'It does represent something of a coup for Man Utd'

BBC News

6 days ago

There were some fraught negotiations to get this deal over the line.Manchester United felt the price Brentford wanted for Bryan Mbeumo changed on a number of occasions during discussions, which they believe were dragged out far too long. The London club would have preferred the player to join Tottenham or Newcastle because they would get a bigger fee.Brentford feel Spurs were in a strong bargaining position because their new manager, ex-Bees boss Thomas Frank, knew exactly what fee they wanted, which was substantially more than United were offering - initially about £45m.At one point, with United refusing to meet Brentford's demand for an initial £70m, plus £7m in additional payments - they had seen United spend £62.5m on Matheus Cunha and felt they were in a strong position - they cheekily mentioned to Mbeumo he might wish to lower his personal demands to get to the correct figure.It was not needed in the end and an agreement was reached that allowed all parties to move forward.For United in particular, this is hugely important.In this instance, they felt not only were Tottenham and Newcastle keen but believed Arsenal were interested too, and Chelsea were also flexing their muscle by the end.Whatever the rights and wrongs of how they went about it, United got their man eventually.Considering they finished 15th last season and all the other clubs they felt they were battling with can offer Champions League football in the coming months, that does indeed represent something of a coup for technical director Jason Wilcox and his negotiating team.