In all seriousness, I actually expect the sale to be announced no later than September. Why then you may ask? Because the annual report comes out at the end of September, and Fourth Quarter usually isn't great because there aren't any games in June. And the balance sheet already isn't that far ahead of being negative equity. Now if you have announced a sale to Qatar that doesn't matter that much. If there is no sale and you have to announce you are balance sheet insolvent or close to it…

I could be completely wrong, but I think they are fishing for more bids, no one seems to be biting, and they will bite the bullet and announce sale within the next month.

I don't know if you're right but that does sound logical

Maguire posted today that ETH informed him that he will no longer be captain.

Dre_00 said:

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Maguire posted today that ETH informed him that he will no longer be captain.

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Helps when the captain is on the field. Hopefully Harry is in his way out.

Come on West Ham. Make us an offer with all that Declan Rice money

I will say this. I too hope Harry moves on. But he seems to be handling his rapid fall from playing time and losing the captaincy extraordinarily well. Even now lots of reports are saying he doesn't want to leave. He's like the anti-Ronaldo.

If an reasonable offer comes, he absolutely should go but if it's just a bunch of low ball crap, I'd keep him rather than accept it.

Here we go from Romano on Onana so it's virtually a done deal. 5 year contract with a club option for a 6th.

Now let's see if they can get Henderson out the door for a decent amount and relatively quickly…as in sometime this week. Need to get that done (or Fred but that seems less likely) before spending big again.

The only place he could go where he would make as much as United would be Saudi. If we have to give him money to leave, at the wages he is on it will be hard to make a deal happen. He's probably not that much happier with staying than we are with keeping him, but it's hard to see anyone making an offer than will be worth it for both him and United.

Personally, I think we are stuck with each other for another year.

It's really going to come down to whether he really wants to be 4th/5th choice CB in the year before a major tournament...perhaps his last chance at a major international tournament. You would have to think that eventually his not playing consistently is going to impact if/how Southgate uses him. ETH likely made it abundantly clear, if it wasn't already, that he has to improve significantly in a number of areas before he has a realistic chance at significant playing time. And like De Gea, the chances of him magically developing new skills in his 30s is extremely unlikely.

Supposedly United has put a 50 million GPB price tag on him which seems just wildly optimistic. I mean last season we bought a similarly aged Casemiro for 60 and he was/is one of the elite players in his position in the world. Maguire is far from that. If we could sell him for 40, I'd be thrilled. I don't think I'd sell for less than 30 unless I was certain that was enough for me to then go and get a better CB to replace him...which seems unlikely.

I may be greedy, but if my contract had 20 mil in wages left, I'd want that money, and I would take my chances with Euros.

And when you look at what CBs go for at age 30, 30m is honestly optimistic given his form. That said, there are articles on other teams window shopping today, so maybe I will be wrong.

I looked back at the transfers from last year, and the only transfer for a 30+ year old CB player at 30M+ was Koulibaly to Chelsea for 38m euros. Which wasn't exactly a huge success. There were only 2 other in the past five years, and both of those were barely over 30M euros (so probably less than 30M in pounds).

I don't mean to be a negative Nelly, I'm just saying getting rid of Maguire will be a big chore unless he wants to eat some of his own salary, which I think is unlikely. No one wants no more Maguire than me, trust me.

Showstopper said:

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I looked back at the transfers from last year, and the only transfer for a 30+ year old CB player at 30M+ was Koulibaly to Chelsea for 38m euros. Which wasn't exactly a huge success. There were only 2 other in the past five years, and both of those were barely over 30M euros (so probably less than 30M in pounds).

I don't mean to be a negative Nelly, I'm just saying getting rid of Maguire will be a big chore unless he wants to eat some of his own salary, which I think is unlikely. No one wants no more Maguire than me, trust me.

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You're not wrong. If I'm him, I'm not going anywhere unless you United agree to foot the balance of his contract.

I don't disagree with you. The most likely scenario is that he'll be a United player come September unless he goes full Ronaldo. There are maybe 2 or 3 things that are in favor of his departure (maybe wanting to actually play football; maybe wanting a better setup to get selected for the Euros) and about 10 against it.

The only way United can accept a low bid (say below 30) s if they make enough money selling players like Elanga and Van de Beek that don't need to be replaced. But that also seems exceedingly unlikely.

Romano reporting that Al Nassr are close to signing Alex Telles. He still has a year left on his contract but no mention if there's a fee involved. I would hope that United would do what others do to them and insist on a fee because they know Saudi has the money and can afford it. But in any case, will be good to get his salary off the books.

And now he's also reporting that United are preparing a bid for Hojlund. Atalanta want between 65-70 million EUR...which still seems very high even if it's not the 85 million GBP that was tossed around earlier. Let's see how much United lowball them with the first offer.

A fee? A real life fee?

Alex Telles doesn’t join Al Nassr on free transfer. Told Manchester United will get a fee for Brazilian LB 🟡🔵 #MUFC

More clarity on the exact number after documents check today.

Exclusive news confirmed, Telles will go to Saudi league ⤵️🇸🇦 https://t.co/MX7Q2OR7uj

— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) July 18, 2023

a fee for Telles? what is it? a coupon book to the China King buffet?

Probably a $5.99 shipping and handling fee.

Jonny Evans has signed a short term contract with United. I did not see that coming.

https://www.manutd.com/en/news/detail/jonny-evans-part-of-man-utd-travelling-squad-for-lyon-friendly-in-edinburgh?utm_campaign=ManUtd&utm_medium=post&utm_source=twitter

I'm guessing this is to fill the numbers and perhaps audition for a coaching role? He's traveling with the academy to play Wrexham while the 1st team plays Arsenal/Real Madrid.

