Sold Zidane Iqbal to FC Utrecht for 1 million GBP. There is a 40% sell on clause and a buyback option if he ends up tearing it up.

word is that Man United had a deal agreed with DDG but EtH pulled the plug. he doesn't want david as his number 1 anymore.

So management signs a player to an extension and the manager says he doesn't want the player.

I can't imagine a more disfunctional group in all of sports.

Rivals the Cowboys for sure and I'm a Cowboys fan!

If he agreed to a reduced salary and then United retracted the offer and offered him an even lower salary…that is the most bush league BS I've ever seen. I think it's time to move on from De Gea but that's not how you treat a player who single handedly kept you relevant in the mid 2010s.

akm91 said:

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Rivals the Cowboys for sure and I'm a Cowboys fan!

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The Cowboys have a plan. It's a bad one because Jerry thinks he knows what he's doing and he doesn't but at least he sticks with it.

The Glazers and the management level are just greedy and incompetent. That's a bad combo.

it's managements fault for not getting on the same page as their manager. but, DDG was making like 20mm pounds a year. i'm not crying for him.

Dre_00 said:

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If he agreed to a reduced salary and then United retracted the offer and offered him an even lower salary…that is the most bush league BS I've ever seen. I think it's time to move on from De Gea but that's not how you treat a player who single handedly kept you relevant in the mid 2010s.

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Idk, if the manager runs into the room and grabs the contract as DDG signs it then sprints off yelling PSYCH! it's pretty funny.

Pretty embarrassing. And we set the embarrassing bar pretty high.

That said, I think we weren't really planning to get a no 1 keeper this year when the season ended, but there aren't many keeper buyers, and a lot of good keepers for sale. Sooo… yeah.

It's not fair to compare Jerry Jones to the Glazers. As an owner he is everything you would want: he will put money in the club, he put money in the stadium, and if the NFL didn't have a salary cap, you know he'd splash cash to get players.

The problem is his GM. Although he does probably do a better job there than Joel or Avram would as Director of Football.

The Glazers are pretty much what you'd have if the Brown family inherited the Cowboys somehow. But the NFL makes owning a team so idiot-proof that even the Glazers can do it. Premier league… not as much.

It seems hard to believe that even United would be so inept as to not understand how ETH felt about De Gea and his future. If nothing else, I don't think ETH would have ever allowed there to be any misunderstanding between he and Murtough (or whomever) about how he felt about United. The Dutch are incredibly direct with their opinions and ETH bears that trait as well. My guess (purely a guess) is that he has always been publically confident in De Gea while privately worrying a bit about his faults and not having a good option to challenge him for the #1 spot. He would have made those concerns crystal clear. I'm also guessing that those fears were amplified a bit when De Gea started making a string of simple mistakes later in the season. And I'm really guessing that if there was any withdrawal of a contract with agreed to salary, it happened weeks ago and not days ago.

Reports out of Italy suggest United and Inter met in Ibiza to discuss Andre Onana. United offered 40 million EUR and Inter want 60 million. But they are willing to take 45 + 15 in achievable add-ons. Deal could be done as soon as this weekend (yeah right).

I said earlier that this move would arguably make United better than signing Mount and I still think tat. For that reason, and for the fact that ETH will prioritize improving the team over feelings every day of the week, I think there's a good chance this happens and it ultimately pushes De Gea out the door. He's not sticking around for a nominal fight for his #1 spot because he knows there's no way that he wins it. And it would be stupid for anyone at United to think that there was any plausible scenario in which De Gea would willingly accept a top tier GK to come in even if he was allowed to fight for his spot and wasn't immediately relegated to backup.

I don't think anyone has handled this correctly. De Gea didn't get the trophies that Van de Sar did he was far an away our best player for multiple seasons in the 2010s and arguably a better goalie than Van de Sar. He deserves a more graceful exit from the club than he is likely going to get.

i just shake my head at the fact that United still hasn't learned how to get business done early and efficiently.

Well the only positive is that we haven't yet been rinsed for any players...it's such a shame that we can't seem to offload any either

over a decade of front office incompetence is hard to overturn.

Hahaha...they paid Chelsea's price. They never ever learn.

BREAKING: Manchester United agree £60m package deal for Mason Mount with Chelsea — it’s done, here we go! 🚨🔴 #MUFC

Personal terms agreed weeks ago and face to face talks between clubs made it clear: the agreement is done.

Mount becomes Utd player — they NEVER left the race. pic.twitter.com/tusESsyp2x

— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) June 29, 2023

We signaled we would go to 55M base when we bid 50+5 as the buyer. The only number that really matters in transfers is the base because that affects what you can spend now, and who knows if you will even still be around when add ons come in. But as a buyer, including add ons is a way to signal what you will go to. So we pretty much got the number we signaled.

Honestly, I don't care if the Glazers (or still praying new ownership) pay too damn much for any given player. We always overpay, so this is nothing new.

Just get the guys we need in here whatever the freaking cost. We're never going to compete for a title by dragging our feet on every single signing.

Unfortunately, those two thoughts are opposed to one another. I too don't fundamentally care if the Glazers overpay time and time again if they have endless money and don't have to contend with FFP. But they don't have endless money and do have to contend with FFP so that means ****ty transfer execution stunts change and growth exponentially. It will take 5x the time to rebuild the squad and be much harder to do so if you have a lot of rebuilding to do. Because if your first pieces to building a championship squad are already obsolete before you've gathered the final pieces (think Casemiro) then you're just perpetually building and overpaying along the way.

