WHY SAY ANYTHING?

Ed Woodward, apart from having the same name as a late actor who used to portray, amongst others, a character known as “The Equalizer“, (yes, it was an American series, although the actor was English), has nothing else whatsoever in common with that persona.

A man who spent his waking hours righting wrongs, looking after the poor people who couldn’t afford protection and didn’t trust the police, he was a mixture of Robin Hood and the A-Team and always came out on top.

Our Ed, who rarely comes out on top would, if cast as a fictional character, be more likely to be known as “The Tranquilliser“. He has single-handedly managed to lower the expectations of everybody at Old Trafford, including José Mourinho, who has now wearily admitted that he would be happy just to get one more new player.

The fans have gone from edge-of-the-seat excitement with the arrivals of Lindelof and Lukaku, to mind-numbing boredom as the empty days drag slowly by and the only notable transfer business is being done by direct rivals.

City have bought a player from Tottenham Hotspur. United would like one too but Ed can’t get him. United wanted a player from Real Madrid. Ed couldn’t get him, but Chelsea could and did.

United have been linked with a player from AS Monaco, but they haven’t signed him. City have been linked with two players from the same club and have bought them both.

Somewhere in all this business being conducted by our rivals is a message for Ed. Something like, GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER! If other clubs can do it then there should be no reason why United can’t.

ALEXIS SÁNCHEZ

Loyal readers of these chronicles could be forgiven for thinking that the spending spree at Manchester City is now over. Wrong! Having collected a complete set of full backs and some spare ones as well, Pep Guardiola is now looking at central defenders in case Vincent Kompany, unlikely as it may be, picks up an injury and poor old Pep only has John Stones, Nicolas Otamendi and Jason Denayer available to him.

Oh, and he is still interested in Alexis Sánchez for no other reason than the fact that he’s good at football and scoring and assisting and things.

The chances of Sánchez joining City are actually not as remote as they may seem when listening to Arséne Wenger prattling on about him.

He waffled on in exactly the same way about Robin van Persie shortly before selling him to Manchester United but is now trying to say that the Sanchez situation is different.

Take his interview in Shanghai last week  when he tried to explain away the previous occasions he’d sold his crown jewels.

“Every case is different,” he said. “Van Persie was going from 30 to 31 and when he left he had one year left on his contract. Sánchez is younger.”

In 2012 when Sir Alex Ferguson lured van Persie to Old Trafford, the Dutchman was actually 11 days past his 29th birthday. Sánchez turns 29 in December and, like van Persie, is entering the final 12 months of his contract.

So in fact the only real difference between the two situations is four months in age!

Shortly before he sold Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri to Barcelona and Manchester City respectively he said the following;

“Imagine the worst situation,” he said. “We lose Fabregas and Nasri. You cannot convince people you are ambitious after that.”

“If you give that message out, you cannot pretend you are a big club, because a big club first of all holds onto its big players and gives a message out to all the other big clubs that they just cannot come in and take away from you.”

So there is certainly hope for City and it comes straight from the horse’s ambiguous mouth! (or is it forked tongue?)