I agree, to a degree it is suprising that he potentially overestimated Antonys capabilities. That said, there are factors that go into it. The level of organisation in the squad was significantly higher at Ajax. Also their league is not comparable.
Just to be clear: I am completely with you, we shouldn’t have tried to get him for the money that was alleged even when the rumours initially emerged. The only thing we are disagreeing here is that I don’t consider ETH to be the main protagonist in terms of „who is at fault“.
btw: Elanga was probably already talking about moving away from the club, Pellistri was an unknown with experiences in Uruguay league and a loan in Spain. Sancho wasn’t the type of wing player that typically plays in dutch teams (holding the width) and didn’t ETH use him in that preseason as kind of a 10ish player as well?
Again - not one player who really ticks the boxes and to me, there is just as much likelyhood, that United higher ups wanted to present a transfer success after the very disappointing end of the FDJ tale… Overall a complete shitshow and there is no way, ETH comes out of that untainted.
I think you're mixing up this and last summer but nevermind. On the bolded bits - all of those are excuses for Ten Hag why he chased Antony. Don't get me wrong, those excuses might be valid - but it doesn't take the blame away from Ten Hag for this really.
Elanga was still here for 1 season so it was just Ten Hag choice not to play him. 10 G+A so far seems quite ok by the way.
Sancho "qualities" are not subject of a debate, although there are obviously other issues with him. So I will agree he doesn't "tick all the boxes", but the problem with Antony is that he doesn't tick ANY boxes.
I can accept other scenarios (than ETH pushing for Antony) but all of them combined have like 1% probability for me. It's like not blaming Moyes for bringing in Fellaini. But Fellaini cost us like 30m, while Antony 90. It boggles my mind how you can have so many players for 90m and you go for Antony.
That is a good point. I agree, for that money we could have brought in a higher profile player. But Crystal palace surely would have wanted at least 60 to 70 for Olise and genuine question - would have been in favor of such a transfer? I wouldn’t have been. Not because Olise is a bad player but because the number is too high. I also think, this late in the window, even for 50 to 100 million the number of players that would have helped us wasn’t as big anymore.
I don't know, I just argued the point "there were no alternatives". There were plenty alternatives for 90m EUR. We could've even try what we have first instead going big for Antony.
I agree again - but the opposite is also not really realistic, you don’t have to evaluate every existing player before you make decisions on bringing in another player. As laid out above, it isn’t like the players you listed were close to being safe bets. Not at all. A transfer made sense, even going for Antony made sense - the pain comes in at the price. But that late in the window, crazy stuff is needed. Again, obviously shit show, everybody tainted. Not just ETH.
The veto is a possibility. One of many. Might as well be a situation of „lets focus on FDJ first and see what the budget looks like after“. Thats my point. Many plausible scenarios can be thought of, but we don’t know. And yes, Panic Mode certainly was activated. But not necessarily on ETHs side.
The manager's role is to make the available players better and in general make use of what he's got. If you say that it "made sense" to go for a new RB then it's fine (many people thought the same), but it's also OK to come here and first assess what we have.
It all breaks down to what ETH thought he'll get from Antony. It turns out, not much.
The veto is a possibility. One of many. Might as well be a situation of „lets focus on FDJ first and see what the budget looks like after“. Thats my point. Many plausible scenarios can be thought of, but we don’t know. And yes, Panic Mode certainly was activated. But not necessarily on ETHs side.
Yes, I’ll give you that. Only thing I can come up with is that he maybe didn’t care. I mean, who knows, a few other decisions indicate that he was pretty close to hitting the „survival mode“ button from the start on. Maybe he didn’t really think too much about „next summer“, all he wanted was to have an as good as possible 1st season. This is what we have been crying about for so long, haven’t we: it is understandable that managers or 1st team coaches will be shortsighted. It is the club who has to make sure that this sort of thinking is balanced out with long term thinking. Its borderline comical that after 10 years we are still sitting here hoping that the club will get it right eventually.
I agree, to a degree it is suprising that he potentially overestimated Antonys capabilities. That said, there are factors that go into it. The level of organisation in the squad was significantly higher at Ajax. Also their league is not comparable.
Just to be clear: I am completely with you, we shouldn’t have tried to get him for the money that was alleged even when the rumours initially emerged. The only thing we are disagreeing here is that I don’t consider ETH to be the main protagonist in terms of „who is at fault“.
btw: Elanga was probably already talking about moving away from the club, Pellistri was an unknown with experiences in Uruguay league and a loan in Spain. Sancho wasn’t the type of wing player that typically plays in dutch teams (holding the width) and didn’t ETH use him in that preseason as kind of a 10ish player as well?
