Baines is a bit of an odd move for man utd to make. He's 28 1/2, but he would probably solve their left back issue for two or three seasons, to enable them to find a longer term replacement. But the thing is that they can afford to spend a decent whack of money on players this year. They've been spending 40-50 million net over the last two transfer windows, and their turnover is so big that they can easily afford to spend that and more this season.
The thing is that moyes is inheriting a squad that is largely set up for him, and he has to just buy a certain number of players to fit into a certain set of roles. Ferguson bought a lot of youngish players over a long period of time, so a lot of the squad rebuilding is done. This summer they need to sign a left back, a midfield playmaker, and maybe another wide attacker. If they buy baines and thiago for about Ģ18 million each they will be a good chunk of the way there. The thing is that even though moyes is inexperienced at dealing with big money transfers, he's generally going to be given relatively easy choices.
The Rooney situation is the interesting one though. The thing is that even though he looks like a hairy potato/bog monster (and as an Irish person I'm allowed say this. As for non-irish people,.....hmmm tread carefully) and even though he plays pretty terribly for england in tournaments, as the Star english player, he's worth an awful lot of money to them from the point of view of sponsorship. That, as much as all the goals he's scored and set up over the last four years is why he's paid such a huge amount of money. It's heading for a point where half of Man utd's turnover is going to come from sponsorship, and it's actually important for them to have players that are as famous as Rooney.
If they sell him, they're going to have to bring in someone with similar box office status to keep their sponsors happy, and to help them get more. Their kit deal is coming up for renegotiation soon for the first time in nearly 15 years, and it's going to be important to have someone to offer nike that will cut more of a dash than phil jones and antonio valencia. When you start to think of it like that, selling Rooney will free up a lot of room on the wage bill. They could very easily try to sign a player like Ronaldo. There is no way that spurs would sell Bale to Man utd, and bale would just find it a lot easier to move to Madrid than a rival club.
Nike would be very keen to have him in a Nike shirt, as he currently is a bit restricted by playing for an 'adidas team' and any move would involve them chipping in a chunk of money as well. They've refinanced half their debt and have cut Ģ10 million off their interest bill. They generate an awful lot of cash after expenses. If they sell Rooney, then it's not beyond the realms of possibility. You also have to consider that Ronaldo doesn't seem to be having a very good time at madrid. For a start, being in the same league as messi is just unflattering. He's scoring goals at a rate far in excess of any player in real madrid's history, but messi is scoring more. Messi is also two and a half years younger than him, and quite frankly ronaldo isn't getting any younger. How much longer does he have at this level of performance? The fans also seem to be very lukewarm towards him. Think about it, If we had a player that scored 146 goals in 135 league games over four seasons, and 35 champions league goals in 40 games, we'd probably love him even if he ran over a bunch of pensioners for a laugh.
it's Something that he's complained about. Only Really Iker casillas receives the pretty unconditional love from the madrid fans, that english fans hand out like flyers. he got from his own fans in england. They still sing about him at man utd, like they sing about cantona or giggs, (when they're not singing about us) When you're earning a lot of money either way, and they're both Pretty big, famous clubs, It doesn't seem entirely impossible.
To be honest the set of circumstances that build up to a team that has won 5 out of 7 titles, possibly being able to sign a player like ronaldo, and make him rich enough to buy half of portugal as slaves, are profoundly depressing. It's not that I think it's going to happen, it''s that something like this is not inconceivable, They could just about afford to do this. Between The sheer size of Man utd, and the oil gazillionaire sugar daddys, it doesn't really seem all that fair on some level. The dice seem to be increasingly loaded.
