What? He's one of the best young midfielders in Europe, he's not overrated at all. If he was to leave Dortmund then most big clubs would be in for him and we'd have to pay a lot to get him.
İlkay Gündoğan Transfer Thread
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Gundogan he is quality and considering his age he will only get better. Arsenal don't need him and if he did become available I would hope we would be one of the teams making the biggest effort to sign him. I have skipped over the last few pages.
In terms of players joining clubs there is a hierarchy. When people discuss money the biggest clubs are also the clubs willing to pay the most wages 90% of the time. Arsenal are a big club not as big as the very elite but they are big. The signing of Ozil makes them very interesting, the play a style of football that is great to watch, they have a respected coach who is one of the best around. The only thing that was slowing them down was their reluctance to spend.
Real, Barca, Bayern and Chelsea are the biggest movers in the transfer market imo.
We are up there due to prestige and our history but I don't think we are right at the top.
In terms of players joining clubs there is a hierarchy. When people discuss money the biggest clubs are also the clubs willing to pay the most wages 90% of the time. Arsenal are a big club not as big as the very elite but they are big. The signing of Ozil makes them very interesting, the play a style of football that is great to watch, they have a respected coach who is one of the best around. The only thing that was slowing them down was their reluctance to spend.
Real, Barca, Bayern and Chelsea are the biggest movers in the transfer market imo.
We are up there due to prestige and our history but I don't think we are right at the top.
But why should he leave Dortmund for Arsenal? Unless they do some crazy transfers I see them as a very good tier2 team but nothing more. I'd see Dortmund (in terms of stature) in the same bracket, though with less prestige than Arsenal, however they have shown that they can compete with the big boys.
Atm it looks like United are neither in terms of perspective nor in terms of money at the very top, so given how highly I rate Gundogan I expect him to go to Barca/Real/Bayern if he moves.
Atm it looks like United are neither in terms of perspective nor in terms of money at the very top, so given how highly I rate Gundogan I expect him to go to Barca/Real/Bayern if he moves.
Atm is a short termist way to look at things. Sure, if one of those wanted him they would be favourites to sign him. However, as a 23-year-old looking at a next step you would have to wonder how much more Dortmund can offer going forward in terms of challenges and project a club's ability to compete with the big boys for the next five years and not just now. United is a very attractive proposition on both counts. Mind you, Kagawa's current reality would be a red flag, no two ways about that.
Well it depends if Arsenal really can keep hold of their top players now and manage to add quality at the same time like they did this summer. Currently it looks like Dortmund is at a stage where Arsenal was the last couple of years, i.e. a very good club which can't keep hold of its best players and thus might struggle a bit. So from this point of view you could argue that Arsenal might be a bit of a better prospect than Dortmund.
What do you mean by the bolded?
Agree with Antohan that your 'Atm' is a pretty bad way of looking at things. United have just lost Ferguson and Moyes is still settling in, so the club obviously isn't at its best right now.
But we have won the Premier League five of the last seven seasons and it takes more than a few months under par to erase that kind of record.
'At the moment' is the short term perspective which i assume is the way footballers look at things when they sign their 3-4 year contracts. And winning 5 out of 7 PL titles is great for fans and for prestige, but what does that have to do with the future if most of the key figures are either gone or aging? I'm not saying United will vanish like Liverpool did, but were talking about competing with clubs like Bayern, Barca and Real.
Well it seems to me that your 'at the moment' is based on a few months of football. We won the league by 11 points last season, so how you think we've regressed so much is beyond me. You don't become a poor team overnight and we haven't lost any players.
Ferguson going is huge, but once Moyes settles in (already signs of that happening) I don't think we're looking at a decline half as significant as you're implying.
Ferguson going is huge, but once Moyes settles in (already signs of that happening) I don't think we're looking at a decline half as significant as you're implying.
And how significant is the decline that I'm supposedly implying when I say that I don't think United look extremely likely to reach the level of Barca and Bayern withing the next two or three years?
Nah, we actually won titles
I would really like to know where people see the upcoming struggle? I mean, it is certainly not breaking news that Dortmund loses one star player per season to a European elite club. This started in 2011, when Sahin, the most central player who ever played under Klopp departed to Madrid. The next season we defended the league title and won the German cup on top of it. Then Kagawa, who lit the league on fire in his last 6 months, left. The following season we played one hell of a CL campaign and finished comfortably in the top3 of the Bundesliga. That was not good enough for Mario Götze, probably Dortmund´s best player since Andreas Möller in terms of raw ability, so he transfered to Munich. Result? Best season start in the club history, winning 14 out of 17 matches.
