Antonio Nusa

BarstoolProphet said:
I highly doubt a toxic superclub, seemingly without a development plan for youngsters, like United is under consideration for his next step.
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Mainoo was supposed to be up this season, no?

Garnacho already there - and looks like Mejbri will get chances too, and potentially Pellistri (considering RW situation), and for all intents and purposes Hojlund is a youngster too.

Are we really that bad in terms of chances for youth?
 
TsuWave said:
Mainoo was supposed to be up this season, no?

Garnacho already there - and looks like Mejbri will get chances too, and potentially Pellistri (considering RW situation), and for all intents and purposes Hojlund is a youngster too.

Are we really that bad in terms of chances for youth?
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I'm not saying we are a graveyard, but the optics for the clubs when it comes to developing youth players aren't exactly that great. Add to that the whole the toxic state of the club in general with uncertainty of ownership, vastly underperforming first-teamers/star players, no clear identity on and off the pitch and an extremely high-pressure environment. Not exactly the best environment for a talented youngster to develop.

We are very slow to introduce talented youngsters. It's understandable of course because of the nature of expectations at the club, but I do think we struggle to find that balance which makes us an attractive option for highly sought-after talents. Look how many years it has taken Hannibal, one of the then biggest talents on the continent. And the likes of Pellistri and Amad, who both cost a lot of money. With an injury-crisis at left back, we opted for a makeshift version in Dalot and an emergency signing in Reguilon instead of giving Fernandez a chance.

Probably the main reason Bellingham family opted for Dortmund instead.

Nusa did say that the Chelsea offer made them think, but at the same time they stated that they are prioritizing game time and developing in a lower-pressure environment over money now, citing Haaland's path as the more attractive one. After his performances for the NT and Brugge lately he has now established himself as a starter at both levels, so it would make no sense for him to be choosing United now to be stuck in the reserves/slowly introduced to the first team for a couple of years.

The optics can of course change if all of Mainoo, Hannibal, Pellistri, IHA (youth NT buddy), Amad and Gore are getting chances and performing this season.
 
Would have to be a pretty incredible prospect for us to consider him with Rashford and Garnacho already occupying the LW.
 
As for why Norway never qualify - well, this is the first time in a long time we actually have a really good team. But there are still a few holes - a quality central defender and a reliable goalkeeper. But if Ajer can stay injury-free and keep his place at Brentford and Nyland can keep his place in Sevilla - things are looking promising.

But yes - when you have something like this to choose from - only our left back, a central midfielder and a central defender of the most likely players to start, aren't playing regularly in a really good league - we should do better.
a keeper playing for Sevilla
a central defender playing for Napoli
a central defender playing for Brentford
a right-back playing for Dortmund
a central midfield playing for Arsenal
a central midfielder playing for Benfica
a central midfielder playing for Burnley
a winger/striker playing for Villareal
a winger playing for Club Brugge at 18
a winger breaking into the City-squad at 20
a winger playing for Olympiakos
a striker playing for City
a striker playing for Celta Vigo
 
Samid said:
- We don't have GK/defence.

- We don't have the mentality to see out games. If matches finished at 80 mins we'd be at most tournaments.

- We're getting screwed by our managers. All of them have their favorites. Players who simply don't play any football (I'm sure the goalie has played more national team games than club games in the past year), CB who has been absolutely dross for my local team this season (leaving us in a relegation battle) but somehow is first choice for the NT, players who are constantly played out of position etc.

- We're getting screwed by our federation. There's no common sense or football awareness. This guy (Nusa) was only last year banned from all NT age groups because he turned down a U17 call-up in the summer. At that stage he had played football for 18 straight months and needed a rest (season here starts in late winter so if you move abroad in the summer you don't really get any time off until 18 months later). Federation doesn't care about player welfare and banned him anyway. Way to take care of your talents.

- We're always in a group with one giant (Netherlands, Italy, Spain etc) who we can't compete against. But then there's also a lower pot team that out of nothing have the campaign of their lives. Last qualifiers Turkey were scoring from literally every shot and getting dodgy VAR pens deep into added time. These qualifiers Scotland have turned into peak Brazil. McTominay is looking like the second coming of Pele in this group. This is especially annoying because there are always 5-6 other groups that are piss poor but we're never in any of those.

