Sir Alex’s Transfer Woes

Sir Alex Ferguson continues to be frustrated in the transfer market.

With the whole footballing world getting ready to watch another action packed transfer season unravel before its eyes, Sir Alex had a lot of thinking to do before he could go on to make huge bids for players around the world.

With the league title snatched from him at literally the last minute of the season, he needed to make massive changes (again) to strengthen his already renowned squad.

Before you go on and draw up a potential list of transfer targets and start questioning why Manchester United didn’t go for this player or start reasoning why another 5 million quid was just too much, just like you do in your FIFA 12 gameplay sessions, you need to think practically.

This is Manchester United we are talking about, THE greatest football club in the word (arguably). A club on top of the Forbes list with the most number of supporters around the word and with a debt of around $650 million. So any bids must be made with everything into consideration. Sir Alex though, has so far had utmost support from the owners of the club and has been provided with ample funds to bring in big names to the club.

Last season United were plagued by a number of injuries to their most key players which dampened their flow of play. This included Nemanja Vidic, Johnny Evans, Chris Smalling, Anderson, Cleverly, Fletcher. This also resulted in a desperate lunge by Sir Alex to call the legendary Paul Scholes out of retirement, to boost his midfield options. Scholesy as always, didn’t disappoint. He was still as dangerous and commanding on the football pitch as ever. But with some huge slip-ups in the last 6 games of the season saw the club’s last hope of a trophy also squashed.

This year too bought up quite a few interesting names to the fore as to who Fergie should look at and maybe try to bring to Old Trafford. These names were:

• Robert Lewandowski
• Eden Hazard
• Nick Powell
• Leighton Baines
• Luka Modric
• Lucas Moura
• Shinji Kagawa

Robert Lewandowski was the first name to pop up. With the departure of Michael Owen, he seemed to be the perfect fit. The opening 20 minutes of Euro 2012 saw him scoring a spectacular goal against Greece, showcasing his talent in front of millions of fans who voiced their support for him across the internet urging Sir Alex to sign him as soon as possible.

But Fergie had other plans. He moved instead for Shinji Kagawa – the flamboyant attacking midfielder from Borussia Dortmund. This came just a few days after Park Ji Sung left for Queen’s Park Rangers. This fuelled speculation that Kagawa was signed just to maintain a face for the majority fan base in Asia. Meanwhile, Eden Hazard had gone to the Blues in search for regular first team opportunities. And the signing of Nick Powell was seen as another long term investment in the young players Sir Alex has always entrusted with.

Tottenham though were preparing for a long tussle between clubs for their star Luka Modric who had impressed everyone last season with his talent. His desire to play in the Champions League, shortlisted two suitors, who were interested – United and Madrid. This proved to be another “Wesley Sneijder” for United with Tottenham adamant to get the quoted £40 million for their star.

With United not willing to shell out that much, Real moved into pole position. Luka meanwhile turned rebellious and decided to stay back in England while his team was on their way to United States for their pre-season tour. This enraged the newly appointed boss Andre-Villas Boas. With Madrid coming in to diffuse the situation, Luka resumed training. With the transfer talks appearing to have stalled with either club not budging from their evaluation and bidding amount, the saga continues.

The Luka Modric transfer saga continues.

Patrice Evra’s dip in form during last season had everyone worried. With age definitely not on his side, United were left pondering for a possible addition of another Left Back to the squad and Leighton Baines looked like a perfect choice but Everton’s valuation of 12 million quid saw the transfer come to a standstill.

Sir Alex frustrated with his options, turned to Lucas Moura. Sending his team of delegates to Brazil apparently to chalk out a deal with Sau Paulo officials surprised the fans with this confident move. The deal was almost done were it not for the uber-rich French side PSG coming in with a whopping 45 million euro bid for the midfielder which edged out all contenders. Moura will now join the French side in January 2013 on a four and a half year deal. Inter Milan’s offer being mocked was a bit harsh though.

Then came the news everyone was waiting for – Robin van Persie’s contract renewal. After several years with Arsenal, he decided his views differed from the club with respect to the future of the club. This resulted in a total frenzy in the market with many clubs rushing to register their bid for the fabulous striker.

Juventus appeared to be in the driving seat with his agent even saying that a deal was done. But with time, the clubs bound by financial fair play rules decided to rule out any move for the player. Firstly City dropped out with Roberto Mancini saying he didn’t think the transfer would go through. Italian newspapers also quoted that Juventus were no longer interested. United, the lone horse in the running prepared a bid for the striker with the mouth-watering possibility of a Rooney-Persie partnership up front.

With the new season beckoning, we can only hope United manage to finalize on some big names and manage to get them settled before the kick-off on August 18^th.

Still Rumored:

In:

• Robin van Persie
• Leighton Baines
• Isco
• Scott Sinclair
• Moussa Dembele

Out:

• Dimitar Berbatov (QPR, Zenit)
• Nani (Real Madrid, Anzi)