I don’t get it. If we really wanted Antony and he was on the priority list then why didn’t we negotiate with Ajax regarding the price in the beginning of the window or even before that when the season ended and had some sort of gentleman’s agreement or something with them to get him after de Jong. Why did we leave it to chance like that ? Van der sar is the CEO, surely something could have been done so that we wouldn’t have to overpay ?
Antony | Here we go! €100mill, contract until June 2027, option 'til 2028.
- Thread starter Reapersoul20
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That doesn't make any sense from Ten Hag. I mean De Jong isn't f*cking 09-12 Messi that there isn't any bloody alternative to do whatever role Ten Hag has earmarked for him. For one, the Vitinha guy who PSG just sign or about to sign can dribble the ball upfield just fine, Matheus Nunes from what have seen can do the same thing.
I just don't understand how Man utd can operate like this. I mean you either have the money to sign the guy or you don't. Murtourgh should know how high the club can go to sign any player, while it's his job to try as much as possible to get the opposite club to take lesser than what the club can pay, that really shouldn't be disturbing other transfer business because after a while you make the best offer you can afford and if it isn't enough for the other club, you move on.
And any well prepared club should have viable alternatives to every target. There is a story about how Klopp wanted Brandt back then over Salah but their DOF and analytics team convinced him of Salah and we can see they made the right choice. I think we are indulging Ten Hag far too much here, he should be laying out the fundamentals needed by a player for every role in the team he intends to build, then a shortlist should be made of every player that fits the selected qualities in each specific role not just being fixated on any one particular player.
I am not saying moving from Fabregas to Fellaini kind of alternatives, because that summer Thiago also changed clubs and a manager not named Moyes who knows what he wants from whatever role he intended to use Fabregas would have seen Thiago was a viable alternative then.
This is probably the truth of the matter. They wont want to lose many of a title winning team
Exactly @United Sofa. If the highest we can go on FDJ is 75m, you start buying with the rest. If they then want to wait all summer until deadline for Barca to reduce their price, no problem but they should then know the risk that comes with that, of there being no good alternatives late in the window and all that.
Lads don't take him seriously. He would try and defend our incompetent board if they shat on his bed.
You lot got an incompetent board when it comes to signing players. It really hurts to see. We lost half our squad already, if you guys wanted Timber or Antony just dont feck around forever to close a deal. We have to prepare for this year and have a good CL run again.
Don't rule us out of plundering the crap out of your playing squad ............... apparently we have a cunning plan.
Excuse me?!
I’m literally going by what EtH is reportedly wanting to do.
I’m willing to see what the new direction is doing and how it’s going to pan out instead of just being negative all the time. Nothing is changing anytime soon (in terms of Glazers leaving) so just stick by them and see if the changes will come to fruition.
And that plan is... money, lots and lots of money.
By "reportedly" did you see anything actually being quoted?
It seriously baffles me mate. What the hell does your scouting do all day? We had Gravenberg and Mazraoui both leave to Bayern with no interest from UTD. They both would be immidiate starters and great for the weak spots in your team.
Damn! How did you discern our "cunning plan"?
It's not way too much. I actually do think Dortmund got the better end of the deal. I think Ajax should have gotten around €40m in total and at least €35m to start with. Nevertheless I have argued here also that there was a lot of risk for Ajax that his value would decrease heavily the next year. Hence for Ajax it was much more important to get the deal done, rather than to get the absolute maximum out of it and risk Dortmund to pull out of it. Dortmund obviously also had to settle for a disappointing price for Haaland because of the release clause, so it was not like they had tons of money to splash.
I think most of this whole Antony story is made up my the media/tabloids. They need something to write about and since you are not signing anyone officially they just start creating stories. The links between Manchester United and Antony are easily made. Especially Timber and Antony Ten Hag specifically mentioned that he likes them a lot. So it's easy for the media to make a story about him. But if you think logically, you could never be really in for Antony. From the start of the transferwindow it was said you had £120M to spend + money received from player departures. So far you have not sold any players right, so you should still be on the 120M budget.
It is very clear that Frenkie de Jong is the #1 priority and you are going to need £60/70M for him. That means that you barely have money left to buy Antony, unless you have some sales first and even then your priority after FdJ should be much more a CB and RB before you're thinking about a winger. Then you can only conclude you can't afford Antony, unless you make some major sales or the FdJ deal is definitely not happening and Antony then suddenly becomes your #1 target. That last scenario does not seem likely at all, because it's becoming more and more clear that Ten Hag really wants FdJ and Barca still needs the money in order to bring in new players.
I do think the Timber story was real and you were trying to get him as he fills in two positions that you clearly need to strenghten. His price tag is also more in line with the budget that you have to spend. The Antony rumours I think are fabricated for the most part. With the budget you reportedly have available it just doesn't make much sense. Antony would make sense if United had £250M to spend. But at £120M (which was reported at the beginning of the window) or even £150M and the wholes in your team mainly being CM/CB and RB, it just doesn't seem logical that you would pursue an expensive winger. If you're shipping out Martial and Rashford then in becomes a different story but that should also raise the cash to spend bigger on a winger.
We probably never heard of them. Our scouts didn't even have any reports on Nkunku. It's baffling.
I'm sorry, you're speaking too much logic for me. ( Can't expand on that point, I'll get shouted at. )
Seems like you are more frustrated than we are that why didn’t we ransack you and signed your players
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Seems like you are more frustrated than we are that why didn’t we ransack you and sign your players
Yea I like UTD a lot and follow the club closely for over 25 years. It infuriates me to see the level of incompetence your board has.
You guys bring in a great manager but give him a shit budget (for UTD standards) and didn’t go for any of the cheap options named earlier. Its just mindblowing to see.
