Could we please start investing in PL-proven talents again?

Apokalips said:
Exactly, most of these guys who are "PL Proven" were not born that way, a club in the league brought them in from elsewhere and they performed...pretty simple.

Look at the best players to have played in the league and they tend to have come in from overseas, by focusing on "PL Proven" only then we end up with less bang for our buck and less top level quality. Mount is "PL Proven" - let's sign more of those, shall we? Grealish is "PL proven" and is a 100m flop. Just because fans say "let's sign Cunha for 60m", doesn't mean it is realistic that he would be sold for that. Branthwaite was quoted at 80m after barely any PL experience.

We simply need to stop spending absurd amounts on players with who are unproven anywhere. Antony, Hojlund, etc. had proven nothing much anywhere prior to signing here for huge fees. They were signed for fees you'd expect for a forward that had absolutely torn up a league, but had barely any goal contributions between them. It is not a case of where the player is from, it is the player's quality (and experience).
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Yup. The money spent on Antony, Höjlund, Sancho and Zirkzee should have gotten us a world class attack. But instead every transfer failed. Then it doesn't matter if we play 4231 or 3421.
 
Cathy Ferguson said:
Yup. The money spent on Antony, Höjlund, Sancho and Zirkzee should have gotten us a world class attack. But instead every transfer failed. Then it doesn't matter if we play 4231 or 3421.
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Exactly - the talent ID has been so extraordinarily bad particularly for creative / attacking players. It’s so frustrating when the club has historically been built on exciting attackers.

This was a summer when Olise and Pedro Neto we’re both available and we were not seriously in the conversation for either
 
Marwood said:
Amorim will get a couple of seasons but if you have a forward line where the oldest is 23 or something it'll take at least that for them to be good enough.

I just think you have to give a manager a fighting chance. We can't score goals so don't add players who have no record of scoring goals. That seems simple to me.

We could get Khannous but that would have to be it as far as young players go. The rest need to be at their best from day one.

Spending tens of millions on uproven 18 yeard olds can't happen right now. In two or three seasons if everything is going well, go for it then.

How much would those two be combined? £70 million? Just spend that on one proven 23 to 26 year old. Just go get Cunha instead.
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Doesn't necessarily need to be either/or though. I am not going to pretend I care about or understand the PSR rules in low-level detail but I believe the tales of woe and doom about our finances are a little off the mark.

Firstly, I think PSR is done on calendar years', so doesn't it reset on 1st Jan 2025? In which case, we can lose £100m in 2025? Someone correct me if that's not right!

Secondly, I thought PSR was changing to be a percentage of revenue rather than a fixed loss...which will benefit clubs like United? Again, could be wrong...but 70% of our revenue is much much more than £100m!

I think the club are being smart. Unlike Woodward, a very stupid man who often boasted about how rich we were, I think INEOS love the perception of us as broke, because it helps them when negotiating.

Anyway...back to the point...if we sell Rashford for £40m, that's £40m profit. If we sign Dibling and El Khannous for £80m on 5YR contracts, that's 'only' an £16m loss in 2025 + say those two combined are on £200K...we save another £6m or so in 2025 on the difference vs Rashfords' £325K salary.

That does still leave money for someone like Cunha and / or Branthwaite. Plus we have other perfectly saleable assets...Bruno, Dalot, Casemiro, Martinez...all candidates to go at the right price.
 
Lentwood said:
Doesn't necessarily need to be either/or though. I am not going to pretend I care about or understand the PSR rules in low-level detail but I believe the tales of woe and doom about our finances are a little off the mark.

Firstly, I think PSR is done on calendar years', so doesn't it reset on 1st Jan 2025? In which case, we can lose £100m in 2025? Someone correct me if that's not right!

Secondly, I thought PSR was changing to be a percentage of revenue rather than a fixed loss...which will benefit clubs like United? Again, could be wrong...but 70% of our revenue is much much more than £100m!

I think the club are being smart. Unlike Woodward, a very stupid man who often boasted about how rich we were, I think INEOS love the perception of us as broke, because it helps them when negotiating.

Anyway...back to the point...if we sell Rashford for £40m, that's £40m profit. If we sign Dibling and El Khannous for £80m on 5YR contracts, that's 'only' an £16m loss in 2025 + say those two combined are on £200K...we save another £6m or so in 2025 on the difference vs Rashfords' £325K salary.

