Dan Ashworth 2024/2025

Marcelinho87 said:
It's not their age that is the problem... Zirkzee is not a prolific player, he isn't now and he won't be in 10 years.

Haaland scores for fun and he's only a year older and he has scored for fun since he was young.

The right profile of player scores regardless of their age.
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Exactly, Haaland was a goal machine before joining City, hell even before joining Dortmund. What problem was signing Zirkzee addressing?

You could say Hojlund was the right profile, but again, he never had a great scoring record prior to joining United, so his current record shouldn't be surprising.

We needed a proven goal scorer as much as we needed new CBs.
 
Drainy said:
Ok, so you have £100m to invest with last seasons squad, who do you buy then?
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I'm not an expert with a scouting network available to me. The question here is, was that position considered a priority last summer? I don't think it was. And considering how we struggled for goals last season, I think it should have been.

And it's not the only mistake either, we needed a different profile in midfield as well.
 
Someone said:
I'm not an expert with a scouting network available to me. The question here is, was that position considered a priority last summer? I don't think it was. And considering how we struggled for goals last season, I think it should have been.

And it's not the only mistake either, we needed a different profile in midfield as well.
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So you are criticising the club for not signing a ready made striker and you can't name one.

Has it occurred to you that the club is looking at the next few years and not just this season?

Obviously for Man Utd this start is not acceptable so it's understandable why people are angry..
 
Big Ben Foster said:
That's not our job to decide
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It would be negligence to start the season with Martinez, Maguire, Lindelof and Evans as your senior centre backs and another season of AWB going out of contract in order to sign a £100m striker in their prime leaving no money for the rest of the squad
 
Drainy said:
So you are criticising the club for not signing a ready made striker and you can't name one.

Has it occurred to you that the club is looking at the next few years and not just this season?

Obviously for Man Utd this start is not acceptable so it's understandable why people are angry..
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I can easily name someone like Osimhen, but it's not about naming someone. And you can do a lot of damage to young players with potential in this environment.

A successful club needs balance. You buy Hojlund around Rooney, giggs, Carrick, Vidic, and you might get something. That's not what we have now. Sometimes you need to find someone ready made. Fergie would usually avoid older players, but went all in for RVP when it was necessary.
 
Drainy said:
It would be negligence to start the season with Martinez, Maguire, Lindelof and Evans as your senior centre backs and another season of AWB going out of contract in order to sign a £100m striker in their prime leaving no money for the rest of the squad
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Sure, but that doesn't mean splurging on another overpriced Dutch player is the right answer
 
Someone said:
I can easily name someone like Osimhen, but it's not about naming someone. And you can do a lot of damage to young players with potential in this environment.

A successful club needs balance. You buy Hojlund around Rooney, giggs, Carrick, Vidic, and you might get something. That's not what we have now. Sometimes you need to find someone ready made. Fergie would usually avoid older players, but went all in for RVP when it was necessary.
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How long and lucrative a contract would we need to offer for that :lol:

Yes the club needs more reliable senior professionals who have won major honours in the dressing room to help the young players and should be looking for affordable opportunities in the market
 
Up until 31 August they did well. Since then they turned us to an even bigger disaster, if not to say joke
 
Hindsight is always 2020 but I'd get rid of mct wan bassaka and the the rest and figure it out. At least you'd have goal scores

Edit apologize, McGuire pass on de light
 
Drainy said:
It would be negligence to start the season with Martinez, Maguire, Lindelof and Evans as your senior centre backs and another season of AWB going out of contract in order to sign a £100m striker in their prime leaving no money for the rest of the squad
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When you put it like that it actually seems the opposite of negligence. It seems like a pretty good idea. Especially when you consider the relative performances of AWB and our new defensive signings over the season so far.
 
Drainy said:
Ok, so you have £100m to invest with last seasons squad, who do you buy then?
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It's very hard to know who was gettable but I would have signed Serhou Guirassy if possible.

If not him I would have gone for Ivan Toney and if all else failed I would have tried to take Osimhen on loan.
 
For £100m I think we could have bought Cole Palmer in the summer... with some decent agent drama and Sancho on a stick
 
Drainy said:
Ok, so you have £100m to invest with last seasons squad, who do you buy then?
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Didn’t Osimhen go to Galatasary on a free loan in the end ? Welbeck was approaching the end of his contract wasn’t he ? There were better options than spending close to £40 million on a young deep lying striker who’s better at creating than scoring when our main problem for a couple of years at least is scoring.

