‘Brutal’ Erik ten Hag in ‘showdown talks’ as Man Utd media machine goes into overdrive

The Sun have an exclusive that it rains in Manchester, but more Man Utd news comes with a ‘brutal’ clear-out and ‘showdown talks’ with a teen.

It’s raining, it’s pouring, the old man is getting distracted by Cardiff
Thank f*** for Luke Littler because he saved The Sun‘s back page. They are famously reluctant to acknowledge any other sport but football outside of an Olympics or Wimbledon but a child throwing arrows very accurately at a board meant that they did not have to concede that there is absolutely sod all happening in football.

But obviously there was still room for a Manchester United exclusive on the back page because, well, Manchester United.

And this is exclusive, remember. Nobody else has this news:

‘SIR JIM RATCLIFFE joked he will have to get used to the Manchester rain after a downpour on his first visit to Old Trafford since his £1.03billion buy-in was confirmed.’

Yes. That is the biggest story in football. That it was raining in Manchester. More as we/they get it.

And that’s not the only Manchester United ‘exclusive’ in The Sun, with Charlie Wyett writing that Erik ten Hag’s agents ‘SEG have ruffled the feathers of the agents of some of United’s younger players in the academy’.

But first, Wyett wants to take you on a curious journey that starts with Donny van de Beek and re-routes to take in Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s time at Cardiff.

This is such a bizarre segue that we really do need to bring it to a bigger audience. This is a Manchester United story, remember…

So on top of Van de Beek, the arrivals of Jadon Sancho, Aaron Wan-Bissaka and the return of Cristiano Ronaldo were all signed off by the Norwegian.

Mind you, Solskjaer also bought some poor players at Cardiff.

Yesterday marked ten years since he took over in South Wales and club owner Vincent Tan made it clear his lucky number was eight.

Ole’s first signing was Magnus Wolff Eikrem from Heerenveen, a midfielder the coach had worked with at Molde.

Maybe it was a handy coincidence that Eikrem’s birthdate was August 8.

However, back at United and you would still rate Ten Hag’s record in the transfer market – considering the sums spent – worse than Solskjaer’s.

That’s one hell of a ‘however’. Are you okay, Charlie?

Showdown ho-down
When the Mirror are not telling us that Manchester United have ‘JAD ENOUGH’ of a man whose name is absolutely not pronounced like that, they are pretending that Erik ten Hag is having ‘showdown talks’. With a ‘Man Utd star’ no less. See:

Erik ten Hag in showdown talks with Man Utd star as transfer question pondered

The question here is which part of the headline is the most misleading? Is it…

a) Shola Shoretire being described as a ‘Man Utd star’ after an hour of football for Manchester United, with the last of his five substitute appearances coming in May 2022?

b) His contract negotiations with Manchester United being described as ‘showdown talks’ with Erik ten Hag, who has never included him in a first-team squad and clearly does not consider him a first-team player?

It might well be a dead heat of utter nonsense.

Martial matters
The actual news coming out of Manchester United is the actual exit of Donny van de Beek on loan and the likely exit of Jadon Sancho.

That’s not enough obviously so…

Five Man Utd stars that could still leave in January transfer window as Erik ten Hag brutally clears out deadwood

Mediawatch suspects that Erik ten Hag would bloody love to ‘clear out deadwood’ but that deadwood is being paid a hell of a lot of money. Can we all collectively (but mostly you, The Sun) stop pretending that any club is going to take Anthony Martial and his £250,000-a-week wages in January.

The Express go further and claim that ‘Antony faces Man Utd axe as Sir Jim Ratcliffe ‘identifies exciting first transfer target”, because of course that is the obvious reaction to reported interest in Michael Olise.

As ever, Mediawatch would like to point out that no player can be ‘axed’ or ‘brutally cleared out’ while they are under contract. If they could, Manchester United would currently have a first-team squad consisting of about seven players.

Dirty cash I want you…
There’s some predictable nonsense from Martin Samuel in The Times as he argues that actually, Newcastle United should be allowed to spend as much as they want and not be constrained by ‘the dead hand of the Premier League’. And somehow he manages to argue that this would add to the competitiveness of the Premier League. And absolutely not just create a new super-club that would blow everybody else out of the water.

Dirty oil money. That is the evil in the game, we are told. Yet Manchester United’s saviour, Ratcliffe, is widely cast as having made billions from petrochemicals, without judgment. So we can presume oil gets less dirty depending on the skin colour of the person exploiting it.

Well, there’s also the small matter of human rights, Martin. It’s not ‘oil money’ that’s the problem, but ‘oil money’ from nations that have horrendous human rights records. Oddly that is not mentioned as he loses himself in some false equivalence.

Last month John Murtough, the director of football at Manchester United, flew to Saudi Arabia to discuss the sale of players in the January transfer window. Understandably so. It’s a lucrative market that pays high-end prices and United are popular there. Former United players would have a premium, and the club needs to finance future transfer business. Yet imagine if Murtough’s Newcastle equivalent, Ashworth, made the same trip?

We’re pretty sure that Ashworth was involved when Allan Saint-Maximin was sold to a Saudi Arabian club last summer. The Frenchman definitely helped ‘finance future transfer business’ and Ashworth absolutely said as much when he was asked to defend the sale.

When it was even speculated that Newcastle could recruit Rúben Neves from Al-Hilal, on loan this season, a majority of Premier League clubs voted to pass new rules outlawing the deal.

Ha. Wonderful obfuscation there. A ‘majority’ did vote to pass new laws but they were one vote short of the mark required so Newcastle are actually free to recruit Ruben Neves. They’re just not free to spend a trillion pounds on him.