Guardiola Gives United A Couple Of Lessons

Already over the past few weeks, we’ve been seriously linked with- deep breath- Kevin Strootman, Ezequiel Garay, Gareth Bale, Cristiano Ronaldo, Marouanne Fellaini, Stefan Jovetic, Thiago Alcantara and Leighton Baines – apologies if I’ve missed anyone out. Now obviously United aren’t really chasing all of those players, it would be absurd, but who are we going after and how realistic are they as a potential signing?

David Moyes recently noted that United have given him a limitless budget which begs the question why is our only real activity been going after a 28 year-old left back? Of course one could argue that we may have several deals in the pipeline, it is only early after all, but there seems to be a lot of confusion regarding what players United want and what we’re doing to get them. This became evident with the all to avoidable saga regarding Thiago Alcantara.

Thiago was practically on his way to Old Trafford according to almost every source on the planet, that was until Pep Guardiola announced he wanted to take the youngster to the Allianz Arena, not only that but he wasn’t interested in anyone else.

Why United didn’t know that Bayern were interested in Thiago baffles me a little especially as Guardiola is thought to have a good relationship with Sir Alex, surely a quick phone call could have shed light on the situation for us and avoided a lot of heartache.

Guardiola was clear in what he was doing, who he wanted, how obtainable they were and even seemingly what system he’s looking to play to accommodate them- rumour has it that Javi Martinez could be moved to centre back, not something I agree with but that’s another story.

It would be harsh to claim this is Moyes’ fault as we’ve even seen this uncertainty over transfers under Sir Alex with players like Lucas Moura and Wesley Sneijder seemingly failing to sign at the very last moment. I’m not saying United shouldn’t keep their options open, but remember the good old days of 2007 when we wanted Nani, Anderson and Owen Hargreaves and went out and got them, or even more recently in 2011, with Phil Jones, Ashley Young and David De Gea.

United are becoming a bit embarrassing in the transfer market and if it wasn’t for RVP last season we’d have failed practically every time we went up against a rival for a player. Now might be the time for United to focus on one player, work out a deal that will bring him here, find out if he’s willing and then go all out for him, rather than spread ourselves thin.