I think the idea was with signing Moutinho, giving us a chance to have Dembele as cover for the left wing as well as playing behind the striker and playing Sigurdsson on the right as cover for Lennon too. Falque can also play across the 3 behind the striker and from the little I've seen of Willian he'd be better utilised playing off the striker or as an attacking mid but I can't see Shaktar letting him go for the kind of price we'd be looking to pay.
I have a a few theories on this: i.) Having sold Hulk, Porto have no intention of letting Moutinho leave until next summer so we'd be wasting our time ii.) If we play our hand too early, Porto can ratchet up the fee to make any move impossible for us iii.) All of the above
http://www.metro.co.uk/sport/footba...ndowski-agrees-12m-manchester-united-transfer Manchester United have secured a deal to bring Robert Lewandowski to Old Trafford at the end of the season, according to reports in Germany. The Polish striker will allegedly sign a five-year deal to join the Red Devils in the summer, and will cost just £12million as he is out of contract at Borussia Dortmund the following year. According to Sky Deutschland, the Bundesliga champions have caved in to the 24-year-old’s desire to leave the club, and despite reported interest from Arsenal, the frontman has chosen to link up with former team-mate Shinji Kagawa at United. Last week Dortmund’s chief executive Hans-Joachim Watzke told TMW: ‘We still have to talk about it [the future] with him, even regarding an eventual termination clause; to determine it we must make a calculation based on his performances during this season.’ Lewandowski has rifled 13 goals in 19 games for Dortmund in all competitions this season. FFS. £12 mill!!
The amount of lazy assumptions in that article says one thing above all - Metro is owned by the Daily Mail...
it'll be the end of Hernandez I would have thought. Rooney RVP and Lewandowski. Ouch. if it's true it's a shame after being linked to him. I think he's quality. But then again we're not in the CL, so it's to be expected.
ii) is why Levy leaves it late. If you go early you have to pay over the odds as it means that the selling club misses to opportnity to get competive bids from other clubs. The clubs with much more money than us can afford to piss money down the drain like this. We can't.
End of Wellbeck too, and I would have thought Rooney. Those 3 (Rooney, RVP and Lewandowski) are all great players, but midfield is their issue, and so I can't see all 3 playing together (unless Rooney is resigned to being a CAM or a winger). You could have Pele and Maradona up front, but if they get no service, then it aint going to be easy.
yeah I was going to put welbeck, but then i thought about how Ferguson like his 4 strikers to choose from. Perhaps rooney will become a midfielder. he's tended to sit a bit deeper as he's got older. anyway, who cares... it's united! just wanted everyone to know that we probably won't be getting Lewandowski either! On the upside, there are quality strikers out there for £12 mill, which i think we might be able to stretch our budget to!
I am sure £12m will get topped for him if it is true he can leave. Chelsea will probably get the bidding going and City probably want to add a striker or 2 to their meagre supply.
Llorente or Huntelaar would probably cost less than £12m, but the fee wouldn't be the problem. Wages and managing to get them to sign in the first place are the true hurdles and they're probably insurmountable ones, too. I wonder if anyone will go in for Ba? His clause comes up again in the new window, apparently. Diame's got one too, according to the Fail. They managed to take time out from printing a million articles about Bale diving to write about something else.
We're now being linked with Wesley Sneijder, along with anyone else that's not bankrupt. What a totally ludicrous non-starter.
These two are more realistic transfers for us in a Jan window. Not necessarily saying those two, but proven or up and coming premier league players with some sort of clause for Levy to trigger.
Just seen that myself. My favourite bit is "Tottenham’s Gareth Bale is the worst offender in the league this season - his four dives are more than double any other player." - so 4 times as many then?
There's about 5 of them. My favourite was my namesake's suggestion that Bale should've been sent off, even though he admits he was fouled. Foy didn't get it wrong though, because it was hard to tell whether it was a foul or not, apparently. Which would suggest that you don't give anything, but not in Poll's mind, for some reason.
Certain refs make up the rules as they go along, Poll is one of them so it's no great surprise that even with replays he thinks he should be sent off(presumably a second booking for the sarcy clap). Foy falls more into the catergory of refs that simply seem to miss a lot of the game due to needing glasses(as YK suggested) so whilst he will continue to step on rakes and make bad decisions you get the feeling that, in hindsight, he'd realise he made a mistake.
There are a few that would have booked him for the sarcastic clapping. Whatever you think of the first booking (it wasn't one ) I could understand him being sent off for the second offence. If he had, he'd probably be back in the team quicker!
