Christian Eriksen | Man Utd player

No, you're right.

But, wait, what was my argument again?

Ah, yes, NOTHING to do with the transfers (which is what I'm being crucified on, as people have generated this narrative that I was AGAINST Eriksen's signing, when in fact, I've stated I am for it!)

Where were we?

Ah, yes..... my argument. . .

I argued that the club trying to embellish this signing to try to mask the fact we haven't significantly invested (so far, which I have mentioned many times), is embarrassing and trying to pull the wool over the supporters eyes; by trying to make Eriksen into some demi-god that he is not, by abusing his popularity that was garnered due to his unfortunate cardiac arrest. If Eriksen didn't have the cardiac arrest, and wasn't a popular player due to such, this would still be a decent signing (as he's a significant upgrade still), but, it wouldn't have gathered as much fanfare as it has. Whether people like it or not, his cardiac arrest has turned his football career into a fairytale - rightly, or wrongly - and the club's social media team is lapping it up.
I would actually say his arrival has been very low key. He agreed terms ages before it was announced (there was no rush to announce him like we see with many players) and besides a standard welcome video etc. what has been so ‘embellished’?

We’ve signed Lisandro, Malacia plus Eriksen and we are trying hard for De Jong, which is really out of our hands. We’ve properly gone out and backed Ten Hag this window bearing in mind our scouting team seems to not have had much input into his initial signings (which I’m torn on given he knows the style better than our scouts but I also don’t think managers should be in charge of transfers).
 
Him and Martinez looks like that's us done in the transfer market this window, I'll be surprised if we bagged another player.
 
I would actually say his arrival has been very low key. He agreed terms ages before it was announced (there was no rush to announce him like we see with many players) and besides a standard welcome video etc. what has been so ‘embellished’?

We’ve signed Lisandro, Malacia plus Eriksen and we are trying hard for De Jong, which is really out of our hands. We’ve properly gone out and backed Ten Hag this window bearing in mind our scouting team seems to not have had much input into his initial signings (which I’m torn on given he knows the style better than our scouts but I also don’t think managers should be in charge of transfers).

Our scouts wanted Pau Torres and seeing no other top club wants him I'm glad we got Martinez.
 
Scholes can hit a tree from 40-50 yards, can Lingard do that?

Shame Scholes never played with Fellaini, we could have seen Scholes hitting moving tree from 30-40 yards.
"When we were in training, I used to do a lot of tricks which hardly any players at the club could do. Once I was showing my skills to Lingard. After I finished, Lingard took the ball and pointed to his phone which was about 3m from where we were standing."

"He said, I'm going to hit a dab in one lick. He hit the sickest dab I've ever seen. He asked me to do the same; I tried to dab about 10 times, but still couldn't hit it like him, with that swag. He smiled and left. " - Paul Scholes
 
"When we were in training, I used to do a lot of tricks which hardly any players at the club could do. Once I was showing my skills to Lingard. After I finished, Lingard took the ball and pointed to his phone which was about 3m from where we were standing."

"He said, I'm going to hit a dab in one lick. He hit the sickest dab I've ever seen. He asked me to do the same; I tried to dab about 10 times, but still couldn't hit it like him, with that swag. He smiled and left. " - Paul Scholes
:lol:
 
"When we were in training, I used to do a lot of tricks which hardly any players at the club could do. Once I was showing my skills to Lingard. After I finished, Lingard took the ball and pointed to his phone which was about 3m from where we were standing."

"He said, I'm going to hit a dab in one lick. He hit the sickest dab I've ever seen. He asked me to do the same; I tried to dab about 10 times, but still couldn't hit it like him, with that swag. He smiled and left. " - Paul Scholes

hahahahaha
 
I would actually say his arrival has been very low key. He agreed terms ages before it was announced (there was no rush to announce him like we see with many players) and besides a standard welcome video etc. what has been so ‘embellished’?

