Son Heung-Min

[milo]

In terms of Levy's world though, it was barely a whimper.

For a giant, it was as impactful as a fly buzzing around your nose. People carried on turning up. They spent their money. They mostly sat quietly in the stadium. They didn't protest.

What exactly registered as more than a whimper for him?

Of course online there was something (though as with everything, some people tried to see the bright side) but for Levy this was insignificant. And ultimately, this is who we're talking about.

I'd be amazed if there was ever a reaction over an individual transfer that registered with the board, nor would I want there to be. They need to focus on longer term strategy. Clubs being reactive to the fans very quickly fail.

 

[Hootnow]

I'd be amazed if there was ever a reaction over an individual transfer that registered with the board, not would I want there to be. They need to focus on longer term strategy. Clubs being reactive to the fans very quickly fail.

I completely agree.

Which brings us back full circle to a potential loan deal for 6 months for a striker in January and why Levy would care about a potential fan reaction when he (like any good chairman) has never shown the slightest inclination to make his decisions based on fan reaction.

 

[Baleforce]

I'm sure we'd have signed a forward if we could have found one, better than our other options, for a reasonable price, that either had potential to be sold on or contribute to the squad over a number of years.

The same goes for every other position, we improve where we can when we can.

 

[milo]

I completely agree.

Which brings us back full circle to a potential loan deal for 6 months for a striker in January and why Levy would care about a potential fan reaction when he (like any good chairman) has never shown the slightest inclination to make his decisions based on fan reaction.

I would expect it to be a decision made by the manager. Did he want to bring in a stop gap or wait until the summer and bring in a longer term solution? Bringing into a stop gap, would eat into the funds available at the end of the season.

 

[Finney Is Back]

I completely agree.

Which brings us back full circle to a potential loan deal for 6 months for a striker in January and why Levy would care about a potential fan reaction when he (like any good chairman) has never shown the slightest inclination to make his decisions based on fan reaction.

Especially when 90% of the fans would’ve thought ‘Oh great, we’ve actually got a striker for the next 5 months’.

 

[Finney Is Back]

I would expect it to be a decision made by the manager. Did he want to bring in a stop gap or wait until the summer and bring in a longer term solution? Bringing into a stop gap, would eat into the funds available at the end of the season.

As will not playing CL football, by a lot more than the cost of a stop gap I’d say.

 

[Hootnow]

I would expect it to be a decision made by the manager. Did he want to bring in a stop gap or wait until the summer and bring in a longer term solution? Bringing into a stop gap, would eat into the funds available at the end of the season.

From Mourinho's own words, he wanted a striker in the window.

He's been mentioning it in every press conference since Son's injury and knowing what he's like, he will continue to do so.

And again, people are assuming the only 2 options are nobody now and get in a great striker in the summer or buy someone brick now and get lumbered with them for 5 years.

There is of course a 3rd option, the one Man Utd have taken, which is loan a striker for 6 months.

So I am not too sure why people keep on bringing up this long term option we're apparently going to get in the summer, as if the two are mutually exclusive.

Edit: Or the 4th option, where we don't go into a season letting go of a striker who did contribute an awful lot with no replacement at all. That actually was the crunch point, not necessarily the difficult January window.

 

[scaramanga]

But this is exactly my point. You need the 1k to make the mortgage payment but in your desperation to make it, you've ended up having to spend more money. I get the 1k and then have to spend 2k to make it back to the UK. How is that intelligent?

We made 8 million and lost likely more due to the ridiculous season we ended up having.

I think we'd have ended up with that season anyway. So we'd have lost £8M by not doing whatever we could to maximise our return.

 

[parklane1]

From Mourinho's own words, he wanted a striker in the window.

He's been mentioning it in every press conference since Son's injury and knowing what he's like, he will continue to do so.

And again, people are assuming the only 2 options are nobody now and get in a great striker in the summer or buy someone brick now and get lumbered with them for 5 years.

There is of course a 3rd option, the one Man Utd have taken, which is loan a striker for 6 months.

So I am not too sure why people keep on bringing up this long term option we're apparently going to get in the summer, as if the two are mutually exclusive.

You are right of course he did, however i am pretty sure he would not want one who would not be good enough ( and i did not see any around during the window who were) and just to fill a squad place and take money away from our transfer budget in the summer.

 

[Hootnow]

I think we'd have ended up with that season anyway. So we'd have lost £8M by not doing whatever we could to maximise our return.

