Alexis Sanchez
Manchester United chiefs are cautious of signing Edinson Cavani or paying a high price for Bruno Fernandes due to a fear of repeating mistakes made with Alexis Sanchez. Cavani has handed in a transfer request at Paris Saint-Germain and is pushing for a January move, with Atletico Madrid, Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United all thought to be in the hunt to sign him.
United signed another high-profile player two years ago in January, with Sanchez arriving from Arsenal and handed huge wages to a proven star. But things went south quickly with the Chile international, who is now on loan at Inter Milan until the end of the season. Sanchez commanded an eye-watering £560,000-a-week including bonuses but injuries and poor form saw him score just five goals in 45 matches. Not only the player’s form was a disaster but his wages also disturbed the balance in dressing room as other high profiled players in the squad became disillusioned with their wages. United are still paying £175,000-a-week of his wages while he’s on loan in Serie A.
The big concerns over Cavani are his age, injury record, his huge wage packet and the demands of PSG to sell him. United’s board members are worried that signing Cavani could end in a similar fashion as Alexis Sanchez. Other striking options on United’s radar include AC Milan’s Krzysztof Piatek, Napoli’s Dries Mertens, Luka Jovic of Real Madrid, Borussia Dortmund’s Paco Alcacer and Lyon attacker Moussa Dembele. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is also hopeful of completing a deal for Bruno Fernandes, despite reports claiming the transfer is dead.
Manchester United have been fined for their players’ reaction to Roberto Firmino’s disallowed goal at Anfield against the Red Devils.
Firmino had the ball in the net which would have put the Reds 2-0 up during the first half. Referee Craig Pawson initially allowed the goal to stand but VAR ruled it out after finding Virgil van Dijk had fouled David de Gea prior to Firmino scoring. De Gea and several other United players surrounded the referee and Manchester United have been slapped with a £20,000 fine for their reaction.
Football Association said: ” Manchester United, the club failed to ensure its players conducted themselves in an orderly fashion during the 26th minute of a Premier League fixture against Liverpool FC on 19 January 2020.”
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer defended his players after the game, which ended 2-0 thanks to goals from Van Dijk and Mohamed Salah, saying their reaction was justified.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer said “Maybe I shouldn’t talk too much about that. Let’s get that decision done but the goal was overturned. I reacted because everybody could see it was a foul.”
According to Glen Johnson, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer makes the same mistakes that Roy Hodgson made during his time in Liverpool.The former Red defender said Hodgson would scare his players before the game by not lining up his teams for dynamic attacking football.
Glen Johnson has stated that his former Liverpool team suffered a similar crisis of confidence on the pitch during Hodgson’s short tenure at Anfield. After only 13 wins in 31 games, the future English coach was released after six months.
Glen Johnson said ” We had a similar scenario in Liverpool. When Hodgson was there, we were looking forward to the Anfield games and thought we could do a show here and get the game to bed early. But he would scare us of the game. I remember a particular game against the wolves. We thought we were miles better than them. Let’s just go out and play, but it was hard training all week and the whole team was so negative. It was like we didn’t want to lose, instead of just forcing teams to sword. And the players look at it and think, ‘What’s going on here, doesn’t the manager believe in us? Does he really think we’re not much better than her? “This feeling is transferred to the field. So the players themselves would have thought:” We don’t know what’s going on here. “
Man United is currently fifth in the Premier League, but only four points separate them from 14th. Many United fans, who announced the return of a legend when he was appointed, have lost confidence in Solskjaer after monitoring the club’s worst start to a Premier League season in history.
