Champions League Nightmares and Transfer Market Chaos
Omar Marmoush has apparently walked straight into an “immediate Tottenham blow”. The same sort of “crisis” Carlos Baleba somehow survived on his way to Manchester United.
It’s nonsense. All of it.
Champions League “nightmares” everywhere
The word of the week is “nightmare”.
“Arsenal’s Champions League draw in full as Gunners handed nightmare fixtures,” cries the Daily Express website.
“Man City handed nightmare Champions League draw with Arsenal also given tricky fixtures as Man United face old foes on return to competition – and Jose’s back at the Bridge!” shouts MailOnline.
“Champions League group phase predicted by supercomputer with Man Utd having a nightmare after horror draw,” adds The Sun.
Apparently, everyone has been thrown into a tournament of doom. The reality? The Champions League is stacked. Almost everyone now draws difficult opponents. That’s the point of the competition.
United’s “horror” that isn’t
Take that supposed Manchester United “nightmare after horror draw”.
“Manchester United have been tipped to agonisingly miss out on the top eight of the Champions League league phase,” we’re told, because “boffins and brainiacs over at Football Ranked have crunched the numbers” and decided Michael Carrick’s side will finish ninth.
So the “horror” is… being the highest-ranked seeded team in the knockout play-offs, facing the weakest unseeded side.
Truly chilling stuff.
Liverpool, stealth and selective memory
Jeremy Cross in the Daily Mirror makes a fair overall point: Liverpool used to outthink Manchester United in the transfer market and now look just as chaotic.
But then come the romanticised paragraphs.
“In that same period, Liverpool conducted their own business with ruthless stealth. Big targets were kept under the radar, until a deal was so close to being completed it would be made public.
This happened with the likes of Virgil Van Dijk, Alexis Mac Allister, Alisson and Luis Diaz, to name but a few.”
That tidy little narrative collapses the moment you remember Liverpool had to issue a public apology over their botched pursuit of Van Dijk after Southampton reported them to the Premier League for an illegal approach.
Not exactly ruthless stealth. Not really under any radar.
Barcola, “desperation” and a £120m reality
Then there’s this leap:
“Negotiations are taking place with PSG about a deal for Bradley Barcola, with a deal likely to come close to the fee paid to Newcastle for Isak.
“Under normal circumstances, such a move would leave supporters feeling overwhelmed excitement.
The problem is, Liverpool have turned to Barcola in desperation less than a week before the transfer window closes, having pulled out of the bidding for Brighton’s Yankuba Minteh.”
Except Liverpool haven’t suddenly “turned” to Barcola in some late-window panic. They’ve been chasing him all summer. What they have run into is the rather basic problem that £120m transfers are hard to close.
Cross should know how tangled these things get. He tied himself in knots for weeks trying to track Elliot Anderson’s move.
Shirt numbers: crisis or “dream”?
The Barcola story feeds straight into another favourite sideshow: shirt numbers.
“Bradley Barcola set to wear bizarre unused shirt number at Liverpool,” says The Sun website.
“Bradley Barcola can wear dream shirt number at Liverpool after PSG transfer agreement reached,” counters the Liverpool Echo.
Same player. Same number. One man’s “bizarre” is, apparently, the very same man’s “dream”.
Marmoush and the great No.7 tragedy
Which brings us back to Omar Marmoush and that supposed early setback at Tottenham.
“Omar Marmoush to suffer immediate Tottenham blow after Man City £60m transfer breakthrough,” warns the Daily Express website.
Seasoned readers will recognise the template. It was wheeled out for Carlos Baleba’s move to Manchester United too. The “immediate blow” is never an injury, a ban, or a collapse in form.
It’s the shirt on his back.
“Moving to Tottenham will give Marmoush the opportunity to play more regularly, having only made eight Premier League starts for City last season. However, he won’t have everything his own way when he arrives in the capital.
“That’s because he will need to pick a different shirt number, with his preferred No 7 already occupied by Xavi Simons.”
So the nightmare is this: more minutes, bigger role, new club… but no No.7.
You can almost picture the fine print being checked for a return to Manchester City just to keep the number. Don’t play, but keep the digit.
Ronaldo, United and a market that moved on
On to Manchester United’s other recurring issue: selling players.
Samuel Luckhurst is right to highlight that United still haven’t shifted a single first-team player this summer. For a club of that size, it’s a glaring weakness compared to their rivals.
But his closing argument jars:
“Even one of the greatest, Cristiano Ronaldo, was burnt by his association with United.
“When Ronaldo effectively filed for divorce with his November 2022 interview with the sycophantic Piers Morgan, Morgan said: ‘If it was just about money, you’d be in Saudi Arabia.’
“Saudi was the only place to offer Ronaldo a home. Even he did not have shoppers flocking to United’s stall.”
Ronaldo didn’t lack suitors because United’s “stall” suddenly became toxic. He lacked suitors because he had turned himself into a 37-year-old, outrageously expensive, openly disruptive problem.
Clubs looked at the wages, the tantrums, the interview, the age, and walked away. Of course United couldn’t cash in on “even” him.
That has very little to do with the current difficulty in moving on Joshua Zirkzee and far more to do with a game that, finally, stopped bending itself around one man.