Again - not one player who really ticks the boxes and to me, there is just as much likelyhood, that United higher ups wanted to present a transfer success after the very disappointing end of the FDJ tale… Overall a complete shitshow and there is no way, ETH comes out of that untainted.
That is a good point. I agree, for that money we could have brought in a higher profile player. But Crystal palace surely would have wanted at least 60 to 70 for Olise and genuine question - would have been in favor of such a transfer? I wouldn’t have been. Not because Olise is a bad player but because the number is too high. I also think, this late in the window, even for 50 to 100 million the number of players that would have helped us wasn’t as big anymore.
I agree again - but the opposite is also not really realistic, you don’t have to evaluate every existing player before you make decisions on bringing in another player. As laid out above, it isn’t like the players you listed were close to being safe bets. Not at all. A transfer made sense, even going for Antony made sense - the pain comes in at the price. But that late in the window, crazy stuff is needed. Again, obviously shit show, everybody tainted. Not just ETH.
The veto is a possibility. One of many. Might as well be a situation of „lets focus on FDJ first and see what the budget looks like after“. Thats my point. Many plausible scenarios can be thought of, but we don’t know. And yes, Panic Mode certainly was activated. But not necessarily on ETHs side.
Yes, I’ll give you that. Only thing I can come up with is that he maybe didn’t care. I mean, who knows, a few other decisions indicate that he was pretty close to hitting the „survival mode“ button from the start on. Maybe he didn’t really think too much about „next summer“, all he wanted was to have an as good as possible 1st season. This is what we have been crying about for so long, haven’t we: it is understandable that managers or 1st team coaches will be shortsighted. It is the club who has to make sure that this sort of thinking is balanced out with long term thinking. Its borderline comical that after 10 years we are still sitting here hoping that the club will get it right eventually.
He wanted a good first season and thought that Antony is the asnwer? That is exactly the problem. He overrated Antony as a player if he thought he'll bring him "success" over what he already has at the club. Massive underestimation of the league has been his biggest culprit imo.
Not an expert on Hojlund myself but his strength are his physicality, his instinct and his ability to generate a yard to finish. He is also very active and does a great job of keeping defenders occupied. All of this has been confirmed here, the only issue to this day is his lack of killer instinct. BUT in a team were he really is feeding from scraps. But sure, for this amount of money it makes sense to expect more from… But it is what it is, there aren’t many high calibre strikers out there these days. Look at Isaak, did he fulfill the 70 million pricetag yet? Probably also no, but it is what it is, the prices are nuts.
And about Kane: I am more than glad that we didn’t bring him in for the amount that would have been necessary. But I agree with you, that if Kane was the type of striker ETH wanted, than it is weird that we went for Hojlund.
Personal note though, for some reason the 72 million for Hojlund aren’t a problem for me at all. To be honest, in this regard I complain more about the 8 million loan fee for Amrabat, the 60 million for Onana, the 50 million for Martinez. Or the absurd fee for Sancho plus the crazy wages for Martial and Rashford, Casemiro and Varane. The club isn’t doing a good job spending the money but I think, investing in a promising young striker makes sense
His physicality seems like his best attribute but it's been hardly effective on this level. He did outpace Copengahen defenders, what was impressive, but he isn't getting into a lot of races like that playing for United. I have not seen "generating a yard to finish" probably mostly due to him not getting on the ball very often, and I don't see anything particularly impressive in his ability to "keep the defenders occupied". Compared to Martial - sure, he runs more, but compared to for example Weghorst, he isn't half as effective at winning the ball back up front.
I don't agree that his issue has been lack of killer instinct. This is not a worry, he seems quite effective at finishing chances, especially considering he's a young lad and just coming to the EPL, finding his feet etc. What worries me is there really isn't anything else to his game. I have seen a lot of young players coming through and they just looked better on the ball than Rasmus, I just don't see anything particularly outstanding in him at the moment.
Isaak is a better player now than Hojlund, maybe this will change in the future but I only said I just don't see many strengths that Hojlund has at the moment, and he was brought to a very bad place in terms of players development so it's just a bit strange transfer to me.
I am also glad we didn't go all-in for Kane, but the point is with that move it'd made sense, because he's a type of striker that can help with ball progression, and good at involving AMs/ wingers into play. With Hojlund, I can't shale this feeling we got him because he's strong and fast. What is weird because every other player ETH got is weak physically or slow. There doesn't seem to be any key to how we select players.