I don't see what empirical evidence there is of this, other than an attempt to absolve Levy of any blame for what happened then. The lack of a striker suggests to me that Levy had convinced himself that Berbatov wasn't going to be sold by that point.

You are right of course he did, however i am pretty sure he would not want one who would not be good enough ( and i did not see any around during the window who were) and just to fill a squad place and take money away from our transfer budget in the summer.

I'm not talking about a player purchase though.

 

[scaramanga]

Especially when 90% of the fans would’ve thought ‘Oh great, we’ve actually got a striker for the next 5 months’.

I don't rate the intelligence of football fans, as I'm sure I've made clear. I'm fairly certain that most of them are sharper than that though.

 

[scaramanga]

I don't see what empirical evidence there is of this, other than an attempt to absolve Levy of any blame for what happened then. The lack of a striker suggests to me that Levy had convinced himself that Berbatov wasn't going to be sold by that point.

There's no more or less evidence than there is that we'd have done better under an alternative course of action.

 

[Baleforce]

From Mourinho's own words, he wanted a striker in the window.

He's been mentioning it in every press conference since Son's injury and knowing what he's like, he will continue to do so.

And again, people are assuming the only 2 options are nobody now and get in a great striker in the summer or buy someone brick now and get lumbered with them for 5 years.

There is of course a 3rd option, the one Man Utd have taken, which is loan a striker for 6 months.

So I am not too sure why people keep on bringing up this long term option we're apparently going to get in the summer, as if the two are mutually exclusive.

Edit: Or the 4th option, where we don't go into a season letting go of a striker who did contribute an awful lot with no replacement at all. That actually was the crunch point, not necessarily the difficult January window.

what Jose says to the press isn't what he says to Levy

the media is just a tool he uses

 

[Hootnow]

There's no more or less evidence than there is that we'd have done better under an alternative course of action.

Indeed. I could also make up a fantastical situation where we sell Berbatov on the first day of the window, hire someone competent at making transfers and we win the league that season.

There is similarly no more or less evidence that we would have done this under an alternative course of action.

Most logical people will of course say this is nonsense though. Just as most logical people, not hellbent on defending every single Levy decision ever, will probably agree that selling Keane and Berbatov, one on deadline day, and replacing them with Pav and Campbell was going to lead to a worse season than one in which we sold Berbatov earlier and actually spent time finding a decent replacement.

Alas, that is life.

 

[milo]

From Mourinho's own words, he wanted a striker in the window.

There's a difference between a striker and any striker. We'd have all liked a decent striker but I'm not sure that any were available, there were clubs with far deeper pockets than us who failed to sign one.

 

[Finney Is Back]

I think we'd have ended up with that season anyway. So we'd have lost £8M by not doing whatever we could to maximise our return.

I think we eventually only missed out on Europe by a few points that season.

 

[Hootnow]

There's a difference between a striker and any striker. We'd have all liked a decent striker but I'm not sure that any were available, there were clubs with far deeper pockets than us who failed to sign one.

Such as? There are currently 7 clubs in the world which have a higher turnover, perhaps maximum 10-15 if you want to count other factors.

Again, my main issue is with the squad mismanagement in the past 2-3 windows, as opposed to just this January, when things came to a head. And we are now suffering the consequences.

 

[scaramanga]

Indeed. I could also make up a fantastical situation where we sell Berbatov on the first day of the window, hire someone competent at making transfers and we win the league that season.

There is similarly no more or less evidence that we would have done this under an alternative course of action.

Most logical people will of course say this is nonsense though. Just as most logical people, not hellbent on defending every single Levy decision ever, will probably agree that selling Keane and Berbatov, one on deadline day, and replacing them with Pav and Campbell was going to lead to a worse season than one in which we sold Berbatov earlier and actually spent time finding a decent replacement.

Alas, that is life.

It's the easiest thing in the world to spend someone else's money

You should listen to that guy, he knows what he's talking about.

 

[Finney Is Back]

I don't rate the intelligence of football fans, as I'm sure I've made clear. I'm fairly certain that most of them are sharper than that though.

Well you’re clearly not

 

[Hootnow]

You should listen to that guy, he knows what he's talking about.

I think, as overly logical as I can sometimes be, I'd prefer to maintain some emotion when it comes to my support of the football club.

Otherwise, I'd at least prefer to spend my money on something like the theatre. At least then when I spend around £100 per person on a night, I can be sure they're providing actors worthy of the West End, as opposed to hiring someone straight out of drama school or someone from Emmerdale and trying to pass that off as the same quality.