Man Utd Transfers: 5 Shocking Failures Moyes Made In Transfer Window

3. Undervaluing Key Players

As well as a new midfielder, United also needed a new left-back this summer and were as such linked with Everton's Leighton Baines. With Patrice Evra now 32 and entering the winter of his career, bringing in a future, long-term replacement this summer was considered important. The Frenchman was at times a liability last season as United endured their worst defensive record in 11 years and though he has started this season promisingly, having a world-class left-back in the squad to provide him with competition would have only been a good thing. Evra's understudies, Fabio and Alexander Buttner, are nowhere near ready for first team football and if the former Monaco man gets injured later in the campaign, the Red Devils are going to be stretched. Baines is considered one of the best left-backs in England and might have joined United had he not been horrifically undervalued by Moyes. The Scotsman made two bids in the end for the defender, the first of £12 million on June 27 and another of the same amount on August 19. That second bid was of £28 million and also to include Marouane Fellaini but by valuing Baines at the same amount as an originally failed offer shows extreme naivity on Moyes's behalf. The United boss should have pushed the boat out for Baines and paid what it would have taken to land his services, but in the end he showed disrespect to Everton who correctly blasted his offer as "derisory and insulting".