There is never a dull day at Manchester United but Wednesday took the cake. In the post-mortem of yet another embarrassing 4-0 defeat in the Premier League, mayhem ensued.
The day bizarrely began when attempted space connoisseur and Tesla business owner Elon Musk sent the internet into a frenzy tweeting he wanted to buy Manchester United. Let it sink in how maddening such a statement is, but with what the Manchester club has become it’s on brand. The American then replied to his own tweets saying he was simply joking.
What followed can only be described as a directionless, infuriating, troublesome, mad dash splattering of transfer information appearing like a news bulletin, seemingly every hour linking the Red Devils to every player under the sun.
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Joao Felix, Christian Pulisic, Pierre Emerick Aubameyang and even Asmir Begovic are just some of the names mentioned. It’s as if United are using a random football player generator to go after targets.
The moves reek of desperation, of footballing directors performing a supermarket sweep around Europe clambering around to get their hands on any player they can in the face of mounting pressure and testing circumstances.
It seems as though Manchester United are only capable of urgent action when things get drastically horrible, otherwise they’ll take their sweet time to do what no one seems to know.
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*Break glass in case of emergency* has never rung so true, but more often than not the fire extinguisher has no use. Richard Arnold sat fans in a pub, like a boyfriend after a relationship spat assuring them things will be different this time. Yet, here we are with Manchester United spending €60 million on Real Madrid midfielder Casemiro. It’s an Ed Woodward deal without Ed Woodward.
It’s not that it’s a bad signing, quite the opposite in fact. His addition makes the team instantly better and goes some way to addressing their problems in midfield. But like always with Manchester United, it’s the manner in which they conduct themselves that reveals more about how the club operates.
Club directors and negotiators have had an entire summer to choose from players around the world. To comb through the correct profiles with a plethora of resources many clubs could only dream of, to assertively show the financial muscle required that we’re seeing now, to perhaps secure targets so a brand new manager could slowly bed them in. All that seems too logical for how United operate.
I don’t think Erik ten Hag or his staff planned to make a beeline for Casemiro or bidding £135 million for Joao Felix. If a botched Plan A of chasing Frenkie de Jong all summer doesn’t work, thereafter no one seemed to know what to do.
One has to wonder whether United would be doing any of this had they not lost to Brentford catastrophically. Problems seem to stare them directly in the face, only when the meteoroid is close to the earth is something done about it, even then the action isn’t the most appropriate.
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The the money spent on Casemiro and the quoted fee for for Antony could be extremely useful elsewhere in the market; you could realistically sign two or three players with the correct player profiling that could fit in with what Ten Hag wants. Or at least you could’ve perhaps thought of spending like this earlier in the transfer window.
Even when Casemiro arrives, even if Antony arrives, even if Christian Pulisic or inevitably more players arrive before the window shuts, they won’t be coming to a football club that has a blueprint in place for them, they’ll be arriving to a football club that believes signing such players is the answer to the problems that they initially create.
The panic buying might actually improve this United squad but it shouldn’t be the necessary antidote. It’s the equivalent of putting out the same fire that keeps propping up by making sure the fire doesn't set ablaze again instead of hurriedly reaching for the bucket of water every time it lights.
The signings will provide the necessary distraction for the Glazers to occupy justifiably frustrated fans. Sticking an expensive plaster over Man United’s swath of systemic footballing issues won’t solve everything but it gives Erik ten Hag a very good central defensive midfielder, it may even help United win a game or two.
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The extraordinary downfall of last season seems to have continued into the current one, as the circus rolls on, The Glazers and Manchester United find new ways to stoop to even lower lows. Europe and the world are laughing at the tragi-comedy, because of how baffling the decisions remain. The media can see it, fans can see it, fellow clubs can see it, the methodology at United continues to astonish, it is just not the way a club the stature of it should operate.
Take for instance, the club Casemiro is being bought from – fresh off becoming Champions League winners, they have replenished their entire midfield for the future whilst making handsome profit from the sale of a departing legend. Make no mistake, there are still problems at Real Madrid, but normally they are addressed or at least attempt to be addressed and when they are it’s done at a sufficient speed.
There have been so many mistakes made since Sir Alex Ferguson you would think Ed Woodward’s departure and the obvious failings would mean there were people within the football club who have learnt valuable lessons. But United’s ability to remain bafflingly at sea has been the only consistent thing about them since the Scotsman’s departure.
Topics: Manchester United, Manchester United Transfer News & Rumours, Casemiro, Frenkie De Jong, Erik Ten Hag, Antony
Dharnish Iqbal