And Malacia is going to miss all of it due to injury.

Nice update on the status of some young players.

Amad: pre-season tour will be crucial in determining whether he can get significant minutes with United or needs to be loaned out

Pellistri: likely to be loaned out again. FC Twente has shown interest.

Mainoo: ETH loves him and he likely would have played more towards the end of last season if he had not gotten injured. Sounds like he wants to keep him with the first team and play him when possible (I'm guessing League Cup)

Hannibal: Likely to be loaned out again though club isn't ruling out a sale

Alvaro Fernandez: unlikely to supplant Malacia this season but he's well regarded

Matej Kovar: could be a 3rd GK option but club prefers that he play regularly so likely to be loaned out

https://theathletic.com/4692899/2023/07/18/manchester-united-amad-pellistri-hannibal/?source=emp_shared_article

Read that we have agreed personal terms with Hojlund, but still far apart in valuation with Atalanta. We are apparently also engaging with Eintracht over Kolo Muani simultaneously. We got 4 mil for selling Telles to the Saudis and should hopefully get around 20 for Henderson to NF. If we can sell Donny, Fred and Elanga for decent sums I will be thrilled. Still holding out a small sliver of hope we can somehow offload Maguire

4 Million for Telles is 4 more than I ever thought we would get!

Yeah people are mad that it isn't 20M. Here's the problem: everyone (including probably United) thought we would probably let him go for free. Their wages have been crazy, but their transfer fees haven't been all that crazy, they've just been buying people no one thought anyone would buy and then giving them crazy wages.

Like if we sold Maguire to them for like 35 mil, and they gave him a 400k/wk contract (Maguire should really be taking advantage of Saudi madness while it lasts).

DVB with a sweet strike today in the friendly with Lyon. Hope that guy can stay healthy and find a good club situation. Probably would have to be a loan out deal this year, but hopefully he could perform well for someone and raise up his stock.

Onana's medical is complete and it appears to be just a matter of time before it's official. With that, let's compare where we are this season vs. last season. Last season, we had signed Malacia and Eriksen on a free by July 15th. If we go ahead and count Onana, then it appears that we're more or less on the same pace as last season (Mount and Onana by the 19th).

But, of course last year, the season started a little early to accommodate Qatar. And I would argue that Mount and Onana are bigger impact signings than Malacia and Eriksen (though Eriksen was hugely important last season...probably too important). Outgoings at this point are about the same (last year we had sold Pereira by now...Telles is all but finalized this season; last season Pogba left on a free...this year De Gea). On the balance, I would say this season is slightly better than last season at this point.

Last season we signed Lisandro in late July and then did nothing until after the first 2 EPL games blew up in our face and we went and got Casemiro and Antony. This season, maybe Hojlund is our Lisandro but even if it is, it really shouldn't be the last signing before the season. At this point, it feels like this season is going about the same as last season (which seems weird because this feels like a better transfer window than last season when it seemed like nothing happened...I guess that's because the vibes are a lot better coming into this window than the last). But for this to be big step forward in how we deal with our business, we need to sign Hojlund, offload multiple players for value, and sign at least one other 1st team capable player in addition to Hojlund.

Some youth players heading out.

Bjorn Hardley moves to Utrecht permanently. Given that they plan to start him with their youth team in the Eerst Divisie, I doubt a fee was involved.

Charlie Savage moves permanently to Reading. Sounds like a sell-on fee and a buy back clause was included in the transfer.

And supposedly, Elanga has ruled out playing for Everton because he has concerns over Dyche's tactics. Fair enough.

Also, hopefully we haven't already spent that Alex Telles money, since apparently the deal fell apart while they were supposed to be countersigning the agreement. Wild.

Edit: now it's back on? I guess? You'd think some 4M deal would be easy but I guess not.

Apparently NF have submitted at $15m bid for Elanga

Thunder18 said:

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Apparently NF have submitted at $15m bid for Elanga

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Counter at $15.1MM to say "we won" and sign yesterday.

Romano has "Here We Go'ed" both Elanga and Telles departures for 15 and 4 million GBP respectively. That's an extra 20 million GBP to add to the Hojlund fund putting us around a total of 40 million GBP in the fund if my math is somewhat accurate.

I know Elanga didn't really play so his departure doesn't really change the math on where we need reinforcements but man, it really would be nice if Sancho or Diallo could be a somewhat viable option on the right and play at the level that United would want. I'm not greedy...even 10-15 games there to spell Antony is a start

Diallo left the stadium yesterday on crutches with his ankle wrapped. Would be surprised if he returned for preseason. Might seal another loan deal assuming it's not something super serious.

Well, if you like crazy rumors that probably won't happen, Google News "kane Manchester United" or "Mbappe Manchester United." Fabrizo says it's not true and we are still focusing on Hojlund. But if you like crazy stories, today is your day. Pfffft, what does Fabrizio know anyway #TeamOrnstein lol.

Manchester United are not negotiating for Harry Kane or Kylian Mbappé at this stage, despite reports. ⚠️🔴 #MUFC

Focus remains on Rasmus Højlund deal with official bid expected soon.

Other name considered was Kolo-Muani but Man Utd will push again for Højlund this week. ⤵️🇩🇰 https://t.co/TgHQRIN2Ln

— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) July 24, 2023

anyone else going to the match on Wednesday at NRG?