Since United paid £85m for Maguire and £50m for AWB, have their been other CB’s and FB’s signed for less who have been better? But if at the time anyone suggested those names the average person or media journalist would laugh and point Maguire being an EPL proven pro, WC SF etc etc and a whole of other nonsense.
Now I know FDJ, isn’t overrated and is a great player. So a better comparison would be Ronaldinho in 2003 pointing out an 18 year old Ronaldo as a better signing. Most fans would have laughed. And tbh Ronaldinho was the best in the world at the time, FDJ isn’t even the best regista in the world.
I guarantee you.. you will see teams like City, Liverpool, Spurs, Arsenal and others sign CM’s for less who have similar skill sets and i won’t be surprised if they end up being better than him.
"No value in the market"
You say that but soon you would bite your tongue when our changed transfer strategy would be revealed. It’s not making sense now but that’s only because you including your club Ajax and that mes que un debt club Barca are simpletons. You are being controlled and we are planting an idea in your head to bring down the price of players and you don’t even know it.
Your bit about Maguire and AWV has absolutely nothing to do with this situation and you know it, not sure why you keep bringing it up. Two things can be true at once you know.
The Ronaldinho example is hilarious. Would’ve made more sense to use that if Ronaldinho was a dud but like you yourself said, he was the best player in the world at the time.
Ok I am not denying that there MAY be better players than him out there (its a huge sample size, afterall) but you still can’t name me one off the top of your head in multiple posts.
FDJ is the best known available CM out there rn and the manager clearly wants him. Its as simple as 1,2,3 sometimes in life.
I don;t think this is really fair. You and I both know Bayern have basically signed Gravenberch and Mazraoui in the winter break. Ajax wanted to renew their contract and both of them refused whilst these rumours about Bayern were already around at that time. Basicly it's been a public secret that they were joining Bayern since february at least. Ten Hag was signed by United much later than that. The Mazraoui and Gravenberch ship sailed already at that point. And they would be very good for United with Ten Hag as manager, but I'm not sure if they would cope in the PL with just any regular manager. Gravenberch should have stayed at Ajax for one more year like Timber because he can still get much better/consistent in Holland. Mazraoui has been amazing, but with his physique and injury record the PL is not ideal for him. Also if there was another manager than Ten Hag, someone that doesn't play that kind of football he might get exposed much more. Just like Gravenberch who also still has weaknesses. If those players don't play in a system that suits them they'll get exposed and they would just sit on the bench after a while. I can't fault United for not signing them before they announced Ten Hag and after that was official they were pretty much on terms with Bayern already.
I genuinely think we only scout 'world class' level players and wouldn't be seen dead signing anybody below that.
It's a bit mental really, the club are a bit delusional under woodward.
You’re points are not making much sense mate.
I’ve used two examples. One includes two sets of flops and the other includes a successful signing. Yet in both examples I’ve shown that better alternatives were available, all it took was good scouting, not getting fixated on one player and the willingness to take an educated gamble.
Eth didn't said in public anything. So you quoted some rumours which suit your opinion. For example there were many rumours about how ETH wants transfers finished before pre-season. Which is much more logical than your "reports".
Murtough is doing shit job so far. Why is it hard to you to admit that? One thing is to be optimistic and think that we will get all our targets (i am) but other thing is to comment current situation (which looks bad) and say "all is good".
As one poster told you; more we wait on Ajax targets, price will be higher. More we wait on other targets, there is more chance that we will be pushed away by some other club.
You did use two examples. Both of them are bad. Anybody on this forum could have named you 30 players better than Maguire and AWB. You can’t name me one available better than FDJ.
Your whole argument is “there’s gotta be a diamond in the rough somewhere” uhh well, duh? You could say that for literally any transfer in the history of transfers.
We also signed Djemba-Djemba, David Bellion and Kleberson in that window. We really can't afford for our lynch pin to turn into one of them. It makes sense to go for someone proven and well versed in the playing style for a position that basically makes or breaks the team.
While there is the occasional Ronaldo available, most of the time you are better off signing a proven player who fits your system and style of play. Especially for such a key position.
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Wait, this is the Antony thread?
Yeah may well now have to look elsewhere for a RW this summer, not so worried about Martinez as think there is more CB options.
What is everyone’s take on Raphinha vs Antony? I personally would prefer us to sign Raphinha as I feel he is already used to the league and produces similar/better numbers than Antony. He plays more regularly for the Brazil national team. I also think Raphinha’s dribbling is as good as Antony’s. Since Antony is not gonna be a cheap buy, we might as well go for Raphinha instead.
Yeah you would think so, should really have been making moves for him once Ten Hag agreed to take the job but didn't happen
Think you’re using hindsight and assuming that applied to when United signed Maguire and AWB. I think at the time the vast majority of the fan base felt that that was a great window and the minority who felt they were overpriced would have received mockery.
You keep saying my examples are bad, why? You saying it doesn’t mean it’s correct. Throughout history none of the world’s successful clubbecome fixated on one player. City have pulled out of several transfers in the past 5 years and signed alternatives, Liverpool have signed alternatives after first choice targets couldn’t be bought.
One of the signs of being a well run club is actually the ability to walk away and end negotiations for a target and sign an alternative.
It’s what United used to do…
Most posters prefer Antony because of SNTS.
Because we are run like a corner shop.
the simple answer is we don’t know if we have enough money to sign both and get another player in after.
Clearly the budget is nowhere near as large as we hoped.
Now we definitely can’t afford him even if we save some pounds on de Jong.
When you keep hearing figures like £120m it says to me we need to sell to buy more than one marquee signing this summer
Yeah may as well stop fecking about over De Jong with that tweet from Verweij
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