were turned away at the LFP headquarters yesterday evening.

Edward Woodward (or whoever was in charge of the deal) was not aware of the loophole exploited by Bayern Munich and why would they be? Athletic Bilbao will have clearly done their best to keep it a secret in order to hold on to their best players.

As we all know, Juventus had to wait an extra year to get Fernando Llorente on a free because they hit a stumbling block similar to the one Manchester United crashed into late last night. Again, if what Lartaun writes is correct (and logically, it seems to be), Juventus would not have known of the Javi Martinez loophole and Bilbao stubbornly refused to accept the money.

Lartaun writes at the bottom of his post: “This is what I have managed to find on the Ander Herrera/MUFC deal. Now, it is up to you to draw your own conclusions as appropriate”.

We will, Lartaun, we will. If what you say is true, perhaps Manchester United are not the only ones to blame for this deal falling through.​

http://sportwitness.ning.com/forum/...so-innocent-in-herrera-to-manchester-united-c

Interesting.

 

If you want to believe Updates of another restricted and paid forum which is often accurate (and was with SAF's retirement and Moyes appointment) then at one point when we were confident of pulling Herrera in, we pulled out of negotiations with Everton for Fellaini and Baines both and they in turn stalled Mccarthy which pissed of Whelan who was spending money already.

We moved for another midfielder even (Probably Khedira) and tried to get Coentrao on loan. When both Herrera (due to Athletic playing silly buggers) and that other move failed , we just panic paid Everton's asking price for Fellaini to get something at least.

Wanted both though as has been said all summer. Moyes only moved for Herrera after scouting him personally in 2 games thus it was late and Coentrao was scouted too, which explains Steve Round and Phil Neville being at the Portugal game recently.


Shambles really.

Woodward was led down the garden path by Fabregas and Thiago and that screwed us up plus lack of scouting as Moyes didn't want to commit big money to someone without personal scouting.

He has been extremely naive this summer and was led on even by Feelers from Ronaldo and Levy when he wanted someone to pit against Real for Bale to make them pay up.

 

Yeh Woodward really has shown how green he is this summer. Hopefully he'll learn from these mistakes because if its the same next summer we need to swap him for someone who can actually do this stuff

 

Is Kagawa injured?

 

Flu.

 

Kagawa's lack of game time is really getting to me. I think he's great... hope Moyes starts playing him soon