Man Utd 'counting the pennies' for Mbeumo because of past mistakes

Manchester United are really paying for previous mistakes which has left them unable to copper up for Bryan Mbeumo.

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Man Utd paying for years of incompetence

The chickens are really coming home to roost this summer at United. The problems are too well known and widespread to warrant another yet another email about them but this summer’s transfer struggles are hopefully the natural end point of all of the nonsense of the previous 12 years.

Firstly, United have no cash. Despite a relatively healthy PSR headroom for last FY (which must be healthier now we haven’t bought Mbeumo as expected), by all accounts United are running out of actual money to spend and need to sell to buy. This is a result of what now must be considered generational incompetence in the transfer market and a willingness to hand out extreme wages to players of a questionable age or suitability for Our League.

The result of all this is that we can’t simply go around slapping £5M (add extra 0s where appropriate *cough* Anthony *cough*) extra on the table for any player we are interested in. We also can’t afford to take on big, big wages even where a transfer makes good sense for all involved (Osimhen).

Basically haggling every deal within an inch of its life is the reality for United now. There is clearly frustration that United haven’t agreed or walked away from the Mbeumo deal but it seems to me he’s one of two players the club identified and went for early and were working on a deal that we can afford. There’s no way we’ve been speaking to Brentford for a month and we don’t know what the cost is. No, I think we’ve got our backs to the wall and we’re counting the pennies.

I wonder also if this is holding up sales as well. Sell Garnacho for instance and there’s suddenly not quite as much need to be tight on Mbeumo. Brentford will know that and, to quote Van Der Sar, will challenge us to go as high as we can. That’s the right time to walk away.

And on the subject of sales, that’s a massive clusterf**k. Naive from Amorim and the club to think they could publicly exile these players and expect that teams would still be lining up to sign them. The scarcity of cash and Ratcliffe’s wish to monetise everything at the club should mean that these players are treated like assets.

If you want to get rid then fine but lower the price and move on. If you want to maximise your profit, make them look better than you have. Obviously none of the players have really done themselves any good in a United shirt and their loan spells have been a mixed bag. At the moment, everyone knows they’re overpaid and United are desperate to get rid. Not great conditions for a quick sale.

But of course all these issues stem from past mistakes at the club: the distribution of excessive wages after short term performance (Rashford), terrible planning/negotiating (Anthony) and poor man-management (Sancho – all of them?). As with everything United, it’s systemic.

We’re not going to see a United in the transfer market buying predatorily or selling efficiently until we fix the performance of the squad which we can’t do quickly until we’re better in the market. So it’s going to painful for some time.

Be prepared this summer for no striker, centre mid or goalkeeper. This is just the reality for United now. I can live with it if in five years things have very much improved.

As long as we don’t panic buy right at the end of the window…

Ashmundo

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On Arsenal and enTITLEment

Why is it that many Arsenal fans, the media and mainly 365 writers seem to have the attitude that Arsenal are simply a step away from the title just because they happened to have finished 2nd in the last few years and that all they have to do is make that ‘slight’ improvement and the title is theirs – done and dusted? Ridiculous.

I’ve seen it insinuated so many times lately. I’m not saying they wont be challenging again – I’m sure they will be up there – but every year every team starts afresh. The league starts on zero points. Being 2nd the previous year doesn’t give you some sort of points advantage going into next season.

Arsenal have not won the title the last few years simply because other teams were better than them and they were never as good as they and many others portrayed them to be. Liverpool won it last year because they were the best team from the kick off. And there is nothing to suggest they wont be the best team again next season. But they like everyone else are starting afresh (though obviously for tragic reasons theirs will be a strange and unusual campaign to start with).

So can we stop suggesting that the title has basically been Arsenal’s for the last 3 years but some nasty teams have taken from them what is rightly theirs please. Thank you.

Shunt, LFC

Light switch moment

On, off, on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off.

At first glance, this would appear to be an activity log of my bathroom light switch for the past couple of weeks. But no……… It’s actually a brief summary of “Gyokeres to Arsenal” for about the last hour or so (I jest, but you get where I’m coming from).

Can we please go back to the days when summer transfer gossip/news actually had some substance?

Andy FTM (Sky Sports News “update” as I’m writing……. It’s on again. What price for an “off again” headline tomorrow morning?)

On Partey high horses

Bad Wolf obviously sounds like the lunch mob who’s never heard of innocent until proven guilty. Stay classy and be incredibly self-righteous and on your high horse.

Dan, London

(Where can we sign up for the lunch mob? – Ed)

…I can certainly see both sides of the Partey debate, but consider this?

If Arsenal should have dropped Partey before charges were laid, when would he be reinstated to the team if charges never came? It’s been three years. Would five years be enough? Maybe ten?

It’s a fact that false claims have been made in the past (see the Duke lacrosse case in the US – three young men had their lives destroyed without having the chance to defend themselves in a court of law). I make no judgement on this case – but everyone is innocent until proven guilty.

Pete

…It would appear that Badwolf and Alex didn’t actually read the mail they were responding to. At no point did Josh defend Partey or anyone who commits any act of violence. He merely explained the implications of suspending an employee who had not been charged with a crime. I notice that the aforementioned mail boxers ignored the mail of Michael O in which the Greenwood situation was mentioned and the differences between these two cases were addressed.

