Change of faces, same clown show. still takes us months to get players in while other clubs get on with it
Club Ownership | INEOS responsible for the football side
- Thread starter Solius
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Liverpool have signed nobody, Arsenal have signed 1 player, City 1 player... Not every team uses a shotgun approach like Chelsea.
How is this not their fault? I am sick of excuses every summer for our people in charge.
They had decent offers for some players (McT, Awb) but they wanted premium price and they didn't want to go bellow that.
They were not active enough (or they were reluctant at least) in selling some players like Maguire, Lindelof, Casemiro and Sancho.
Arnold and Ed should not be some kind of benchmark for them. Not overpaying players (like Arnold and Ed did) is not something for which they should be praised for. It is like praising a new striker for just being fit because Martial wasn't.
Typical over reactionary post from you. Who are these clubs that have "gotten on with it"? Aside from Chelsea (typical scattergun spending) and Villa (who have done some decent business) who else has gotten on with it? Arsenal have signed one player of note (Calafiori), Liverpool no-one, City only Savio (deal done last year and from one of their own clubs), Spurs have signed two young prospects in Gray and Bergvall (Fee agreed for Solanke today), Newcastle have signed Osula from Sheffield United and made Hall's transfer permanent, so no-one of note. Some of these clubs are negotiating for players, like Newcastle for Guehi, but the same can be said of us, we are negotiating for Ugarte, Mazroui and De Ligt......Meanwhile United have signed Yoro and Zirkzee already.
So your rant doesn't stack up to reality.
The truth is that many clubs are finding it tough with PSR, the Euros and Copa this summer and most of the deals will be done in the final two weeks of the window. This is across the board. We also have to consider outgoings, which are essential to rebuild the squad in a balanced, financially sustainable manner. We've shifted on Varane, Greenwood, Martial, Van der Beek, Alvaro, Kambawala, and Williams so far, and shifting other players like AWB, Lindelof, Eriksen, and Casemiro is difficult given their wages and desire to stay. Also somewhat disrupted by injury when your marquee defensive signing is out for three months almost immediately.
Let's not forget that we signed Serie A young player of the year, in a position we needed depth, for a relative paltry 35m. We also signed the best young CB in the world - by most people's estimation - for 55m. Both early on in the window. One a financially shrewd signing, the other a coup that no one expected when he seemed nailed on for Real Madrid.
It seems like the opposite of business as usual. And as always, the window can only be judged as a whole, once it closes. The days before Zirkzee and Yoro signed, I heard people say "disastrous window for United, no signings!", the days after "best window ever for United, two huge young talents, early in the window". Then people have to wait a few weeks for another signing to materialise, and it swings again to "these people are clowns, same as the old lot". If early next week we finalise deals for Ugarte and De Ligt for reasonable prices, then the narrative will switch again to "best window ever".
It's all just reactionary nonsense. Just wait, watch it play out, and then judge the window as a whole once it's complete. Everyone would ideally want all the players in early, at the start of the window and a perfect pre-season. But reality rarely shapes up that way. For anyone. Not to mention that the recalibration that's needed to be done on how this club is perceived by selling clubs, and the management of finite resources, mean that the Ineos project is best viewed holistically over a two to three year period. Not in the space of two months pre-season, in their first window, when the Euros and Copa have been going on.
Calm down.
You are comparing us with teams which have settled squads. All those teams needed one or two players and without having much (if any) deadwood.
Ashworth and Berrada have been here a month, what were you expecting?
A simplistic, narrow minded and rather myopic outlook. Have you heard of the Glazer family? Are you aware of what they've done to the club you support or would you rather just stomp your feet because INEOS didn't fire Ten Hag?
I’m not stomping my feet at all. Did that months ago and also said I was done worrying about that either way and turned my attention to the window.
