Man Utd in ‘TRANSFER MAYHEM’; is Manuel Ugarte as good as the world’s best?

Man Utd opened discussions with Chelsea AND agreed a fee for Ugarte? Did anybody even have time for lunch on such a crazy old day?

Man Utd transfer MAYHEM ahoy
We would forgive you for missing it after a day which saw the biggest Premier League transfer once again being completed by Brighton, who have quietly bought six players for £25m or more this summer, but apparently Tuesday brought TRANSFER MAYHEM.

It was such TRANSFER MAYHEM that The Sun even broke out that weird typeface to illustrate just how crazy things have become. Like really f***ing crazy.

The dictionary definition of ‘mayhem’ is ‘violent or extreme disorder; chaos’, so this should be good. And slightly disconcerting that as a leading football website, we really did not notice; it felt like a pretty ordinary day.

MANCHESTER UNITED are eyeing a sensational swoop for ­Chelsea’s Raheem Sterling – with Jadon Sancho potentially going the other way.

On a day of Prem transfer mayhem, Red Devils sporting director Dan Ashworth opened talks with the Blues over England forward Sterling.

Can it be classed as ‘a day of Prem transfer mayhem’ if all that happened was that one Manchester United executive made contact with a Chelsea executive about a player who is very much available for transfer? It doesn’t sound like chaos. Or violent. It was probably just an e-mail.

United insist any deal involving the two stars ahead of Friday’s deadline will be done on their own terms.

Well that is a very sensible thing to insist. It wouldn’t make an awful lot of sense to allow Chelsea to decide the terms. United don’t want to accidentally end up paying £100m for Sterling and allowing Sancho to leave for £4.27.

With out-of-favour Sterling available, Chelsea have contacted Brentford over £50million striker Ivan Toney.

Those two things are not remotely related but The Sun are very keen to create this impression of a day of chaos. It feels exciting now, doesn’t it?

As well as the blockbuster possible exchange of Sterling and Sancho, United were busy yesterday after agreeing an initial £42.2m deal for Paris Saint-Germain midfielder Manuel Ugarte, which could rise to £50m when you include add-ons.

That really is a ‘busy’ old day. They opened discussions with Chelsea AND agreed a fee for Ugarte? Did anybody even have time for lunch on such a crazy old day?

Online, The Sun are really ramping up the language:

Man Utd at centre of huge transfer merry-go-round with deals for Sterling and Sancho among FIVE moves set to go ahead

It really is a ‘huge merry-go-round’ in which Man Utd might end up signing TWO players, selling TWO more who have played a total of 17 minutes in the opening two Premier League games of the season and, well, Ivan Toney might join Chelsea. But probably not. Still, it’s a merry-go-round and the Daily Mirror agree.

Though labelling the possible Sterling/Sancho swap a ‘SHOCK deal’ is a bit rich considering they literally wrote about it six days ago. And we’re ashamed to say we dismissed it as a right load of bollocks. If only we knew that the ‘dream’ was about to become a ‘SHOCK’ deal.

But then we’re the dicks who didn’t notice that Tuesday was TRANSFER MAYHEM day.

These words are my own…
Obviously, such MAYHEM has created content aplenty and the Mirror never knowingly undersell any story. Which is how we end up here:

Man Utd attackers would have six words to say about Raheem Sterling joining from Chelsea

The first thing to note is that the first two words of this story are ‘Troy’ and ‘Deeney’ so we are in very early, very dodgy territory when we are listening to the views of a former Watford striker.

But maybe he is very well placed to tell us exactly what six words would be said by players like Alejandro Garnacho and Rasmus Hojlund.

Speaking on Sky Sports, Deeney said: “Those guys will look at Raheem, see that he’s won it at [Manchester] City, see what he’s done at Liverpool, see what he’s done at the international stage and think ‘right, I can learn off that’.”

Oh. So those six words they would ‘say’ (but actually ‘think’, which is quite different) are ‘right, I can learn off that’. Which make almost zero sense.

But the Mirror have their headline and we have clicked. And we have six words to say, at least two of which begin with F.

But is he as good as Rodri?
The Mail would like to sound a note of caution as Manchester United get closer to signing Manuel Ugarte:

Manuel Ugarte can unshackle two current Man United stars and push them closer to the top of the Premier League – but whether he is the man to go toe-to-toe with Rodri remains to be seen

So the team who finished the last Premier League season in eighth – 31 points behind champions Man City – are signing the defensive midfielder they desperately need and you are pondering if he can go ‘toe-to-toe’ with the world’s best in his position? Behave.

Ugarte is a dodgy debut away from being written off as a waste of money by the more zealous members of the United online community.

No, Ugarte is a dodgy debut away from being written off by the kind of people who are already comparing a 23-year-old with a serial winner who really should be the favourite for the Ballon d’Or.