It’s Wayne’s world and us fans are just not worthy

I NORMALLY hate international weekends, deeming them a damnable imposition on real, i.e. club, football but this past one was an exception.

Frankly we needed the time off to digest the ramifications of Deadline Day, which can be summed up thus if you are of an extremely pessimistic bent: a) United are being run by incompetents and b) football as we know it is heading for the abyss.

There you go — hyperbolic enough to make you want to fling yourself through the transfer window.

I refer, of course, to United’s complete inaction in the market, bar the continued offloading from the wage bill of several good youngsters, and to the stunning coup perpetrated by West Ham and various mysterious operators who, in some contexts, might be referred to as ‘shadowy’. CEO David Gill, inset, brought these two elements together in his jawdropping Sunday morning radio interview when, amongst other dumbfounding statements, he averred that Senor Mascherano was “clearly a very good player but one we decided we did not want.”

Actually, he referred to United’s “experts in that area” not wanting him, which made you wonder what subdivision of O.T. expertise he was on about.

Our ‘South American experts? (Who chose Veron and Forlan?) Our ‘midfield experts’? (Who left us with O’Pie and Fletcher running the ship — aground?) Our ‘transfer market specialists’?

We were left none the wiser. The upshot is that we can conclude someone at OT being paid a hefty salary thinks that “being a very good player” is not enough. An interesting judgment, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Had Gill said “we didn’t like the unholy stench that surrounded MSI and the absurd strings that were attached to the proposal” we wouldn’t have had a problem. Having read what West Ham have allegedly agreed to in the London Sunday Times, and having digested the Daily Mail’s Monday exposé of the Iranian car-dealer behind MSI, we wouldn’t have blamed him for such a decision. But he didn’t say that, did he? What we are left with is the strong impression that United’s last eight months of market-scouring has not been a sophisticated ‘targeting and acquisition’ operation at all. Instead it seems to have been some kind of ‘Whack-A-Moley’ game, as seen at fairgrounds, whereby United manically chase every player whose head pops up on the agent circuit yet fail to land a blow before the head pops down again. Admittedly, they did manage to land the mallet on Owen Hargreaves’ girly-curly bonce, but the foaming Bavarian manning the stall refused to let us take home the prize. Gill tells us we didn’t even make a formal bid which, y’know, might have helped..d’oh.

So there it is: after months of propaganda and promises of world class newbies to replace two lost Old Trafford superstars, we are left with a Pole whose name no one knows, nor can spell, plus a decentish midfielder who has cost us double what he’s worth and who, with all due respect, is hardly ever going to be the new Paul Scholes. Still, all the best Michael: I recall us being similarly underwhelmed when another fevered window closed with us only signing Louis Saha for a not-unadjacent sum and look how that’s turned out.

Erm, hang on: I may have got that a bit wrong.

Alright, I’m being facetious: Louis is doing OK, when he’s not in hospital anyway, but he’s no one’s idea of a United superstar yet. That caveat doesn’t apply to Wayne Rooney, naturally, and I note his contract is on the agenda this week, the fruits of a longstanding Paul Stretford plan to get his boy paid at Rio Ferdinand levels. All this was kicked off by a Sunday Mirror interview, conducted last May but ‘politically’ held back, in which Wayne said he wanted to play for United forever and would seek a new contract to allow him to fulfil that wish. Cunning! What in fact was being said, in code, was this: ‘hey, I’m your main man NOW, so pay me commensurately or else.’ And if there’s one talent David Gill DOES possess — it may be his only one, too, so let’s big it up — it is that he knows a financial hard-ass when he sees one.

So just two days after the interview was finally published a fortnight ago, Gill said talks would begin with Stretford soon, and one detected a note of panic in his words as he said it. Quite right too: I hear today from a European boardroom source that one or two top Euro clubs have ‘been informed ‘ that Rooney might become a marketable property if things don’t go well at O.T. this season. Naturally I don’t believe for a minute that United would be stupid enough to let anything seriously amiss develop here but it might be fun watching the penny-pinching Glazers trying to handle this, as Wayne looks at what Rio did and, understandably, concludes: “I’ll have some o’ that too, la’.”

Yet does any of it matter? The West Ham deal and impending takeover possibly heralds the end of the system as we’ve known it. Hello omnipotent agent-rosters, one-year ‘parking’ contracts and de facto franchises: goodbye club-power, employees and loyalties. It’s a Brave New World, plus a money-launderer’s delight, and you can only look on in wonder — and throw up.

*Richard Kurt, is author of ‘The Red Army Years’.