His value should be around £20M - paying anything over £25M would be stupid. For that price you can get Thiago from Bayern....
David Brooks
- Thread starter Zoo
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People get confused of what squad depth is. It's about competing and making the first 11 better and having good options. Brooks doesn't challenge our first 11. It's another average player to join the bench. I hope it's Bournemouth banging up interest. The rest in the top 6 wouldn't consider this option. Be an awful signing and club should be hammered if it goes through.
Yep. I'm all for this. He's the sort of upgrade I want for the likes of Pereira. From what I've seen of him he's an intelligent player, good decision maker, quick thinker. I think he'd fit in very nicely. Also ticks all the boxes for the type of ego free character that Ole wants around the dressing room.
Not the best example
Different positions, nationalities, ages, wages, sign on fees and quite possibly agent fees.
If he is an upgrade to Pereira/Lingard/Mata in that he can play on the wings and as 10, then great. However, if it's the alternative to Sancho, then as I said before, it'll be slightly underwhelming.
Great comparison....
Well no, squad depth is not about making our first 11 better, is it? It's about providing viable competition for those places and enabling us to rotate without a big drop in quality. I think Brooks provides that. You don't, fair enough.
I swear some people just don’t watch football
I know all that, but the £40M price touted for Brooks seems excessive.
From shopping at Harrods to poking around at TK Maxx.
hes not a left winger. he's left footed but plays on the right or centre.
Ouch but very true
More like going into a pound shop, picking an item up, ignoring the price tag and giving the cashier £40
Looks a decent player and at the right price, seems a solid option. The sort of player who goes to another top 6 club for a decent fee and does well, causing fans on her to bang on about how poor our scouting is not to identify him and take a punt.
He's not going to be a nailed on starter, but has potential and I suspect, has been watched by a lot of the big clubs since he was quite young. Has done well since his PL move (barring injury) so for me, offers a good option for the squad. We evidently lack depth and players like this may improve that, although we're light in a few places.
He's not going to be a nailed on starter, but has potential and I suspect, has been watched by a lot of the big clubs since he was quite young. Has done well since his PL move (barring injury) so for me, offers a good option for the squad. We evidently lack depth and players like this may improve that, although we're light in a few places.
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Squad depth is about having better options, to make things competitive in our first 11. There is no evidence to suggest Brooks will give us that, none. We'll see I suppose how this plays out.
Bournemouth fans are adamant that he should never play right wing for them, due to a lack of stamina, work-rate and pace. Just one example:
Looking into his fitness in more depth, he's only managed to complete 90 minutes of league football 11 times in his entire career. That stat was so surprising that I double checked it.
At 23 years old, he's played 3000 minutes of league football - 33 games total.
Coming off the back of a severe injury that needed a second operation as the first was unsuccessful, I can't help feeling that it's a crazy signing to consider. So many question marks over fitness, form and recovery.
It's about having players around the squad who might push for a place but who are happy to swap playing every week for the chance of winning things and playing for a top side. We've had loads over the years - Nicky Butt, Phil Neville, John O'Shea, Wes Brown (off the top of my head) who all made important contributions.
You can't build a squad of £100 million players and expect to keep them all happy. You have your starters and players on the bench who are (hopefully) young, hard working and talented enough to perhaps break in if and when given a chance. This lad may not be good enough for that and whilst you're entitled to your opinion, I'd suspect neither you nor I are qualified enough to make that call. Also - you have no idea if that bolded part is true. He's been linked to Spurs and Liverpool in the last week. Whether that's rubbish, who knows but the link to United is no more solid than those.
I suspect the "evidence" the club will rely upon is the professional opinion of the scouts or others from the club who have watched him (in the same way that they do with any player) so that's a bit of a none argument isn't it?
What like you, he played 9 games last season. One goal and a big injury, he's 23 and nobody else is after him. Please tell the great insight. To say it's an alternative to Sancho, is utterly depressing.
40m 
would be a bigger waste of money than Dan James.
Really uninspiring signing if true.
Really uninspiring signing if true.