We’ve signed Lisandro, Malacia plus Eriksen and we are trying hard for De Jong, which is really out of our hands. We’ve properly gone out and backed Ten Hag this window bearing in mind our scouting team seems to not have had much input into his initial signings (which I’m torn on given he knows the style better than our scouts but I also don’t think managers should be in charge of transfers).

If I'm being perfectly honest, looking back, I was over the top with my criticism.

I guess my frustration is due to the fact that I see our top 4 rivals (as sad as it is. . . let's not talk title race), strengthening their obvious weaknesses, and here we are, still not really addressing our midfield issues that we've had for half a decade. I really do not want to be going in to the first game of the season with McTominay or Fred as our holding midfielder. Despite numerous efforts, it hasn't worked in the past, and it won't work in the future - regardless of who's at the helm. It frustrates me to no end that we are a top class holding midfielder away from really pushing on. Our lack of one has seen our defense constantly exposed, and our attack struggling to find any form of cohesion; as the ball is just whacked up to them and they're expected to work wonders.
 
"When we were in training, I used to do a lot of tricks which hardly any players at the club could do. Once I was showing my skills to Lingard. After I finished, Lingard took the ball and pointed to his phone which was about 3m from where we were standing."

"He said, I'm going to hit a dab in one lick. He hit the sickest dab I've ever seen. He asked me to do the same; I tried to dab about 10 times, but still couldn't hit it like him, with that swag. He smiled and left. " - Paul Scholes

Beautiful.
 
If I'm being perfectly honest, looking back, I was over the top with my criticism.

I guess my frustration is due to the fact that I see our top 4 rivals (as sad as it is. . . let's not talk title race), strengthening their obvious weaknesses, and here we are, still not really addressing our midfield issues that we've had for half a decade. I really do not want to be going in to the first game of the season with McTominay or Fred as our holding midfielder. Despite numerous efforts, it hasn't worked in the past, and it won't work in the future - regardless of who's at the helm. It frustrates me to no end that we are a top class holding midfielder away from really pushing on. Our lack of one has seen our defense constantly exposed, and our attack struggling to find any form of cohesion; as the ball is just whacked up to them and they're expected to work wonders.
That’s fair, we’ve been a frustrating club to support that’s for sure but you have to think of it like this.

I’m not as hung up on the holding midfielder being necessary right this second, with or without De Jong we won’t be winning the league. Under Mou and Ole I’ve never seen a team so poor at passing through the midfield to build attacks and, besides a big tactical change, all 3 signings so far help that (Martinez very good on the ball, Eriksen obviously a top technical player and Malacia says ETH wants him playing inverted LB coming into the midfield). We do need a world class CM but it doesn’t have to be this season, it will be much easier to attract one next season if we get top 4 and people start to associate United with good football again, same goes for all positions to be honest.
 
That’s fair, we’ve been a frustrating club to support that’s for sure but you have to think of it like this.

I’m not as hung up on the holding midfielder being necessary right this second, with or without De Jong we won’t be winning the league. Under Mou and Ole I’ve never seen a team so poor at passing through the midfield to build attacks and, besides a big tactical change, all 3 signings so far help that (Martinez very good on the ball, Eriksen obviously a top technical player and Malacia says ETH wants him playing inverted LB coming into the midfield). We do need a world class CM but it doesn’t have to be this season, it will be much easier to attract one next season if we get top 4 and people start to associate United with good football again, same goes for all positions to be honest.
How many seasons do a club like united honestly write off? If we end the transfer window with just the three players we’ve signed it’s surely got to go down as a disaster? We’ve lost six players from the worst performing united side since about 1988 and signed none of ETH first choice players.

I think ETH is going to do a fantastic job but he isn’t being given what he needs or even close to it at the minute.
 
How many seasons do a club like united honestly write off? If we end the transfer window with just the three players we’ve signed it’s surely got to go down as a disaster? We’ve lost six players from the worst performing united side since about 1988 and signed none of ETH first choice players.

