And it wasnt a 'free' transfer. I think it was well known at the time that O'Hare reveived a rather generous signing on fee from United which ran into the millions. The transfer fee as such went to the player rather than Coventry as he had ran down his contract. So if we gave him away cheaply, weve also wrote off the 'fee' that we gave to him as an enticement to sign on with us in the first place.
Anyway, i wouldnt be at all surprised if Deadly Danny from the Stir, was acting on the request of the club to run a story about this when the club have no intention of selling. Adding a story about one of our better players leaving (he wont be) takes fans thoughts away from Utds failure so far to get the necessary number of signings in through the door. When we only sign one more and the 'we will be exploring the free agents market' shout goes up, it will be caveated with the 'and the club had to stay strong to resist last minute approaches for our own players....'. The fans are suddenly then thinking, 'well we didnt bring in what we needed, but at least we didnt lose our better players'....
In business, its like giving out bad information in the old shit sandwich. You start off telling the staff things that are fairly positive, then drop in the shit message that pisses people off, then add in some positive news again. So, 1) Were looking to bring in a few players, 2) The current best players may be sold, 3) We didnt get the new players we wanted... but at least our better players are still here, so everyone can be happy again.