Best transfer window ever?

The window is developing nicely. I was a bit surprised by our targets and would have expected more emphasis on midfield and less on defense. But I'm very pleasantly surprised. Our defence was the root of our dissapointing play last season and I'm very confident that both of our new CB-Departement will change that.

Mazraoui could be shrewd business, as he definitely has a lot of quality and versatility to add to our squad while beeing quite cheap. The only cencern is his fitness. DeLigt is also fairly cheap for a player of his statue, Yoro looks like a great prospect we were able to nick of Real. And Zirkzee is the kind of singing I hope we get right more often under the new regime. Someone nobody really had on his book for a reasonable price. Hopefully he adds another demension to our attack. We know EtH likes to use creative playmakers as strikers like Martial, Bruno or Tadic.

I'm hoping for some outgoings and that we'll be able to add at least one cm. I could imagine if we manage his game time a bit and with a new formed defence and tweaked set-up, we could squeeze another good season out of Casemiro. So I could live with Mainoo, Casemiro and new cm, while having Collyer, Eriksen and/or McTominay and Mount to fill in.
 
7 out of 10 so far for me. If we can improve the midfield then you are looking at close to a 10 but of course I think that may come down to if we can shift out some of our deadwood.
 
chay chay okocha said:
I actually think Eriksen is near unserviceable as a midfielder in the league, certainly not in any combination of midfielders we could field. Maybe it'd be different if we could field players like both Rodri and Valverde next to him, and even then I would be hugely worried if he had to play significant minutes for ~5 league games.
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You make it sound like he has no legs. He just has legs for a certain amount of minutes.
 
ROFLUTION said:
You make it sound like he has no legs. He just has legs for a certain amount of minutes.
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You're not far off - I do think he has close to no legs, especially in defensive transitions. It might be less of an issue if we are chasing a game against a poor team that is sitting back for the last 10 minutes (or maybe against opponents who have had players sent off), but I truly think he makes for one of the least competitive midfielders in the entire league, possibly the championship. To be fair, it might be an uncharitable opinion and I'd be glad to be proven wrong if he stays, but it is how I see it.
 
Get rid of some more deadwood. Bring in a quality DM then it’s a solid 9/10.
 
We really needed a midfielder. I mean, we've actually let one go and are short there now. Maybe Collyer can step up, but you'd ideally want a more established DM in there since Mainoo (and Mount?) need time and defensive positional cover.

Casemiro is not reliable enough and was poor last season, McT plays further forward, and Eriksen is done at this level. An area that badly needs strengthening if there ever was one.
 
It's hard capped at a 5 until we address the midfield issue for me. It's the biggest glaring issue in the team.
 
Dion said:
It's hard capped at a 5 until we address the midfield issue for me. It's the biggest glaring issue in the team.
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Agree but I think we can't do anything while Casemiro is here and on huge money. Fitness coaches going to have a lot of work to do but maybe Brailsford etc have a plan for that. I'd personally like Billy Gilmour but seems he's Napoli bonnd
 
Happy to see we're finally paying fair market price for most players we're buying (admit Yoro could be off by 10-15m and hence a greater risk but that depends on how one estimates his potential).
 
So far all signings have been signed early and at reasonable fees. Most importantly target clear weaknesses. I really want to be excited, but I still have PTSD from previous years. But ya, on paper it seems like our best transfer window.
 
If we bring in another dm and get rid of Pellistri Lindelof Hannibal and Sancho/Antony its a 9/10 for sure..

Things that could make it even higher
- Additional #9 who can really play up top and is a real threat in the opponents box.
- Replace Eriksen with a younger version of himself with similar capabilities but with the legs to compete for XI.
- A quality natural LB who can challenge and cover for shaw immediately.
 
Decent transfer window overall. I can’t recall if this is the norm at this stage of the window but I feel like most top clubs have been relatively quiet themselves - Liverpool have made no signings, Arsenal just Califiori and City with Salvinho. Seems quite surprising.

Obviously we have so much ground to make up so need to add a few. Think De Ligt will be an excellent addition and as long as Mazraoui is fit he’ll be decent too. Not convinced by Zirkzee, but again, very excited about Yoro.

Definitely need a dominant, combative #6 so if we can get Ugarte over the line that’ll be great business. Actually think it will free up and take pressure off of Casemiro who can operate more as an #8. He’s still technically very good, shows creativity and has an eye for a pass (as evidenced against City) even if his legs have gone.

I may be in the minority here but we need to be cautious with Mainoo. Undoubtably uber talented but he is only 18 and our midfield shouldn’t become so reliant on him. He’ll need his minutes managed and if his form drops (which it surely will at times given his age) we shouldn’t feel so uncomfortable to drop him and take the pressure off of him.

Ultimately, we need two midfielders really but that’s dependant on sales. Think we’ll just sign Ugarte - I’d give that a 7/8 out of 10 window.
 
