{"id":246079,"date":"2025-07-07T19:53:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T19:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/246079\/"},"modified":"2025-07-07T19:53:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T19:53:14","slug":"why-manchester-united-should-be-wary-of-mbeumo-negotiations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/246079\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Manchester United should be wary of Mbeumo negotiations."},"content":{"rendered":"

Those who don\u2019t learn from history are doomed to repeat it<\/strong><\/p>\n

Manchester United kicked off their summer business quickly by securing their first signing, Matheus Cunha, on June 1st, the traditional opening of the transfer window. Their second signing, not so much. <\/p>\n

United missed out on the signature of Ipswich striker Liam Delap when the Englishman chose to go to Chelsea and have shifted their attention to Brentford attacker Bryan Mbeumo. In late June had a bid in excess of \u00a360m rejected for the French born Cameroon international. <\/p>\n

Brentford – who have lost their coach to Tottenham and their captain to Arsenal – are holding out for a fee in excess of \u00a362.5 million. They feel the price tag for Cunha – which was a release clause – as well as the money Chelsea have paid Brighton for Joao Pedro<\/a> have set the market accordingly and that is what Mbeumo is worth. Mbeumo is entering the final year of his contract with Brentford but the Bees do have the option to extend it by another year<\/a>. <\/p>\n

If it sounds like United have been in this situation before it\u2019s because they have. This is getting eerily similar to two situations United have been in in just the past six years! The first is when they tried to pry Harry Maguire away from Leicester City, the second when they signed Antony from Ajax. In both cases United eventually got their man, but not without paying a record fee.<\/p>\n

There are lessons be learned from those situations, the primary one being that it\u2019s probably time to walk away from this deal. <\/p>\n

Mbeumo has told Brentford that if he leaves he will only be leaving for United<\/a>. That hasn\u2019t done much to weaken Brentford\u2019s position since they are under no financial need to sell Mbeumo. Brentford have said they\u2019d be open to selling Mbeumo, but only for the right price<\/a>, which then manager Thomas Frank added \u201cwould be really expensive.\u201d <\/p>\n

To add to the matter, Brentford\u2019s Director of Football has already come out and said he wouldn\u2019t be massively surprised if Mbeumo stayed at the club next season<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\n

In terms of expectation, I don\u2019t actually know where that will end up. I think we made our point clear that, having had such a great season, if he earned a massive move and it was right for us financially we would be open for that. But if he ended up being here next season, I wouldn\u2019t be massively surprised. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Brentford are making it clear that they aren\u2019t selling Mbeumo for a penny less than their asking price. They\u2019re prepared to sell him for less money next season if they need to in order to make the transition to a new manager easier in the short term. As of now, Mbeumo himself has not suggested that he\u2019d refuse to rejoin Brentford at the start of the season strengthening their hand.<\/p>\n

This is very similar to the position Leicester City took in the summer of 2019 with Harry Maguire. Maguire had recently signed a new contract giving Leicester all the power in the negotiations. The Foxes made it clear that the only way they\u2019d agree to a deal was if United paid a then record \u00a380 million fee.<\/p>\n

Maguire was United\u2019s number one transfer target that summer. He was the guy United were going to build their team around. The deal dragged along all summer until eventually Maguire skipped training with Leicester<\/a> to force the move through in the final week before the season – but United still had to part way with the full \u00a380m to get the deal done. <\/p>\n

By almost all accounts Maguire\u2019s signing has been a success for United. He made an instant impact in United\u2019s back line – helping United go from a team that conceded 54 goals before his arrival to the second best defense in the league the next two seasons. Within six months he was the captain of the side helping them secure back to back top four finishes. <\/p>\n

Maguire started 94.74% of United\u2019s league matches in his first two years at Old Trafford – the best two year rate of any United signing since Fergie and that includes Bruno Fernandes! He\u2019s ultimately started 63.6% of Premier League matches in the span of his six year contract, which was renewed for a seventh season this year. In the middle of that tenure Maguire had a poor season along with most of his teammates but he has a shout at being the team\u2019s best center back in four of the six seasons he\u2019s been here. <\/p>\n

Despite the troubles, the changing of systems, and different managers, United continue to concede the fewest amount of goals, shots, and expected goals when Maguire is on the pitch compared to their other center backs. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

When you look at the quality of opponents each of these players played against, Maguire faced the toughest opposition of them all. It\u2019s more likely than not that Maguire will sign a team friendly extension sometime this season.<\/p>\n

And yet, there are some people who will never ever consider the Maguire signing a good one simply because, \u2018Harry Maguire never should have cost \u00a380 million pounds\u2019. <\/p>\n

