Brentford ‘U-turn’ on Mbeumo as three Man United transfers solve everything
It’s a Manchester United-heavy Mediawatch today, with absolutely everything (absolutely nothing) changing in their pursuit of Bryan Mbeumo.
Learn to turn
The Mirror bring us the latest update from Manchester United’s frankly interminable quest to sign Bryan Mbeumo from Brentford.
MBEU-NO! Brentford star’s protracted Man Utd transfer takes fresh U-turn as new Bees boss Andrews puts his foot down with Red Devils wanting to wrap up deal
That’s the almost Mail-length headline that parps out at you from the Mirror’s football homepage this morning.
The story itself has a slightly less parpy version, but it says much the same thing.
Bryan Mbeumo to Man Utd transfer U-turn as manager privately changes things
Mediawatch has largely given up on its dispiritingly futile campaign Words Have Meanings but we can’t help but reopen it for one day only.
We’ve learned to be wary of assuming anything, but we are reasonably confident that the idea of a U-turn is widely understood. It represents at the very least a significant change in policy or point or view and ideally a complete reversal from that previously held position.
As the Mirror themselves state, the problem for United getting the Mbeumo deal done has been that Brentford have stuck to their initial valuation and refused to budge.
The Red Devils have seen several bids for the Cameroon forward rejected, the last being £60million, with the Bees sticking robustly to their valuation. The two parties remain millions apart in their respective figures and the change in the dugout has not helped.
So what’s changed from the Brentford side here to represent a U-turn? Over to their director of football Phil Giles.
‘We’ve made our point clear. If Bryan earned a massive move now and it was right for us financially, we’d be open to it. But if he ended up here with us next season, I wouldn’t be massively surprised. We’d be delighted. And it would save me a massive headache, frankly.’
So Brentford’s position has U-turned all the way from ‘We are willing to sell him but only at a price that’s right for us’ to ‘We are willing to sell him but only at a price that’s right for us’.
It’s all driving us round the U-bend.
Tag nuts
The Mbeumo nonsense doesn’t end there, we’re afraid. It’s off to The Sun next on this magical mystery tour.
Man Utd ‘refusing to be held to ransom’ as Brentford increase price tag for 20-goal star Bryan Mbeumo
Have they? Have their increased their asking price? Let’s see.
According to The Guardian, at the end of June Man Utd director of football, Jason Wilcox, believed a package of £65m would be enough to strike a deal.
But since then, Brentford have raised their price for the attacker – who reported for pre-season training this week – closer to £70m.
Not quite, is it? Clearly, £65m isn’t a number Man United have plucked out of thin air, but their believing it would be enough doesn’t mean Brentford’s actual asking price being ‘closer to £70m’ constitutes an increase in price tag.
While we’re here, we’re also going to point out that wanting to buy a footballer for one price and his current football club insisting the actual price is slightly higher actually does not in any way constitute being ‘held to ransom’.
Now Mediawatch has pointed that out, we know we can sit back comfortably, secure in the knowledge we will never ever see it again. It’s always worked that way before when we grind our teeth to dust about this kind of thing.
Still, though. There’s undeniably an interesting dynamic that is present in almost all the reports around Mbeumo and Brentford and United today, and that’s the framing of Brentford as being the problem.
Their position with regards to any potential sale of Mbeumo has been almost entirely consistent and thoroughly reasonable (‘We’ll sell, but only at our price’) throughout the summer, yet they are the ones portrayed as moving the goalposts with non-existent or wildly exaggerated U-turns and price-tag chicanery.
Mediawatch cheerfully admits to being a massive cynic yet also tries to avoid ever descending too far down Tinfoil Hat Alley. But it’s impossibly tempting this morning to see the hand of one club attempting to steer the media towards a certain narrative here, if one is so inclined.
United front
Of course, one place where you never need a tinfoil hat to detect the subtle hand of Manchester United Are Brilliant At Everything is the Manchester Evening News.
One of Manchester United’s weakest squad areas is now their strongest after three transfers
We’ll leave aside the very, very obvious attempt to lure in clicks with the unsaid but neon-bright-implied suggestion that these three transfers are ones from this summer and move on to the meat of Samuel Luckhurst’s argument.
One area of the Manchester United squad that almost certainly will not be addressed this summer is central defence.
United have signed at least one centre back in seven of the past nine summer transfer windows. Three came in last season alone.
That’s where the headline came from, anyway.
After Leny Yoro and Matthijs de Ligt joined in the summer, Ayden Heaven followed in the winter. In between, the one-year extension in Harry Maguire’s contract was triggered.
Once Lisandro Martinez has recovered from his anterior cruciate ligament injury, United will have five specialist centre halves with an average age of 24. Two are homegrown and three from overseas.
That’s a fairly liberal coating of gloss applied to a brutal injury. Not United’s fault, of course, but the idea that the centre-back cupboards are overflowing while such a key defender is recovering from such a significant injury feels slightly over-optimistic.
But it’s that average age we’re interested in. The devil is in the detail when it comes to average age, because 24 sounds absolutely ideal doesn’t it? That’s a great age for a player, carrying as it does the idea of having reached a particular level of experience and ability to be a reliable senior first-team player, while also still potentially approaching the peak with many years still ahead of you.
Of course you want lots of 24-year-old players. But an average age of 24 doesn’t actually mean lots of players who are 24. And in the case of the five players here, you’re actually looking at players who are 18, 19, 25, 27 and 32. That’s suddenly two very inexperienced teenagers, one player nearing the end of his career and only two at or approaching their potential peak, one of whom is also on the road back from a very, very serious injury.
Centre-back is absolutely not be the most pressing area of Man United concern right now, but we’d humbly contend that this is because other areas are more conspicuously f*cked than United having locked this particular area down for the next decade by being so brilliant.
Strike it lucky
And this Daily Express headline caught Mediawatch’s eye this morning
Man Utd can strike clever Pervis Estupinan swap deal and solve Ruben Amorim headache
Given everything we know about Manchester United and swap deals, we’re going to just go right ahead and say it: no, they can’t.
Oh, and it’s Antony, by the way. If you’re interested. Because one news site in Brazil says they might have expressed some interest at some point in signing a player who is desperate to join Real Betis.