I think ETH is going to do a fantastic job but he isn’t being given what he needs or even close to it at the minute.
Agree. If we end as we are then it’s been a terrible window whereas another 2 signings & it’d look different. This has been the strangest few weeks following the FdJ saga.

I think Eriksen will surprise a few but we really need more.
 
How many seasons do a club like united honestly write off? If we end the transfer window with just the three players we’ve signed it’s surely got to go down as a disaster? We’ve lost six players from the worst performing united side since about 1988 and signed none of ETH first choice players.

I think ETH is going to do a fantastic job but he isn’t being given what he needs or even close to it at the minute.
We had quite a bloated squad and I wouldn’t read into the worst performing side thing too much given the long slow decline under Ole and the Ragnick shit show. These players are better than what we have seen the last few seasons.

I do think we will offload Ronaldo and sign at least one more player/maybe even a loan but I don’t think it will be a disaster if we stop right now. I’m so over us just buying players for the sake of it.
 
We had quite a bloated squad and I wouldn’t read into the worst performing side thing too much given the long slow decline under Ole and the Rangnick shit show. These players are better than what we have seen the last few seasons.

I do think we will offload Ronaldo and sign at least one more player/maybe even a loan but I don’t think it will be a disaster if we stop right now. I’m so over us just buying players for the sake of it.

But it's not for the sake of it.

We desperately need to strengthen, or risk not making the Champions League - again. That is unacceptable for a club of this stature.

It's impossible that we went into this transfer window with every egg in the De Jong basket. Literally, impossible. We may think we're run by idiots - but that idiocy is one step too far. Even we're incapable of being that stupid.
 
We had quite a bloated squad and I wouldn’t read into the worst performing side thing too much given the long slow decline under Ole and the Rangnick shit show. These players are better than what we have seen the last few seasons.

I do think we will offload Ronaldo and sign at least one more player/maybe even a loan but I don’t think it will be a disaster if we stop right now. I’m so over us just buying players for the sake of it.
We had a lot of defenders and have added two more. We’ve lost three midfielders from a midfield that needed upgrading. Regardless of what people thought of Pogba he’s a quality player that we won’t have for 20 games this season. Matic we won’t have as an option when McFred ultimately fail. Mata isn’t a miss barring carabou cup games. McFred are downgrades on most midfielders in the prem. One of them gets injured currently though and we have no back up.

Forward wise our best player wants to leave because of our lack of ambition, our best system might be Rashford, Martial, Sancho which if we keep Ronaldo will mean we either can’t play it or piss him off even more by refusing to sell him then putting him on the bench. It’s a mess.

I enjoy your positivity however I think it lacks a big picture approach. I think ETH is the man for the job. We look like a team already, albeit only friendly’s played so far. But it’s a long season. At times we will get injuries, we might get long term injuries and if we have 3/4/5 injuries at once we are screwed. Let’s say McT who usually has an injury…has an injury, Eriksen is out for a month, Rashford gets a long term injury and Martial has a niggle……some version of this will happen at various points, what’s the team then?

All this also ignores that ETH had primary targets for a reason, they enable him to play a specific way. A way in which players like McFred don’t. So if this is what he gets, he isn’t getting the league finish he would have wanted. He isn’t setting the team up as he would have wanted and we won’t see the football he would’ve wanted.

We aren’t signing players for the sake of it, we are signing players because some of the players we have won’t win you anything.
 
We had a lot of defenders and have added two more. We’ve lost three midfielders from a midfield that needed upgrading. Regardless of what people thought of Pogba he’s a quality player that we won’t have for 20 games this season. Matic we won’t have as an option when McFred ultimately fail. Mata isn’t a miss barring carabou cup games. McFred are downgrades on most midfielders in the prem. One of them gets injured currently though and we have no back up.

Forward wise our best player wants to leave because of our lack of ambition, our best system might be Rashford, Martial, Sancho which if we keep Ronaldo will mean we either can’t play it or piss him off even more by refusing to sell him then putting him on the bench. It’s a mess.

