And so another transfer window has come and gone. The likes of Spurs revamped their whole look along with others, but one of the bigger teams
couldn’t land any of their primary targets. It is becoming somewhat of a habit now for Manchester United during the transfer window, having missed out on Lucas Moura and others last year.
This United article is from Robbie Dunne.
This year, however, seemed worse than most.
They started off by courting the highly rated Thiago Alcantra from Barcelona and then onto his former teammate Cesc Fabregas once Alcantra had chosen to follow Pep Guardiola to Bayern Munich.
The Cesc mess was the beginning of some messy dealings by United during a long summer of speculation.
They turned their attention to several other players and by the time 11 O Clock rolled around last night they had been linked with so many that
this transfer window became laughable. However, the Ander Hererra was one which can be explained as it was not a panic buy that turned bad as some have claimed.
3 “imposters” turned up to the La Liga offices to pay for the Athelico Bilbao midfielder on behalf of United. The first problem here is that media reports suggested they were “imposters” and people automatically came to the conclusion that 3 men turned up with fake mustaches and funny noses on.
This was not the case.
They were lawyers from Laffer Abogados who also worked on the Javi Martinez transfer to Bayern Munich. It was definitely a strange twist in the story but had not real influence over the end result of the transfer.
The second issue in the Herrera deal was that David Moyes did not have enough time to personally scout the player and felt it would not be the correct
manner to conduct his first piece of major business having not really seen the player play himself.
What happened after is regrettable and with several teams now coming out of the woodwork saying how United tried to pry their prized assets at
the 11th hour, it comes down to two things, either United were not offering enough money or the players wanted didn’t want to play for Moyes. Neither inspire confidence.
The positive spin on this is that Moyes added Fellaini and having coached him for three years, he obviously feels like he can add something to this United squad. They also kept Wayne Rooney which really shows Moyes’ resolve in that respect. He told us he wasn’t selling and he stuck to his guns. It also endears Rooney to the Scotsman and will hopefully now mean we see the best of Wayne Rooney in a United shirt.
I am not sure if you can put such a forgettable transfer deadline day down to experience but I am sure this is the spin Moyes will put on it and praise the squad he already he has. He had already planted the seeds after the Liverpool defeat and the lack of incoming players probably should have been predicted long before it actually happened.
This is the team that won the league last year and got knocked out of the Champions League by Real Madrid only after a sending off changed the
face of the tie. Can Moyes cement his squad and make it his own? At least the transfer window speculation is over.
Follow Robbie Dunne on Twitter @bobdonadini