Two Manchester United transfer choices revealed by merciless Nottingham Forest after baffling £90m decisions

By Damerex -
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Manchester United’s decision to sell Anthony Elanga for £15m while rating Alejandro Garnacho at £70m illustrates the kind of errors that define their transfer missteps.  Manchester United are terrible at signings. That is no surprise. Their terrible history of post-Ferguson acquisitions is painfully familiar. However, they are arguably inferior in every facet of player sales, and insufficient emphasis is placed on how that disastrous failure has been more persistently harmful than subpar recruitment to their prospects for a significant rebuild.  They have never earned over £100m in a single season from player sales (four Premier League teams achieved this in just one season). They are the sole Premier League club whose highest sale happened prior to 2011. They still consider David Beckham's transfer to Real Madrid in 2003 as their fourth-biggest sale ever, and two players ahead of him – Angel Di Maria and Romelu Lukaku – were sold at a loss compared to their initial signing fe...
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Carlo Ancelotti expresses disapproval of the new Champions League format.

By Damerex -

Following the conclusion of the first "league phase" this week, Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti has taken aim at the new Champions League format for this season.

With a single league table instead of a group stage and eight pre-knockout games instead of six, UEFA has completely redesigned its premier club competition this season.

When questioned by media on Wednesday night about his thoughts on the new league phase format, Ancelotti said, "Too many matches.

" While denying that Madrid in particular has suffered disproportionately from the increasing demand, Ancelotti reaffirmed the long-held belief that elite football requires fewer games.

"There have been countless, yet for everyone," he stated. "At this point in football, we need to eliminate matches rather than increase them." "That’s how I see it." 

It increases the number of matches on the schedule. Madrid will need to play four more games this season than they did in 2023–2024 in order to make it to the final once more. This season, the final would be their 17th Champions League match; last season, it was their 13th. 

The club season will continue into July as the new 32-team FIFA Club World Cup still takes place before Madrid in the summer. In December, FIFA also introduced the Intercontinental Cup to the schedule.

A second group stage was established in 1999 when UEFA expanded the number of Champions League entries from 24 to 32. This gave the participating clubs six more games, bringing the finalist teams' total to 17. Four games were automatically removed from the schedule when the second group stage was replaced with the final 16 in 2003, thus lowering the demands. However, despite the arguments against it, UEFA once again determined that more football was the way to go 21 years later.

Madrid has a 50/50 chance of playing their longtime rivals Manchester City in the knockout play-off stage because of their 11th-place league phase finish. However, Ancelotti doesn't really care about that because he knows that in order to win the competition, the team must play the best teams at some time, whether that be now or in the future.

"Whatever comes, comes, and there will be a draw. Not much has changed: defeating the best clubs is necessary to win the Champions League," he stated.

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