What is also being ignored seemingly is that the role of manager is not what it once was. In that they don’t oversee every aspect of the running of a club. I am sure Arteta was aware he was arrested and being investigated. I am also sure he was told that he didn’t have to drop him and that he could continue as normal in attempting to win games for Arsenal.

This idea that he is somehow showing a lack of moral objections to potential sexual assault is just hyperbole and people are just letting football tribalism inform their opinion. This isn’t an ‘Arsenal’ thing and nobody is saying Partey didn’t do anything wrong, just that the legal process needs to be followed.

The BIG issue for me however is the new contract offer, I don’t know what they were thinking there, especially given that they had agreed to sign Zubimendi the previous summer. There was clearly no way to handle this from a PR point of view that would paint Arsenal in a good light, but that was a major misstep.

Andrew

…Wow…wow, it’s this kind of “modern” human nature that leaves me with no sympathy for the pain and suffering of others because I know they wouldn’t be bothered about mine either. All it takes is an accusation, charge and boom everybody is out to get you and I guess you can’t be deemed to have said anything logical or even be treated as a human being if you are from Dubai.

People shouldn’t keep wondering why there is so much apathy in the world while they can’t even look at their own behavior, I guess fair trials, logic only matter when you’re the one being crucified.

Jamo, Dub…no wait, Nairobi

Is it F for Fascism365?

Jeez… this country! A woman was literally arrested at the weekend for holding a placard that said words, and people here want to invoke the UAE’s judicial system. The gall of it. Please climb down, sirs, from atop your mighty and morally upstanding steeds & take stock as this “green and pleasant land” slides into fascism.

And you know, Football365 is part of this. You have been more than happy for a few years now to embrace this anti-Arab stance. It’s just awful. Football365 immediately drops it’s “middle-ground, balanced view” of everything when the Saudi League is the topic of conversation.

You want to highlight that the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia are countries with inherent prejudices and biases – I get it; but we are literally now living in a country with massive prejudices and biases. To be clear, I am not saying they are the good guys and we are the baddies; I just don’t want anyone happily pontificating about those terrible “ragheads”.

On a different matter. I guess everyone involuntarily envisages a particular player when they think of old football kits. I can’t think of Liverpool’s excellent green away kit from 1999-2000 without Patrik Berger. Likewise, Michael Owen for the horrible crew-collar home kit from 1998. Torres with the weird-collared but lovely Adidas home kit from 2007…. Why am I mentioning this now? Diogo Jota is the face I see when thinking of the 2020-21, league defending, Nike number with the green trim on the sleeves and collar. God, I love that man.

Hesh (LFC)

In defence of Stewie

Ban someone from the mailbox because you don’t like the content of their emails? Come on fellas!

I can tell a Stewie email from the first couple of sentences, I just don’t read the rest. You all have that option too.

I that get he might wind you up, just don’t read it. 99% of the emails I’ve ever sent in are an attempt to wind up fans of certain clubs. We all do it.

The mailbox would be dull if we all stopped trying to get a rise out of each other.

Chris, NUFC

…I’ve been reading and contributing to the Mailbox since 2005. I like Stewie Griffin’s Mailbox contributions. Often I agree with portions and disagree with others. Sometimes I wholly agree/disagree with the entire Mail. But I always enjoy them.

Its beyond sad that Arsenal fans keep asking for F365 to stop publishing his stuff. It’s pathetic. It’s also a damning state of affairs that anyone would possibly concoct conspiracy theories about him not being real. Says a lot about the state of people’s mental health and perception of reality in 2025.

There is thankfully no risk of F365 Mailbox banning Stewie. But I wanted to write this anyway, as a counterbalance to all the whiners. And if Stewie ever was banned, that would be the day I stop reading/contributing myself.

Oliver (I admittedly wish he used his own name rather than a cartoon pseudonym, though) Dziggel, Geneva Switzerland

…Thoroughly disappointed in those contributors who have recently called for the exclusion of Stewie G from the Mailbox.

I have certainly railed against him in my own humble missives – most recently, I believe, March 16 2024 – but requesting that his mails not be printed because his viewpoints don’t mesh with those of the people reading them is simply abhorrent. Dear Stewart may indeed be troll-like, he might certainly be winding people up, he definitely makes outlandish comments that have little basis in fact…but if F365 is going to exclude letters to the Editor on those grounds, the Mailbox will be filled with nothing more than hollow vainglories and tumbleweeds.There is already enough of the former as it is.

If you don’t like what Stew says, provide an entertaining, well-founded response. It’s not really that difficult (as I suggested, he rarely provides an opinion backed by any tangible evidence) and the exercise might just require you to improve your own literary prowess. There’s already enough fascistic garbage in this world, let’s not increase it by cancelling out people whose opinions differ from our own.

George, Little-Edson-on-the-Waters, Spruffleton

Post Scriptum: I’m confident that Stewart thoroughly enjoyed reading the demands for his banishment. That, after all, is quite obviously why he contributes in the first place.

Ashtray explained?

I always thought Stewie called Kai an ashtray because he would have been useful 25/50 years ago when the game was played a different way. Instead, nobody smokes anymore so the ashtray just lies around gathering dust instead of…well…different dust I suppose.

Can John N. write an article about navigating the F365 site with ads? I think he could better capture the pointless annoyance masquerading as genuine anger that I feel. I’ll pay the annual fee if you let him write it.

Niall, Annapolis

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