Tis that part of the season again. Not post season or pre season, or the festive slog through St Stephen’s Day and beyond. Neither, too, the cool days of spring when the title race hots up.
No, it is the season of Manchester United in the summer transfer market when domestic football’s favourite soap opera headlines the silly months and copious players are linked, targeted, lost, found, sold, signed and er … not signed.
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The last is already forming the narrative for some of Richard Arnold’s great 2022 ‘Who Will United Land?’ show. This is the 52-year-old’s first window as the club’s chief executive and to listen and read the hysteria from a constituency of pundits and supporters, he has to acquire Kylian Mbappe, Lionel Messi, and the next Maradona or his tenure will crash and burn before takeoff.
There is, though, real pressure to discharge a successful window. Starting with Barcelona’s Frenkie de Jong, then a forward – Ajax’s Antony, possibly – and, maybe, a defender after Jurrien Timber turned down the chance to join Erik ten Haag in moving from Amsterdam to Manchester, the 21-year-old’s decision based on his desire to ensure he keeps his place in the Netherlands squad with a World Cup looming.
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Across town, Manchester City have secured Erling Haaland from Borussia Dortmund and, slightly further afield, Liverpool have recruited Darwin Núñez from Benfica (not to mention Fabio Carvalho from Fulham and Calvin Ramsay from Aberdeen).
Ten Haag wanted Núñez too and as Haaland is world football’s emerging superstar centre-forward, United fans see the Premier League’s preeminent forces and their two fiercest rivals already strengthening while their club is drawing a blank that includes further rejection from another Ten Haag target in Christian Eriksen, with the Dane favouring either remaining at Brentford or returning to Tottenham.
The only transfer action that has taken place United so far this summer has been a slew of exits: Paul Pogba, Juan Mata, Nemanja Matic, Jesse Lingard and Edinson Cavani have all departed for no fee.
It should be noted that it is still early in a transfer window that does not officially open until July 1st, with the squad assembling for the first time next month, when Ten Haag will speak to his players as a group for the first time. So understandably, Arnold and his football director, John Murtough, remain calm.
Their stance is that though De Jong is Ten Haag’s prime target there is no need to panic because Barcelona are in a precarious financial position, so need to sell, and there appears zero competitors for the Netherlands midfielder, certainly not from clubs with the financial resources to gazump United.
So Arnold and Murtough will not be rushed in their pursuit of the player and are readying a second bid of around €70m plus add-ons for him having seen an offer of €60m plus bonuses turned down by Barcelona.
The ideal outcome is that De Jong’s signing will be sealed before United fly on July 8th to Thailand for their pre-season tour. Ten Haag wants the 25-year-old in place for the what would be his inaugural match in charge against Liverpool, which takes place in Bangkok four days after United arrive in the far east.
If that cannot be achieved than the plan is to ensure De Jong is a United player before the opening game of the new Premier League season, against Brighton at Old Trafford on August 7th, something Arnold and Murtough believe is manageable.
The mood emanating from United is bullish in regards De Jong’s arrival, the belief firmly being that it is a case of when not if. But should De Jong not be on the plane to Bangkok then, inevitably, the spectre of the farcical summer of 2013 will be raised.
This featured Ed Woodward, Arnold’s predecessor, leaving United’s tour in Australia to “attend urgent transfer business”. When Woodward flew back to Europe on that Wednesday in July nine years ago he and recently-recruited manager David Moyes had pinpointed another Barcelona midfielder in Cesc Fàbregas as the signing to kickstart the post-Alex Ferguson era, but the Spaniard never arrived.
Indeed the only player United did sign that summer was Marouane Fellaini from Everton and that occurred post-deadline and came close to being botched.
This is the sort of doomsday scenario Arnold, Murtough and Ten Haag are desperate to avoid in regards to De Jong and it remains highly unlikely given United’s strong hand in negotiations with a club who not only desperately need the funds from the player’s sale but also his £290,000-a-week salary off their books.
But that does not mean it’s a done deal and Arnold and Murtough must ensure they do not make the same error Woodward did in 2013, when an attempt at cleverness became the hubris of paying £4m more than they should have done for Fellaini given he had a £23.5m buyout clause which United could have have met had they acted sooner and which Moyes was well aware of given he was as the Everton manager who had it inserted into the Belgian midfielder’s contract.
Arnold’s clandestinely-filmed meeting with disgruntled supporters in a hostelry near his Cheshire home at the weekend featured a frank admittance of the farrago that has been United’s recent history.
In fronting up and with his pithy assessment – “We fucking burned through cash” – United’s most powerful executive indicted he was attune to what is needed in order to revive a club that is more a fallen than sleeping giant at the moment. But, as ever, actions matter. Over to you, Mr Arnold. - Guardian
