It would be fair to say that it’s been a slow start to the summer transfer window for Manchester United. Just one player on the way in, and a key target gone elsewhere. It’s my belief that the club are not unwilling to spend £85m on a midfielder, more that they’re unwilling to spend it on JUST ANY midfielder. They view that spend as being on their marquee signing, not just any signing. But this piece isn’t really about that.
In previous years there were major complaints amongst United fans. The first one was how bad the club was in the transfer market. Buying high and selling low seemed to be a constant theme, and fans were often frustrated by how poorly the club negotiated for players. They often paid whatever the asking price was and were unwilling to walk away when they felt the price was too high. Antony for £80m, Fred for £50m, Hojlund for £70m. Just some examples of the club paying massively over the odds and fans stating we should have walked away.
Yet now the club has walked away from two deals for a total of nearly £180m those same fans are almost having a meltdown. (I’m excluding Elliot Anderson as I believe the club would have paid big money for him had he indicated a preference to join). Make your minds up: do you want the club to set a value on a player, and be willing to walk away if the price goes beyond that? Or do you want them to just pay whatever it takes to get the player? Because you can’t have both.
I believe a big reason for this is that many fans today get fixated on certain players or profiles. They seem determined that if they’re in favour of the signing, they want to pay whatever it takes. If they don’t, they think they should step away. It’s less about the club and more about them. They want to be right and they want the clout on social media. That’s what matters most, not supporting the club. We can see this already with the one signing the club has made, Ederson.
Many people like to say that this signing is underwhelming and they would have preferred player A or B instead. That’s it, he’s already written off. For me, I prefer to let him take the pitch in a United shirt and see how he performs before I make a judgement. But for many, they can’t do that. They’ve already judged him based on he who isn’t rather than who he is. They will hone in and highlight every tiny bad thing he does and ignore any good. It’s an incredible amount of scrutiny and pressure to place on someone by people who purport to have the club’s best interests at heart.
But it’s not just around players. It seems the biggest problem Michael Carrick has is that he’s not Julian Nagelsmann or Andoni Iraola. The fact he beat City, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Aston Villa and Spurs and lost just twice as he led the team to a comfortable third placed finish was good, but apparently it wasn’t sustainable.
I asked the following question in a group chat. “If United had decided against an interim and gone straight for Iraola, would he be treated differently?” Here was the answer “I admit I’d be more excited if Iraola had got the same results Carrick has because Iraola has got a track record at a higher level..”
Prior to joining Liverpool, Iraola’s previous clubs were Bournemouth, Rayo Vallecano, Mirandes and AEK Larnaca. No disrespect to those clubs, but I’m not sure how they qualify as a higher level. I don’t know if Iraola can scale upwards, or if he’ll succeed at Liverpool (though I hope not now). Also in fairness, the person who made those comments did say they’d fully back Carrick now he’s in the job. It’s another example of a person being judged based on who they are in name value, even if it’s subconscious.
I said there were major concerns. So the other one seemed to be how every United transfer seemed to be a saga, with every detail being discussed over and over on social media. This leads to fans asking: “why can’t we be more like other clubs who just get deals done without any fuss or saga?” Yet now we’re not seeing constant news, and rehashing on social media, those same fans are now going mad. Saying the club isn’t doing anything, why is nothing happening?
Maybe it’s not happening, or maybe it is and it’s just not all over the media. I thought that’s what you wanted? Until you get it, then you want the other thing instead. When it’s in the media you complain it’s saga, when it’s not you complain nothing is happening. Make your minds up, which one do you want?
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