Decision not to buy a DM in January

[bucky]

Really? That's the best we could have done?

That there is the reason why we didn't buy anyone!

He's an average premiership midfielder, and not a number 6 either!!

He isn't.

 

[Champ]

He isn't.

He really is.

Interesting that no rumours came regarding 'big' clubs recently before Newcastle purchased him. The two possible mentioned were Everton and Arsenal, hardly top tier. I think Chelsea may have been mentioned years ago but nothing substantial in that.
Now I know the retort will be that this doesn't mean he isn't good enough etc, but surely at the age of 24 and playing in Europe for over two years you'd think if he was United quality then other European clubs would have been sniffing around no?

He wouldn't have improved us at all, he is no better than anything we have here so would have been a substantial waste of money.

 

[bucky]

He really is.

Interesting that no rumours came regarding 'big' clubs recently before Newcastle purchased him. The two possible mentioned were Everton and Arsenal, hardly top tier. I think Chelsea may have been mentioned years ago but nothing substantial in that.
Now I know the retort will be that this doesn't mean he isn't good enough etc, but surely at the age of 24 and playing in Europe for over two years you'd think if he was United quality then other European clubs would have been sniffing around no?

He wouldn't have improved us at all, he is no better than anything we have here so would have been a substantial waste of money.

Utter nonsense. If you would have actually watched him for Lyon, you wouldn't be calling him average. He's a better and more consistent passer than any of our midfielders for starters. He's easily better than McTominay and Matic. These days Pogba can only do it for about 60 minutes and Fred's inconsistency makes him worse as well.

 

[Champ]

Utter nonsense. If you would have actually watched him for Lyon, you wouldn't be calling him average. He's a better and more consistent passer than any of our midfielders for starters. He's easily better than McTominay and Matic. These days Pogba can only do it for about 60 minutes and Fred's inconsistency makes him worse as well.

Good stuff.

I guess we should agree to disagree.

 

[Isotope]

Yeh we should be only aiming for players that big clubs are interested.

 

[tenpoless]

If the club has any sort of footballing brain, they'd start approaching Ndidi.

 

[DSG]

Clubs don’t invest huge sums of money based on plans for the next 6 months.

If the car we want is available in the summer then we wait. The alternative is not us having to play with 10 men, we just continue with what we have. It’s a strange conversation as I am convinced that I am not telling you anything you don’t already know. I have little doubt that you were not sat at home during the January transfer window scratching your head and asking ‘where are all the transfers in football?’, ‘why haven’t Real bought Mbappé?’, ‘why haven’t City bought Kane?’ because the reality is, you know the answer, as does the OP and the anyone else. Or perhaps the question should have been ‘if Real can’t get Mbappé now why not just go and buy Kulusevski instead?’.

At this point we are just complaining just because.

Are you new to football?

Relegation fodder always add ‘bodies’ in January. Better teams less often. We have done so ourselves before, but do not every January, which is the same for every single decent side. This isn’t a computer game. ‘We could have bought Zakaria’. Yea, I suspect we would have if we fecking wanted t buy Zakaria. Clearly we don’t, so would not buy him whether it be January or July.

This is a business hedge. The value of CL football is somewhere between 65m-100m in revenues, depending on how far you progress. We all know that we need a DM, we’ve known this for two seasons. Spending 15m-30m on a DM was the smart choice because it is insignificant compared to revenues of that magnitude. The question was: can we acquire a DM that is most likely better than Matic in January and help us seal top 4. The answer was probably yes. It is a gamble, but that is this business in a nutshell. If you don’t take that gamble, you might as well get out of this business.

There are many knock on affects of not reaching top 4: manager/coach recruitment, player recruitment, plus the financial side.

It was a poor business decision.