- We're getting screwed by our government. First they forced us to forfeit an easy home game against Romania because of one covid case. 3 points down the drain. 3 days later they forced us to field an entirely new squad away to Austria. A bunch of no names who had never played with each other before had to win by 2 goals. We heroically led the game right until the final moments as we threw everyone in attack and they managed to draw the game.

- We're getting screwed by our government part 2. We had the advantage of playing both the Euro play-off semi and final at home. Our government didn't allow more than 200 fans. Essentially made it a neutral game and we were knocked out by Serbia on a soulless night with no one in attendance.

- We're getting screwed by our government part 3. As if these incompetent clowns hadn't caused enough trouble already, they wouldn't allow traveling teams into the country without quarantining. So we had to move our home qualifiers to Spain. Turkey couldn't believe their luck as they faced us in 30 degrees at some training complex instead of a freezing, bitter and sold out March evening in Oslo.

- We're getting screwed by UEFA rules. Russia getting banned means there's a group with 3 teams in League B of Nations League. So all groups are getting results against 4th placed teams nulled. This has meant Finland are ranked just ahead of us in the play-offs. At the moment Finland are getting the final play-off spot and we are just on the outside. We picked up more points than Finland but they are getting rewarded for picking up fewer points against the 4th place than we did. Cheers UEFA/Russia.

- We're getting screwed by League A nations not doing their job in the qualifiers. If your mate Santos hadn't fecked up a piss easy group with Poland we'd be getting their play-off spot. Cheers Santos.

The universe doesn't want us at any tournaments and I've made my peace with it.
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The giant team is natural, because of seeding. Portugal used to have the same problem, but now we are the seeded team, so usually we can avoid another complicated teams.

I think managers and FA take the lead on blame: FAs have enough autonomy to ignore governement trying to meddle. And I think Norway would benefit hiring a foreign manager, IMO. Even conservative countries like Portugal had one Brazilian manager and currently they have one spanish manager. Having a spanish manager would be the similar of Norway hiring a swedish manager in terms of rivalry :D

Getting screwed by Santos is not surprising. Look at the way we won Euro 2016: we had three draws in an easy group, 3rd place in the group, got dominated against Croatia but somehow managed to go through, did a terrible game against Poland and got lucky in the PKs, and France had more than enough chances to win the final but Patrício made one of the best perfomances of his career. Note: Patrício is acutally a keeper that doesn't do well under pressure, but somehow he did it in that tournament.

We won the Nations league mainly because it was the first edition, and most of Group A teams were actually rotating a lot rather than taking it seriously. And we always had tough times to qualify with Santos.

So, yeah, Santos failing was hardly a surprise here, if you bare in mind the talent he had at his disposal at Portugal NT and played terribly, it could only be downwards with Poland :D
 
André Dominguez said:
I think managers and FA take the lead on blame: FAs have enough autonomy to ignore governement trying to meddle. And I think Norway would benefit hiring a foreign manager, IMO. Even conservative countries like Portugal had one Brazilian manager and currently they have one spanish manager. Having a spanish manager would be the similar of Norway hiring a swedish manager in terms of rivalry :D
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Our last manager was Swedish.

And you’re ignoring that the Norwegian state did pull rank during Covid, making things needlessly hard for us during the previous qualifiers. Samid outlined this pretty well on page 1.
 
lysglimt said:
As for why Norway never qualify - well, this is the first time in a long time we actually have a really good team. But there are still a few holes - a quality central defender and a reliable goalkeeper. But if Ajer can stay injury-free and keep his place at Brentford and Nyland can keep his place in Sevilla - things are looking promising.

