Manchester United will continue to waste time, money and transfer windows with the wrong men in charge
“Manchester United need to back the manager with signings.” You are welcome to attribute that quote to any former player of the club in recent months.
Another transfer window has passed and with comfortably over £1bn spent since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement - Angel Di Maria and Memphis Depay forming part of a lengthy list of talents wasted - one has to wonder just how much has to be squandered and just how long the focus can revolve around the cosmetic when there are deeper issues at root.
While United were being so effectively bloodied by Tottenham, following on from “getting away with one” against Brighton as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer put it and being comprehensively outplayed by Crystal Palace, the commentary centered around new recruits.
Of course, you cannot possibly expect a team featuring the world’s most expensive defender, most well-paid goalkeeper, the Premier League’s record incoming, over £100m of attacking firepower from Bruno Fernandes and Anthony Martial - without even counting all their other assets - to get more than a very fortunate three points from those opening fixtures and concede less than 11.
The ease in which the scale of waste at Old Trafford is brushed over and Solskjaer escapes criticism for failing to formulate little more than a reactive, counter-attacking and Break-Bruno-Glass approach or extracting the best from the players already at his disposal is staggering.
Are Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Harry Maguire and Daniel James better than when they arrived at the club? Has Fernandes actually improved players more than the manager?
Even when United were purring in the final months of last season, illuminated by the transformative effect of the Portugal international, it was highlighted that the lack of structural organisation in possession and the absence of the intelligent pressing framing elite football could prove damaging longer term. Semi-final exits in the FA Cup and Europa League followed and now, worryingly, United look devoid of a plan without the ball too.
Are senior deadline day additions Edinson Cavani and Alex Telles going to remedy that or United’s total tripping over themselves behind the scenes?
Given the obsession with viewing transfers as the cure-all, let’s break down the handling of this window to symbolise why bringing in good players without a solid, crystalline strategy will only serve to keep the club chasing their tails.
In April, Solskjaer was confident United could “exploit” a coronavirus-affected transfer market due to its status as one of the game’s “biggest and financially well-off” clubs.
He spoke about maximising the break in the schedule caused by the global pandemic to “discuss players and discuss plans” in an attempt to ensure they were “the best at everything.”
Yet, on deadline day United were still scratching around with zero hopes of solving their greatest concern at the heart of defence, nor getting in Jadon Sancho, a long-held top target. There was no senior wide forward added at all, with an attempt to loan Barcelona’s Ousmane Dembele unsuccessful.
Getting in a left-back was also a focus all window and despite missing out on Sergio Reguilon to Spurs, there was no upping of the ante to solve that problem only a persistent haggling over the Telles fee, which took the deal to the wire.
Cavani, for all his hard-running, his experience, his presence, his clinical edge, was not part of the plan. Neither is it one of those transfers like Robin van Persie from Arsenal to United or Thiago from Bayern Munich to Liverpool that screams, to borrow Ferguson’s words, “you can’t turn that down.”
At 33, at his wages, with his injury history and the significant agent fees, he is a counterpoint to the cultural reset the club have preached - the kind of deal they swore was in the rearview mirror.
Exciting teenagers Facundo Pellistri from Atletico Penarol and Atalanta’s Amad Traore, who will join in January, were also secured. Donny van de Beek was a clever acquisition earlier in the window.
But the gaps in the squad are still there, sending a despairing wave as Ed Woodward whistles away. He continues to eschew the sporting director model, only previously floating it around as a way to appease supporters.
Woodward’s acumen in the commercial sphere does not translate to football operations and former investment banker Matt Judge, tasked with control of transfer and contract negotiations, appears to also be out of his depth. There is more panic than process, more muddling than method, all underpinned by the ownership of the Glazers, which has sucked £838m out of the club via dividends, debt repayments and interest over the past decade.
We are repeatedly told three or four signings can transform United into title winners despite the men behind the scenes and the man in the dugout, for all his good intentions, history with and emotional understanding of the place, not being up to scratch.
And so, more pats on the head from Jose Mourinho and a feeling of comfort for the club’s rivals. This is how they want it. They want these men to back their man with more purchases sans a solid strategy and structure to extend United’s scale of waste and years without a title.
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