 

[Pickle85]

This is a business hedge. The value of CL football is somewhere between 65m-100m in revenues, depending on how far you progress. We all know that we need a DM, we’ve known this for two seasons. Spending 15m-30m on a DM was the smart choice because it is insignificant compared to revenues of that magnitude. The question was: can we acquire a DM that is most likely better than Matic in January and help us seal top 4. The answer was probably yes. It is a gamble, but that is this business in a nutshell. If you don’t take that gamble, you might as well get out of this business.

There are many knock on affects of not reaching top 4: manager/coach recruitment, player recruitment, plus the financial side.

It was a poor business decision.

Agreed. We spent forty million on DvdB, a player that didn't improve us immediately (or at all) for a position we were less in need of, so it's not exactly crazy to think the club may spend a bit of money on a player that would be useful immediately in a position in which we sorely need someone. It may (stress MAY) be the difference between sneaking cl qualification or not. And it's not like we couldn't do with a backup there, if we then did feel the need to go spend big on a 'first choice' DM or whatever. You can't imagine Matic has too much longer in him and two players for that position wouldn't be overkill.

 

[Leftback99]

This is a business hedge. The value of CL football is somewhere between 65m-100m in revenues, depending on how far you progress. We all know that we need a DM, we’ve known this for two seasons. Spending 15m-30m on a DM was the smart choice because it is insignificant compared to revenues of that magnitude. The question was: can we acquire a DM that is most likely better than Matic in January and help us seal top 4. The answer was probably yes. It is a gamble, but that is this business in a nutshell. If you don’t take that gamble, you might as well get out of this business.

There are many knock on affects of not reaching top 4: manager/coach recruitment, player recruitment, plus the financial side.

It was a poor business decision.

What impact would some panic buy DM playing his first games in the PL have had on the results which have cost us CL (Southampton, Watford, Burnley)?

If we want to pin it down to the most significant reason it's losing Greenwood on deadline day.

 

[ManchesterManchester]

To be fair, I don't see an obvious candidate who was available and would have improved us. The bigger issue is not signing a DM for the last 3 summer windows running.

We clearly didn't need van de Beek, and Ole's first window we splashed 65m combined on AWB and Dan James.

Winter window is notoriously tricky to get good players in, and this season is such a disappointment anyway I don't think a stop-gap signing is making enough of a difference anyway.

Great points but disagree that a signing wouldn’t have made much difference. Newcastle signings have made a huge difference and saved them from relegation. The games we have played have had very fine margins and it could end up we are level points or a point away from 4th spot. A midfield signing could have tipped us over that line. In the worst case, it would have only helped us.

 

[Blood Mage]

It was an act of sabotage, scandalous decision not sign someone. Kamara would have been dirt cheap and plugged a gaping hole.

 

[Foxbatt]

It's not only for two seasons. From the time of SAF a lot of people have been saying the same thing. We need to invest in the midfield. We never got a top quality one.

 

[MrSingh2002]

We need:
Tchouameni or Rice partnered with Neves

 

[vlad93]

I think if the club signs more players we will break the financial wage rules. We have James Garner for next year so in fairness that position is almost covered.

 

[Pickle85]

What impact would some panic buy DM playing his first games in the PL have had on the results which have cost us CL (Southampton, Watford, Burnley)?

If we want to pin it down to the most significant reason it's losing Greenwood on deadline day.

1. Just because it's a reactive purchase it doesn't have to be a 'panic buy. 2. Having a functional DM ready to go would undoubtedly have gained us points since jan and will continue to until the end of the season

 

[Leftback99]

1. Just because it's a reactive purchase it doesn't have to be a 'panic buy. 2. Having a functional DM ready to go would undoubtedly have gained us points since jan and will continue to until the end of the season

It wouldn't have changed the 4 games we've dropped points in (City plus the 3 already mentioned).

 

[NoPace]

A stopgap loan would have been okay, but this mistake was made the past few summers when we didn't sign a young, promising relatively cheap DM like Alvarez or Koopmeiners who would have given us a solid if unspectacular option there.

