Is it really over? Has a year’s worth of waiting and anticipating been flushed down the toilet?! Did we watch all those Youtube videos of this eighteen year old kid, who had such promising talent that he was nicknamed “little Kaka”, for nothing!?!? It appears to be the case now, as Manchester United have finally released an official statement declaring that they’ve backed out of the deal they had agreed with Partisan Belgrade almost a year ago, which would’ve sent talented youngster Adam Lajijic to United this January in exchange for the sum of 10 million euros. The dream of seeing this young Serbian dazzler showing off his skills in a red shirt is now officially dead.
When I first heard this news yesterday, I was utterly shocked, mainly because this news suddenly came out of the blue, with no prior rumors preparing us to face the harsh reality that was about to unfold. Worst of all was that we had to learn about this crap from some bloody newspaper, which split opinions between those who immediately believed the news, and others (like myself), who thought that this was just an inaccurate rumor created to sell papers. Wait until the club confirm it, I told myself. Surely there must be a misunderstanding I thought. Then a few hours later, the club’s official website confirmed what we had all feared, the rumor was actually true. However, if this wasn’t bad enough, the quotes attributed to Partisan’s president made matters much much worse. Accordingly, the club president blamed the collapse of the deal on the two words united fans have come to have the most since the Glazer’s family takeover in 2005, “financial crisis”. The club immediately rubbished such claims, with an unnamed spokesperson for the club claiming that United’s scouts have not seen the expected development from the youngster since they signed him several months ago, and saw it wise to back out of the deal and put the money to better use.
As I’m sure many of you would agree, this justification is complete bullshit. Hasn’t progressed well? Sir Alex was giddy about this kid joining our team just a couple of months ago, what could’ve changed in terms of football matters in that time?!?! The kid has received rave reviews so far this season, and has moved up from the youth team to first team in Partisan scoring five goals thus far!! It’s hard to believe that our scouts what exactly it is that our scouts saw wrong in this kid all of a sudden, after he was paraded around at Old Trafford last year with a United shirt leading fans to celebrate the arrival of a future prodigy in the making. Another unconvincing attempt by the club to explain this debacle occurred today, when Sir Alex Ferguson avoided his usual Friday afternoon press conference ahead of weekend fixtures for “personal reasons”, and assistant coach Mike Phelan appeared in his stead to proclaim the reason that United aborted the deal was because they couldn’t a work permit for Lajijic. Oh really?? The boy currently plays for the Serbia’s U-21s, and has become a regular first teamer for his current club. Would you really have us believe that getting him a work permit based on him being a “special talent” is really a problem? It hasn’t been an issue for us before!! Phelan insisted that even if they were to keep pursuing getting him a work permit now it wouldn’t arrive in time for the lad’s move in January, but seriously why did they wait until now to begin doing the procedures for the permit? They had his signature wrapped up for almost a year now, so why the delay?
As such we are left to assume that either one of two reasons is the real cause behind the termination of this transfer: a) United might actually be aiming enter the transfers market in January seeking a big name player that can help our quest for silverware this season, or b) we really are in trouble financially.
In the first case, it would be hard to imagine united have suddenly had a change of heart after Sir Alex proclaimed time and again that his dealings in the winter will be very limited. Could the availability of the David Villa, who recently proclaimed he’s now interested in a move to England, have suddenly changed Sir Alex’s mind? Could the increased interest from rival clubs in highly rated Danish defender Simon Kjaer have influenced the club to act quickly and secure his signing before they lose him to another team with more cash? Could assistant coach Mike Phelan’s recent admission that management is interested in Wolfsburg’s Bosnian striker Edin Dzeko have anything to do with this? At this point all of this talk could only be considered as more wishful thinking than logical analysis, as there’s no evidence to back it up, and we can only wait till January to find out.
The alternative, which I hope isn’t really the case here, is that we’re really facing financial troubles. After all the signs have been ominous thus far: the ever increasing ticket prices, choosing not reinvest the Ronaldo transfer fee in the summer (although I still believe that those we did get have been master strokes thus far), and deciding to focus more on youths development than competing with rival clubs for highly priced targets with established reputations (while seemingly a very wise approach, not something we’ve grown accustomed to from our club over the years), and more recently the decision taken to delay giving top players in our team much deserved contract extensions that would ensure they’re committed to the club and settled in Manchester for years to come (e.g. Vidic, who’s contract runs out in 2012, and is currently being courted by Barcelona). With debts in the region of six hundred and fifty billion and rising, it’s easy to believe that with the current economic crisis our financial burdens have finally started to take a toll on our transfer activities. A united supporter’s group known as MUST agrees that real reason behind this incident could be financial, as an official spokesperson of the group recently stated that the club’s owners continue to alienate loyal fans by constantly raising ticket prices, while seemingly defaulting on their promise to reinvest the fee gained from Ronaldo’s sale in the team, instead of using it to service the debt they brought on us when they acquired the club in the first place.
Since this news has been released late last week, the issue has died down a bit, as fans were buoyed by the team’s emphatic four nil victory away to West Ham on Saturday, with young players such as Anderson and Gibson (amazing goal) staring in the impressive performance by the red devils, While league leaders Chelsea lost away to Man City, cutting the deficit back to two points, as the title race has become wide open again. As the team continues to display good performances and make up ground against opponents, fans will undoubtedly be placated by our lack of transfer activities so far. However should this mishap come back to haunt us in the near or distant future, perhaps with Lajijic signing for a rival club and proving that he was worth the hype, fans will surely rue the day we botched this deal, and will rightfully blame this on the Glazers. As for yours truly, I can sum up my opinion with four simple words, “in Fergie we trust”.
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