Last summer was an improvement on previous summers but it may have represented the ceiling of our ability during the transfer season. Best case scenario seems to be getting some good players (maybe even great players like Lisandro or Casemiro) but not in enough quantity because we don't maximize our budget and can't offload players for reasonable value to save our ass. In a transfer window when they arguably need 4-5 top players to have any decent chance of thinking about competing against elite teams, they spent half of their transfer budget on 1 player. We are absolutely walking into next season with at least 3 holes in the first team.

Well there's the first rinsing this budget window...looking forward to overpaying for Onana and whichever extremely overpriced 9 we decide to go for while also settling for whatever pittance we are offered for the players we are hoping to offload

Tony Meola was guest hosting Grump Pundits today. He and Brian Dunseth were talking about United. Both had high praise for Mount. Said he will be a great addition. However, Meola basically said, I don't get the fascination with Onana. He does not think he will do well. Meola has been pretty spot on with his goal keeper projections in the epl.

I don't know what his reasoning was but from what I remember of his time at Ajax, he had a few "what the hell was that?" moments. But he generally was a good shot blocker and was very comfortable on the ball with very good passing range.

Seems like he would at worst make the same mistakes as De Gea does with the same frequency but would definitely be miles better at playing out of the back and helping to break the press.

The Athletic has a good piece today on what ETH wants in a goalkeeper and how Onana fits what he wants. De Gea is probably a better shot stopper than Onana but Onana is much, much better with his feet.

De Gea is not the type keeper ETH wants, only way he will be back is if ETH can't purchase a keeper of his liking.

If I've searched correctly, it appears last year's first summer signing was Malacia on July 5th followed 10 days later by Lisandro and Eriksen. If Mount's medical does indeed take place today, you would expect the club to officially announce him in the next several days. So as far as pace of signings, we're about the same as last season.

One thing that makes sense but I never put together...it has been said that United actually can't (or at least very much shouldn't) sign players in June due to FFP. The FFP calculation runs from July 1 to June 30. Unless they can sell players in June, it's much better for them to wait to July so they count towards next season and not the previous season. Bottom line is that their inability to offload players not only affects how much they can spend but when they can actually purchase the ones they do acquire.

Mount passed his physical and will be announced tomorrow. So 1 year to the day as Malacia. Any chance we get 2 signings mid-July like last season?

Apparently United made a bid of 45 million EUR for Onana. Inter want 60 million. Alternative would be Robert Sanchez who Brighton don't rate anymore even though he was pretty good pre-De Zerbi. He would be cheaper than Onana. And United have supposedly made a bid for Hojlund as well.

Unless United's budget is higher than reported, I doubt they can now purchase both Onana and Hojlund without selling. Could maybe do Sanchez and Hojlund but even that seems unlikely.

kind of like Aggie recruiting, i just have such a hard time these days getting excited or really following the whole transfer saga with United. i don't really believe anything changes until the Glazers are out, and that may not happen at all.

I get that. This transfer season and last summer's is probably as good as it gets under the Glazers...which is better than previous windows but still average at best if we're honest.

Excl: Manchester United have improved their bid for André Onana. It’s now worth €50m add-ons included, around €45m plus €5m add-ons. 🚨🔴🇨🇲 #MUFC

Inter always asked for €60m package — but sources believe €55m could be the right number to make it happen.

Talks continue. 🔛 pic.twitter.com/NVdyXvp0WR

— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) July 6, 2023

I know above I said add ons don't really matter, but teams in other leagues outside Bayern, Real Madrid, Barca, and PSG it kind of does. I wouldn't be surprised if we up'ed our add-ons (and make them real and not fake like the Chelsea ones were) to 55M. Anyway, it's so close it probably gets done.

Especially if our backup plans are a guy tweeting clown emoticons or a guy Brighton benched. Or Pickford (please no).

If they are that close to reaching a number it will get done.

I am not sure he is the goalkeeper answer but I know he is better with his feet than De Gea, and that is what ETH values most in his keeper.

Agreed. I don't think he's the perfect goalie or anything but he's no more inconsistent than De Gea has been recently. He could make this team significantly better.

It's been said that Forest want to purchase Henderson for between 20 and 30 million GPB but United want to sort out their starting GK situation before approving that transfer. If they can get the Onana deal done for somewhere around 50 million EUR (42 million GPB) and that triggers a Henderson sale for 25 million soon after...that would leave about 45 million GPB left for a striker if you assume no more sales. Hojlund would likely be around that price...maybe a little less.

In fairness, Sanchez wasn't doing poorly at all with Brighton. De Zerbi just seems to prefer Steele's ability with his feet. Which likely doesn't say much for how well Sanchez would fit in ETH's system but I think Sanchez was actually pretty decent at shot stopping and passing.

Hopefully we can offload Fred or McT for a decent fee along with Henderson once we get Onana

I can't remember for sure, but I think Fred is out of contract next year, and he's 30, so if we plan on getting any money at all for him, it's now or never.

Edit: yeah I just did a search and Fred is apparently out of contract with no option next summer, so we really need to sell.

There was a rumor that Sofyan Amrabat would join if Fred was successfully sold. Amrabat played under ETH at FC Utrecht. Could probably do a little research to see who all ETH has come into contact with in his managerial history and compile United's list of transfer targets.

Obviously Amrabat had a stellar World Cup and, again, if ETH likes him, that so far has been enough to signal a pretty good chance of being successful. And we definitely need another option besides Casemiro in that holding role for when he inevitably gets suspended or injured...because neither McTominay or Fred can fill that role adequately.