 

[Pickle85]

It wouldn't have changed the 4 games we've dropped points in (City plus the 3 already mentioned).

How can you be so sure of that?

 

[Leftback99]

How can you be so sure of that?

Because I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have even played.

 

[DSG]

What impact would some panic buy DM playing his first games in the PL have had on the results which have cost us CL (Southampton, Watford, Burnley)?

If we want to pin it down to the most significant reason it's losing Greenwood on deadline day.

This business doesn’t work in absolutes. There is no guarantee that if we bought Mbappe in January we’d have more points or score more goals.

Not doing anything in January was a gamble that the board and management took, unless Rangnick was offered a DM and turned it down. If we don’t make top 4, that was a poor business decision. It makes a lot more sense to hedge and bring in a player where you have a dire need.

There seems to be a belief in the Caf that players bought in January fail at a higher rate than players bought in the summer window. I don’t think that statistically is the case…. it seems to me that there are both advantages and disadvantages to acquiring a player in January, same with summer.

We weren’t playing all that well with Greenwood either, so it’s not certain we’d have more points if he was an option.

 

[DSG]

Because I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have even played.

Look out fellas! @Leftback99 is actually Ralf Rangnick in stealth mode!

 

[Knux]

We’ve spend hundreds and hundreds of millions the last decade. What makes you think a january signing would be the difference? Every season I hear the same thing. ”If we just buy a new LB.. or a new CB, or a new RW” ..and now a new DM.

 

[Leftback99]

Look out fellas! @Leftback99 is actually Ralf Rangnick in stealth mode!

So you think we'd have thrown some non PL proven DM straight into the Burnley game over McTominay or Pogba? Even Newcastle have only just started playing their own £40m signing from Ligue 1 and they were fighting relegation.

 

[DSG]

We’ve spend hundreds and hundreds of millions the last decade. What makes you think a january signing would be the difference? Every season I hear the same thing. ”If we just buy a new LB.. or a new CB, or a new RW” ..and now a new DM.

I think we can all agree that Man United will continue to buy players. There is no other way. And despite our poor record in the past, we still have to continue to try to get better, so we are going to need to continuously try to improve the squad.

I get your frustration, but that is the nature of the business. Liverpool just brought in ANOTHER winger, even though they certainly don’t need him…

 

[DSG]

So you think we'd have thrown some non PL proven DM straight into the Burnley game over McTominay or Pogba? Even Newcastle have only just started playing their own £40m signing from Ligue 1 and they were fighting relegation.

You don’t know until you know. We’ve PL “proven” DMs (Schneiderlin, anyone?) that haven’t worked out. Bruno wasn’t PL proven and he transformed us.

I would have strengthened as much as possible, with a DM at least, in January because the stakes are too high. Doing nothing is pretty much the loser mentality IMHO. Hell, Barca is literally 1.4 billion in debt and they found a way to bring in Torres and Aubameyang and Traore…. Seriously, it’s not your money, and United is the 2nd or 3rd largest club by revenue.

 

[copen1945]

When Matic came on in place of McTominay, the difference between the two was stark. McTominay is lauded for his passion and energy, but Matic's agression and movement were much better than McTominay's. Comparing the passing ability between Matic and McTominay is pointless. Obviously, Matic has gotten too old to be a regular starter. United actually need to replace both Matic and McTominay, a starter and a backup.

 

[Seij]

We need:
Tchouameni or Rice partnered with Neves

Tchouameni apparently wants Real like 90% of promising young players these days. Moyes won't sell Rice to us (unless we offer something ridiculous like 150M and WH board forces the sale which I don't see happening). Our board doesn't seem interested in Neves despite him continuously being linked to us.

Sounds like we'll be starting with McTominay and Fred next season.

