We wait until they hit it big and pay 100 millions.
It's not like we've been great at developing young players lately.
It's not like we've been great at developing young players lately.
Enzo Fernández | signs for Chelsea
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He started in almost every game when fit during his time at Juventus (he joined them at winter break last season) and was loaned to Chelsea at the season beginning, so don't know where did he failed to get minutes at Juve. Juve are in a bad financial position and they sold/loaned some players that would actually be in the starting 11 on their current period, but their wage structure was unbearable.
Any cheeky release clause?
I think they did thankfully. All the senior scouts got thrown out.
So you regularly watch South American football do you?
https://www.redcafe.net/threads/tra...d-sources-before-posting.462930/post-28251006
Could have scouted him a year ago like I said. When we were first linked with Alvarez
Could have scouted him a year ago like I said. When we were first linked with Alvarez
Thats another thing, he is injury prone. He joined in Jan and was fit for 11 league games where he started 6.. But I guess 56% is most in your eyes.
Completely agree. He was hardly a developmental player like Amad who others have cited.
We are costing ourselves massively with decisions like passing up on talents like this.
of course we could just sign them when we are certain they are world beaters for 70-100m but then we end up having To chose between say Enzo and a first team striker. Anyone who can’t see howwe are conducting business awfully needs to give their head a wobble.
If only we had applied that logic to that Cristiano Ronaldo fella back in the day.
Another issue with this thinking - he’s on £26,000 a week at benfica. What’s he asking for if we come knocking? On top of the 70-100m fee.
Not really...
City or any other club could have signed Haaland for £20m but spent over £60m to get him
Anyone could have signed Jude for £25m but could end up paying over 100m.
Its not just United who do this business... alot of clubs do.
We actually agree. What I am saying is we have huge needs at no. 9, arguably GK. That would entail what 100-120m£ (esp if we spend 50m on Costa)
But we still need a CM to support Eriksen, a RB and a better 3rd choice/partner to Martinez. That's where I am talking abt being smarter and buying 20-30m talents.
That's why I have no issues with 10m for Pellistri or 20 for Amad.
Fair enough, I misunderstood thinking you want us to sign only £30m players. I agree, the 9 is the most important position followed by RB.
Lets see what he does with DDG.
this kid looks the real deal and would be an ideal investment at his age and the position that he plays.....BUT the CF position HAS to be the top transfer priority in january and the summer
He only joined Benfica yesterday; Benfica always get insane money for their players (money the club won’t invest in January 100%); and Benfica are still in the CL with a very winnable fixture.
No way he’ll go this January
No way he’ll go this January
The big difference, particularly with Amad, is that he had done nothing to justify his fee. At 18 he had played a handful of first team games, and scored one goal. Endrick has achieved more at the age of 16, as has Moukoko at 17. Money has to be spent wisely, even on teenagers, meaning that the player should have a) demonstrated his ability to perform at a high level, and b) fit United's style of play. For example, there is no point spending big on a centre back who can't play a high line, or a full back that is useless going forward, etc. - you get the idea.
In the past few years Real Madrid have done a great job of buying youngsters that look like world beaters (Vini, Camavinga, Tchouameni, etc. and tried to get Mbappe and Bellingham). This is a good strategy, but they are targeting the top talent, not some random names who look great at under 21 level. This approach also works better when there is a stable, successful squad to help them integrate, rather than them coming in as an automatic starter and with the expectation of being the saviour of the team. Two of our best ever players were bought as expensive teenagers (Ronaldo v1 and Rooney).
Under the radar signings can also work (Ferguson made lots of them), as can freebies like Eriksen. Ultimately it is about bringing in the right players, with the right attitude, at the right price, and having a manager capable of bringing the best out of them. Our signings have been mostly "miss" in recent years, but I am hopeful that ETH knows what he wants, and will veto any signings he doesn't want. His track record is pretty good, both at Ajax and so far for us...
The 2 that don't start play in positions that we are stacked, we have no number 9, Ronaldo is finished and wants out and Martial is always injured. Alvarez would have clearly got games, he gets games at City.
Enzo Fernandez is clearly leagues above many of our CMs and we have had CM injuries this season, where we have clearly run Eriksen into the ground too, cleary he would have go games here.
Caicedo plays in a position where we knew at the time we needed to find a long term replacement for the likes of Matic and Pogba, we chose to pass.
Its poor from United, poor decision-making, and even worse decision making that we ended up going for players who can't get into the squad as even subs after 18-24 months
This was a player Ralf wanted, which means there is zero chance the club sign him. Not sure if it's Murtough or the Ten Hag, but someone has blackballed any player associated with Ralf.
He would play beside Casemiro as an Eriksen replacement/back up. He’s one of the best back progressers in the world already and unlike Eriksen and Bruno he’s very secure and better defensively.
Surely an indicator of a talent ID and strategic planning problem at United rather than a reason for why we shouldn’t sign higher potential players while they represent enormous value.
Also think it’s a bit disingenuous to compare Pellestri and Amad with Caicedo(tipped to be Ecuadors greatest player at only 18), Alvarez (scored six goals in a copa libertadores and tore it up generally in senior football) and Enzo Fernandes who despite being on the same river plate team as Alvarez was considered to be the better talent.
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Where did you read/hear about Ralf wanting him?
