Manchester United back out of deal for Serbia's 'little Kaká'

[Nosferatu]

Manchester United back out of deal for Serbia's 'little Kaká'

• 18-year-old Adem Ljajic deemed too expensive a gamble
• United used opt-out clause in £16.5m deal with Zoran Tosic

    * Buzz up!
    * Digg it

    * Daniel Taylor
    * The Guardian, Thursday 3 December 2009
    * Article history

Adem Ljajic

Adem Ljajic will remain with Partizan Belgrade after Manchester United invoked an opt-out clause from signing the 18-year-old. Photograph: Srdjan Ilic/AP

Manchester United's American owners have terminated an agreement to sign Adem Ljajic, the Serbia Under-21 international, in the January transfer window, after deciding that he is too expensive a gamble, 11 months after publicly announcing that a deal had been put in place to sign the player dubbed the "little Kaká" in his own country.

Ljajic, 18, was part of the £16.5m deal that also saw his Partizan Belgrade team-mate Zoran Tosic move to Old Trafford last January. The teenager had been on trial at United the previous October and was regarded at the time as the more promising of the two players but United also decided that he should remain in Belgrade to get some more first-team experience before moving to England.

What was not revealed at the time was that the club also stipulated that a get-out clause was written into the contract to cover themselves before Ljajic moved to Manchester long term, and the club have now confirmed they have used that agreement to pull out of the arrangement.

The official reason is that Ljajic has failed to live up to the hype since he broke into the Partizan team at the start of the 2008-09 season and has not impressed United's coaching staff on his regular trips to Manchester to train with the rest of Sir Alex Ferguson's players. Tosic has also struggled to make a favourable impact, making only five substitute appearances despite being a regular in the Serbia national side.

A United spokesperson said: "We had an option to buy the player but, having closely monitored his development over the past 12 months, and taken into consideration the young players emerging through the ranks at the club, we have not chosen to pursue the transfer."

The decision will, however, raise inevitable questions about whether the club's owners, Malcolm Glazer and his family, have involved themselves in Ferguson's planning for the future at a time when they are making substantial cuts at Old Trafford.

United have accrued debts in excess of £600m and Ferguson has been informed he will be operating under tight restraints in the January transfer window, regardless of the club receiving £80m in one single payment from Real Madrid for the signing of Cristiano Ronaldo in the summer.

The Glazers have implemented wide-ranging cuts and, though it has yet to be confirmed, there is a sense that in their current financial position they might have misgivings about paying such a substantial figure for a largely unproven teenager.

This turnaround, however, is extraordinary given that Manchester United's official website described Ljajic as "Serbia's brightest young talent" when the signing was announced, hailing him as an "attacking midfielder blessed with vision and intelligence". The player, then 17, spoke of his excitement about moving to England, saying: "I first heard they were interested in me about a year and a half ago and spent a week at Carrington training with the first team, which I really enjoyed. I feel very happy to be a Manchester United player. Everyone at the club has made me feel very welcome and I'm looking forward to joining in January."

Tosic has his own problems but has been encouraged by scoring four goals in the last four reserve fixtures, and the 22-year-old was a second-half substitute in the 2-0 Carling Cup defeat of Tottenham Hotspur on Tuesday. "I'm still trying to get used to English football and adapt to the style of the game here," he said. "It's still new for me but I'm getting used to it." Unfortunately for Ljajic, he will not get that chance.

[Hyypia Legend]

Never seen him play but heard a lot about him.

Kacar is the Serb for us!

[viking]

Chickens coming home to roost.

I don't think people realise how ****ed United are financially. It's absolutely mystifying how people keep ignoring the big elephant in the room despite it touching everyones noses more and more. Value for money my ******* arse, there's 700m reasons why Sir Alex didn't see a penny of the Ronaldo money.

And now pulling out of a deal for a very talented young man who United tried to sort out a work permit for only a couple of weeks ago and Sir Alex had been talking up in the media. It has looked bad for ages and it's only gonna get worse.

United aren't too big to go under, who would buy them from the Glazers in this financial climate?

[Hyypia Legend]

Always mystifies me how people completely overlook United's debt but fall over themselves to write about ours.

[Nosferatu]

I don't think it is overlooked. It is talked about regularly. But the fact of the matter is that Utd are doing well and haven't necessarily been forced to do anything financially. I mean if you read the article, it says the player isn't exactly doing well and has struggled for a while now. Also other reports have Utd interested in different players so it's not as if they are being forced into it. They did this deal well and the other guy Tosic has not exactly broke through as much as you would have thought.

The other issue is of course the Ronaldo money. But Ferguson is shrewd enough and knows there is very little value in the market. I mean when you think of it, none of Ronaldo, Kaka, Benzema, Real, Ibramovich or any of those guys are worth the money that was spent on them. And I include Alonso in that as well. They are all fantastic players but the prices were crazy. And they were in for Benzema but when Real came in with £5m more, they wisely pulled out. You look at the prices now being quoted for the likes of Villa and Silva and it's a fraction of what it was a couple of months ago.

I think there is reason to be concerned. But I can't say there is any real evidence of it as yet.

[shass]

there's another article that says the money from this plus the sale of nani was needed to buy dzenko, and that there's concern about the finances, but i just thought, surely that's just good business! 2 players who havent developed as they'd liked, so they're cutting their losses and trying to strenghten.

So the problem is they cant have all three?! But the point is they don't want all three.

[Nosferatu]

Yeah I think it's that. I mean maybe there are underlying issues and they have been forced to sell. But the facts seem to me that they sold Ronaldo because first of all he wanted to go and they couldn't go through that again having gone through it enough times. And secondly the bid was just too good to ignore. And we know that they came in with a bid of around £30m for Benzema but Real bid £5m more. So it's not true to say they didn't have the Ronaldo money to spend and I don't think it was true to say the Ronaldo sale was forced.

Ferguson has sold in the past for good reasons. Sometimes to do with falling out with the players. Sometimes because they simply haven't been good enough. Sometimes because the offer has been too good and sometimes because he needed to bring new blood in the shape of youngsters who needed their chance.

[Negative]

It's one thing cutting losses on player purchase. Another is struggling to pay interest and payments on loans.

Obviously, Nani is a huge disappointment, and I don't see him being worth a dime today, but in terms of overall financial position on United, I find it hard to say.

The debt is huge, but so is the revenue side. Frankly I haven't seen any major article on any kind of financial stress at Man Utd, except when journalists are discussion the overall PL club debt. Not to say there isn't, but a major refinancing problem like the one at Liverpool would have been noise enough.

All I can say is: no news is good news.