 

[Grylte]

The main problem isn't that we didn't buy a DM in january, it's that we didn't do it right after Carrick retired.
It's been years now, and it's been obvious that this has been our weakest point for so long now that it's shocking nothing has been done.
Said it several times, but our defence isn't as bad as people say, they are just more exposed because they have less protection from the midfield than the other top 6(ish) teams' defence.
Not defending Maguire's bad form, don't get me wrong, but even a world class CB like Varane look average at times because of this.
Football is a team game, we need a team that functions together, and if one part of the team is weak, it will affect the other parts. Like having a RW that never tracks back or do anything defensively, will make the RB look weaker defensively.
CDM is one of the most important roles, since it's the one that protects the defence, brings the ball out from the back and start attacks, in many cases. DMs are the ones that makes the offensive mids, the flair players shine and look good.
A proper monster of a work horse with DvB or McT as B2B and Bruno/Pogba ahead of them, would give the team much better balance.

 

[Pickle85]

Because I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have even played.

Nonsense. If they're match fit and they'll add something then there's absolutely no reason not to play them, if the boss thinks they can assimilate his thinking quickly enough. From memory we didn't ease Ronaldo in, did we?

 

[swedishgloryhunter]

The main problem isn't that we didn't buy a DM in january, it's that we didn't do it right after Carrick retired.

We bought matic though, but have had so many managers and so many different ways of playing so a dm would not save us. We need one for the current system but the focus should be to find our way of football regardless of the manager.

 

[Pickle85]

We bought matic though, but have had so many managers and so many different ways of playing so a dm would not save us. We need one for the current system but the focus should be to find our way of football regardless of the manager.

But at this point matic can only be occasionally effective and his legs have gone. A proper dm would likely make a significant difference for us.

 

[MacarisSocks]

If the club has any sort of footballing brain, they'd start approaching Ndidi.

You see, this is the problem.

 

[Bestietom]

Our best transfer of the past 10 years was probably Bruno Fernandes, who was bought in January. We immediately went from Andreas Pereira and off-form Jesse Lingard to Bruno, a significant upgrade that transformed the whole team. Yet as soon as January came, the usual "there's not value in the market in January" talk came in, despite evidence of the contrary. We, of course, would be better off waiting until the summer so we can get bargain players like Maguire and Wan-Bissaka! Because that's worked so well in the past.

If the club didn't trust Rangnick to pick a player and wanted to wait on the next manager... why is Rangnick signed up to a consultancy role for 2 years? Isn't that the main attribute of Rangnick, having an eye for player potential? Isn't that why he prefers to be a football director? So why not give him some money to buy a defensive midfielder?

Now we have an outside chance of top 4, and out of all cups by mid-March, and have given away the season and possibly the cost of a midfielder in lost Champions League money.

Why did we sit and watch Zakaria go to Juventus, Kamara stay at Marseille and not have a serious interest in any defensive midfielder. So we can scout 500 players and then try to get Rice for £120m in the summer? The thing is, we don't just need one defensive midfielder anyway, we need two. So one in January and another in the summer would have been an option. The area is so deficient, we can see when Matic plays like a proper DM for 15-20 minutes in spells we look like a different team. McTominay cannot play it or is not good enough. Fred cannot play that role, he is a midfield shuttler, and while there are question marks over if he's good enough either, he at least has potential alongside a proper DM like he does for Brazil.

The two together, they don't protect and they don't create. We've all had enough and it's symbolic of the decline of the club. Wolves and West Ham have better midfields than us, never mind City.

Liverpool saw they needed depth up front so bought Luiz Dias, who has given them an extra push towards all trophies. Coutinho has given Villa's season a boost, Aubameyang arrived in January with a bang a few years ago.

It was a poor season already but this decision killed off whatever life it had left.

Exactly, and this will carry on in the summer no matter what manager we bring in. We need at least 6 top players for the team and them some for squad. 2 Midfielders, 2 Forwards and 2 Defenders are needed for this team to be up there challenging, but will the Glazers back this. I don't think so.