That does still leave money for someone like Cunha and / or Branthwaite. Plus we have other perfectly saleable assets...Bruno, Dalot, Casemiro, Martinez...all candidates to go at the right price.
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I can't explain in detail atm. But the gist of it is that, yes we can spend and buy players, but we still have restrictions.

https://onefootball.com/en/news/rev...s-113m-loss-affects-their-psr-status-40025509

United’s financial navigation is not without its tightropes. The published accounts reveal a pre-tax loss of £130.7 million for last season alone, culminating in a three-year pre-tax loss of £312.9 million—far exceeding the PSR’s £105 million loss threshold. However, deductions for investments in women’s football, youth development, and other community initiatives provide some financial relief under PSR guidelines. Moreover, exceptional costs from the pandemic and strategic reviews also play a role in the financial balancing act.
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Lentwood said:
Doesn't necessarily need to be either/or though. I am not going to pretend I care about or understand the PSR rules in low-level detail but I believe the tales of woe and doom about our finances are a little off the mark.

Firstly, I think PSR is done on calendar years', so doesn't it reset on 1st Jan 2025? In which case, we can lose £100m in 2025? Someone correct me if that's not right!

Secondly, I thought PSR was changing to be a percentage of revenue rather than a fixed loss...which will benefit clubs like United? Again, could be wrong...but 70% of our revenue is much much more than £100m!

I think the club are being smart. Unlike Woodward, a very stupid man who often boasted about how rich we were, I think INEOS love the perception of us as broke, because it helps them when negotiating.

Anyway...back to the point...if we sell Rashford for £40m, that's £40m profit. If we sign Dibling and El Khannous for £80m on 5YR contracts, that's 'only' an £16m loss in 2025 + say those two combined are on £200K...we save another £6m or so in 2025 on the difference vs Rashfords' £325K salary.

That does still leave money for someone like Cunha and / or Branthwaite. Plus we have other perfectly saleable assets...Bruno, Dalot, Casemiro, Martinez...all candidates to go at the right price.
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200k why is it so high? That's ridiculous.

Where is this 80m coming from also?
 
Hammondo said:
200k why is it so high? That's ridiculous.

Where is this 80m coming from also?
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I was assuming salaries of £100K per annum for the two new lads...now, in reality, it might be more like £60,000-£75,000 each...but I was over-inflating it because couldn't be arsed with back and forthing about the exact figure...safe to say, it'll be less than the £325K we pay Rashford.

£80m...well....again...could argue it'll be less than that...but Leicester paid £20m for El Khannous...they would probably expect to double their money. Dibling...we'd probably face competition from other top clubs...I think £35m+ is realistic.
 
Lentwood said:
I was assuming salaries of £100K per annum for the two new lads...now, in reality, it might be more like £60,000-£75,000 each...but I was over-inflating it because couldn't be arsed with back and forthing about the exact figure...safe to say, it'll be less than the £325K we pay Rashford.

£80m...well....again...could argue it'll be less than that...but Leicester paid £20m for El Khannous...they would probably expect to double their money. Dibling...we'd probably face competition from other top clubs...I think £35m+ is realistic.
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Someone posted the wages we currently have and if memory serves that's significantly higher than our current youngsters. It would break the wage structure they are trying to implement.

El Khannous has 1 goal and 1 assist in 14 matches (I've not watched him though). 40m that's crazy.

Dibling has 2 goals in 18 matches. I'm not saying they are not talented, but 80m would see other clubs laugh at us.
 
Hammondo said:
Someone posted the wages we currently have and if memory serves that's significantly higher than our current youngsters. It would break the wage structure they are trying to implement.

El Khannous has 1 goal and 1 assist in 14 matches (I've not watched him though). 40m that's crazy.

Dibling has 2 goals in 18 matches. I'm not saying they are not talented, but 80m would see other clubs laugh at us.
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Yeah but they're 18 and 20 respectively...we're not talking about finished articles here by a long chalk, we're buying potential.

Let's say both fall short of elite and hit 'good' or 'middling' PL level. You'd get at least, at least £25m for them back as young English talents...so £40m I think is about right.

Watch El Khannous if you haven't already...I was blown away yesterday by how good he was.
 
Insanity said:
They don't work out for us either, do they?

Mata, Shaw, Schneiderlin, Sanchez, Wan Bissaka, Maguire, Matic, Sancho (is a PL product), Mount - all have ranged from mediocre to shit. Shaw has shown the most potential but has been fit sparingly to display it.
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I don't think that list proves much, other than we are just bad at picking the right players at the right times.