I enjoy your positivity however I think it lacks a big picture approach. I think ETH is the man for the job. We look like a team already, albeit only friendly’s played so far. But it’s a long season. At times we will get injuries, we might get long term injuries and if we have 3/4/5 injuries at once we are screwed. Let’s say McT who usually has an injury…has an injury, Eriksen is out for a month, Rashford gets a long term injury and Martial has a niggle……some version of this will happen at various points, what’s the team then?

All this also ignores that ETH had primary targets for a reason, they enable him to play a specific way. A way in which players like McFred don’t. So if this is what he gets, he isn’t getting the league finish he would have wanted. He isn’t setting the team up as he would have wanted and we won’t see the football he would’ve wanted.

We aren’t signing players for the sake of it, we are signing players because some of the players we have won’t win you anything.
If you believe the bolded then you should also be willing to be patient and probe until we get the required Ten Hag targets rather than just signing for the sake of signing. Ten Hag wants FDJ which has stalled due to various reasons and the club has stuck to him because that's who Ten Hag wants. If we can't acquire him, Ten Hag has said we'll have to look to develop someone internally who might replicate that type of skillset.

This isn't a case of the club not wanting to sign but the club strictly sticking with Ten Hag wishes and targets which have so far proven hard to acquire. Going out there and just adding bodies because we couldn't get the desired deals done would be signing for the sake of signing.
 
If you believe the bolded then you should also be willing to be patient and probe until we get the required Ten Hag targets rather than just signing for the sake of signing. Ten Hag wants FDJ which has stalled due to various reasons and the club has stuck to him because that's who Ten Hag wants. If we can't acquire him, Ten Hag has said we'll have to look to develop someone internally who might replicate that type of skillset.

This isn't a case of the club not wanting to sign but the club strictly sticking with Ten Hag wishes and targets which have so far proven hard to acquire. Going out there and just adding bodies because we couldn't get the desired deals done would be signing for the sake of signing.
We don’t actually know what it is a case of. We might need to be patient and certainly we will know more by deadline day. However, FDJ aside, we should be making two to three other moves…or more specifically we should have made those moves in June and the only transfer left to play out now should be FDJ and do we have an alternative.

So far we’ve signed a player on a free from Brentford, a back up left back and yet another CB. This might be down playing these players somewhat and I think all three are good signings but they won’t be transformative.

Why did it take ten days from agreeing Martinez to completing ? Why did it take weeks to complete Eriksen on a free? Why have we gone in for Anthony in July rather than back in May/June? There’s also surely questions around only having one target for each position and if that is the case then it’s an even bigger question as to why we didn’t go for Anthony earlier.

If we end the window as we are, it’s an absolute disgrace, and that’s not me asking for the club to sign players the manager doesn’t want. That’s me criticising the way the club have operated with the players he does want.
 
If you believe the bolded then you should also be willing to be patient and probe until we get the required Ten Hag targets rather than just signing for the sake of signing. Ten Hag wants FDJ which has stalled due to various reasons and the club has stuck to him because that's who Ten Hag wants. If we can't acquire him, Ten Hag has said we'll have to look to develop someone internally who might replicate that type of skillset.

This isn't a case of the club not wanting to sign but the club strictly sticking with Ten Hag wishes and targets which have so far proven hard to acquire. Going out there and just adding bodies because we couldn't get the desired deals done would be signing for the sake of signing.
Totally agree. I actually am more worried about the lack of our striking options. If Martial loses his mojo, or Rashy goes on walkabout mentally, we're buggered.
 
It's hardly signing for the sake of it if you have a paper thin squad in midfield and up front. Even if you can't get your first choice.
 
