I can't speak for others but this is why I personally blame the management:
- despite being one of, if not our best player for years, they've repeatedly tried to force him out and sell him - that too, far under market value, and once in the middle of tight title race
- as we all know, they see players as nothing more than assets on a balance sheet, and their lack of planning and botched de Vrij renewal forced them to move onto the next asset to try and sell - Skriniar - after ruining another asset in de Vrij
- they had the chance to renew him for significantly less - by all reports, a mere €4.5m, but did not take the opportunity
- when they DID have the chance to sell Skriniar for a respectable (but still low) €50m, with a ready made replacement in Bremer, they did not act. Their comical incompetence lead to us missing out on both Bremer and any transfer fee for Skriniar
- per my previous post, they posture as if this is a matter of principle and of finances, but at the same time they've wasted exorbitant amounts on failed transfers of Lukaku, Correa, Gosens, and expensive golden handshakes for Conte, Vidal and Sanchez. As I've mentioned, they've just renewed a completely useless player in D'Ambrosio for another TWO years as well - money that could've been far better spent
After such shamelessly inept allocation of enormous resources, how dare they act like they like they can't pay a loyal servant and one of our precious few WORLD CLASS assets another €1m? All the while holding him to some Hamisk comment from years ago like it was some kind of binding agreement ![lol :lol: :lol:](/img/smilies/lol.gif)
The fact that this posturing is actually working on some of you is bewildering and disappointing. You're entitled to your own opinions but as far as I'm concerned, you've all fallen for the classic Marotta move of blaming the player. I'm just shocked to see it's worked on so many of you.
To add insult to injury, we've apparently gone running back to de Vrij (who has been absolute garbage for 2 years now) and tried to accelerate his renewal. Oh, and we've also apparently offered Smalling a contract of €3.5m, which is more than what we're paying Skriniar
It's like we're going out of our way to give him a giant middle finger with every move we make.