ESPN - Mourinho wants to sign Skriniar and Romagnoli in Jan

K2K said:
I really don't know.

I am just saying that we should hold off the big money signings until we get a new manager in..if indeed that is the plan..we allowed Van Gaal to waste money on signings. Can't afford that again.

Imagine giving an extra 100mil to a new manager instead.
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Isn't that what has got us in this mess in the first place? The board seems to think everyone can be like SAF where they can be an all in one manager, scout, coach etc.

Buy a player because he is a good player or good potential and tell the manager to get on with it. The manager should adapt to the club not the other way around.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
That's easy to say @devilish and you can be sure with Mourinho's spending history that he wanted nothing more, but it's been fairly obvious that the club have green lighted just one huge signing per season. Pogba was season one; Lukaku season two.

Bailly as I've already said, was a good signing considering we needed a midfielder more than anything. Lindelöf though... mentioned it probably 5 times on this page, imo a top quality CB was more important than spunking most of the transfer budget on a striker and shopping in the "bargain" basket for a CB again. That's 100% on Mourinho.

Regardless, our big 70 million+ signing this Summer should 100% have been a centre back, it's on the club that it wasn't.
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If that's the case then rest assured that Mou would have been moaning and jabbing about it since day 1. Also note that 30m is an important fee for a CB. Bonucci went for just 5m more. Most top young defenders today costed their respective clubs as much or less then that. Its not as if the club gave him peanuts to bring new defenders in.
 
devilish said:
If that's the case then rest assured that Mou would have been moaning and jabbing about it since day 1. Also note that 30m is an important fee for a CB. Bonucci went for just 5m more. Most top young defenders today costed their respective clubs as much or less then that. Its not as if the club gave him peanuts to bring new defenders in.
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30m gives you a risk/young/unproven, or 30+ year old. You know that.

Why would you even doubt that Mourinho would prefer to spend 70 million on Varane? We all know he's like a kid in a sweet shop when given money to spend. It's obvious he prioritised other areas in previous Summers.

As for "moaning since day 1", well that's bollocks, he's not thick and if he's given 80m+ forwards, 40m plus for his favorite older players and 80 odd million for Pogba, he's pretty happy. This Summer he got none of that and he hasn't shut the feck up about it since.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
30m gives you a risk/young/unproven, or 30+ year old. You know that.
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That's the thing its not the case.

According to transfermarkt there had been just 5 Serie A players who costed more then 30m euros this year (Cancelo, Costa, Ronaldo, Bonucci/Caldara, Nainggollan). Most costed around or a bit more then 40m euros. In La Liga there were 8 (Kepa, Malcolm,Lenglet, Arthur, V Junior, Courtois, Guedes, Lemar) most of whom didn't cost more then 40-45m. In Ligue 1 there were 2 (Kehler and Mbappe) while no one spent that amount of money in the German league this year. When taking into account the players bought - the players sold, 30m is more then what Inter, Napoli, Roma, Sampdoria, Bayern, Real and Sevilla has spent this year. That's food for thought for you or anyone who think that 30m are peanuts and that its within Mou's domain to buy players at 30m a pop and then lose interest on them few months later.

Pavard and Milenkovic for 5m were a gamble/bargain not Bailly/Lindelof for 30m a pop
 
devilish said:
That's the thing its not the case.

According to transfermarkt there had been just 5 Serie A players who costed more then 30m euros this year (Cancelo, Costa, Ronaldo, Bonucci/Caldara, Nainggollan). Most costed around or a bit more then 40m euros. In La Liga there were 8 (Kepa, Malcolm,Lenglet, Arthur, V Junior, Courtois, Guedes, Lemar) most of whom didn't cost more then 40-45m. In Ligue 1 there were 2 (Kehler and Mbappe) while no one spent that amount of money in the German league this year. When taking into account the players bought - the players sold, 30m is more then what Inter, Napoli, Roma, Sampdoria, Bayern, Real and Sevilla has spent this year. That's food for thought for you or anyone who think that 30m are peanuts and that its within Mou's domain to buy players at 30m a pop and then lose interest on them few months later.
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How many considered top drawer centre halfs have gone to Premier League clubs for 30m or less these past 2 years @devilish?

Stones? Laporte? Rüdiger? VVD?
 
Maybe a better question dev, if it's not true as you say. Give me just one example of a top drawer central defender below 30 that United could buy in January for less than 40m quid.
If you can give me just one, I'll considered myself schooled.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
How many top drawer centre halfs have gone to Premier League club for 30m or less these past 2 years @devilish?