We had a lot of defenders and have added two more. We’ve lost three midfielders from a midfield that needed upgrading. Regardless of what people thought of Pogba he’s a quality player that we won’t have for 20 games this season. Matic we won’t have as an option when McFred ultimately fail. Mata isn’t a miss barring carabou cup games. McFred are downgrades on most midfielders in the prem. One of them gets injured currently though and we have no back up.

Forward wise our best player wants to leave because of our lack of ambition, our best system might be Rashford, Martial, Sancho which if we keep Ronaldo will mean we either can’t play it or piss him off even more by refusing to sell him then putting him on the bench. It’s a mess.

I enjoy your positivity however I think it lacks a big picture approach. I think ETH is the man for the job. We look like a team already, albeit only friendly’s played so far. But it’s a long season. At times we will get injuries, we might get long term injuries and if we have 3/4/5 injuries at once we are screwed. Let’s say McT who usually has an injury…has an injury, Eriksen is out for a month, Rashford gets a long term injury and Martial has a niggle……some version of this will happen at various points, what’s the team then?

All this also ignores that ETH had primary targets for a reason, they enable him to play a specific way. A way in which players like McFred don’t. So if this is what he gets, he isn’t getting the league finish he would have wanted. He isn’t setting the team up as he would have wanted and we won’t see the football he would’ve wanted.

We aren’t signing players for the sake of it, we are signing players because some of the players we have won’t win you anything.
We’ve lost Matic, Pogba, Mata, Pereira, Cavani, Lingard and tbd on Ronaldo.

We’ve signed Malacia, Eriksen, Martinez and tbd on De Jong.

None of the players we lost were ever consistently first team players. Matic was useful for 45mins here and there but he won’t be missed, Pogba we all know it just didn’t work out and he has serious injury issues, Mata never played, Pereira everyone forgot played for us, Cavani was injured literally 90% of the season and we all know Lingard is Lingard. It’s a lot of names but the actual impact on the first XI even if we hadn’t signed anyone is minimal.

Malacia is better than Telles, he’s probably better than Shaw long term given the latter’s form is so erratic. Eriksen immediately improves the midfield even as a sub and we don’t really know about Martinez in honesty but, suffice to say, our CB pairs last season were dreadful so I hope he improves that part. De Jong if we get him is clearly better than anyone we have.

I don’t get how you think my take isn’t looking at the big picture, that’s exactly what you are missing for me. Ronaldo isn’t our best player, it’s very short term/small picture to even want him at the club, the future is about getting a core of players and building on that carefully. All I hear when I read your post is panic, panic that we lost x amount of players and therefore must sign x amount again but that’s not how you build a team and panic buying is why we’ve bought players like Alexis, Mata, Fellaini, Ronaldo etc.

McFred isn’t my ideal midfield, I doubt it is anyones but Fred was really good last season (I actually think he’s class as a CM who doesn’t hold) whilst McT has basically had no positional or deep tactical coaching for the bulk of his senior career. He’s not the solution long term but I can see VDB playing 8, Eriksen has also played that role and you never know if ETH likes the look of Garner or other youth players. We still have depth there.

Compare us to City and Pool and it’s futile, they are years ahead in terms of planning but they are far from unassailable. Chelsea are very hot and cold under Tuchel and lost important players, Spurs under Conte drop a lot of points.

Personally I’d like to see us bring in an ST, CM (let’s see on Frenkie) and GK this window but I also know that’s not going to happen and that will be next summer. Someone like Tielemans would be shrewd even if he becomes backup next year given he’ll be cheap and maybe trying to get a young striker like Broja given he seems at a bit of an impasse at Chelsea.
 
"When we were in training, I used to do a lot of tricks which hardly any players at the club could do. Once I was showing my skills to Lingard. After I finished, Lingard took the ball and pointed to his phone which was about 3m from where we were standing."

"He said, I'm going to hit a dab in one lick. He hit the sickest dab I've ever seen. He asked me to do the same; I tried to dab about 10 times, but still couldn't hit it like him, with that swag. He smiled and left. " - Paul Scholes
:lol::lol:
 
We’ve lost Matic, Pogba, Mata, Pereira, Cavani, Lingard and tbd on Ronaldo.