But I find it unbearably complacent to just chalk up the next 4 years as “we’ll be shit long road back” etc as if the Glazers were water boarding players and refusing to bring in any player above League 2 standards. Are we in a great spot? No. But I guarantee if you took City’s entire staff and Pep and put them here we’d be pretty decent this year, quite good in year 2, and contending for the league in year 3 at worst.
It doesn’t take as long as you lot think to turn around the fortunes of big clubs no matter how rotten they’ve become, provided the people in charge know what they’re doing.
So do we now spend less under INEOS than under the Glazers?
The state of this thread..
My God.
My God.
Does INEOS plan on selling Nice?
A lot of the reporter wages are maximum. Refer to report below on the actual wages paid which is much lower.
Let's give Ineos time, they are only here barely a few months. We have had Glazers and his clowns Woody, Arnold, Murtough for more than a decade.
This is an open heart surgery and it needs time. The problems are chronic and no simple fix.
Remember there was no one department working properly in Man Utd under those clowns. They even sacked the most qualified football people in Rangnick when he spoke the truth.
This is an open heart surgery and it needs time. The problems are chronic and no simple fix.
Remember there was no one department working properly in Man Utd under those clowns. They even sacked the most qualified football people in Rangnick when he spoke the truth.
Erik might just be starting to realise that you know Ralf actually knew what he was talking about
He would've known right from the start as he came from well run and hierarchy sound Ajax.
I'm pretty sure he wouldn't believed in what kind of disorganised mess he had stepped in.
I remember they wanted to sell at least a stake, but don't think they find a buyer.
OK. Let's go and spend £60 million on Modric to keep you all happy.
It was a question, based on a few signs of trying to save money and us not being able to afford relatively small transfer fees/payment structures etc. I'm aware they've only just started also.
Its not their fault in the sense its a mess they inherited from Woodward, I agree entirely with that much of his point. After that the point goes severely downhill
1) We are not willing sellers "unlike previous years". We have barely sold anyone. In previous years we did the same thing and ended up losing potentially valuable players for free, or having to renew contracts on players we didn't really want due to letting too many run their contracts down at the same time and thus allowing the cycle to continue. We are now doing EXACTLY the same thing, presumably because our new owners didn't properly look into the situation before committing to a strategy. This is further indicated by Ratcliffe being for some reason baffled that he wasn't allowed to sell a player from himself to himself, despite this being a very obvious rule that would exist.
2) If we want to sell players and the offers are there it is up to us if we are "willing" to sell them. If we reject the offers then ergo we are not willing to sell them. We do not determine what other teams can afford or think is an affordable price for our players, only what we are "willing" to sell them for
3) Stating that you "would consider selling any player" this indicating that a) you think they're all shite, and b) you really need money, and then expecting any club NOT to bid under the actual value of your players, is incredibly stupid, and is 100% most definitely your fault. This is actually IMO more stupid than anything we did pre-INEOS
We have in charge a bunch of people who have zero experience in how to try and run a club like United or of United's size. The only person in the group with any experience of running a successful PL team is the guy we nabbed from City, and his experience is of cheating by spending loads of money and then getting caught. We have made a series of dumb decisions since the end of last season, starting with taking a ridiculous amount of time which we should have been spending preparing for next season, instead trying to figure out who our new manager should be, and then deciding it should be the same one we already have.
Things like this get defended because people WANT to believe INEOS have some kind of master plan, but when viewed from the outside and without the tinted glasses on it becomes very difficult to dress up as anything other than stupid.
Do we? Haven't we spent nearly £100m already? There seems to be no indication that we have stopped spending either.
You have to balance the books and after your mate Joel Glazer allowed hundreds of millions to be wasted on the likes of Antony and Casemiro.
Be patient and use your brain.
It makes sense when you realise that last season people said all Ten Hag needed was new structure and then the trophies would follow. Now the emphasis is going to be on the manager to do something and we all know how that ends.The state of this thread..
My God.
Surely it gets defended mainly by people who didn't expect us to be able to fix an entire club in one transfer window. Players will come and players will go before the window closes, and we'll probably end up with a better looking squad than we started with. That's a very reasonable start.