Stones? Laporte? Rudiger?
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Just because Shitty can't give a damn about money that doesn't mean we should follow suit. We aren't owned by some petro-rich sheikh who loves playing real life football manager. The rest (bar VVD) are within the norm. Sanchez (42m) Mustafi (35m), Luiz (34m), Rudiger (29m), Lovren (20m), Sokratis (17.5m) and Toby (11.5m) ie an average of 22m or 33m if you add VVD in the mix. As you can see 30m is about the norm of what EPL clubs spend for first team defenders which is pretty much in line to what other top clubs do elsewhere.

I could have been cruel and add the likes of Gomez, Maguire and koscielny in the mix to try and drive the fees down.I think I was being very fair to exclude those
 
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Regulus Arcturus Black said:
Maybe a better question dev, if it's not true as you say. Give me just one example of a top drawer central defender below 30 that United could buy in January for less than 40m quid.
If you can give me just one, I'll considered myself schooled.
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I am not a scout or a CEO so I won't involve myself in this sort of silly games. What I can do is to produce transfer fees and let you decide whether 30m for a CB represent peanuts or not.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
Haha, was he available for that back in June even with just a year left on his contract?

If the only player possible has just 6 months left on his deal that kinda back up my point.
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I suppose it depends on what you class as a “top CB” we all know that most of the proven players are at big clubs and even if we Would pay 120mil for them it’s unlikely we’d get a Varane, Umtiti and the likes. Skriniar, Romagnoli are products of the new market and the VVD effect. They aren’t worth anywhere near the value and like Lindelof just highly touted talents. That is the kind of players we are going to have to buy. Someone you take a risk on and hope get to VVD level. There is nothing that says if we spent 100mil on Koulibaly he’d get the job done either. At this rate we might as well see about getting Cahill from Chelsea.

Edit: you also said available in January nothing about the summer. ;)
 
devilish said:
Just because Shitty can't give a damn about money that doesn't mean we should follow suit. We aren't owned by some petro-rich sheikh who loves playing real life football manager. The rest (bar VVD) are within the norm. Sanchez (42m) Mustafi (35m), Luiz (34m), Rudiger (29m), Lovren (20m), Sokratis (17.5m) and Toby (11.5m) ie an average of 22m or 33m if you add VVD in the mix. As you can see 30m is about the norm of what EPL clubs spend for first team defenders which is pretty much in line to what other top clubs do elsewhere.
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hang on, Lovren is shit.
Sokratis is 30.
Toby was before Mourinho joined United.
Sanchez was young and a risk.
Mustafi is wank
Luiz is 31.

Rudiger maybe the anomoly you have found here, would have been a much better buy than Bailly or Lindelöf. Did we even try?
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
hang on, Lovren is shit.
Sokratis is 30.
Toby was before Mourinho joined United.
Sanchez was young and a risk.
Mustafi is wank
Luiz is 31.

Rudiger maybe the anomoly you have found here, would have been a much better buy than Bailly or Lindelöf. Did we even try?
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My point is 30m is about how much first team level CBs usually cost unless of course you're owned by petro rich clubs who can't give a feck if a player cost 30m or 300m. Barcelona for example bought Umtiti for 22m back in 2016 and added Lenglet for 35m euros. Juventus brought Bonucci back for around 30m. Bayern bought Hummels for 35m euros back in 2016 and Sule in 2017 for around 25m euros. Inter brought Skriniar for 20m euros + Cipriani and De Vrij on free. Murillo was about for 8m euros and Diakhaby for 15m euros..

All of these players were available for the same fees we brought Lindelof and Bailly at around the same period.

So if Mou spent 60m on backup defenders whose as good as what he currently has then he's either very stupid or else.....they weren't meant to be backup defenders at all.
 
devilish said:
My point is 30m is about how much first team level CBs usually cost unless of course you're owned by petro rich clubs who can't give a feck if a player cost 30m or 300m. Barcelona for example bought Umtiti for 22m back in 2016 and added Lenglet for 30m. Juventus brought Bonucci back for around 30m. Bayern bought Hummels for 30m back in 2016 and Sule in 2017 for around 20m. Inter brought Skriniar for 20m euros + Cipriani and De Vrij on free. All of these players were available for the same fees we brought Lindelof and Bailly at around the same period.
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Bonucci & Hummels are special cases though, no other club could have signed them.
All of the other examples are buys of the Bailly/Lindelöf ilk which can go either way.

My point still stands, our best ever defensive puchases since the PL started are record breakers, Pallister, Stam & Rio, all 3 sorted us out instantly, just as VVD has done for Liverpool.

And this summer we really should have been spending it, we’re still one of the richest clubs in the World and rather than 290,000,000 in our cash assets, I’d prefer 75m of that to be playing CB for us.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
Bonucci & Hummels are special cases though, no other club could have signed them.
All of the other examples are buys of the Bailly/Lindelöf ilk which can go either way.

