A further 3 games? That's it?
So since his lengthy lay-off, what has been availability been like in the second half of last season?
De Ligt | €45+5m agreement reached pending medical | Signed!
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So since his lengthy lay-off, what has been availability been like in the second half of last season?
I am actually trying to think the last time we had a similar situation to this, when we have terms agreed with the player and player also choosing us, price also being told and seems reasonable. I understand that we are waiting for Lindelof or Maguire to be sold but normally we never go out and do the groundwork in such manner which is refreshing but also unfair to De Ligt.
The only possible situation is, that we have informed him our intention to sign him and asked him to hold tight. We are confident that we would be able to sell Lindelof or Maguire based on discussion with interested parties.
The only possible situation is, that we have informed him our intention to sign him and asked him to hold tight. We are confident that we would be able to sell Lindelof or Maguire based on discussion with interested parties.
So how many games in to the season before Maguire and Evans start?
Yoro has too much development to do to be a starter straight away. @Raaes did an analysis video of him on the Yoro thread. Said he shouldn't be a starter for Utd/Madrid at this time. Lots of potential, but lots that need to be worked on. Definitely need a signing like de ligt to partner Martinez and pick and choose Yoro's minutes and give him time to develop.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/cn05lzplppwo
This is almost a carbon copy of what Orny wrote from "sources". So it's obvious now, we need Lindelof to leave and then the story will pick up again. We aren't getting this deal done without another departure.
That's one random opinion on the player. Doesn't mean anything on how good the player actually is. I don't know how many times Raees has watched Yoro. I know he gave Martinez a pretty similar ratings range if not lower (just as he was joining Utd) in his analysis video of him as Yoro. Despite this, Martinez immediately transformed us when he joined and was obviously good enough to be a starter.
Across the last 2 seasons I've probably seen Yoro like 7 or 8 times and he always impressed me. His positional awareness in particular stands out to me. Not someone rushing forward into tackles, leaving big gaps to be exposed. These highlight videos are particularly rubbish for defenders imo. Much harder to show someone consistently being in the correct place than to show someone making last ditch tackles that look good in a package but could actually be a problem in a real match.
He's also tall and never looked like he struggled aerially to me. The stats say he doesn't go for many headers, but when he does, his success rate is good. Always looked very composed on the ball too. In general, Ligue 1 also has the highest success rate of players moving to the PL (measured in a Tifo video a couple years ago), probably because it's also a very physical league with a similar pace. Doesn't guarantee success, but it's encouraging.
Based on what I've seen of him as well as him literally being the most highly regarded young defender in the world atm, I would back him to perform here immediately (with a few rough games likely along the way). If he is struggling, there's always the option to bring in someone else halfway through the season or to play one of Maguire/Evans.
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If we go by the press, the first bid for a CB we made was for Brainthwaite, and he is left footed. David Hancko is another one we were linked with in the middle who is a left footer too.
I actually would like to see Shaw primarily used as an option at LCB than at LB as I don't think his body can take the rigors of going up and down the pitch for a whole season anymore. Not sure if the top management and the coaching staff sees it that way. Also, it's a bit of risk having two players with injury worries options for the same position. We could land in the same soup as last season.
Let's see what we do. I still think we need another CB and a versatile LB/RB option. May be de Ligt will be that CB option if we are able to move on one or both of Lindelof & Maguire.
Yeah that makes sense, currently we have 5 CBs in Licha, Yoro, Maguire, Lindelof and Evans. Evans will obviously be 5th choice, but one of Maguire or Lindelof would need to leave for De Ligt to come in.
There's still hope this happens, hopefully we're able to offload Lindelof soon.
Maguire is on higher wages and will be able to get a bigger transfer fee than Lindelof.
I'd sell Maguire, purely because he has more resale value.
Nobody will be interested in Lindelof, better use him for cup games and run out his contract.
Maguire we can get £30-£40m for and he's on much higher wages.
I would sell both Maguire and LIndelof, but definitely Maguire at least.