Shaw - Absolutely the type of player we should go for. I don't think his injury troubles could be predicted at the time.
Schneiderlin, AWB, Maguire - Bad scouting, as they were never that good.
Matic, Sanchez, Mata - Good players that we either got too late, or didn't actually fit what we needed. Matic in particular was very good for a period.
Mount - Partly injury problems, but still a baffling signing at that price.
Sancho - Doesn't apply, as he never played a PL game before joining us.

There is plenty of quality in the PL to go for, if you identify the right players. Our rivals have partly built their success on this. Liverpool with the likes of Robertson, Mane, VVD, McAllister, and Jota. Chelsea with Neto and Caicedo. Arsenal with Raya, Ben White, and Rice (could maybe add Havertz). Man City to a lesser extent, but still got Mahrez, Ake and the like. Of course, they haven't gotten everything right, but there is quality in PL signings that is worth paying for. Most of these would have been successes for us too, and some were the type of players we should be desperate for.

Where it tends to have gone wrong is when clubs overrate and overpay for English players in the Premier League (Maguire, AWB, Grealish, Phillips). Declan Rice is the only recent example of a big money English PL signing that looks like a success, that I can think of.
 
Lentwood said:
I watched Bilal El Khannouss closely yesterday and thought he was absolutely fantastic. Looked the best player on the pitch...two footed, good eye for a pass, always made the right decision, always looked to have time.

Couldn't believe it when I googled him and he was only 20. We should be all over him and Tyler Dibling when Leicester and Southampton are relegated.
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Yeah he looked good although I’m not sure how good a fit he would be in Amorims system. We need the players in the AM roles to be good dribblers / ball carriers, and when I looked at his stats he ranked super low in this regard. If we were still playing 4231 and needed a Bruno replacement he would have been an interesting shout.
 
Lentwood said:
Yeah but they're 18 and 20 respectively...we're not talking about finished articles here by a long chalk, we're buying potential.

Let's say both fall short of elite and hit 'good' or 'middling' PL level. You'd get at least, at least £25m for them back as young English talents...so £40m I think is about right.

Watch El Khannous if you haven't already...I was blown away yesterday by how good he was.
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You are going on 1 match? That is lunacy.
 
daba said:
Yeah he looked good although I’m not sure how good a fit he would be in Amorims system. We need the players in the AM roles to be good dribblers / ball carriers, and when I looked at his stats he ranked super low in this regard. If we were still playing 4231 and needed a Bruno replacement he would have been an interesting shout.
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Yeah, valid...but I always think top footballers can make it work, or the system can be tweaked (not changed!) to accommodate them.

Bear in-mind, we will face plenty of low blocks, especially if we do ever get good again...and so players who can handle the ball, cross the ball, retain the ball, pass through lines etc...are still going to be very valuable
 
Lentwood said:
Yeah, valid...but I always think top footballers can make it work, or the system can be tweaked (not changed!) to accommodate them.

Bear in-mind, we will face plenty of low blocks, especially if we do ever get good again...and so players who can handle the ball, cross the ball, retain the ball, pass through lines etc...are still going to be very valuable
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Also valid, I guess there’s no harm in having an option like that in the team for different scenarios. That’s where someone like Guler or Wirtz are special talents as they possess really strong abilities to both carry the ball, dribble in tight spaces and play progressive defense splitting passes.

Maybe this Nypan we’re linked with could become that but he’s obviously a few years away yet from being near that level for the Prem I would expect.
 
Mike Smalling said:
Schneiderlin, AWB, Maguire - Bad scouting, as they were never that good.
Matic, Sanchez, Mata - Good players that we either got too late, or didn't actually fit what we needed. Matic in particular was very good for a period.
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Those are just catch-all categories that are going to fit every single bad premier league transfer going forward too.
 
Lemoor said:
Those are just catch-all categories that are going to fit every single bad premier league transfer going forward too.
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Yeah, and many of our other transfers. But I guess my point is, that we haven't been bad with our PL transfers in particular - we've been bad across the board.
 
Craig Ward said:
Mengi was never going to cut it here realistically so we sold so he could advance his career elsewhere - correct move

Elanga i think we would have kept but he wanted regular assured game time. The move made sense for both parties. I dont think he's excelled at Forest, but has proved to be a decent player.
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I agree but for a season where we needed CBs, although it's hindsight, was it worth it for the fee? Didn't we sell him for like £1m? He's basically a Championship level CB but homegrown, was on low wages, and seemingly wasn't pushing to leave, that's the ideal 4th/5th choice type player. I remember having this conversation with someone else re Garner - we sold him for a relatively low fee, was 21 years old and not pushing to leave, he's a steady 4th, 5th choice CM/DM option.

