In the end, Im impressed with how the club has played this.
We made a huge error in not persuading De Gea to sign a longer term contract 12-18 months ago. We could still have sold him now, in compassion for his personal life issues, but we would have been in charge of the negotiation and gotten 40million for him - Real AMdrid were going to sign him no matter what.
For whatever reason that did not happen, you cant cry over spilt milk. So given the situation we found ourselves in at the end of the season, this is just about the best we could have gotten out of the situation. We held no cards whatsoever except losing 25 million quid and having a demotivated keeper on our books who could never have performed as well as he could have. And making him rot in the reserves whilst losing a selling fee is neither rational nor sensible and lose-lose-lose for all concerned.
So getting 40 million Euro's (cash and kind in Navas) is a very good recovery job, given the circumstances. The lesson learned is that major talents should have contacts renewed 18-24 months before expiry, or when they are in red hot form and feeling good about the club.
Everybody expected De Gea to leave, it just hurts because he does not like us as much as we like him. But he did little wrong in this episode, he gave us 3 very good years service at a very reasonable salary (football wise). He is a nice guy and I wish him well/
How can the fact that we've spent 6 games playing with a number 2 keeper - entirely to our own teams detriment - and we've left this deal to the last possible day (minute in fact), for no reason in the end, as we didn't get the £35m we apparently wanted, or Ramos/Bale/Jesus Christ, leave you impressed?
Genuine question - I genuinely feel we've handled this incredibly poorly.