FLORENTINO PEREZ HAS claimed that Manchester United’s inexperience in getting deals done was the main reason why Real Madrid failed to land David de Gea before the transfer window shut.
The long, drawn-out saga finally looked set for resolution on Monday as both parties began to negotiate. But paperwork was not completed in time and the deadline was missed.
The farce has led to both United and Madrid making public statements on why the proposed move collapsed – inevitably, the two clubs have blamed each other.
Now, Madrid’s president has reignited the feud and pointed to how the transitional period at United have counted against them in other transfer negotiations too, notably the failed attempt to land Ander Herrera and Fabio Coentrao during David Moyes’ time in charge.
Speaking to Spanish radio station Cadena Ser, Perez said:
“I think what they lack is experience. It happened last year with [Fabio] Coentrao, exactly the same. And it happened with Ander Herrera and Athletic Bilbao. They have a new team and they lack experience.”
“We have missed out on players before, Franck Ribery and Patrick Vieira for example, but what is surprising is that someone wants to do a deal and only starts the process 12 hours before.
It’s the inexperience of the new people in charge.”
Perez also said he failed to understand why United took so long in returning the documentation when everyone was aware the deal was on. The same day, however, United were involved in various business – signing Anthony Martial and overseeing the departures of both Javier Hernandez and Adnan Januzaj to Germany.
“At 13.30 [on Monday] Manchester United had all the papers but they took eight hours to return them”, Perez said.
“The player had made a big effort and we couldn’t leave him stranded.”
I don’t think there was any mischief on the part of Manchester United, I imagine that they had a lot of work to get through and needed to resolve other matters first. There wasn’t a great deal of time left.”
“It’s unfortunate but it’s what happened. I don’t want to lay blame at anyone’s door but we cannot understand why they would need eight hours or why they wanted negotiations to take place in the 12 hours before the markets closed.”