As stated, it was a question. Time will tell ultimately and wiser spending is better long term
The season starts today and we currently have a worse squad than the one we ended last season with. Even with everyone fit we've essentially signed a second choice striker and replaced a world cup/CL winning defender who was a vital part of our strongest 11 with a teenager.
Your entire point is based on conjecture/hope which is exactly my point. There's nothing wrong with optimism so I'm not saying you are necessarily wrong at all, but I'm more pessimistic/realist and from my perspective there is nothing at all concrete to suggest INEOS know what they are doing, and instead we're presented with decisions and scenarios that if it was under the Glazers or any other club we would all be saying are stupid.
I don't think anyone is expecting everything to be fixed in one transfer window, but that's not the point. The point is that if I try to look at it objectively, the conclusion I get is that we're all over the fecking place and making it up as we go along.
Brilliant post! This is exactly how I’m feeling.
I suppose there’s familiarity with what we’re appearing to do in the market, and I’m not a fan of some of the moves we seem to be planning, but the reality is it’s hard for us to do much business until late in the window because we can’t shift the players we need to make signings without having to make big concessions every time. We could get to the end of the window and be shot of McTominay, Wan Bissaka and Lindelof. It’s slow but it’s heading in the right direction. I think everyone, including Ineos, underestimate how much people take the piss with us in doing transfers because we’re Manchester United.
He's clearly got a bias because the very same report he's quoting shows that united had the most expensive squad in terms of transfer fees but he says the BBC lied about this fact.
Yeah, I'd have to agree with this.
There is still time to turn this into a good transfer window but right now it feels like it could have just been the Glazers in charge.
Literally nobody has claimed that a new structure would do that, it's the products of a new structure. If Ten Hag ends up with the same players for the season, then the expectation can hardly be major trophies straights away.
But then if that's the case you don't come out and announce your entire squad is for sale and that you desperately need money. That is a stupid thing to do, by whatever logic you try to put next to it.
I also don't think other clubs take the piss. We need to get away from any victim mentality. We have created that situation by overpaying for so many players and then paying them huge wages, which makes them less likely to want to leave and clubs less likely to pay big money for them. That is not INEOS's fault but it is the situation they have inherited and need to accept/adopt to.
If we need to make concessions in selling players, then that's what we need to do. The decision is simply whether it is better to let them go or keep them/get behind them based on that. We are instead hoping that if we sit there twiddling our thumbs other teams will suddenly be happy to overpay. This is misreading the situation as Fulham for example do not desperately need a McTominay and McTominay will not be desperate to join Fulham. They are in a stronger position to decide his value than we are. We tried this last year with West Ham, same in the past with players like Lingard. It doesn't work because other clubs aren't run by fecking idiots and players aren't just trading cards who have no say in the matter. We also DO desperately need to bring players in, so sitting there not making decisions over trying to haggle a few million is not helpful. We are in a situation where the club needs to be decisive so it can get a strategy in place rather than not move forwards.
I'm also completely lost still on why Bissaka is one we feel we need to offload, given we were playing midfielders and centrebacks at fullback for large parts of last season and that it cost us repeatedly in games. We 100% will not get a better alternative to Bissaka for the £10m odd we might be lucky to get for him. This again isn't a strategy its just looking for ways to get money without thinking about the knock on impact.
It’s been less than one summer. The improvement is there to see and it was painfully obvious that we couldn’t fix everything in one go.
I agree with other posters who use our rivals business as examples of not being to harsh on INEOS. Clearly this PSR shite is effecting everybody (barring Chelsea, somehow). Little bit more patience and perspective needed.
I agree with other posters who use our rivals business as examples of not being to harsh on INEOS. Clearly this PSR shite is effecting everybody (barring Chelsea, somehow). Little bit more patience and perspective needed.
McTominay is a good example, Fulham just forked out £34m on Smith Rowe who hasn’t scored a goal for 2 years, of course they’re taking the piss.
