Perez says Man United's "lack of experience" killed De Gea deal
Florentino Perez gave his version of events over the non-signing of David de Gea on El Larguero on Cadena Ser on Thursday night. “We could not negotiate before Monday because the message from Manchester United was that he was not for sale. We do not speak with anyone who does not want to speak with us.”
In stronger terms, Perez slammed the English side: “I think that United lack the experience in these matters It happened before with [Fabio] Coentrao and again with Athletic Club and Ander Herrera.”
Asked about the roots of Madrid’s interest in De Gea, Perez was clear: “One year ago we understood that the most adequate replacement for [Iker] Casillas was De Gea. I know that De Gea is really affected by this because he wanted to come. Those that know me know that I don’t play with people. There is no other version of what happened.”
In the mix of all this, Keylor Navas, who was due to leave for United as part of the deal, is left feeling used. Perez didn’t miss the chance to support the Costa Rican stopper: “I didn't know anything about United[’s interest] because nobody did. [Keylor] has all our love.”
He also said that talks began on August 31. “The last day of the market, Jorge Mendes told us they were open to a conversation. An agreement was reached in half an hour. We drew up the contracts and sent them at 13.30… eight hours later they returned them. I don’t think [United] had bad intentions, there was a lot to be done… I don’t know. But that left us with very little time.
“In the afternoon I had a feeling things would not go through because of United’s lack of experience in these matters. We don't understand how it took eight hours to return the papers and how they wanted to talk in the final 12 hours [of the window].”