If you don't watch him play then of course there will be no evidence. For people who have seen him play they can see pretty clearly that he is a very good talent and an IMMEDIATE upgrade on squad options.
it really is and when you complain about the club not going for talented young first team players on the continent you get posters spouting BS about how when you've money to spend or you're a big club you can afford to wait for players to develop or move to a bigger club before buying them. this isn't just overpaying. its overpaying for an British development project coming off an injury. I really wonder what the fk our scouts and management are actually doing if this is the best signing we can think of for 30/40 million quid in a deflated market. this lad would also at best be a squad player for wolves everton or spurs if he can stay fit.
His fee is more than enough to cover BVB's valuation's difference for Sancho.
Perhaps we have more funds to spend than we think ?
Perhaps we have more funds to spend than we think ?
All from the academy and sold on once better players were signed pushing them down the pecking order
This place is a fecking cesspit at the minute. Potentially signing a really promising young player who will improve our squad and people are turning their noses up because he’s not Sancho.
The ironic part is if Bournemouth had stayed up we would have been priced out for this guy and not Grealish
Just because you can afford something doesn't mean you overpay.
Should we overpay 40m for Brooks ?
I think he’s just not good enough at any price. But the fee makes it even more worrying. He might be an upgrade on Lingard but so are many players. Wasting our transfer budget on future deadwood makes no sense to me. Our team is desperate for good ball players and that’s why I was looking forward to Sancho. If not Sancho, then we should at least look for players with higher upside to be our squad options. In that regard, this transfer reminds me exactly of how I felt about Ashley Young’s transfer.
@RedRover we need a right winger of real quality to come in. We haven't had one properly in years. Jadon Sancho is 3 years younger and the best about. Wtf is your point about the scouts watching Brooks. I don't need a scout at the club to tell me that Brooks is a massive downgrade, I've seen him play. He's okay, nothing more. Okay isn't challenging for trophies. Shape of this place this evening seriously.
I agree that it’s likely Bournemouth drumming up interest. Liverpool have been linked in the past and Spurs have also been linked recently. All while saying they want something like 35 million - which I can’t see anyone paying.
I can definitely see Spurs being interested but not at anywhere near that price.
All those who tend to raise their noses on people who feel we could do better than fecking Brooks especially for the quoted price can do one.
Any player you're signing that has no hope in hell of nailing a regular spot is not good enough. Brooks is not good enough even for a squad player. He has proved nothing in the game and based on last season, a lot of players in the epl and rest of Europe at reasonable prices are better.
The brexit FC is enough, buy players that are good enough with good value for money even if they are from Mogadishu.
We already have Dan James , a player with alot of doubts over, why do we want to add more? We can't close the gap by signing such players.
Any player you're signing that has no hope in hell of nailing a regular spot is not good enough. Brooks is not good enough even for a squad player. He has proved nothing in the game and based on last season, a lot of players in the epl and rest of Europe at reasonable prices are better.
The brexit FC is enough, buy players that are good enough with good value for money even if they are from Mogadishu.
We already have Dan James , a player with alot of doubts over, why do we want to add more? We can't close the gap by signing such players.
The transfer season is, if nothing else, amusing!
Now that’s more accurate. Also said item has been broken
I know many won't agree but feel that both Jack & Jadon don't fall into this Brexit FC thing, however know there will be others that think Grealish does well belong in it as well and they are very much entitled to their opinion on that
Wow that's me told, I thought the reason we are looking for a right winger is to improve the first 11 and add more goals and assists. I have watched him play, I don't agree with you at all. Then again I made a mistake to bother to reply to you, your initial smug enlightened post should have been ignored at the start.
Dan James was 21 years old and cost 15 million. Well worth the punt at the time at that price.
Brooks rumours will sum up a lot of United fans that post on this forum. It’ll be shit on by plenty of people that instantly read a headline, see he plays for Bournemouth and automatically claim he’s bang average despite hardly ever watching him play.
Well based on their opinion we got Dalot, a player that's really not that good.
We got AWB, another player that in European market is not even worth half the price we paid for him and we also got Maguire another one who is not worth up to what we paid for.
Is not that their opinion is not flawed.
Fans on this forum moaned when we wanted to sign Fellaini, Lukaku, AwB and Maguire, stating all their deficiencies but hey, what do we know.
He’s Daniel James money, not 40M pounds. We should distance ourselves if his club wants that