I’m not even saying Osimhen or Welbeck were the answers but the whole point of a footballing structure is to decide on a style of play then recruit players to fit that system, Zirkzee was never the answer and how often do strikers from Serie A work out in England ? I think you’d have to go back to the 90’s with Zola, Vialli and Ravanelli.

Basically we fecked up recruitment wise YET AGAIN this summer just like we have pretty much every summer post Sir Alex and now we’re left close to the mark PSR wise and with a squad full of dead wood again, we’re a fecking laughing stock.

It’s now rinse and repeat time so we’ll bring in another manager who plays nothing like the one before (not that it’s a bad thing this time round) and needing to clear the squad of the old managers players to bring in his own to play the way the footballing structure want us too which could take 2-3 years to implement by which time the best players we currently have will be past their best.
 
davidmichael said:
Didn’t Osimhen go to Galatasary on a free loan in the end ? Welbeck was approaching the end of his contract wasn’t he ? There were better options than spending close to £40 million on a young deep lying striker who’s better at creating than scoring when our main problem for a couple of years at least is scoring.

I’m not even saying Osimhen or Welbeck were the answers but the whole point of a footballing structure is to decide on a style of play then recruit players to fit that system, Zirkzee was never the answer and how often do strikers from Serie A work out in England ? I think you’d have to go back to the 90’s with Zola, Vialli and Ravanelli.

Basically we fecked up recruitment wise YET AGAIN this summer just like we have pretty much every summer post Sir Alex and now we’re left close to the mark PSR wise and with a squad full of dead wood again, we’re a fecking laughing stock.

It’s now rinse and repeat time so we’ll bring in another manager who plays nothing like the one before (not that it’s a bad thing this time round) and needing to clear the squad of the old managers players to bring in his own to play the way the footballing structure want us too which could take 2-3 years to implement by which time the best players we currently have will be past their best.
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From memory the Turkish transfer window closed after others and given his status at Napoli he couldn't stay so Galatasaray became an option
 
Drainy said:
From memory the Turkish transfer window closed after others and given his status at Napoli he couldn't stay so Galatasaray became an option
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He was available on loan with plenty of time to go before our transfer deadline.
 
davidmichael said:
Didn’t Osimhen go to Galatasary on a free loan in the end ? Welbeck was approaching the end of his contract wasn’t he ? There were better options than spending close to £40 million on a young deep lying striker who’s better at creating than scoring when our main problem for a couple of years at least is scoring.

I’m not even saying Osimhen or Welbeck were the answers but the whole point of a footballing structure is to decide on a style of play then recruit players to fit that system, Zirkzee was never the answer and how often do strikers from Serie A work out in England ? I think you’d have to go back to the 90’s with Zola, Vialli and Ravanelli.

Basically we fecked up recruitment wise YET AGAIN this summer just like we have pretty much every summer post Sir Alex and now we’re left close to the mark PSR wise and with a squad full of dead wood again, we’re a fecking laughing stock.

It’s now rinse and repeat time so we’ll bring in another manager who plays nothing like the one before (not that it’s a bad thing this time round) and needing to clear the squad of the old managers players to bring in his own to play the way the footballing structure want us too which could take 2-3 years to implement by which time the best players we currently have will be past their best.
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You name Osimhen but in the same post you say that strikers from Serie A rarely work out in England
 
Pogue Mahone said:
AWB has been a reasonable fullback. Arguably the best one on the pitch today, that’s for sure.

Maz has been decent but evidently hasn’t solved any problems. Our defence is no better than it was last season. On or off the ball.
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I like Wan Bissaka personally but the only reason I didn't mind that transfer in the summer was because the fee was basically like for like.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
AWB has been a reasonable fullback. Arguably the best one on the pitch today, that’s for sure.

Maz has been decent but evidently hasn’t solved any problems. Our defence is no better than it was last season. On or off the ball.
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I'm sure you're being facetious so I'll leave it
 
Drainy said:
Think a big part of signing Obi-Martin was the promise he could end the season as third choice striker
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So we didn't sign a striker with a record for regularly scoring goals because we hoped a 16 year old would be third choice?
 