No one’s paying close to £40m for a 31 y/o Maguire on his wages and with only a year left under contract (maybe plus one). If we got half that and got his wages off the books it’d be a good deal IMO.
Hes worth a decent fee especially for low block teams, great with aerial duels, can pass no way he goes for 20m
No chance do we stick with what we have,either going to get De Ligt or look to sign a natural LCB instead
Teams can agree a fee with us, but convincing Maguire to move is a different matter as we saw last summer. Maguire knows no club would match his wages with us so he’s not in a hurry to leave. That’s precisely why I talked about selling Lindelof as with him we actually have a chance to offload him.
Offer Bayern 35 million plus Lindelof
Man Utd
Martinez
De Ligt
Yoro
Maguire
Evans
Bayern
Kim Min-jae
Upamecano
Ito
Dier
Lindelof
Stanisic
Man Utd
Martinez
De Ligt
Yoro
Maguire
Evans
Bayern
Kim Min-jae
Upamecano
Ito
Dier
Lindelof
Stanisic
What you said is totally right. However, Maguire also has to weigh the tradeoff between 1) earning higher wages for just one more year with us (assuming we don’t exercise the +1 option with him), followed by the uncertainty of finding a new club, the length of new contract and the wages to be offered then, and 2) the relative certainty of new contract at a new club now albeit at a lower wage.
If he is confident about his ability to keep performing this season and attract a decent offer as a free agent next summer, I’m sure option 1 continues to make sense for him. That said, one year can be a long time in football, if he gets an untimely injury, he may jeopardize the next move. Last summer, he chose option 1, fair enough. This summer, his thinking may change.
Think he's definitely staying, unfortunately. If we don't sign any other CB's this summer, he knows that he'd get plenty of game time given he'd be 3rd choice behind Martinez (spent the entire season injured) and Yoro (18 years old; will need time to settle in and develop etc).
One more season of getting his massive wages and then leave on a free next summer with plenty of clubs to pick from + get a big sign in bonus as well.
Absolutely no rumours about him leaving this summer too.
Lindelof is a bit different - I feel he'd agree to leave if we make him available for a transfer and would have more options to choose from as plenty of continental clubs would be keen on him.
Lindelof out is the only realistic option for De Ligt to come in afterwards, in my opinion.
I don’t disagree with you. I like good redemption arcs, if Maguire can win something in his last season with us, he can leave next year with his head held high after all the shit he went through.
If we’re able to shift Lindelof to make space for De Ligt, it would be fantastic.
Yeah does feel like it would be Lindelof not Maguire
Hmm yeah maybe, I definitely think we sign De Ligt I think it’s a matter of outgoings and maybe they are looking at him covering both positions. But I agree with you on Shaw, I don’t think he can do the LB role for a whole season anymore and the injuries are the reason. He handled the LCB role very well and I think the management maybe see him as filling that position moving forward and we actually need a LB more.
Exciting so far regardless! Can see us being very active in the next week or so in moving players on. We’ve needed a clear out for years and it looks like it’s finally happening.
Back up option if we bring enough money in but not enough for Branthwaite now.
Fingers crossed we could make it happen
It’s almost as if we have footballing people at the club instead of accountants. Who would have thought it. So far the difference is night and day.
This is one of the reasons I hope we still sign De Ligt. I think we need a defender who will attack the ball in the air for us to be able to counter press effectively and sustain attacks. I think physically Yoro will have the ability to do this and as he matures he will develop the ability, like a Van Dijk, to know when to be more aggressive in certain situations. But for now, I do see it as a weakness of Martinez/Yoro pair that could be exploited. Maguire is good at this, but unfortunately he has other deficiencies in his game that can be exposed playing this way.
I do hope we are just drawing out the transfer to get the best price possible for him. There's no real benefit to signing him before he is finished his summer break.
Bayern are selling him to get the wage bill down, so that they can sign players they want. Why would they accept Lindelof.
Lindelof would shine for Bayern. Like the brightest of diamonds.
