In what is becoming a worrying trend, Gabriel Heinze becomes the 3rd Manchester United player in recent memory to move to Real Madrid after falling out with manager Sir Alex Ferguson.
And as such things have gone in the past, the player has gone for a cut-price deal, with Manchester United getting less than the 6.8m offered by Liverpool. Like I’d said earlier, Heinze chose to ignore any advances from France and once it was clear that Real Madrid were after him, Manchester United were quick to agree to a move and thrash out the details.
Heinze will be one of those few players who will not be warmly welcomed back at Old Trafford despite having been a fan favourite for so long. Some say that it was his desire to leave Manchester United. Others point to his desire to move to Liverpool.
I think both could have been forgiven, if he hadn’t taken this matter to arbitration. He claimed that he was defending his ‘rights’ but in reality he was burning bridges and showing Ferguson and his Manchester United teammates that he would not accept staying.
Why’d he want to leave? Was it the whole ‘first-choice’ thing? If that’s true, then I think Ferguson made a mistake last season by not playing Heinze more (although he did get plenty of games). However, all of this is in the past, Heinze is now gone and Manchester United must look forward to the Tottenham game, and plan to win it (more on that on our Friday preview).
As for Real Madrid – congratulations on signing a fine player – Heinze will add a real bite to your squad, something that might have been missing from the defence.
A question for Real Madrid fans though (you guys know who you are): Do you think that with Heinze and Robben, Real Madrid now have the squad depth to defend their title? The biggest unknown for me at this point in the manager, but apart from that if they don’t have a balanced squad then they’re going to start off on the back foot, aren’t they?
So what do you guys think? Comments are welcome.
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