I blame myself in part on this because as I was speaking yesterday to an Arsenal fan I said to him "Iliman Ndiaye, remember the name, you'll see why when he plays in the PL next season for us"!
So, Ili's off, not ideal but it's football, it happens, some are overreacting a tad in my view to it. Yes, it's not good for United, but all summer there's been interest reported from Marseille. It's unfortunate that he supports a team that can afford him and also has an interest, but the latter I'm sure his agent has had a big part to do with this; in line with his clients desires to join OM. A few, including Matt Fitzpatrick, have said the club have let themselves down from a planning perspective in not tying Ili down to a longer contract last summer. Well it does seem that Ili's agent had little interest in a contract offer last season, even if there was a deal to be done than it was highly likely that there would have been a minimum fee release clause and maybe this would have been similar to the deal we've got anyway given that I doubt Ili's agent would want a high release clause.
It's disappointing that it seemed he was set to stay, I suspect that OM got in touch again when there was news of the contract to be signed and firmed up their interest once they knew we were close to a deal. I do wonder whether that was just Ili and/or his agent doing their best to stir up OM to finally make firm interest. Prior to that it seemed that OM were just hoping Ili would throw the toys out of the pram and force a move which it doesn't seem the case.
But I'm not bitter to Ili, I think those that maybe are now should remember that he is an OM fan, he could have gone last window and didn't and he's played a huge part in the promotion bid and without it we would be in a real mess. We don't know the full story either. I wish him all the best at OM, will be very interesting to follow his career. He'll always be a Blades favourite for most Blades.