 

[Leftback99]

Nonsense. If they're match fit and they'll add something then there's absolutely no reason not to play them, if the boss thinks they can assimilate his thinking quickly enough. From memory we didn't ease Ronaldo in, did we?

That's Ronaldo on £700k a week, not some budget DM bought because they were cheap. No chance they'd have been thrown into the Burnley or Southampton games which cost us.

I've been saying DM was the priority far longer than most on here. I said it would be our downfall when everyone else was celebrating what a great window last summer was. But January would have been too little too late. Not being able to score against dross is what has done us.

 

[Seij]

You see, this is the problem.

I thought John Murtough, the "Sports Scientist" was going to fix this.

 

[MrSingh2002]

Tchouameni/Rice/Casemiro.

I don't want to see anyone else linked with us at CDM. We need proven like Casemiro or top talents like Tchouameni or Rice.

 

[julianfr]

Our best transfer of the past 10 years was probably Bruno Fernandes, who was bought in January. We immediately went from Andreas Pereira and off-form Jesse Lingard to Bruno, a significant upgrade that transformed the whole team. Yet as soon as January came, the usual "there's not value in the market in January" talk came in, despite evidence of the contrary. We, of course, would be better off waiting until the summer so we can get bargain players like Maguire and Wan-Bissaka! Because that's worked so well in the past.

If the club didn't trust Rangnick to pick a player and wanted to wait on the next manager... why is Rangnick signed up to a consultancy role for 2 years? Isn't that the main attribute of Rangnick, having an eye for player potential? Isn't that why he prefers to be a football director? So why not give him some money to buy a defensive midfielder?

Now we have an outside chance of top 4, and out of all cups by mid-March, and have given away the season and possibly the cost of a midfielder in lost Champions League money.

Why did we sit and watch Zakaria go to Juventus, Kamara stay at Marseille and not have a serious interest in any defensive midfielder. So we can scout 500 players and then try to get Rice for £120m in the summer? The thing is, we don't just need one defensive midfielder anyway, we need two. So one in January and another in the summer would have been an option. The area is so deficient, we can see when Matic plays like a proper DM for 15-20 minutes in spells we look like a different team. McTominay cannot play it or is not good enough. Fred cannot play that role, he is a midfield shuttler, and while there are question marks over if he's good enough either, he at least has potential alongside a proper DM like he does for Brazil.

The two together, they don't protect and they don't create. We've all had enough and it's symbolic of the decline of the club. Wolves and West Ham have better midfields than us, never mind City.

Liverpool saw they needed depth up front so bought Luiz Dias, who has given them an extra push towards all trophies. Coutinho has given Villa's season a boost, Aubameyang arrived in January with a bang a few years ago.

It was a poor season already but this decision killed off whatever life it had left.

There's no proof that getting a DM would turn our fortunes around. In fact it seems like we've been equally as bad in attack.

 

[Matt851]

Watching the spurs game before it was hard not to think all the arguments about it being a bad idea for us to do business in Jan was nonsense. Spurs managed to get kulusevski on loan with an option to buy and bentancur for around £15m with add ons. Not saying either is a world beater but would probably start for us at the moment and would at least be good squad options going forward

 

[Seij]

Watching the spurs game before it was hard not to think all the arguments about it being a bad idea for us to do business in Jan was nonsense. Spurs managed to get kulusevski on loan with an option to buy and bentancur for around £15m with add ons. Not saying either is a world beater but would probably start for us at the moment and would at least be good squad options going forward

+ Juve signed Zakaria for 6M.

All of those players are upgrades on our squad in their respective positions.

Our board thought that they can get away without signing a midfielder so that they can try for Rice next summer, but it's probably going to be a major factor in us not making the CL and will hinder our ability to sign players. I can't imagine RR told our board "nah, we're good with Fred and McTominay".

 

[Chairman Steve]

I can only think that we did not buy one because it would have been a Ralf buy and may not have been in line with what the new guy wanted. Frustrating in the short term but sensible in the long term.