I know that people will now say that there is no guarantee that we will manage to compensate this in the future, but in football there are in general not much guarantees. It is more about probabilities. So, how high is the chance that the next (certainly) leaving player Lewandowski will cause major troubles or even a breakdown? The squad is way stronger and solid than three years ago. The financial possibilities are in a complete different dimension than three years ago (we made a profit of 50 Mil€ in the last season, whom the majority is still untouched) and we actually managed to creat some pull on the transfer market outside talents. We got the best player of a very impressive side, which managed to held their own vs. teams like Juventus or Chelsea last season, despite him having financially better offers from the Spurs and Liverpool. A top scorer from the Ligue 1 and one of the best defensive allrounders in the Bundesliga entered the competition for the starting spots there instead of playing as certain starters for other teams. All three of them named the same main reason for joining Dortmund: Jürgen Klopp.
He is the key figure behind Dortmund´s success and in difference to some players fiercely loyal to the club. Our success is less build on individual class, but more on our system and the collective team. It can´t be denied that we have some (mostly developed) highly skilled players (Reus, Lewandowski, Hummels, Gündogan,etc), but the truth is that the team is just as much carried by the unsung heroes (Großkreutz, Schmelzer, Bender, Subotic, etc.), who run their lungs out and produce consistent work rates that are unmatched in European football. This is the secret behind their movement and extreme fast transition football. They simply outrun the competition.
antohan asked what Dortmund can offer him in the future. We can not guarantee him to compete for the CL win every season or stay in the title race vs. Bayern Munich until the end of each season. What we can guarantee him is that he will continue to play under the coach who made him a star player. He was always a big talent but the size and speed of his development was unexpected and a very big factor for that was Klopp. Given that he is just 23 years old and far from finished in his development, he should stay at least for two more years and then transfer at his peak to a European elite club. I don´t expect him to do that, though.
Just like Sahin, Kagawa and Götze he will make the same mistake (the last one is an assumption on my part, but I believe it was not the right time for him) and jump on the first big chance to leave he gets, eventhough he is IMO not ready for that, yet.
There's nothing worrying, nor incorrect in saying United are probably below the likes of Barca and Bayern in the current football climate.
It doesn't mean we're now a shit team and should push the panic button, teams develop in cycles.
It doesn't mean we're now a shit team and should push the panic button, teams develop in cycles.
Well your entire point is that we aren't a big enough team to sign Gundogan. If you think that then its a pretty big decline.
But also just your general tone in this thread, saying we aren't or are likely to be 'at the very top'.. Why not? You have Madrid at the very top yet we won our league and they didn't win theirs, and we were a red card away from knocking them out of the Champions League. As I said you just seem to be basing this all of the last few months, which is premature.
TBH, as far as a back 5 is concerned I would have no concerns. Left back will need a replacement for Evra but I'm very confident we can compete at the highest level there.
Upfront Rooney and van Persie with Hernández as backup is top tier material. Behind/aside them we have a very exciting prospect in Januzaj, the rest are a bit more erratic (Nani), subject to what the tactics going forward are (Kagawa) or squad players (Valencia). Zaha and some of the younger ones could add another top player, so we probably would need to acquire one top tier one there.
The issue is the central midfield, that's where the giant vortex is, and that's precisely what Gundogan would be asked to sort out. If it were about attracting a top winger/AM or the Evra replacement the concern over the midfield would be valid but when you are being told you are the solution yourself if you don't believe it will take us to that level then we are probably both better off not agreeing.
My point is that I see United having trouble when competing with Bayern/Barca/Real for players, which is nothing new.
I think the problem lies deeper than just individual talent. Imo the team lacks tempo in passing and transitioning - which will cause problems for Gündogan just as it causes problems for Kagawa, because both thrive in high tempo games with many transitions and collective pressing - but that's probably a topic for another thread.
Who? Real?- No. Barca?- No. Bayern?- No. PSG?- probably but they have Verrati who they will see as similar and potential to be better. I'm just saying as good as he is his not a priority for the big teams except for a team like us and if we had a 28 year old Paul Scholes or Paul Pogba right now a lot of us me included wouldn't be fussed and would probably prefer a Khadira type signing.
We're obviously good enough to sign anyone, we're Manchester United after all. That said, if we're competing with the likes of Barca, Real and Bayern for a player then all three would certainly be in a far better position to sign them than us. Then you have the big money clubs who can blow us out of the water with what they offer, if Gundogan decides that's what he wants. Then you have the likes of the Italian clubs, who have massive history and offer a pretty sweet lifestyle, again if that is what he wants.
If we assume that several of these clubs will be after Gundogan too then our odds of signing him seem pretty low. There's nothing we can really offer than several other clubs can't either match or surpass.
Real and Barca were linked with him numerous times and I think he'd fit very well into Barcelona's team, especially since Xavi is quite old already.
