Spurs Are Waiting. Pay The £80m Or Lose Fernandes For Good.
- ⚽ United are favorites for Matheus Fernandes with personal terms agreed, but their £60m bid got knocked back and West Ham want £80m.
- 🐓 Spurs have lodged a bid and want Fernandes plus Tonali to spearhead a De Zerbi project. Howson rates the ambition, doubts the squad.
- 💰 Tchouaméni could be back on the table post-Mourinho at Real, but doing Fernandes, Ederson AND Tchouaméni in one window is fantasy money.
- 🌍 World Cup chat: two players sent off for covering their mouths, 48-team format kills group-stage jeopardy, expect rotated opening sides.
⚽ The Fernandes tug-of-war
Right then. The headline is simple: Matheus Fernandes is not a United player yet, and the wait is starting to cost.
Here's the state of play as Howson lays it out. United are still favorites. Personal terms are agreed with the player. But their bid of £60m got rejected, and West Ham are holding firm at £80m. That £20m gap is where the whole thing lives or dies.
And into that gap walk Spurs.
Tottenham have submitted a bid. Their plan, and this is the bit Howson genuinely respects, is to land both Fernandes and Sandro Tonali to spearhead a new project under De Zerbi. Two proven Premier League midfielders, signed together. That, he says, is "mad ambitious" and "not very Spursy." Take the dig however you like.
His logic on why those two matter is worth carrying. Sort your midfield, sort your attack, sort your defense, all at once. Sign Tonali and Fernandes and you are a better team, simple as that. He reckons there are barely any clubs in world football those two wouldn't improve.
The catch for Spurs: their squad is genuinely poor right now, by his read and by the two Spurs fans on Rio's team he was chatting to. They basically NEED those two to kickstart anything.
So why might Fernandes pick Tottenham over United? Howson's view: it comes down to how badly the player wants Champions League football, how much he wants United specifically, or whether he buys into the De Zerbi project at Spurs. Tottenham reckon they can get personal terms done with Matheus Nunes too (note: he muddles the names a bit, drifting between Fernandes and Nunes through the clip).
His honest take on both projects? Spurs could be the real thing or another false dawn. But so could United's. Either way it's a gamble. That is the whole point.
💰 The Tchouaméni fantasy maths
Then there's the Tchouaméni twist.
Reports out the night before suggested Real Madrid's sudden willingness to sell makes a Premier League move a strong possibility. Howson had flagged a week or so back that nobody knew the situation. Now, post-Mourinho appointment and post the promised spend, certain players are surplus to requirements. Tchouaméni could be one of them.
This is where Howson starts doing the sums out loud, and it gets entertaining.
Can United do Fernandes, Ederson AND Tchouaméni in one window? "There's no way that computes to me." That's what an ambitious club does, but then add Lewis Hall and a striker on top? "Surely not."
He runs the best-case numbers anyway. Tchouaméni for £70m. Matheus Nunes for £70m (splitting the difference between United's bid and West Ham's ask). That's £140m. Add Ederson and you're at £175m to £180m-ish. You might have £75m left. Maybe Lewis Hall for £65m, plus a fat signing-on bonus for someone he calls Vlahović as the striker.
To make it stick? You sell everyone. Rashford, Ugarte, Zirkzee, anything not nailed down. His line: "go and find all the old kits we didn't sell from last season, put them on 85% discount, get them out the door."
Bottom line: he doesn't think United does both the big midfielders. There's a path where they could. He just doesn't see it. But if they pulled it off, the squad levels up "in a big, big way."
🌍 World Cup notes from the road
Howson's filming this walking around LA (he's out there for the World Cup), so the football chat sits alongside a lot of personal stuff. The man's being honest: the first week he didn't want to be there, wasn't eating, wasn't sleeping. He's now back on chicken and rice, getting 6 to 8 hours (a personal best of 7 hours 52 minutes, which he reckons might be his most sleep all year), and turning the corner. Hired a car Monday to Thursday, planning hikes at Franklin Park and some beaches. There's a guru-ish detour about losing 10 to 15 years without discipline and trying to catch up. File that under context.
On the actual tournament, the substance:
Two players have now been sent off for covering their mouths. He calls it a mad rule, while admitting it does clamp down on the abuse. There've been some great goals. Nice to see Cunha scoring.
His sharpest tactical point is on the 48-team format. He won't call it bad, but it changes how teams approach opening games. There's far less jeopardy in the group stage now. You can "pretty much bonk it, get a point and go through." So expect a lot of games crammed into a short window for stars coming off long Champions League seasons, and expect smart teams to do what England did with Saka: semi-rotated sides for the first two matches, big names saved for the knockouts.
This is the first World Cup of the new format. Nobody knows the new playbook yet.
He's got a ticket for Belgium Iran the next day, and Laurie wants him out on the smash. Three good nights' sleep means he probably owes him one.
Either way, you'll have a good Saturday.