I'm completely for us gutting the first team of high earners or someone like McT, who we sold at 27 years old for £25m so you know what the end product is, but we cleared out so many young squad players it seemed to have left us so short (also Carreras).

Either way, this whole thread is more about scouting than 'PL proven', I'd even argue the best players of the last few seasons are all imports (saliba, odegaard, salah, kdb, haaland, rodri, alisson etc.)
 
daba said:
Also valid, I guess there’s no harm in having an option like that in the team for different scenarios. That’s where someone like Guler or Wirtz are special talents as they possess really strong abilities to both carry the ball, dribble in tight spaces and play progressive defense splitting passes.

Maybe this Nypan we’re linked with could become that but he’s obviously a few years away yet from being near that level for the Prem I would expect.
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It's actually something I have been banging on about in recent weeks...our lack of ball carriers in midfield.

This system highlights the fact that we're very bad at it, Bruno especially is really poor at moving with the ball and/or running off the ball. He's slow, weak and not at all press-resistent.

I do recall, though, that Amorim said the wing back roles and the AMC roles in his team could be occupied by different types of player, on a per game basis, depending on the characteristics of the opponent.

I'd imagine games at OT vs middling opposition would be fine for technicians like El Khannous, whereas against top teams you'd want that threat of a ball carrier (or two) in central areas. Dibling could be this, based on the bits I have seen...although he's obviously at an earlier stage of his development that El Khannous, who is two years older.
 
DrZoidberg said:
I do agree with your point that we need to be careful signing players with limited experience or only 1/2 productive seasons. However, if we followed this approach exclusively then arguably we wouldn’t have signed Ronaldo or Nani. They had one and two seasons under their belts in Liga Portugal. They’d flashed potential and we took a risk on them. Sometimes those signings work, other times they don’t.

Yes, you need to be careful and selective signing players from certain leagues in Europe, but you can find top quality players in those leagues. For example, Nistelrooy had two prolific seasons at PSV in Eredivisie and was an excellent signing. We signed a young Cristiano Ronaldo from Liga Portugal. Both players had great careers here.

How many great players have we signed from Serie A? Silvestre? Pogba? It’s not an amazing list when you look down our signings from that league. So it’s all about being selective and you also need a bit of luck for the signings to work out.
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I exaggerated a bit. Of course we also should recruit from the Eredivisie, Championship and similar leagues, but the majority of the player purchases must be players who have delivered the goods in the top leagues. Ideally they should still be hungry and not over the top.

Example Liverpool's midfield recruitments have been exemplary: Gravenberch, Szoboszlai , McAllister, Thiago, Fabinho, Wijnaldum
 
It's not just the pl proven talent that needs to be looked at but we need tough characters who also actually good in their position so I'm not including lisandro martinez who is absolutely diabolical for some time now.

We lack a lot of fight and one too many cry babies and passive players in our squad like rashford who gets " down" when faced with the slightest bit of adversity ir garnacho sulking because a fan criticised him.
 
Lentwood said:
Doesn't necessarily need to be either/or though. I am not going to pretend I care about or understand the PSR rules in low-level detail but I believe the tales of woe and doom about our finances are a little off the mark.

Firstly, I think PSR is done on calendar years', so doesn't it reset on 1st Jan 2025? In which case, we can lose £100m in 2025? Someone correct me if that's not right!

Secondly, I thought PSR was changing to be a percentage of revenue rather than a fixed loss...which will benefit clubs like United? Again, could be wrong...but 70% of our revenue is much much more than £100m!

I think the club are being smart. Unlike Woodward, a very stupid man who often boasted about how rich we were, I think INEOS love the perception of us as broke, because it helps them when negotiating.

Anyway...back to the point...if we sell Rashford for £40m, that's £40m profit. If we sign Dibling and El Khannous for £80m on 5YR contracts, that's 'only' an £16m loss in 2025 + say those two combined are on £200K...we save another £6m or so in 2025 on the difference vs Rashfords' £325K salary.

That does still leave money for someone like Cunha and / or Branthwaite. Plus we have other perfectly saleable assets...Bruno, Dalot, Casemiro, Martinez...all candidates to go at the right price.
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I'm the same in not really understanding the finances or particularly caring.

I'm only interested in what improves us right now because the situation is so bad it demands immediate action. Signing lads who've only just started their careers, years away from their best, isn't that.

Nobody can watch tonight and think what this team needs is a couple of U21's with less than 7 goals between them.

Whatever they would cost needs spending on a player who comes in and straight away gives us his best.
 
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