The Red Devils pursuit of Sergio Reguilón came to a sudden end Tuesday night. Reguilón joined José Mourinho’s Tottenham in an expected €30 million deal.

The announcement, which broke out on Tuesday night came as a shock to United faithfuls. Rumours that United worked on a deal for the left back for the past week flooded into social media. A few days later, reports that personal terms to join United had been agreed by the defender.

There remains an overraction by many United fans that Spurs pipped Reguilon from moving to Old Trafford. However, this was not the reasoning behind United not making a bid for the Spaniard.

Given United’s inactivity in the transfer market, many fans judge the inability to land Reguilón as a failure. It is not.
As reported, Real Madrid wanted a buy-back clause and Man Utd didn’t accept and rather walked away from the deal.

As reported by Sky Sports Italia, Fabrizio Romano:

It was a simple and a good call for the long run. Man Utd wouldn’t make a good deal out of Regulion if they had agreed the buy back clause from Real Madrid. No big club, who confide in their club’s future would accept such deal. The buyback clause — reported to be about €45 million — essentially turns this “sale” into (an expensive) two year loan where the buyer takes all the risk.

If Reguilón turns into a star, Real Madrid buy him back for well below his market value. If he becomes a flop, then the buying club keeps the player. At least a ‘loan with an option to buy’ gives you the option to send him back, but this doesn’t. United, like every other big club, would love to have full control of their players and this was a deal even Real Madrid won’t accept.

It’s certainly very frustrating that only Van De Beek has arrived. If United can get players in before 5th October then that is fine. The reality is that United shouldn’t have needed reinforcements to beat Palace on Saturday and could have problems against Brighton this weekend.

United are going to be okay, and when it comes to this Sergio Reguilón deal, we should be praising the club for staying on track by avoiding bad deals rather than acting like the sky is falling and signing short term players.