According to The Chronicle’s Lee Ryder, Federico Fernandez now looks likely to be the only incoming deal at NUFC today – meaning Benitez looks set to go into the new season without the signing of a new left-back or number 10.
It’s a relief to see us the sign experienced Argentine defender with Florian Lejeune likely to miss the entire season after a cruciate knee ligament injury, however it’ll be another case of ‘too little too late’ as far as Rafa Benitez is concerned.
Here’s what Lee Ryder has said on potential incomings with less than an hour of the window remaining, suggesting that Fernandez looks likely to be the only man arriving before 5pm:
Federico Fernández now looking likely to be the only incoming deal for #nufc today. Time running out. #deadlineday
— Lee Ryder (@lee_ryder) August 9, 2018
With Haidara and Gamez released and Lazaar nowhere to be seen, the signing of a left-back seemed essential before today’s 5pm deadline, but we now look set to go into the new season with just ONE recognised left-back (Dummett) unless something changes late in the day.
Not only that, it’s been clear for months now that Benitez wanted a number 10 to compete with Ayoze Perez – however this is yet ANOTHER deal the club have failed to deliver.
Here’s hoping for some surprise late news, but for now it seems as though Fernandez will be the only one in today.
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Bring on Saturday outside of SD lets shut his shops down!!
Martin(Quote)
that fat ***** made a profit again out of our club we need to make a stand hit him where it hurts SD us fans in are colours block all the store entrances fat **** out take your fucking **** shops with you just when you could do with someone having a hart attack M.A
John Jamieson(Quote)
Rafa was brought in to try and save us from being relegated. It did not succeed so MA lost income and he had to invest to get us back up. When we got up to 10th, that told MA we have a good enough squad to stay up now but does not want to ‘waste money’ on good players or on a world class manager… All the lies and tricks are probably to wind Rafa up to the point where he quits, saving the club a load of money. At that point he can appoint a cheap manager who does what he is told. If we do get relegated, it is not a disaster as we did not really lose that much (not what they have quoted anyway). We also will get parachute payments for a few years. By that time, he may have recouped his loan and can drop the asking price a bit. If there are no bidders, he will just sit and wait. He does not invest in companies, he just buys them when they are in deep-**** (eg Rangers) then waits for them to improve then sells them again… He says he does not have any real wealth, so why buy the club in the first place? Advertising? It has done its job now so why not sell up?
There is no chance that he did not know about the debt, taking over the debt was probably a condition of the sale. He was probably told by his advisors it was a good time to buy a football club and we were the one that met the criteria (probably cheap with a good chance of profit).
Why did he plough the extra money in? To avoid bank charges. They should have got a loan for it, probably would have been paid off by now…
Basically, he has only invested the absolute minimum required to stay afloat and has never had any intention of investing at any point. this was purely a business transaction… With all the bad publicity though, he has found himself under scrutiny as he has put himself in the limelight and people are asking questions about the way he does things and he is not happy at all… He blames it all on NUFC and its fans and so is doing his best to p*** us all off… Why does he not sell some shares in SD which must be top dollar now and use the money to invest as a thank you for the advertising? No chance… Business brutality. As many people have said, he could not care and probably could not care about any of his assets as long as they aren’t costing him. I would wager nothing has changed since the enquiry into Sports Direct as nothing has changed at NUFC. It’s his toy, and he wants to play with it
RS(Quote)