That transfer fee quickly became a noose tightening around Maguire\u2019s neck. Every mistake was put under the microscope. Accomplishments were brushed away. It doesn\u2019t matter what he did on the pitch – some people will always look at the club making a mistake for paying a record fee for a player who was not the best player in this position. It\u2019s a very similar case for Paul Pogba. <\/p>\n

At least United were clear that Maguire was their guy. When it comes to Antony the need for him was a lot more questionable. Like Brentford though, Ajax had just lost their manager and a bunch of players. They didn\u2019t to sell Antony but knowing how desperate United were, they chose to only sell him on their own terms. They held out and got a record fee for Antony, who had one half decent season before exposing the signing as a colossal mistake. Most transfer fees end up being wasted money<\/a>, but this is even more par for the course when it comes to the most expensive transfers<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Mbeumo should not be as expensive as Antony or Maguire but the lessons are there. United are coming at this from a position of weakness, Brentford are going not going to sell him unless they get exactly what they want.<\/p>\n

Even if Mbeumo is the right guy for United – and I personally believe him to be a better fit for the current squad than Cunha – it\u2019s time for United to walk away from the deal. United are supposed to have an extensive scouting network. They are supposed to have a top class recruitment team who can come up with alternate names should their primary targets not be available. <\/p>\n

Well, it\u2019s time to move on to the next name on the list, and the longer United stay fixated on Mbeumo the more power Brentford have. It\u2019s starting to feel like there is no next name on the list.<\/p>\n

Mbeumo himself wasn\u2019t even at the top of United\u2019s list. They turned to him when they missed out on Delap. <\/p>\n

Last week on the Talk of the Devils podcast<\/a> Athletic reporter Laurie Whitwell said something that should be sending alarm bells off for everyone. On the July 2nd episode Whitwell reported that United initially budgeted to sign Cunha at his release clause plus the \u00a330m release clause of Liam Delap. After missing out on Delap they turned to Mbeumo who would cost more than double and therefore they\u2019d need to figure things out.<\/p>\n

That right there screams walk away. If you budgeted about \u00a395 million to sign two attackers, spent \u00a362.5 million of that on one guy, then you can\u2019t keep shopping in the \u00a360 million aisle. Those guys are just not your guy. You can\u2019t overspend on two attacking players like that, it\u2019s a path way that almost always leads to failure as it\u2019s taking away money from addressing the other areas of your team. If that happens, you\u2019ll very quickly see the joint price tags of Cunha and Mbeumo start to squeeze around those players\u2019 necks.<\/p>\n

United were hoping to generate funds through the sales of players, specifically the likes of Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho, Alejandro Garnacho, and Antony, but nothing has come of that yet. <\/p>\n

Garnacho is the only one sellable but his preference of moving to a Premier League club makes things difficult. Chelsea are reportedly interested but he\u2019s not a priority for them, so they just have to wait. <\/p>\n

If United brass are surprised by this, that would be alarming, and they should do better to learn from the mistakes of their front office predecessors Once again United hold none of the power here. Rashford, Sancho, and Antony all earn wages that their performances do not live up to. All three have attracted interest from other clubs but none are interesting in taking on those high wages.<\/p>\n

And why should they? United have made it clear they are desperate<\/a> for these guys to leave. They have also proven that when they get desperate they will pay these players to play for other clubs – whom they have all been very successful with! If you\u2019re one of those other clubs, what incentive do you have to get a deal done early? <\/p>\n

History says that eventually United will get desperate and you\u2019ll be able to get your guy without having to pay all of his wages. That makes it unlikely United are going to be bringing in the transfer fees that they had hoped for these guys. That\u2019s going to limit the amount of players you can sign further emphasizing the need to make sure you\u2019re maximizing every penny of your budget. If you can\u2019t get a good deal on a guy, move on.<\/p>\n

The Harry Maguire signing occurred during the Ed Woodward era while the Antony deal went down during the John Murtough era. Now we\u2019re in the INEOS era but just because they haven\u2019t made this mistake yet, doesn\u2019t mean they can\u2019t learn from the mistakes of others. <\/p>\n

Brentford are not going to fold and come down on their price as the window gets closer and closer to shutting. If you don\u2019t feel the terms they\u2019re offering are favorable, move on<\/strong>. You don\u2019t have to repeat the mistakes of the past. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Those who don\u2019t learn from history are doomed to repeat it Manchester United kicked off their summer business…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":246080,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8813],"tags":[12155,25029,748,12154,393,163,4884,2465,75261,809,3577,49087,5598,16,2739,15,95524,10513],"class_list":{"0":"post-246079","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manchester","8":"tag-babe","9":"tag-be","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-busby","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-front-page","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-manchester","16":"tag-mbeumo","17":"tag-negotiations","18":"tag-of","19":"tag-should","20":"tag-the","21":"tag-uk","22":"tag-united","23":"tag-united-kingdom","24":"tag-wary","25":"tag-why"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114813704938945911","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}