Most transfers are beyond the buyer's control. For example the seller might be unreasonable (ex the Ugarte deal) or he might not sell unless he had secured his replacement first. Then of course its within his interest to drag the deal a bit maybe he can attract interest from multiple buyers which will cause an auction. Not to forget that buyers are usually dependent on selling players themselves to generate funds.
I think that INEOS worked this brilliantly. They went in quickly, they secured 2 positions they were desperate in (CB and STK) and then they sat back. It's a shame that we hit bullseye 2 out of 3 (CB, STK but not DM). The real bargains are made towards the end of the transfer window when usually clubs become desperate to buy/sell and tend to risk running out of time.
So it looks like De Ligt and Mazraoui have moved on since this post and I still see us signing Ugarte, which makes the defensive side of our squad look very different and IMO much improved.
Does this make any difference to how you are feeling?
No.
I'll assess our signings when we actually sign them not based on transfer gossip or hopefullys.
We sign players every year so it's also a wait and see game. IF we got De Ligt and Ugarte then that's at least targetting two of the right areas so my opinion could be altered if we can see there's a plan there that they fit into.
The Bissaka/Mazraoui thing I can't get my head around, as we have two fullbacks who seem to be injured 95% of the time and neither of them are Bissaka, so it's not going to solve what was a huge problem last year and seems very daft to me unless Bissaka was intent on leaving anyway.
I also wouldn't see it as the worst thing if Lindelof, Mctominay and maybe a few others in positions where we're unlikely to struggle for options moved on for small/undercut fees, because it gets the wages off the books and the alternative is they leave for less further down the line. Something like that WOULD show a change in approach and some kind of intent at least.
There's all the supposed stuff with the training ground, culture etc going on that we don't find much out about as well of course, which I'd agree it is impossible to make any real judgement on at this point, but just going by what we do see it's all looked like the usual mess thus far.
I don't expect us to suddenly be challenging city within 12 months or anything daft. For the time being I want us to just start looking like a competent football club that can have a strategy and make decisions based on it.
I really don't know how you can be dissatisfied with what INEOS have done so far, in terms of our looking like a more competent football club.
I'm with you completely on your 'wait and see' strategy, but then being as critical as you are, right as we reach the business end of the transfer window, seems at odds with that.
We appear to be making smart moves on and off the pitch and have done for some time IMO. Each to their own though. The proof will be in the pudding.
Signings solid so far (touch wood).
Insulting another member
I love the way, I can't mention clubs that have done business to prove other clubs have done business. you clown.... but how about Spurs, or can't I mention them either. And you don't get to criticise chelesa's approach just because you think it's scattergun... they have done the business they wanted to do.
The number of people crying that INEOS are holding out for overpriced fees to move on from players and that they should simply lower the asking price are ignoring that if we sell at prices too low that it accelerates losses onto our books from an accounting perspective.
It's fine to be critical, but spouting off without understanding why they can't just take less simply to be rid of players, especially considering some of the idiotic clauses the Glazers/Woodward included in contracts, is idiotic hyperbole. And if you think it should be easy to come in and immediately change the fortunes of a previously mismanaged club long-term just look at how much time it took Arsenal and Liverpool, two clubs being used as examples of well run clubs (they are), under their current recruitment setups to turn the tide.
I don't think INEOS is perfect or beyond reproach, but so many of the criticisms are just over the top and reactionary.
It's fine to be critical, but spouting off without understanding why they can't just take less simply to be rid of players, especially considering some of the idiotic clauses the Glazers/Woodward included in contracts, is idiotic hyperbole. And if you think it should be easy to come in and immediately change the fortunes of a previously mismanaged club long-term just look at how much time it took Arsenal and Liverpool, two clubs being used as examples of well run clubs (they are), under their current recruitment setups to turn the tide.
I don't think INEOS is perfect or beyond reproach, but so many of the criticisms are just over the top and reactionary.
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