But yes - when you have something like this to choose from - only our left back, a central midfielder and a central defender of the most likely players to start, aren't playing regularly in a really good league - we should do better.
a keeper playing for Sevilla
a central defender playing for Napoli
a central defender playing for Brentford
a right-back playing for Dortmund
a central midfield playing for Arsenal
a central midfielder playing for Benfica
a central midfielder playing for Burnley
a winger/striker playing for Villareal
a winger playing for Club Brugge at 18
a winger breaking into the City-squad at 20
a winger playing for Olympiakos
a striker playing for City
a striker playing for Celta Vigo
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Surely our full-backs should be mentioned as a problem area too? In fact, the whole defence - back four plus GK. It looks pretty evident to me that they give us a disadvantage that outweighs what advantage we get from the quality of our attack. The result is pretty consistent: We lose close games against strong opponents, and often fail to beat teams we should beat. It's hard to argue we should play a more defensive style given the offensive quality we have, but it just doesn't look like we're capable of winning with the current approach either.
 
Eriku said:
Our last manager was Swedish.

And you’re ignoring that the Norwegian state did pull rank during Covid, making things needlessly hard for us during the previous qualifiers. Samid outlined this pretty well on page 1.
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And he's not the first one either.
 
Eriku said:
Our last manager was Swedish.

And you’re ignoring that the Norwegian state did pull rank during Covid, making things needlessly hard for us during the previous qualifiers. Samid outlined this pretty well on page 1.
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If there are groups of people that can clearly be affected by Covid without fearing major health issues, high performance athletes are one of those groups.
I do Judo (I'm a veteran, though), and all the competing athletes who got infected kept doing their day to day training schedule, usually not sleeping at home to avoid infecting their families. If their symptoms were light, they were actually encouraged to return to training after a couple of days, as it is scientifically proven that infections with light symptoms have small chances of transmission.
Clearly an overreaction, but I guess the FA was not brave enough to take a stance.

Edit: I said Swedish as example, when I meant foreigner I meant a manager outside scadinavian pool. I'm aware that swedish managers have been in front of Norway's NT, despite the rivalry.
 
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Think he will be a top player. Would have loved to see him at United.
 
He looks class but I have a feeling Sverre Nypan is the bigger Norwegian talent and, allegedly, United have made big in-roads in signing him. Plus Garnacho is a top prospect on the left wing and that's the side Nusa favours.
 
SparkedIntoLife said:
He looks class but I have a feeling Sverre Nypan is the bigger Norwegian talent and, allegedly, United have made big in-roads in signing him. Plus Garnacho is a top prospect on the left wing and that's the side Nusa favours.
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Don't know if you can compare the two. Different skill set, different positions.
 
BuddaBuddy said:
Don't know if you can compare the two. Different skill set, different positions.
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That's very true. I brought up Nypan because of all the talk of Norway's emerging talents. I also think United have a real edge on signing top Scandinavian talents as opposed to South Americans who would probably dream of playing for Real or Barca first and foremost. I'd rather sign Nypan than Nusa because we have Garnacho as our future left wing superstar whereas I can see Nypan playing alongside Mainoo in a future United midfield. There's been lots of talk that Nypan is seriously in our thoughts (and may have even been on trial with us?) but there's been less linking Nusa with us.
 
SparkedIntoLife said:
He looks class but I have a feeling Sverre Nypan is the bigger Norwegian talent and, allegedly, United have made big in-roads in signing him. Plus Garnacho is a top prospect on the left wing and that's the side Nusa favours.
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Not a chance, there’s a reason Nusa played for Norway before Bobb, who is contributing for City this season. Nusa should’ve been a no brainer for United. Better dribbler, more extreme skills 1v1 or even 1v2 than any player we have in our squas at this point..
 
Handré1990 said:
Not a chance, there’s a reason Nusa played for Norway before Bobb, who is contributing for City this season. Nusa should’ve been a no brainer for United. Better dribbler, more extreme skills 1v1 or even 1v2 than any player we have in our squas at this point..
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I rate Nusa and Bobb quite similarly. I think the main reason Bobb has gotten less minutes for the national team is that he hasn't really played much senior football until recently.
With Nusa's back problems/injuries this fall and Bobb's recent few but impressive minutes at City that equation might be changing for Solbakken, although I reckon both should be playing.
 