The fact that we were linked with him last year while Ralf was here. Pretty sure if you go back in this thread you will see Ralf mentioned a number of times.
Wow interesting, so it's all made up in your head yet bash the club for not listening to Ralf regarding Enzo.
Him being linked to us is a fact, and if I'm not mistaken he was first linked to us in April this year. But I haven't seen any report mention Rangnick pushing United to sign him.
Rangnick infact gave an interview just recently to Christian Falk, where he mentioned several players he wanted United to sign, but he didn't mention the name Enzo Fernandez.
If we're to go off presumptions, then I would say the first link appeared between United and Enzo Fernandez after Jose Mayorga was brought in to replace the outgoing scouts (Bout/Lawlor). And Mayorga is a Argentine national who was the head of South American scouting before he took up the role of head scout at the top of the chain. And I believe it was Mayorga and his team in SA, who recommended both Caicedo and Enzo Fernandez to the club.
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Absolutely this, CF is an absolute must in January.
What a wonderfully tragic little post. I expect this sort of shite on reddit or twitter, not here.
I disagree. If a striker as good as Enzo Fernandez is a midfielder is not available we should absolutely NOT prioritise a striker. We can't sign any striker just because we're in need of a striker, now we can get one on loan or a short term deal until one of the necessary quality becomes available. Just because we are in dire need of a striker doesn't mean we splash 70+ mill on any striker because we need him, we did the same with Maguire and we need to move past making stupid decisions in the transfer market.
You're correct, and both Caicedo and Fernandez were established in their respective leagues compared to Pellistri and Amad who were yet to establish themselves at first team level. Amad I don't believe had even started a first team game before we signed him. And I'm not sure why Hannibal is even mentioned because he's still a teen and doing well on loan at Birmingham.
Bruno Fernandes was just shy of his 23rd birthday when he was sold by Udinese to SCP for €8.5m. His career was up and down for several years until he arrived at SCP in Portugal.
Caicedo was doing really well in Ecuador and there was a lot of hype around his performances. Fernandez spent two seasons on loan from River Plate to another Argentine club before he established himself at his parent club River Plate.
don't think anyone is suggesting buying a striker simply to just buy one....that would be foolish and what has gotten us into this mess we have right now
If Fernandez is the one, then I suggest we sign him and bring in cheaper strikers this year. I think Gakpo (who can play across the front), Brobbey (who can do a job and would be a great long term back up) and Moukoko (free with great potential) could be got for a total fee of around £50m. This gives us the chance to take a look at all three, let Martial prove his fitness, and see how Sesko develops at RB Leipzig, and decide the following year whether we need to bring in Osimhen, Sesko, or neither.
It is depressing not having any strength in depth, and we saw what happened in our last game. The great thing about Fernandez, Gakpo and Timber is that they can play a couple of positions, so provide cover without obvious drop in standards. I would be happy with Timber, Ndicka, Fernandez, Gakpo, Brobbey and Moukoko, which will cost us just over £100m, although likely we will need a keeper as well. Once we have a decent squad with depth, we can start going for the expensive stars (e.g. Osimhen and Bellingham types) or the talented kids (e.g. Sesko and Endrick)
Some classic captain hindsight posts here. As if anyone knows what they'd even be like if they came directly to us. Alvarez isn't exactly tearing up any trees, Caicedo had known issues with multiple agents claiming to represent him at the time (whom which Brighton had dealt with before) and when you look at what we got instead of Fernandez (Casemiro, Martinez, Anthony and Malacia) - it is obvious why we didn't go for him with the squad holes we had.
We massively fecked up not signing him sooner but he would be an ideal addition. Cheaper than someone like Bellingham and hopefully easier to attain. Sign him up.
Benfica are in the knockouts of the CL, he's not going anywhere in January, all they need is him to perform how he has all season vs a big team and they've got another massive fee incoming.
It’s annoying we could have got the three highly rated young South American players for less than the price of one average English player. We need to be smarter at a certain price point. Those lads would all be getting games here by now. We easily could have loaned Caciedo out last season in the championship. We were interested but we baulked at some ownership issue. We need to be a lot more decisive when they have real top class potential. if we ever want to get back to the top again we can’t just leave gaps in the first team for years while we save up for the next Rice or whatever. If we can’t play them loan them out for a year while we still can. You aren’t going to make a huge loss on a 20m punt from South America if the scouting is good enough.
Why is everything on here always outrage these days As soon as we are linked to a player everyone piles in “why didn’t we sign them earlier for less”, it dose tramways work like that! If he’s doing well at least we are still following him and looking to potentially sign him, not everything has to turn into a dig at the club. Like pointed out, plenty of these players leave South America and do nothing.
Fernandez has €120m release clause.
Not overly cheeky then.
Alvarez has 3 goals and 2 assists in his last 2 matches for a team that is usually relying on the best striker in the world to get them the goals. They got a replacement who is better than Sterling and can also fill in for Haaland for very cheap.
Overall he has 4 goals and 2 assists in 7 matches where he played at least 45 mins (there were 10, 1 and 20 minute sub appearances too).
Our best goalscorer has 4 goals and 2 assists in 12 league starts...
Take Man City attackers stats with a pinch of salt, Sterling used to score 20 a season and look decent in that team.
You dont think hes decent?
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