Pogue Mahone said:
AWB has been a reasonable fullback. Arguably the best one on the pitch today, that’s for sure.

Maz has been decent but evidently hasn’t solved any problems. Our defence is no better than it was last season. On or off the ball.
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I thought we wanted our fullbacks to attack?! That was the whole Caf rationale for selling AWB and replacing him. Now our defence is no good. Never happy
 
Pogue Mahone said:
AWB has been a reasonable fullback. Arguably the best one on the pitch today, that’s for sure.

Maz has been decent but evidently hasn’t solved any problems. Our defence is no better than it was last season. On or off the ball.
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To be fair on Maz, he's played RB, CDM and LB in his last 3 games.. as a new signing, in a terrible team.

Given that, I think he's done pretty well.
 
OverratedOpinion said:
So we didn't sign a striker with a record for regularly scoring goals because we hoped a 16 year old would be third choice?
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We signed a striker who we think can bring the best out of Rashford and Garnacho as cover for the striker we signed last season for £70m and then secured one of the most promising striking talents in Europe for the mid to long term.

This season was always going to be rough and the focus is on improving the squad over the next few years.
 
cpresc said:
To be fair on Maz, he's played RB, CDM and LB in his last 3 games.. as a new signing, in a terrible team.

Given that, I think he's done pretty well.
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I think he’s done fine. But he’s part of a defence that is exactly as shit as it was last season. So clearly the money we invested in our back four has not yet been proven money well spent. Hence I’m not convinced by anyone who argues that it was a wiser investment than trying to sign a reliable top class goalscorer.
 
Drainy said:
We signed a striker who we think can bring the best out of Rashford and Garnacho as cover for the striker we signed last season for £70m and then secured one of the most promising striking talents in Europe for the mid to long term.

This season was always going to be rough and the focus is on improving the squad over the next few years.
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So what were you banging on about the youth player for?

Well if that was the plan it isn't working and I think it's a pretty poor one personally compared to the competing idea of signing a striker who has a track record of scoring goals.

We had a side which was desperately low in goals. Our solution was to sign a striker who's averaged about 1 in 4 throughout his career.
 
OverratedOpinion said:
So what were you banging on about the youth player for?

Well if that was the plan it isn't working and I think it's a pretty poor one personally compared to the competing idea of signing a striker who has a track record of scoring goals.

We had a side which was desperately low in goals. Our solution was to sign a striker who's averaged about 1 in 4 throughout his career.
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Because it's important to secure potential world class talents when you have the opportunity.

Imagine missing out on the next Haaland if he goes on to do that, to sign a Series A player on loan for £350k a week at least, who could do a Falcao

Zirkzee should develop on his goal scoring but he's meant to bring out the best of the wide forwards. Rashford and Bruno should be carrying more weight in the goalscoring front.. they are letting us down on that front
 
Drainy said:
Think a big part of signing Obi-Martin was the promise he could end the season as third choice striker
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I think most of us think if we’d signed a reliable goalscorer that would have been instead of, not in addition to, Zirkzee. Which wouldn’t have any impact on our sales pitch to Obi-Martin and his potential pecking order in the team. If anything it would have been a selling point to learn his game alongside someone like Osimhen (or whichever other top striker we signed)
 
Drainy said:
Because it's important to secure potential world class talents when you have the opportunity.

Imagine missing out on the next Haaland if he goes on to do that, to sign a Series A player on loan for £350k a week at least, who could do a Falcao

Zirkzee should develop on his goal scoring but he's meant to bring out the best of the wide forwards. Rashford and Bruno should be carrying more weight in the goalscoring front.. they are letting us down on that front
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One is a 16 year old who I don't think has even played an U21 match let alone a senior game.

The two aren't even remotely connected.

I'd have personally gone for Guirassy before Osimhen anyway but you were asking as if there weren't better options than Zirkzee who were affordable.

I think a hell of a lot of people could have told you that going into this season relying on Rashford and Bruno to get the goals we need was a bad plan.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I think most of us think if we’d signed a reliable goalscorer that would have been instead of, not in addition to, Zirkzee. Which wouldn’t have any impact on our sales pitch to Obi-Martin and his potential pecking order in the team. If anything it would have been a selling point to learn his game alongside someone like Osimhen (or whichever other top striker we signed)
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That was later in the window. A lot happened after we signed Zirkzee. Plus too early to write him off
 
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