Yeah but in that scenario the odds would be low for everyone.
If we're talking about Gundogan specifically then Bayern might be at an advantage if he wants to stay in Germany. Barcelona are the biggest team in the world, so any player would be more likely to go to them. Beyond that I don't see it though. Madrid are a circus and weren't a better team than United last season.
Barca, Real and Bayern don't need him. He would be stupid to go there.
Yeah but players seem to be bizzarely attracted to the glamour at Madrid, even though there are high odds of them being moved on after a few seasons. It's rarely a good career move but players don't seem to be able to resist.
Thing is, we saw with the likes of Lucas and Hazard that other (lesser) clubs are able to attract players we want away from us too. It all depends on the player but we've never really found it easy to lure the very top talent, have we? Even SAF failed with a fair number of targets. Obviously there are exceptions (RvP for one), but I think the most likely way for us to get a player of Gundogan's quality is too spot them early and develop them here, which is exactly why we've pursued that policy.
Madrid could definitely do with him!
Is he likely to play tonight by the way?
Is he likely to play tonight by the way?
No, there is actually a real possibility that he won´t play a match for Dortmund in this year anymore.
He was needed more for off-the-pitch reasons. I agree though, Sanchez would quite easily get into our team in my opinion.
A lot of Barca fans don't seem to be convinced that Cesc is suited to replacing Xavi. Obviously we felt he wasn't going to do it either, seeing as we spent the summer chasing him!
As for Real, they usually go for players they don't need and players don't seem to be able to resist. He might be stupid to go there but a lot of players seem to suffer from that stupidity. Same thing at Bayern, just look at Thiago. People were saying he'd be stupid to go there too, that didn't stop him.
Nah, we actually won titles
I would really like to know where people see the upcoming struggle? I mean, it is certainly not breaking news that Dortmund loses one star player per season to a European elite club. This started in 2011, when Sahin, the most central player who ever played under Klopp departed to Madrid. The next season we defended the league title and won the German cup on top of it. Then Kagawa, who lit the league on fire in his last 6 months, left. The following season we played one hell of a CL campaign and finished comfortably in the top3 of the Bundesliga. That was not good enough for Mario Götze, probably Dortmund´s best player since Andreas Möller in terms of raw ability, so he transfered to Munich. Result? Best season start in the club history, winning 14 out of 17 matches.
I know that people will now say that there is no guarantee that we will manage to compensate this in the future, but in football there are in general not much guarantees. It is more about probabilities. So, how high is the chance that the next (certainly) leaving player Lewandowski will cause major troubles or even a breakdown? The squad is way stronger and solid than three years ago. The financial possibilities are in a complete different dimension than three years ago (we made a profit of 50 Mil€ in the last season, whom the majority is still untouched) and we actually managed to creat some pull on the transfer market outside talents. We got the best player of a very impressive side, which managed to held their own vs. teams like Juventus or Chelsea last season, despite him having financially better offers from the Spurs and Liverpool. A top scorer from the Ligue 1 and one of the best defensive allrounders in the Bundesliga entered the competition for the starting spots there instead of playing as certain starters for other teams. All three of them named the same main reason for joining Dortmund: Jürgen Klopp.
He is the key figure behind Dortmund´s success and in difference to some players fiercely loyal to the club. Our success is less build on individual class, but more on our system and the collective team. It can´t be denied that we have some (mostly developed) highly skilled players (Reus, Lewandowski, Hummels, Gündogan,etc), but the truth is that the team is just as much carried by the unsung heroes (Großkreutz, Schmelzer, Bender, Subotic, etc.), who run their lungs out and produce consistent work rates that are unmatched in European football. This is the secret behind their movement and extreme fast transition football. They simply outrun the competition.
antohan asked what Dortmund can offer him in the future. We can not guarantee him to compete for the CL win every season or stay in the title race vs. Bayern Munich until the end of each season. What we can guarantee him is that he will continue to play under the coach who made him a star player. He was always a big talent but the size and speed of his development was unexpected and a very big factor for that was Klopp. Given that he is just 23 years old and far from finished in his development, he should stay at least for two more years and then transfer at his peak to a European elite club. I don´t expect him to do that, though.
Just like Sahin, Kagawa and Götze he will make the same mistake (the last one is an assumption on my part, but I believe it was not the right time for him) and jump on the first big chance to leave he gets, eventhough he is IMO not ready for that, yet.
You make some good points, yet agree he will probably decide to leave. Lewandowski and Hummels are also as good as gone. I sympathise with your arguments that it is more about the team, the system and the management, but doesn't that also hold true for Arsenal under Wenger?
