Erik ten Hag didn’t sign up for this – did he? While United chase has-beens and rejects, the manager can’t be blamed for considering self-preservation.
“You don’t need any player, you need the right player, that’s what we’re working for. If it’s not the right player, no. We need the right players.”
Erik ten Hag there, stating the bleeding obvious on Friday. But as the pursuits of Marko Arnautovic and Adrien Rabiot show, a lot can change in three days at the Theatre of Contradictions.
The news of a bid being submitted to Bologna for 33-year-old Arnautovic broke ahead of the clinic Brighton laid on for their hosts on Sunday.
Of course it was rejected. The only idiots that might accept an opening bid from United are probably United themselves. Bologna know there are many more Euros to screw out of the Red Devils before they put the ex-West Ham striker on a plane.
If United fans were underwhelmed by their club’s interest in a past-his-prime, ex-CSL forward with a dubious character history that includes more than one allegation of racism, their team’s surrender to the Seagulls cannot have helped the mood.
Any optimism naturally generated by the opening weekend of the season was evaporated inside 45 God-awful minutes spent playing without a centre-forward.
United’s third strike emerged on Monday when it was revealed that the club’s next target is a midfielder with a questionable disciplinary record whom Juventus want shot of but seemingly no-one else wants. And for a player Juve might be inclined to give away to get his salary off their books, United are going to pay upwards of £15million.
What the f*** is going on?
It is a question that has been asked with increasing regularity and irritation over the last couple of years while United stumble from rake to rake. This summer, though, was supposed to mark a turning point, a line in the sand drawn by Ten Hag before the rebuild commenced in earnest.
But here we are, new season, new manager, new chief-exec, same old sorry circus.
John Nicholson: Ten Hag can’t save zombified Man Utd while parasitic Glazers profit from failure…
We don’t really know who the ringmaster is. Despite having had more than half a season to get their house in order and create a structure more befitting one of the game’s super-powers, who can say with any certainty who is driving the clown car towards the edge of the cliff?
Is Ten Hag at the wheel? It is hard to imagine that Arnautovic and Rabiot were…
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