Chelsea Football Club pipped Manchester United at the last minute to confirm the signing of Pedro from Barcelona
Manchester United have had a very eventful summer this time around as a host of exciting new faces made their way into the club. Memphis Depay, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Morgan Schneiderlin, Matteo Darmian and Sergio Romero all signed for the most successful club in English football.
The Red Devils have also had a large number of players leaving the club for pastures anew. Angel Di Maria, Robin Van Persie, Tom Cleverley, Rafael and Nani left United for reasons that are beyond the scope of this article. Despite the super eventful summer that United have had, this transfer window will not be remembered for the superstars that they signed and nor will it be remembered for the former superstars that they let go.
Nicolas Otamendi signed for Manchester City earlier this week even though he was scouted intensely by United over the summer
The 2015 summer transfer window shall be remembered for years to come for the players United missed out on. Pedro is of course the latest player who got away from the grasp of Manchester United, but if we step back in time and traverse back through the summer, we can note down a mammoth list of footballers who the English giants failed to sign. Nicolas Otamendi, Sergio Ramos, Nathaniel Clyne, Seamus Coleman, Thomas Muller, Ilkay Gundogan, Gareth Bale, Harry Kane, Edinson Cavani and of course Pedro, constitute the unbelievably long list of players who Manchester United failed to lure. Now this is where the United fans will start to argue that they did not really attempt to make a move for most of these players.
To them, I say this. Manchester United made concrete attempts to sign at least 6 of the above mentioned stars. Otamendi, Ramos, Clyne, Muller, Kane and Pedro all received some proper interest from United, and when I mean proper interest, I mean that there was contact between United and the representatives of the players and their present employers. Now I’m saying all this after going through the resources that we average people have access to. God knows how many more players United failed to attract without having the media glare on it.
United boss Louis Van Gaal may have signed some big names during the summer, but he surely must be frustrated with the number of superstars he’s missed out on
After taking this matter into consideration, the simple conclusion that we can come to is that Manchester United are no longer the force that they used to be. Yes, they did beat off competition to sign Memphis Depay, but who else made desperate attempts to sign Darmian, Schweinsteiger, Schneiderlin or Romero? Otamendi and Clyne and Pedro attracted interest from some of United’s biggest rivals, and just look at where they’ve landed up.
Same is the case with Muller and Ramos. Van Gaal’s side may have been the only team looking to make a transfer attempt for them, but the real competition in these cases came from the player’s clubs who had enough on offer to get them to stay on. If I were a fan or an employee of Manchester United Football Club, I would be really worried about the current state that they find themselves and they need to make sure to stop this rot as soon as possible.
