Good to see the mirror don't only give us sh1t. I wonder if they think they can write this kind of stuff now Bacon has gone
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/manchester-uniteds-transfer-business-summer-2126333
Manchester United's amateur and clumsy transfer moves this summer have been nothing short of an embarrassment
5 Aug 2013 12:10 'The club are working through their plans A, B and C like a dullard loudly reciting the alphabet and struggling to get past the first'
Next Sunday sees Manchester United take on Wigan Athletic in the FA Community Shield at Wembley.
A glorified friendly it may be but as sure as Dave Whelan will dedicate any victory to the broken leg that seemingly never healed, so the game takes on Anderson-sized importance for David Moyes as an early indicator of how he’ll cope as Sir Alex Ferguson’s successor.
It has always been the traditional curtain-raiser to a new season but as far as United are concerned you almost expect a spokesperson to comically fumble through the velvet drapes Eric Morecambe style and sheepishly announce that a special guest has failed to turn up.
It would be fitting for a close season that has seen the club descend into very public farce.
To his credit Moyes was quick to identify midfield as requiring specific and immediate attention, an admission that felt positively Archimedian to United supporters urging the club to add quality to the area for years.
Yet weeks on Uruguayan Guillermo Varela remains the club’s sole recruit - a youth player invited to train at the club during Ferguson’s reign. Moyes must feel like boy who wanted a bike for Christmas only to be told he was Muslim.
United have spent the summer stumbling around the transfer market like a drunk and creepy uncle at a wedding; clumsily making unwelcome passes at anyone vaguely attractive, whilst groping repeatedly and embarrassingly at the plus-ones of others.
Extending the metaphor further you wonder whether they’d be in any fit state to seal the deal were anyone to actually say yes.
New chief executive and Ian Hislop-alike Ed Woodward hasn’t exactly helped. At the beginning of the summer most supporters would have been satisfied enough with a decent midfielder and exciting young recruit or two.
Since then Woodward has publicly stated that United wouldn’t bat an eyelid at spending £60 or 70m on the right man, whilst the club have repeatedly briefed the media about the world-class standard of player they are in the market for.
Big names such as Gareth Bale and Cristiano Ronaldo have been banded about as prospective targets and expectations have soared.
It has added unnecessary pressure on United to produce and produce big. Whereas the club would previously be at pains to deny any such speculation, the new incumbents seem intent on fuelling it.
Whether it’s intentional or not the club have become a bit of a circus, and not in a good way. The kind where everyone looks like an incompetent clown and the wheels come off at the end.
Missing out on Thiago was understandable. He decided to join his mentor at Bayern and there was little United could do about it.
What is less becoming is the very public pursuit of Cesc Fabregas. The player himself has wisely
kept his council; Barcelona have consistently claimed he’s not for sale (as they would); but United have conducted a cringeworthy negotiation-by-media like some attention-seeking Big Brother contestant eager to stretch out their fifteen minutes of fame.
The whole episode and indeed the summer has been an embarrassment. Every move has seemed amateur and clumsy. The club are working through their plans A, B and C like a dullard loudly reciting the alphabet and struggling to get past the first letter.
If they miss out on Fabregas and turn their attentions to, say, Luca Modric, how will he feel about being a very public consolation prize for the one that got away? Selling clubs will also start to sense United’s desperation and add idiot tax to any quoted price.
You’ve got to feel for Moyes in all of this. A few weeks ago he excitedly announced that the chairman had told him there was ‘no budget’ at United. He must now be wondering whether that’s the same ‘no budget’ he had to contend with at Everton.
The club need to back a manager who will be under tremendous pressure to succeed from the outset. It requires an intelligence, decisiveness and tact in their pursuit of players that looks far beyond them.
Sir Alex Ferguson famously referred to Manchester City as being United’s ‘noisy neighbours’. Recent months have seen one of those clubs go quietly and efficiently about the business of strengthening their squad whilst the other shouts very loudly and achieves precious little. There’s been plenty of talk of ‘marquee’ when not so much as a child’s tent has transpired.
Perhaps the most laughable story to come out of Old Trafford was Woodward dramatically jumping on a plane from Australia to deal with urgent business at the club. A few weeks on he still seems hopelessly unable to land.
