Man Utd abandon ‘faultless’ Fergie transfer policy as Klopp pies off Premier League rival

Manchester United have foolishly abandoned a fiendishly simple yet brilliant transfer wheeze from the Ferguson era, while the Mirror bring us hot news from 2015 and then manage to make a complete b*llocks of it.

Abandon hope
Regular readers won’t need us to tell them that when it comes to Manchester United there are clicks in them their hills.

Doesn’t really matter what you’ve got to say about United, it’s worth saying. If, and this is the important bit, you’re interested purely in clicks and have absolutely zero regard for a) your readers and b) your own dignity.

To the Mirror we head, then, for this absolute nugget. And by nugget, we mean of sh*t. Just to be clear.

Sir Alex Ferguson’s faultless transfer policy that Man Utd have now abandoned

Ah yes. This is one of the best ways to get a bit of Man United-based traction. Remembering the old days, which were great, and contrasting them with the now times, which are terrible.

The Mirror may not be the only ones trying to cash in on some 90s-based Manchester nostalgia this week, but they remain as committed to the task as anyone.

So what, precisely, was this brilliant wheeze of Sir Ferg’s that your daft 2024 Manchester United have so foolishly abandoned?

The modern day Manchester United would do well to take inspiration from one of Sir Alex Ferguson ‘s transfer policies: sign the best player in the Premier League.

It’s a bold strategy, Cotton. You do have to wonder precisely why Manchester United have been so silly and stopped simply signing the best player in the Premier League. If Ferguson were still Manchester United manager, they would have signed Erling Haaland last summer. United are clearly utter fools to have departed from this winning plan.

To those who might argue that United have not so much abandoned that policy as have it abandon them, Mediawatch says tish and fipsy. United could totally still sign the best player in the Premier League every summer if they wanted to, they just don’t.

And to those who say this ‘faultless’ policy didn’t even always work for Fergie – who tried and failed to sign Paul Gascoigne, and tried and failed to sign Alan Shearer – the Mirror have covered themselves.

Because two paras into this complete guff that ‘faultless’ policy has already been downgraded to one that ‘paid off more often than not’.

Before then admitting:

However, the club would likely struggle to succeed in the same vein that Ferguson once did given the club no longer boasts the same pulling power as when he was in charge.

And also that:

It’s a straightforward scheme, though perhaps one that wouldn’t be as easy to pull off today as it was 20 or more years ago. And Erik ten Hag may struggle to convince certain stars from Manchester City, Arsenal or Liverpool that their silverware hopes were better served at Old Trafford in the current climate.

He may struggle with that, yes.

Reach around
But of course where one Reach title leads the others will surely follow.

So the Express also cheerfully place the cart before the horse…

Sir Alex Ferguson’s ruthless transfer policy that gave Man Utd success has been abandoned

Of course, these titles would all have reacted extremely sensibly to Man United actually launching an audacious transfer raid on their neighbours for Erling Haaland. Definitely would have been hailed as United simply following Sir Ferg’s ‘ruthless transfer policy’.

Ruud not to
Headline on the Daily Mirror website

Jim Ratcliffe ‘will consider’ replacing Erik ten Hag with Ruud van Nistelrooy at Man Utd

Intro on the Daily Mirror website

Erik ten Hag has been warned Sir Jim Ratcliffe will “consider” replacing him with Ruud van Nistelrooy if Manchester United “stutter at the start of the season”.

Full quote from Rene Meulensteen:

“I don’t think Erik ten Hag will be worried about Ruud van Nistelrooy potentially replacing him, he’s too focused on the job at hand.‌

“But who knows what the future will bring, if United stutter at the start of the season and the results don’t go their way, Sir Jim Ratcliffe would consider Van Nistelrooy, but at the moment they believe that Erik is the right man and now we need to see what happens.”

Mediawatch is so very, very tired that it will accept ignoring the main thrust of that quote to get to the juicier hypothetical, but will not lay down and allow ‘would consider’ to be changed to ‘will consider’. The certainty implied by ‘will’ wholly alters Meulensteen’s argument.

MORE ON MAN UTD FROM F365
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👉 Man Utd send message to Chelsea as they could now ‘agree a sensational swap deal’ for Sancho
👉 What exactly has Erik ten Hag done following his Manchester United reprieve?

These words
One of the most bafflingly popular of all online football headline gambits is the ‘five-word response’ to something or other. It doesn’t have to be five words, but it does have to be quite a small number of words. There is, Mediawatch supposes, a sense of intrigue about what those words might be and the requisite brevity also hints at a curtness that could even be brusque.

There is a sense that someone might have been pied off, and that is presumably why they’re used.

But here’s the thing, they’re nearly always absolute b*llocks, aren’t they? The five (or whatever) words are nearly always just plucked from a far longer more considered response and that’s surely just cheating, isn’t it?

Take this example from the Mirror today, for instance.

Jurgen Klopp offered five-word response when rejecting Premier League manager’s job

Now we’re going to gloss straight over the fact that this is Klopp talking in 2015 about rejecting a Premier League manager’s job in 2015.

That’s not important. What’s important is it’s just so obviously nonsense to think he issued a ‘five-word response’ when you stop and think about it even for a second. Why would Klopp do that? It’s just needlessly rude.

But that’s what he did, look.

Jurgen Klopp revealed he turned down an offer to manage West Ham shortly before becoming Liverpool boss, saying “it was the wrong time” to join the Hammers.

Be weird, though, wouldn’t it? As well as rude? To turn down a job offer in the past tense? Almost like he was talking about it afterwards. Almost like those five words weren’t even a whole sentence, never mind the whole response.

Here’s what he actually said about West Ham’s interest, shortly after he’d been named Liverpool manager a few months later:

“I’m not sure if I should say too much about this but in the summer I was not available for anybody because I was sure I needed a few days for myself without thinking too much about football. That’s what I did.

“I’m a lucky guy so there was a lot of interest from different clubs and if West Ham want to talk about this, they can do it. It’s a really good club but it was the wrong time for all of the clubs that were interested.

“So nothing to do with West Ham or whatever. When I think about West Ham everything is okay. I wasn’t available so I didn’t think too much about it.”

So that’s a five-word response that is in fact a 117-word response. And also nine years old.

Hour glass
And that’s not all, though. The Mirror’s 2024 story about some 2015 quotes also says this.

According to Hammers owner David Sullivan, the east Londoners were ‘two hours’ away from appointing Klopp.

But to our unending shame we’ve actually gone and found Sullivan’s 2015 quotes for ourselves. And what he in fact said was this.

“We were two hours from getting Rafa Benitez, everything was agreed. We tried Klopp as well but at the time he wanted a break.”

A journalistic triumph all round, then.

Major misunderstanding
The Daily Star bring news that a Jadon Sancho-Raheem Sterling swap deal could be on the cards because such a move would see both players joining the club they supported as kids.

Guff, of course, but transfer stories have been built on far shakier grounds before and will be so again and again and again.

What Mediawatch will not allow, though, is this headline.

Man Utd have ‘major advantage’ in landing Raheem Sterling and Jadon Sancho Chelsea swap deal

Regular readers will already see where this is going and require just one guess at how many times the words ‘major advantage’ appear in the actual story.

Who are you quoting? Why are you doing this? When will all this just end?