As good as the system and manager and its attractiveness to replacements may be, it is bloody hard to keep up with such upheaval, particularly when you go from one key player leaving to three. Arsenal kept at it and you could argue they've dealt with their midfield departures admirably, but how good would they be now if they still had RvP? It's a scary thought.
It's like sticking a hamster on a wheel. Keep running to stay in the same place. In all likelihood somewhere along the way you won't keep up and fall flat on your face. Don't wish it on Dortmund, but if you had to put money on it one is a better bet.
And the elephant in the room for that to work is that you need an appropriate central midfield, which brings you back to square one. I do agree Gundogan, like Kagawa, won't magically change how we play overnight, and the root problem actually goes back to those who are in practice our better players today: choosing between Rooney or RvP upfront, and Carrick not being a good fit for that sort of playing style. Moyes has a difficult nut to crack there, no two ways about it.
He's injured and won't be fit again before the winterbreak? That's not really big news actually.
You're confusing a team offering a player more money with them being a more attractive club to go to all being equal. I mean Lucas went to PSG, are you saying they are a more attractive club than United? Is Chelsea just because Hazard went there?
If we're including the salary the club offers then this isn't a discussion, there is no point to be made as it just depends on each and every negotiation. It's a nothing conversation. For example Barca might offer him £150,000 per week and Monaco £300,000. If he goes to Monaco that doesn't make the club a more desirable club than Barcelona, its just that they offered that player more money.
I mean with Lucas or Hazard if we offered the same as PSG and Chelsea then I think they would have come to us. It's a better, bigger, more successful club, run in the right way with great history. In my view the only two clubs who would be more attractive right now are Bayern and Barcelona, possibly Real Madrid but I'm not so sure.
Doubt Hummels will leave. Why do you think he's as good as gone? Longterm contract without a release clause and if they struggle to keep Gündogan after Lewandowski left, they won't ever let Hummels go. I also think people underestimate how Dortmund improved each season despite loosing one player. It's not comparable to Arsenal staying at the same level for years.
Didn't know that. Haven't watched Dortmund recently nor do I track Dortmund or visit their forums
Good game so far. Shame, was looking forward to watch him today.Last I read Bild had reported he was allowed to hold talks with Barca. I read it on Marca, sure, but Bild sounds trustworthy, or isn't it?
I agree Dortmund improved despite losing Sahin and Kagawa, that's bound to happen when the emphasis is on the system, thus the collective. But if you had three gone in one go, all the way down the team's spine (striker, CM, CB) the collective gets a bit shot.
I hope that's some shit autocorrect. Bilboa.
Well trustworthy means they get one in ten right. They are usually well informed about Bayern, not as good anymore as 10 years ago though. Hummels father denied those rumours and like you said, it would be madness to let the whole spine go. Hummels has a contract until 2017, no release clause, he'll stay. I also believe he really wants to, I'm not his biggest fan and quite annoyed how often he gives interviews and wants to sound smart, but I think he's honest and he talks a lot about how he enjoys being part of building a great team and making the club great and how that's far more exciting than joining the finished article.
He's brilliant and one of the best young midfielders around. He still has not signed a new contract hence all big European clubs will be after him now
I think the amount of money a club can offer a player is part of how attractive they are. I'm not saying PSG are more attractive than United generally, just that they have the money to lure players there over us even if they're not a more attractive option overall. It depends on what the player prioritises. I think we're a more attractive club than Chelsea if all things are equal, but all thing aren't equal, that's why Hazard found their offer more attractive. If they didn't have that money he wouldn't have considered them, but they do.
I don't see why we should ignore the money a club offers when looking at how attractive they are, it's obviously a big part of what would attract a player. You have to look at a mixture of money, lifestyle, history, chances of winning, players already at the club, the role a player will have in the team, the manager, etc. All of that feeds into how attractive a club is as a player will take all of that into account.
Fair enough then. Hard luck there. Friggin' goons will probably find the weekend a walk in the park by comparison. Hope not!
But if you include the money offered to the player it becomes an irrelevant discussion, and it just depends on each negotiation and how highly the club values the player. If we're talking about how attractive a club is to play for then I think you need to take it out of the equation. Barcelona would probably be the most desirable club to play for, but if Monaco offer more money then plenty of players will choose to go there instead. That doesn't mean Monaco is a more attractive club to play for in my mind.
You end up with the conclusion that the most attractive club is the one that offers the most money, and whilst in practise that might be true it isn't what we were discussing which was football related. Gundogan or whoever else might end up moving to PSG/Monaco/City, but in terms of who are the most desireable football clubs to play for it's still United/Bayern/Barcelona/Madrid IMO.
Stop saying Monoco, it drives me insane. Aaaargh.
Sorry, edited I wondered what Anto was on about above
You'd love people misspelling us as Munchester Untied, wouldn't you?
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