We’ve signed Malacia, Eriksen, Martinez and tbd on De Jong.

None of the players we lost were ever consistently first team players. Matic was useful for 45mins here and there but he won’t be missed, Pogba we all know it just didn’t work out and he has serious injury issues, Mata never played, Pereira everyone forgot played for us, Cavani was injured literally 90% of the season and we all know Lingard is Lingard. It’s a lot of names but the actual impact on the first XI even if we hadn’t signed anyone is minimal.

Malacia is better than Telles, he’s probably better than Shaw long term given the latter’s form is so erratic. Eriksen immediately improves the midfield even as a sub and we don’t really know about Martinez in honesty but, suffice to say, our CB pairs last season were dreadful so I hope he improves that part. De Jong if we get him is clearly better than anyone we have.

I don’t get how you think my take isn’t looking at the big picture, that’s exactly what you are missing for me. Ronaldo isn’t our best player, it’s very short term/small picture to even want him at the club, the future is about getting a core of players and building on that carefully. All I hear when I read your post is panic, panic that we lost x amount of players and therefore must sign x amount again but that’s not how you build a team and panic buying is why we’ve bought players like Alexis, Mata, Fellaini, Ronaldo etc.

McFred isn’t my ideal midfield, I doubt it is anyones but Fred was really good last season (I actually think he’s class as a CM who doesn’t hold) whilst McT has basically had no positional or deep tactical coaching for the bulk of his senior career. He’s not the solution long term but I can see VDB playing 8, Eriksen has also played that role and you never know if ETH likes the look of Garner or other youth players. We still have depth there.

Compare us to City and Pool and it’s futile, they are years ahead in terms of planning but they are far from unassailable. Chelsea are very hot and cold under Tuchel and lost important players, Spurs under Conte drop a lot of points.

Personally I’d like to see us bring in an ST, CM (let’s see on Frenkie) and GK this window but I also know that’s not going to happen and that will be next summer. Someone like Tielemans would be shrewd even if he becomes backup next year given he’ll be cheap and maybe trying to get a young striker like Broja given he seems at a bit of an impasse at Chelsea.
Don’t even know where to start with this. Players like Pogba and Matic contributed in spells last season, regardless of how many people want to paint them. Saying Pogba didn’t work out is in the context of a world record transfer fee, as for injuries yes but he could contribute for 20 games if he was here (not that we should have given him another contract but he needs replacing). Matic could be counted on to come on in games and perform....but all of this is without even considering that we need to massively move on from last seasons squad. Talking about panic buying anyone is such a straw man argument since no one is asking for us to sign anybody. I’m talking about getting who ETH wants. If not the primary target then the secondary. Now if by deadline day we have signed FDJ and Anthony then overall it’s a good window but we aren’t ready for the start of the season. The midfield is dire.
 
I see he said in an interview that Van Gaal , Mourinho and Solskjaer all tried to sign him when they were manager of United.

Hopefully he still has a a few good years to give us.
 
Well, we are getting him on a free transfer, so if it works out, great. If not, we'll eject him. No big loss.
Personally, I think he'll be a decent squad player who can come off the bench should the game be in deadlock.
As a bench player and to cover injuries, I am happy to have him join us.

well this didn't age well ;)
 
I think a lot of people has changed their mind since they posted in this thread :lol:
 
Saw the bump in the thread, was hoping maybe he is back in training or something. Shame about that, hopefully he wins this award.
 
Saw the bump in the thread, was hoping maybe he is back in training or something. Shame about that, hopefully he wins this award.

Well he said the boot is coming off shortly,so that's a positive at least. Prediction is he has outside shot of being involved in Forest away
 
He can still come back and help us to another two trophies and a great league finish, potentially best for 10 years.

I think he can do it although I'm a bit unclear on the timeframe. If it's December, it should be in the bag.