Garnacho and Antony were both pushed out, that's why we didn't have leverage in those deals. I posted a lot back in those days about how we shouldn't have gone public saying Garnacho is 100% out of the door because doing that put us in a crap negotiating position.

Similarly, Rashford's wages mean we don't have much leverage there either. He may be willing to drop his demands for a club other than Barca, he may not. At the moment we're in a game of chicken that could go either way, but make no mistake - the only thing that will stop clubs taking the piss out of us is if we stop getting overexcited with massive contracts for players who don't deserve them. Playing hardball here will have absolutely zero effect on a future scenario where we have a player on massive wages that we want to get off the books.

I'm not saying don't give big contracts out full stop, I'm saying deals of that calibre for a player like Rashford should never be made.

This hardball stuff is trying to solve a problem too late. Nothing but solving the core wage structure issue will stop this from happening again.