No? What about those who put money on the mans word? There are more than a few I'm sure having read the Witsel and manager search threads.
Witsel was OURS, Pellegrini was at Zenit, Koeman had taken himself out of the race with Emery the front runner...
Witsel was 'ours' twice though - twice he verbally agreed only for his reps to pull out of the deal last minute with Juve poking around.
Pellegrini was very likely to go to Zenit as well - not sure Esk was 'certain' on it only that it was his opinion.
And if you think back to the managerial appointment, it actually seemed to work out pretty much exactly was saying...
Emery was the front runner and was ready to sign until PSG came in for him. Several sources back this up. Koeman was our no.1 choice and we had approached him earlier in the window, but he'd indicated that he wasn't interested at first so we moved on. That in turn seemingly peaked Koeman's interest and showed him we went business...