Capello/Baggio/Gullit all said raving things about Zirkzee on his technical ability, so I am totally sold and wouldn't mind seeing him in startingXI.
Getting Ugarte/Deligt is looking possible, so I would go with this line-up, lot of good ball controlling and technical players.
--------------------- Rasmus-----------------------------------
-------Zirkzee-----------------------Garancho-------------
---Shaw-----Mainoo------Ugarte---------Dalot-------
-------------Licha-----Deligt-----Yoro----------------------
----------------------------Onana--------------------------------
We can rotate Bruno by dropping one of the CD if needed.
Sancho(30)/Greenwood(30)/Pellestri(10)/SMT(30)/Bissaka(15)/Lindelof(10)=125M can be used on few other Midfield/Defence players to improve the squad depth.
What ever it will be, I am feeling more confident with the way INEOS are handling this window.
Getting Ugarte/Deligt is looking possible, so I would go with this line-up, lot of good ball controlling and technical players.
--------------------- Rasmus-----------------------------------
-------Zirkzee-----------------------Garancho-------------
---Shaw-----Mainoo------Ugarte---------Dalot-------
-------------Licha-----Deligt-----Yoro----------------------
----------------------------Onana--------------------------------
We can rotate Bruno by dropping one of the CD if needed.
Sancho(30)/Greenwood(30)/Pellestri(10)/SMT(30)/Bissaka(15)/Lindelof(10)=125M can be used on few other Midfield/Defence players to improve the squad depth.
What ever it will be, I am feeling more confident with the way INEOS are handling this window.
No chance we’re completely changing formation.
Zirkzee has been brought in to be the more senior striker, something that was unfairly put on an 20 year old with less than 60 senior appearances.
Similarly it would be unfair to expect Yoro to be a guaranteed starter this season.
My guess is we’ll start the season lining up with:
Onana
Dalot. Maguire or De Ligt Martinez. Shaw
Casemiro or New DM
Mainoo. Bruno
WF. WF
Zirkzee
Højlund and Yoro on the bench.Dalot. Maguire or De Ligt Martinez. Shaw
Casemiro or New DM
Mainoo. Bruno
WF. WF
Zirkzee
Looking at that I’d be amazed if we don’t pursue a deal for De Ligt and a DM as the alternative doesn’t appear hugely different from last season.
Funny how this can read, in plain text, as:
‘As Maguire is on high wages we’ll get a bigger fee’
When I assume you mean:
‘With his fee, and offloaded wages, we’ll have more to spend’
Makes me wonder if our much maligned ‘protect the value’ strategy was due to Woody simply misinterpreting an email
You ever thought about doing stand up?
No way Yoro turns down Madrid for us to sit on the bench. If he was happy sit on the bench he'd do it in the sunshine.
He's a starter for Lille - we will have had to agree to a number of starts as part of the deal to come here.
He didn’t have the option to join Madrid though did he? So he never had the option to “turn them down”.
He had the option of turning down a giant club who wanted him (United) and then hoping his parent club would be held to ransom. He then had the risk of possibly having to wait a year and hoping no big injury would feck him over. All for a club who didn’t really seem as arsed to sign him as many made out, because his fee was extremely reasonable.
I don’t believe any guarantee of playing exists in football.
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West Ham agreed a £30m fee last summer when he was a year younger with another year under contract. The deal died because we wouldn’t subsidize his wages and they wouldn’t pay him what we were. If we sold him for £30m but are still paying him £2-3m/year for a couple of years, it’s not really a £30m sale.
So, something has to give. If he lowered his wage demands, maybe we could get £25/30m for him. Otherwise, no chance. And there’s actual negotiations from one year ago to back this up.
Maguire has to be fully amortized or close to at this point, even 15m would probably be enough with regards to any accounting regulation in place. And a smaller fee could make it easier for the buying club to pay a signature bonus that would cover the wage discrepancy.
We’re gonna get him at an absolute steal, reckon we ultimately agree on around 36m + bonuses.
Bizarre to see us suddenly being competent.
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34 is reasonable
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