Looks like the kit leak was real. Gotta say Chelsea's kit release was much perkier than this.

Manchester United’s new away kit is here 🟢 pic.twitter.com/VaWpTvT3ZS

— B/R Football (@brfootball) July 24, 2023

I'll be there. Tickets weren't cheap but I got row B club seats for around $200 each

oh no said:

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anyone else going to the match on Wednesday at NRG?

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Yessir

Atalanta have agreement in principle for a replacement for Hojlund. Sounds like it may be a "waiting for approval from Joel Glazer before the bid can go in" situation since they already have the replacement on tap.

Atalanta have reached an agreement in principle with Almería for El Bilal Touré — likely to be Højlund’s replacement 🚨⚫️🔵🇲🇱

Final bid tonight, €27m plus €3m add ons accepted. Everton haven’t sent new bid at this stage.

⚪️🔴 Ibra Koné, close to Almería as revealed yesterday. pic.twitter.com/uCu7bMZ2sv

— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) July 24, 2023

Showstopper said:

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Atalanta have agreement in principle for a replacement for Hojlund. Sounds like it may be a "waiting for approval from Joel Glazer before the bid can go in" situation since they already have the replacement on tap.

Atalanta have reached an agreement in principle with Almería for El Bilal Touré — likely to be Højlund’s replacement 🚨⚫️🔵🇲🇱

Final bid tonight, €27m plus €3m add ons accepted. Everton haven’t sent new bid at this stage.

⚪️🔴 Ibra Koné, close to Almería as revealed yesterday. pic.twitter.com/uCu7bMZ2sv

— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) July 24, 2023

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"Yes Sheik I realize you are waiting for an answer from the Glazers regarding your impending purchase and bid request however Mr Joel is busy at the moment deciding on the possible purchase of a player. He will get back to you once the transfer window closes. Thank you for your patience"

You laugh; Joel has to sign off on every transfer bid and sale. I'll try to find a source.

Showstopper said:

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You laugh; Joel has to sign off on every transfer bid and sale. I'll try to find a source.

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I'm sure it's one of the many reasons he and his brother are getting cold feet. Power and having someone else pay $250k for suites.

Sold Elanga to NF for 15 mil. Henderson should be next

i'll be up in a 600-level nosebleed section tomorrow with my sons. Should be fun. can't wait for complaints about the pitch they roll into NRG.

Seemed like nearly all the first choice players played in New Jersey a few nights ago (as did Real Madrid players in Pasadena few nights ago). I hope they all play tomorrow.

Me too. I am sure they will play at least 45 minutes. United does play Wrexham late tonight in San Diego so ETH may be resting a few guys too

cbsmith10 said:

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Me too. I am sure they will play at least 45 minutes. United does play Wrexham late tonight in San Diego so ETH may be resting a few guys too

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i know they have the wrexham fixture, but it seems like the match vs Real Madrid is better pre-season prep than the one vs a 3rd tier small club, even though they're famous from TV, so I'm hoping my sons get to see a lot of the stars tomorrow in Houston.

You're right. Just saw the list of players and it definitely seems we are saving the big names for the RMA match

PLAYERS WHO TRAVELLED FOR WREXHAM GAME

Sonny Aljofree
Toby Collyer
Jonny Evans
Will Fish
Isak Hansen-Aaroen
Elyh Harrison
Joe Hugill
Marc Jurado
Willy Kambwala
Charlie McNeill
Dermot Mee
Mateo Mejia
Maxi Oyedele
Logan Pye
Shola Shoretire

Wrexham is supposed to be the U23 team plus Johnny Evans I guess and maybe a few others that were not in the first or second team rotation against Arsenal.

Hojlund bid in according to Romano for 50M euros plus 10M add-ons. Since there were a bunch of English press stories put out (likely by United) saying how tough we are and how we will not go over 60M pounds (rather than euros) this feels like a nonfinal bid that gets rejected and we make another bid or two, but we will see.

Understand Manchester United sent 1st verbal proposal to Atalanta for Rasmus Højlund for €60m package 🚨🔴

Bid structure is €50m fixed fee plus €10m add-ons.

Atalanta always wanted at least €70m fee.

🇫🇷 PSG keep insisting with Højlund’s camp — Man Utd already agreed terms. pic.twitter.com/P2PCYqSuYA

— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) July 26, 2023

That's at least in the ballpark...kinda...of what Atalanta expects especially of those add-ons are reasonably achievable. But I wouldn't wait long to initiate a 2nd round if Atalanta doesn't accept outright (and I doubt they will). Even if United are reasonably confident that Hojlund will wait for United, someone else could in theory make a good offer for Zapata and then Atalanta will either block Hojlund or significantly raise their price.

Oh they absolutely need to get this over the line fast. If Mbappe decides being a billionaire sounds like something he might like to do, PSG could be running around with 300M euros burning a hole in their pocket. Now, they might try to hijack the Harry Kane deal, but… they might try to hijack ours. Hell, with 300M you could afford to hijack both pretty easily.

Mainoo starting in a very strong starting 11 to play Real. Big game for him. ETH may be using this as a test for a more prominent role in the first team.

Mainoo got hurt in the first 2 minutes

Followed by an easy goal for Madrid. Geez

Feel sick for that kid.

