279: Marcos Rojo, Argentina, FIFA World Cup Russia 2018, Panini Official Licensed Sticker Album

This week Mat Jolin-Beech takes us through a nostalgic look at football’s silly season and the endless rumours and speculation that dominate the headlines at this time of year. Your club is probably looking for a quality centre-half, a holding midfielder and a prolific striker to launch a title challenge, push for European football or stave off relegation once again. That as may be you might want to prepare yourself for the arrival of an unheard of winger modelling your new third kit and a contract extension for your third choice goalkeeper. Over to Mat with BREAKING NEWS.

It’s the summer and that means football goes mad. For many a sports journalist, especially those on Sky Sports News, it’s a better time than the actual season. They get to fill air time with stories of transfer rumours, clandestine deals, last minute panic buys, and obvious and predictable transfers. All of this makes them household names like Fabrizio Romano. Or they do to us football nerds at least.

For the clubs’ management teams, they must have a wish list of players. The primary targets. The must haves. And, because most clubs do at least some due diligence and contingency planning, a list of backups. Now, this will be a Manchester United heavy list due to this author’s bias, but I’m sure all clubs have similar tales of second choice signings. Some, I’m sure have come in, underwhelmed when they hold up the shirt and the scarf, before becoming club legends. This list is not that.

The figurehead for this piece s one Marcos Rojo. A £16m signing in August 2014 from Sporting Lisbon. A bit mad; a typical Latin hot head; and a decent footballer. But not the number one target that summer. That was one Mats Hummels, who was apparently “very close” to joining the Old Trafford outfit. That didn’t happen and Hummels stayed at Borussia Dortmund, before he, as all players in the Bundesliga who are any good do, went to Bayern Munich. Not exactly the same class of signing.

But this is not the first time this happened. Others in this list include the infamous Moyes chase of Cesc Fabregas that led United to paying more than the release clause for Marouane Fellaini. Again, not exactly replacing like with like there. Brazilian Fred apparently came to Old Trafford as Chelsea beat Jose Mourinho to Jorginho. Who do you think got the better end of that deal? McInho (or Jorgominay) doesn’t quite fall off the tongue as well as McFred…

More recently, the (seemingly ongoing) pursuit of Frenkie De Jong from Barcelona failed. Despite Barca’s unique financial set up, within which they have sold 25% of their future TV revenue for the next twenty odd years in order to keep cash coming in the door and fund their obscene recruitment, they did not sell. Perhaps because of it. So the hierarchy at United turned to the likes of Marko Arnautovic and Adrien Rabiot. Popular potential signings. Indeed, Arnautovic proved so distasteful with fans, the board pulled out of the deal only then to shock us with the signing of Casemiro. Definitely better than Rabiot and Arnautovic. Different to de Jong. Definitely a good signing. This season, its looks like Harry Kane, Victor Osimhen and Rasmus Hojland.

United are not alone though. Liverpool have fallen into this trap this summer. Failing to woo Jude Bellingham and getting Alexis MacAllister. Time will tell whether this was a downgrade or a smart signing. Thinking about this also threw up the story of how Leeds United handed Man U their first Premier League title. Leeds managing director Bill Fotherby phoned the Red Devil’s chairman Martin Edwards to enquire about bringing Denis Irwin back to Elland Road. After Edwards spoke with Fergie, he called Fotherby back and said no to the Irwin sale, but wanted to buy Eric Cantona. So instead of strengthening a title-winning outfit, they weakened themselves and created another.

Finally, there is a tale that everyone won out of. It features Kleberson too. So we’re all winning. It was Summer 2003. David Beckham was heading toward the exit door at Manchester United. Real Madrid was his destination with THE team of Galacticos being built. Ronaldinho was on their shortlist but was deemed too ugly to grace the white shirt. That was good for United. Fergie saw the Brazilian as the ideal new no.7. So much so that international teammate Kleberson was brought in to ease his transition from Paris to Manchester. But Barca got in first. That left Sir Alex with a no.7 shaped hole on the right side of the pitch. Enter a teenager with gummy worm hair. One Cristiano Ronaldo. That first stint wasn’t bad was it? So Beckham to Madrid, Ronaldinho to Barca and Ronaldo to United. Everyone was a winner there weren’t’ they? Even if none of them were the first name on each other’s lists.