We haven’t addressed our complete lack of goals. We aren’t even looking for a goal scorer. Unless we sign e.g. Ivan Toney we are settling for 5th or 6th place.
 
westmeath said:
We haven’t addressed our complete lack of goals. We aren’t even looking for a goal scorer. Unless we sign e.g. Ivan Toney we are settling for 5th or 6th place.
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If we stop letting in goals for fun, we won't need to score many goals.
 
Mailo said:
If we stop letting in goals for fun, we won't need to score many goals.
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No matter how well we fix the defence (and I like the defensive signings) we need to score more than last season. We don’t have a 20 goals per season player in the squad, who is going to score for us?
 
Get rid of Deadwood
McTominay
Eriksen
Mount
Antony
Sancho

Get in at least 2 midfielders and one forward. Then we are talking about an epic window.
 
westmeath said:
We haven’t addressed our complete lack of goals. We aren’t even looking for a goal scorer. Unless we sign e.g. Ivan Toney we are settling for 5th or 6th place.
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Ivan Toney is a decent player but someone who scored 25/86 PL games (excluding penalties) can hardly be considered a proven top goal scorer..

I agree that we could use another #9 upfront who is a threat in the box and Toney could play such a role, but statements like really make me feel Ivan Toney is really overhyped by some.. (though I agree, I like him and I should he could definitely bring something extra to our quad..
 
Maybe I'm pedantic. A good transfer window would be one where we are fine tuning the squad with a couple of good, up and coming players with the thirst to succeed.

But we're not in that position just yet

We could be in a year or two!!
 
When we sat down for breakfast on the morning of the 20th May this year, trying to come to terms with our worst-ever premier league finish, I don't really think that someone coming along and saying "Dont worry, next season, Ten Hag will still be here and he is going to bring in a couple more of his lads from the Ajax days, that will sort you out"

If you search for threads on this forum for Donny van de Beek when he signed for us, you might be mistaken for thinking we had signed the third Ronaldo. He may have been good at Ajax but utterly out of his depth in the premier league.

Antony has proven to be even worse.

If you look at players going the other way, Daley Blind was somehow deemed not good enough for us but went on to become a mainstay of that Ajax team.

I am aware that de Ligt and Mazraoui have come via the Bundesliga but there again, we have a record of signing players who excel in the Bundesliga but then turn out for us to be pretty average.

For all of the changes in appointing a new sporting director, technical director, and head of scouting, the criteria that "Ten Hag knows them" still seems worryingly high on the list.
 
BigBebe said:
When we sat down for breakfast on the morning of the 20th May this year, trying to come to terms with our worst-ever premier league finish, I don't really think that someone coming along and saying "Dont worry, next season, Ten Hag will still be here and he is going to bring in a couple more of his lads from the Ajax days, that will sort you out"

If you search for threads on this forum for Donny van de Beek when he signed for us, you might be mistaken for thinking we had signed the third Ronaldo. He may have been good at Ajax but utterly out of his depth in the premier league.

Antony has proven to be even worse.

If you look at players going the other way, Daley Blind was somehow deemed not good enough for us but went on to become a mainstay of that Ajax team.

I am aware that de Ligt and Mazraoui have come via the Bundesliga but there again, we have a record of signing players who excel in the Bundesliga but then turn out for us to be pretty average.

For all of the changes in appointing a new sporting director, technical director, and head of scouting, the criteria that "Ten Hag knows them" still seems worryingly high on the list.
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Epic post. I’m taking alll this seriously and at face value. Also I’m getting a tasteful frame and mounting it in a strategic position in my cave.
 
Said it on another thread but even with a DM in, it's far from one of our best windows.

There is too much which needs addressing. It's not INEOS/Ashworth's fault. To do it all in one window would have required Sancho, Casemiro and possibly Rashford leaving for big money so that we could reinvest. They've done well considering there have been no huge money sales.

After a DM, we still have issues at left back. No quality depth in midfield and most importantly nobody at all in the forward line who is realistically going to score 25-30 goals this season
 
westmeath said:
No matter how well we fix the defence (and I like the defensive signings) we need to score more than last season. We don’t have a 20 goals per season player in the squad, who is going to score for us?
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The idea is that the young players we have signed improve and step up. Let’s hope so. I’m gutted Rasmus is injured already.
 
Maybe a 7/10. Maybe. We need to offload a fair few, still relying on Maguire, Lindeholf, Sancho, SMT... some of these players have made it clear that they do not want to be at Man Utd, and ETH has been trying to sell all of them. Probably a few more I could mention.

No left back is a worry, Shaw is unfit and this will continue, history shows this.

The signings? We just have to wait and see, because Martinez aside, I struggle to note an ETH signing who has really improved Manchester United FC. Does he make players, better?
 
Rasmus is our 20-25 goal/season striker. He needs to step up. He is our marquee striker signing.
 
