“They’re not people from the football world”
Since hanging up his boots, Patrice Evra has built himself a tidy following on social media. Rarely, though, have his Instagram posts been quite as downbeat as this…
Posted on Monday morning, the former Manchester United left-back spoke at length (for a whole 20 minutes) about the plight of his old club, expressing his frustration at another underwhelming transfer window. Though he did manage to force his ‘I love this game’ catchphrase as a sign-off, that was as jovial as it got. No panda costumes. Definitely no raw chickens for him to lick.
United lost their opening Premier League game 3-1 at home to Crystal Palace on Saturday evening, exacerbating the ill-feeling bubbling up amongst supporters during a transfer window which has so far yielded just one new arrival at Old Trafford. Evra clearly shares fans’ concerns, appearing to question the club’s head of corporate development, Matt Judge, who has been tasked with transfer negotiations in recent years.
“Every year it’s deja vu,” he says. “We make so much impact on social media but the reality is [nothing]. Fans have to understand it’s not that you buy five, six, seven players the team will improve, but at least your main target, that’s what we’re not doing anymore,” he said, perhaps a reference to United’s seemingly never-ending pursuit of Jadon Sancho.
“Under Fergie and David Gill we didn’t have anything in the paper but bam, bam, bam – Van Persie, Evra, Vidic, Ferdinand – everything was fast, they go and talk face-to-face.
“But now it’s Matt Judge, we send lawyers to talk with players and when you send a lawyer they talk about numbers, they’re not people from the football world.”
Evra stops short of being too critical of executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward who, along with the Glazer family owners, is often the main subject of ire for United’s support.
“The only problem I would say to Ed Woodward is that he trusts in people and he should never trust them,” Evra says. “He even trusts some people outside the club, that’s what I can say about that.”
Evra may, at least, be buoyed by the news that Porto left-back Alex Telles is hopeful of joining United by the end of this week.