Observations from NRG:
AWB still one of the laziest players positionally
Bruno at RW should be a crime
Eriksen can't be counted on as a starter
We better sign a good ST because Rashford is much better at LW
Casemiro is having a bad game

Thunder18 said:

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Observations from NRG:
AWB still one of the laziest players positionally
Bruno at RW should be a crime
Eriksen can't be counted on as a starter
We better sign a good ST because Rashford is much better at LW
Casemiro is having a bad game

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PSG have come in with an offer for Hojlund but it appears to be lower than United's first offer? Either PSG aren't very smart or something is wrong here.

Feels like this might get done relatively soon. The two clubs don't seem to be that far apart, Hojlund appears to be a massive United fan who prefers United to others, and Atalanta just bought a striker from Almeria for 30 million EUR.

And the Amrabat smoke seems to be thickening though it's coming from non-Fabrizio Italian sources so who knows.

PSG may be moving on to Harry Kane (by the way, did anyone see the reports about Harry Kane's wife being allegedly shopping for real estate in Munich? Taking a page out of the college football coaching search playbook, but I digress). In fairness, this is the typical "monitoring" report that you get about United and every potential transferee in the world, so very preliminary.

PSG believe they are “in the mix” to sign Harry Kane this summer if Tottenham decide to sell the England captain 🇫🇷 pic.twitter.com/w6KCBZ5wMz

— Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) July 27, 2023

Personally, I'll be rooting for them to get the deal done because even if Hojlund is great and gives us like, I don't know, 15 to 20 premier league goals, which would be good for a first year at his age, I kind of think we will be looking for another to replace Martial. And if he is less than that, we will be desperate for one. And you kind of think Kane would come back to the Premier League within one or two years. And if we are owned by Jassim, it would probably be easier to do a deal with PSG.

But, on the other hand, if we aren't, they will probably tell us to go do something to ourselves. So there you go. I'm sure there are nice places to go house shopping in Paris as well.

(Edit; I probably just jinxed the Hojlund deal, but… man, sounds pretty close, but then again, that was true for Mount and Onana too, and both of those dragged on anyway)

If Kane goes to a new team, I highly doubt that he leaves that team within 2 seasons. Even if he did leave after 2 seasons, he'll be 32 and his value will be significantly lower than it is now. Could maybe give you another season or two at that point if you're lucky. I agree that United will want another forward in addition to Hojlund but I highly doubt it will be during this window and I highly doubt it will ever be Harry Kane.

But, it will still be good to get Harry Kane out of the EPL and definitely better that Kane plays for Bayern or PSG.

We will see it just seems kind of wild to get 60 goals shy of the record just to go win a one team league. He could possibly wait 2 years and still do it, but more than that, I don't think it happens.

Hojlund is not playing in Atalanta's friendly today. A non-Fabrizio source claiming 65+5 will be offered which will get job done.

United rejected a 20 million GBP bid for Maguire from West Ham. I don't blame them.

United rejected an unspecified for Fred from Galatasaray.

Forest want to take Henderson on loan with a buy trigger at 30 games played. United only want to sell permanently or with a much lower trigger (like 2 games).

I imagine the Henderson deal will get done with a buy trigger at 10-15 games. 30 is too many, 2 is too few.


I am curious what happens with Maguire. 20 M pounds was a really low ball offer, but given his high wages it will be hard to sell him for a high transfer fee.

United are going to take a loss on Maguire one way or another, I think if they can get even a marginally higher offer they need to take the money and run.

Cant sell Maguire for 20 because his replacement would almost certainly cost more and United need to prioritize other areas. They cant go into the season with 3 CBs one of which is prone to injury so he has to be replaced.

Sounds like Mainoo was earmarked for a bigger role this season. He's out for the "first part" of this season whatever that means.

Romano claiming that United want Fred and VdB moved within 10 days. Realistically, I think it's Henderson, Fred, and VdB out and Hojlund and Amrabat in and that's it (maybe Bailly out too but not for much). But that would be a pretty good window all things considered.

Hojlund is done per Romano and Ornstein. 70M euro package.

Rasmus Højlund to Manchester United, here we go! Agreement reached right now with Atalanta 🚨🔴🇩🇰 #MUFC

Package will be around €70m with add ons, clubs preparing documents in the next 24 hours.

Højlund agreed 5 year deal ten days ago as he only wanted Manchester United. pic.twitter.com/MVN0ubeH7O

— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) July 29, 2023

Ornstein reporting 75 + 10 (EUR) which is absurd. But I guess when you see other clubs get pittance fines for breaking FFP, what's the point of adhering to it?

Glad it's done though. We're still way short at forward but Hojlund seems like a budding talent who will definitely get the opportunity and the coaching to succeed at United.

Sounds like Arsenal want to bring in Raya to compete with Ramsdale for #1 GK. That would mean Turner is available and Forest are interested which would mean they have no need or interest in Henderson. Might end up throwing a giant wrench in United's ability to offload him.

Club announced an extension of the Adidas deal. 10 years at 90 million GBP a year.

Seems very odd to me that they'd be negotiating a new commercial deal with Adidas if they were intending to sell the club. Or to put it more bluntly, this seems to be a clear sign that they aren't selling the club.

I would not read too much into that.

Usually in corporate purchases there is a clause in the agreements allowing purchasers or prospective purchasers the right to sign off on contracts over X dollars. With something like that I am sure Man United sent out bids and Adidas was best financial deal, so all bidders signed off on it.

They might not sell, but signing a new deal with Adidas does not suggest one way or the other.