RedDevilRoshi said:
7 out of 10 so far for me. If we can improve the midfield then you are looking at close to a 10 but of course I think that may come down to if we can shift out some of our deadwood.
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agree with this - would also love to find an experienced no.9, one coming to the end of his career who would be happy to sign on loan for a year. A Zlatan would be nice but of course not very realistic
 
I'll never forget working a night shift in the office, I had sky sports news on the office TV and we were signing players like Di Maria and Falcao.

I can't exactly remember who we signed on that last day of the window but it was nuts. That's the best window I can remember and it was for LVG.

That created a reasonable squad at the time.
 
westmeath said:
We haven’t addressed our complete lack of goals. We aren’t even looking for a goal scorer. Unless we sign e.g. Ivan Toney we are settling for 5th or 6th place.
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Zlatan in 2016/17 was a proper goalscorer. Scored 28 in all competitions, 17 in EPL. We ended up 6th scoring 54 in total.

When you have Rashford, Garnacho, Bruno, Amad, Hojlund.. the goal should be to try and unlock them all because the most dangerous teams have a threat in every forward position and we obviously have wingers which are more goalscoring, then creative ones. Aside from Amad, but he should be played with Hojlund more I believe.
And that is the reason we bought Zirkzee. Every single player that is mentioned has a potential for 10+ goals in the season including Zirkzee if the system clicks. Which is far more important than having 20+ goals striker upfront.
 
As of today, we're on a net spend of 98 million, and I think that the squad is far stronger for it. We've also lost some very high wage players from the books for free transfers that are worth a huge amount per season.

This is before we potentially sell sancho (or even mctominay)

But lets say its just sancho, and ugarte comes in, that would mean

Mazraoui, Yoro, De Ligt, Zirkzee, Ugarte - for around 100m net. That's 5 signings with an average age of 23, that improve the depth in every area. It's very good business.

yes, we need far more, but it's impossible to do it all in one window.
 
6/10 so far.
De Ligt and Mazraoui - good and much needed additions to our defense and both for sensible prices.
Yoro - Looks like a good man for the future, but very expensive for an 18 year old defender.
Zirkzee - I really don't understand this one, but will be happy if I'm proven wrong. Doesn't have the goals or the goal threat we need. Doesn't get on the end of nearly enough chances.
 
troylocker said:
6/10 so far.
De Ligt and Mazraoui - good and much needed additions to our defense and both for sensible prices.
Yoro - Looks like a good man for the future, but very expensive for an 18 year old defender.
Zirkzee - I really don't understand this one, but will be happy if I'm proven wrong. Doesn't have the goals or the goal threat we need. Doesn't get on the end of nearly enough chances.
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Zirkzee literally won us the last game by scoring a goal by getting on the end of a chance.
 
troylocker said:
6/10 so far.
De Ligt and Mazraoui - good and much needed additions to our defense and both for sensible prices.
Yoro - Looks like a good man for the future, but very expensive for an 18 year old defender.
Zirkzee - I really don't understand this one, but will be happy if I'm proven wrong. Doesn't have the goals or the goal threat we need. Doesn't get on the end of nearly enough chances.
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6/10 is a little harsh imo. De Ligt and Max are two players we badly needed, Yoro is one of the world's top young CB talents - that's the price of doing business for buying someone with the potential to be the best, and Zirkzee had scored on his debut.
 
I think it’s a 7/10 now and 8 or even 8.5/10 when we seal the deal with Ugarte. One of the best windows in many years
 
Is this how low we have got into? We haven't bought any players not good enough to start, and this is hailed as the Best Window.

This appears to be a good Window compared with previous ones, only because we spent hundreds of millions on players who are not good enough to occupy a bench. But this is FAR too early to label it as Best or even Great window, only a pass for F sake. 60/100 don't make Excellent.

Beside, we still have to look at who and how we get rid of some of the deadwoods, who are not good enough to occupy a bench, without us paying him off to move on.
 
Spending on defenders is a waste of money considering how much more fire power that united needs upfront. It's a barely passable window.
 
Getting Ugarte, I'd say it's an 8/10.
If we sell a couple of more moderate earners, then I'd make it an 8.5.

Only thing that would have made it a 10 would be getting a LB and a RW for depth and getting rid of Sancho +/- Antony.
 
pascell said:
Zirkzee literally won us the last game by scoring a goal by getting on the end of a chance.
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Great for us that he did and a good start for him, but one chance in one game is not what I mean. Good finisher and great physical presence, but I don't think he's the goalscorer we need.
 
If we get a CM it’s better than I thought on paper, though no one knows how these players will do. I’ll go 8/10 so far. They have shifted problem players that couldn’t be shifted before and might even get Sancho out as well.
 
midfield and lb we havent adressed yet.

Then theres some deadwood that needs to go like Sancho lindelof
 
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