Froggy

I can spell it out for you one word at a time if you'd like. Sevilla initially wanted something stupid like £50-£60m for Diego Carlos. You offered £30m. They rejected. Called it a pathetic offer. He ended up going for something like £26m in the summer to Villa. I'm fairly sure you lowballed for Botman as well before stumping up the asking price. Stop acting like low opening offers aren't the norm. It's a feeler bid.

£35m for someone with one season under their belt is a perfectly reasonable opening bid. Deal will probably be done for somewhere in the middle.

Remember Newcastle bidding £30m for Diego Carlos when Sevilla said he wouldn't go for less than his £60m release clause. Clueless them Saudi lads. Ashley 2.0. You lads are in so much trouble with those guys.

The idiots laughing at it are the same ones who'd laugh if we just went in and bid £70m right away.

I don't have a hat anywhere near as cool as that.

Nope. It isn't.

Do think this guy is unreal. Whoever signs him has got a class player for 60m. I'd cry if it's Chelsea like.

He's waiting for our bid. Guaranteed starter at us.

This bloody article again. Spencer Morgan and his bottom of the barrel nonsense will be the death of me.

It was Ratcliffe, Brailsford, Wilcox and Blanc in Monaco. The Glazers just want the paycheck. The stipulation of the Ratcliffe investment was that they'd gain full control over the footballing side of things.

The Sancho situation is essentially this: He was given three months off to go and get his head right and put on a specialised training program for his fitness after Ten Hag expressed concern over the way he was acting and training. He came back and when he was brought on as a sub and you could see Ten Hag essentially congratulating him and telling him to go and enjoy himself. It was all smiles, all positive body language. Fast forward a few months and he's late to training again, sleeping in and staying up playing the playstation all night. His committment levels dropped as did his fitness, which was really poor after what the club had done for him. Ten Hag was asked about why he was dropped in a post match interview after a defeat against Arsenal, and told the truth that he wasn't fit enough to be in the squad. I won't argue with anyone who believes this was the wrong approach, but it was the truth and the club had protected him enough at this point. Sancho obviously took issue with being publicly called out and went straight on to social media to have a little moan and claim he's being made to be a scapegoat. The worst thing of all, is that all Ten Hag has asked for is an apology, and he'd be straight back into the team. Sancho has refused. Ten Hag won't budge. Ten Hag in my opinion is 100% right not to give in to player power. If Rashford hadn't apologised after the Belfast fiasco then he'd be out on loan or rotting in the reserves as well. I know I give Rashford a lot of stick as well, but three times he's dropped by Ten Hag for various reasons like being late or going out in bars when he shouldn't have. He's apologised each time, and they've moved on and he's been straight back into the team. It's a simple case of the manager demanding respect. Sancho doesn't have any respect. It was the same at Dortmund as well, but he was performing to an extremely high level (that he isn't capable of at Premier League level IMO) so it wasn't as publicised. He was fined and made to train with the youth multiple times in Germany though. He's a waste of space.

New contract for the bald magician. He'll be happy.

When people say this, who are they talking about? Sancho and Ronaldo? Fans are 100% behind him with both. We're delighted with how he's handled them.

The Glazers have absolutely nothing to do with the footballing side anymore. Reality is, if they had spoken to a manager they thought was a better option, they'd have pulled the plug on Ten Hag. You do always have to go with what you think is the best option available, and I personally don't think Tuchel, Pochettino, De Zerbi, McKenna etc. were an upgrade on Ten Hag, so I'm happy they've stuck with him. If you had asked me a few months ago about De Zerbi I'd have been very keen but I'm not a fan of how it ended between him and Brighton. I haven't read anything about that to be honest. The vast majority of the current players will be happy he's staying.

It's a thread about managerial news. The Ten Hag situation was always going to spark debate in this thread about how he's performed.

It must have been the Goldbridge insinuation.

I still think we'll match the wages of most other clubs, and we'll target players with release clauses so clubs can't bend us over a barrel like Ajax did with Antony. We'll find all of this out in the next month or two anyway.

I fully agree it's insulting. I'm just happy we aren't bending over and paying over the odds like we have done for years now.

OK chief. I'd say I've been to Old Trafford more in the last 6 months than you've been to SJP in your lifetime. You're not in the position to throw stones.

What you've said is exactly what I mean, but you know as well as I do that I don't articulate things very well when it comes to football debates. We were trying to play a man for man press with players like Rashford and Scott McTominay on the field which was suicidal from Ten Hag, hence the kamikaze press comment. If one man doesn't pull his weight, it falls apart. When we had a front four of Hojlund, Garnacho, Fernandes and Antony, the press actually worked fairly well and was effective and our stats in this field were high. That leads in to your comment about sloppiness in possession which is absolutely correct. Ineffective wingers not passing the ball, or running into traffic. Hojlund just not receiving the ball at all. There were games where Onana was the one with the most passes to Hojlund. That's absolutely insane. The team is young though, I'm hoping that development will come with experience and time. Our players capable of maintaining possession such as Eriksen and Mount either weren't available or don't have the legs anymore to be effective in the middle of the park. Mainoo brought some more balance to this, but with no competent defensive midfielder the midfield was constantly overrun. When we tried to press and were sloppy as you mentioned, we were countered and with everyone high up the pitch and no DM with the legs to cover ground, we conceded shot after shot after shot. I'm in no way trying to suggest we were even close to good last season, and Ten Hag should shoulder a lot of the blame because when the injuries started flying in and Casemiro was in a back four with Jonny Evans, the only sensible thing to do was to protect them, but we continued with suicide ball. If we were in the same situation this year come October with two or three valuable defensive players out and we continued to play the high press, I'd be the first one calling for his head. I like my manager to be able to adapt, and Ten Hag did just that against Arsenal, Newcastle, Brighton and City to finish the season. It gave me some hope that he's not as stubborn as I initially thought and I felt like he deserved another go at proving he's the man for the job. I hope it makes sense what I'm trying to say.

Time to stop living in the past isn't it? No, the league cup didn't hold great importance when we were winning the league every other year, but when you haven't won a trophy in 6 years a league cup is massively appreciated. The FA Cup even more so. Starting to downplay trophies is a really bad look.

And trophies.

I don't see it that way. We have other executives in place and this isn't a sprint. Why would we overpay for someone who desperately wants to join us and can do so for free in 12 months time? I'd have been incredibly unhappy at us wasting a fortune to bring him in early.