BuddaBuddy said:
I rate Nusa and Bobb quite similarly. I think the main reason Bobb has gotten less minutes for the national team is that he hasn't really played much senior football until recently.
With Nusa's back problems/injuries this fall and Bobb's recent few but impressive minutes at City that equation might be changing for Solbakken, although I reckon both should be playing.
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Yeah, my point is that Nusa was further along, at least in what he’s showed in men’s football so far. I think Bobb will become the better player when it’s all said and done. We have zero chance of getting Bobb though, Nusa would’ve been easy.
 
Handré1990 said:
Yeah, my point is that Nusa was further along, at least in what he’s showed in men’s football so far. I think Bobb will become the better player when it’s all said and done. We have zero chance of getting Bobb though, Nusa would’ve been easy.
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I pretty much agree with everything except my impression has been signing Nusa wouldn't be easy for either Man Utd, or Spurs, if the list of interested clubs which supposedly include Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal is to be believed.
For Spurs I'd consider it a borderline coup if we beat those clubs.

Mostly I just want this rumor to materialize this window as at least a couple of our potential competitors seem to have FPP issues currently. By summer I fear we'll get beaten by bigger clubs.
 
Spurs have been doing really good business in the past few seasons.
 
We will consider and monitor these kinds players until about the middle of August, then we will buy David Alaba for £30 million.
 
SilentWitness said:
Spurs have been doing really good business in the past few seasons.
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FFP means a huge sale like Kane gives Spurs breathing room to sign players that don’t exist for most other clubs.

Which makes it all the more damaging when a terribly run club like United allows players like Pogba, De Gea and Lingard see out their contracts and leave on a free.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
FFP means a huge sale like Kane gives Spurs breathing room to sign players that don’t exist for most other clubs.

Which makes it all the more damaging when a terribly run club like United allows players like Pogba, De Gea and Lingard see out their contracts and leave on a free.
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Indeed but they've been smart to hold onto someone like Kane until just the right time and then doing well to invest in players who are of good age to either come in and immediately perform/offer resale value.
 
SilentWitness said:
Indeed but they've been smart to hold onto someone like Kane until just the right time and then doing well to invest in players who are of good age to either come in and immediately perform/offer resale value.
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Yup. And Bale before him. There's an art to cashing in on great players at the right time. An art that United have never been any good at.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
FFP means a huge sale like Kane gives Spurs breathing room to sign players that don’t exist for most other clubs.

Which makes it all the more damaging when a terribly run club like United allows players like Pogba, De Gea and Lingard see out their contracts and leave on a free.
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SilentWitness said:
Indeed but they've been smart to hold onto someone like Kane until just the right time and then doing well to invest in players who are of good age to either come in and immediately perform/offer resale value.
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If they sold Kane last summer while Conte was still there, that money would have been spent on a bunch of 28-34 years olds from Serie A and that would have been a mess. It looks like perfect timing to let him go just as Ange is walking through the doors.
 
This kid was heavily linked with Chelsea last summer. I believe he turned it down or Brugge turned it down and he was happy with that, can't remember. Either way, Spurs looks like a way better destination for him. Feck Spurs but happy for the kid if he gets the move.
 
WeePat said:
If they sold Kane last summer while Conte was still there, that money would have been spent on a bunch of 28-34 years olds from Serie A and that would have been a mess. It looks like perfect timing to let him go just as Ange is walking through the doors.
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Not necessarily. I think their business since 21/22 has been good.

Sarr, Bentancur, Kulusevski, Romero all came in that season. Richy, Porro, Udogie, Bissouma last season. They have had a few misses (including a few Conte duds), don't get me wrong but I think for c. 3 years now they've been ticking along quite nicely. They have spent a fair bit though so will probably have to do another big sale in the summer or year after.
 
SilentWitness said:
Not necessarily. I think their business since 21/22 has been good.

Sarr, Bentancur, Kulusevski, Romero all came in that season. Richy, Porro, Udogie, Bissouma last season. They have had a few misses (including a few Conte duds), don't get me wrong but I think for c. 3 years now they've been ticking along quite nicely. They have spent a fair bit though so will probably have to do another big sale in the summer or year after.
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They've definitely signed better players since that Italian bloke took over as DoF. Subsequently banned from "all footballing activities" but apparently still very much involved behind the scenes.
 
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