My point still stands, our best ever defensive puchases since the PL started are record breakers, Pallister, Stam & Rio, all 3 sorted us out instantly, just as VVD has done for Liverpool.

And this summer we really should have been spending it, we’re still one of the richest clubs in the World and rather than 290,000,000 in our cash assets, I’d prefer 75m of that to be playing CB for us.
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It really does not. You're alleging that we bought Bailly/Lindelof as cover. Im bringing proof to you that at 30m you don't buy backup defenders but first team players. Now either Mourinho is so stupid to spend for covers what most of the world spend for first teamers or else we brought Bailly/Lindelof with the intention of them being first teamers.

And what we do next summer is beyond the scope of the argument. For all I know a new manager might step in and bring in the new Skriniar or the new Umtiti for 20m-30m. The scope of this argument is whether its wise to allow Mou to spend 65m-75m on a CB especially since most of his signings proved to be meah at best. Surely he can't keep on adding 'backup players' at 30m-35m or 50m a pop.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
No I’m not. I’m saying we bought them rather than say VVD because Mourinho opted to spunk his transfer kitty on Pogba, then Lukaku.
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But that's the thing. 30m is quite decent money for a first team CB so surely Mou could find at least 1 CB (out of 2) whose a clear upgrade on Jones, Rojo and co. Barcelona did it (Umtiti), Juventus did it (Bonucci), Bayern did it twice (Sule and Hummels) same as Inter (Skinny and De Vrij), Spurs did it a year before we signed Bailly even Fiorentina were able to achieve that, so why couldn't we do it? After all we've got the special one.

Mou had spent 80m-85m on three defenders and we haven't yet made 1 step forward in sorting the entire ordeal. Hopefully Dalot will fare better then Lindelof and Bailly but after what I've seen with all Mou's signings then I won't hold my breath on that.

Or maybe, Pogba, Bailly, Lindelof, Sanchez, Fred, Lukaku, Matic and co aren't half as bad. Maybe the issue here are our tactics. Which would explain why the likes of Martial, Sanchez, Rashford and Fred seemed to have fared better at other clubs. That would be a better option for us since it would mean that's we're not that far away from winning something which is not silly (like the Europa league). Either way we need Mou to leave.
 
devilish said:
But that's the thing. 30m is quite decent money for a first team CB so surely Mou could find at least 1 CB (out of 2) whose a clear upgrade on Jones, Rojo and co.
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Going round in circles a bit now dev and probably a bit boring for the masses.

I agree 100% that we should have gotten at least one of these signings right, it's just that I also believe we're rich as feck and whoever is manager in Jan or next Summer should be given a VVD, Stam, Rio. It'll do wonders for the side.

Oh, and I also agree that our tactics are wank, especially with the personnel we have.
 
If were to take a punt on a young CB I'd prefer we go for either Skriniar or Milenkovic.
 
jetlee said:
Yeah but the emphasis was on Jordi Alba, not being held off. What would PL players built thrice as him would do to him? Maybe he'll get there at the moment he would be another project.
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Inside the box, behind him, at the camp nou, in a game in which the ref gave barca a foul every time an inter player got within 3 feet of them...

He consistently won physical duels with Suarez
 
We can't get Skriniar in Jan as Inter will tell us no but we should try for Godin or Alderweireld as both will be free agents in the summer and still haven't pen new deals.
 
ZlatMan said:
We can't get Skriniar in Jan as Inter will tell us no but we should try for Godin or Alderweireld as both will be free agents in the summer and still haven't pen new deals.
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Godin signed a new contract.
 
We won't Skiriniar or Romagnoli in Jan. However, we do need to make sure that we do get one of Skiriniar, Koulibaly, De Ligt or De Jong by the summer. For these players, we will need £70 million plus in the summer. If we do get anyone in January, we don't get anyone that is a reactive or someone periphery. My fear is that Woodward will sanction another papering over cracks signing in January and then veto proper signings in the summer.
 
Cliche Guevara said:
Last day of the transfer window, about half an hour after United apparently tried to sign him.
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Hmm interesting, there's reports still saying his contract runs up next summer. I also remember him/his agent saying a few days after the English window shut that he hadn't signed a new contract.
 
11101 said:
"Likes to play short passes" :lol:

I'd be happy with us buying Skriniar. He's a good player and he is comfortable playing either side of CB, but I'd rather spend that 100m on one De Ligt than two maybes.
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It is the same for Skriniar. A potential partnership made in heaven.
 
Smalling and Jones play within their limitations. It’s why their weaknesses don’t register on a purely statistical site. Jones has been considered world class by whoscored’s algorithm for years funnily enough.

I get the feeling Skriniar is a total pipe dream. He’d be the ideal target but after seeing how Inter dealt with us on Perisic I can’t see them rolling over here. He’s their best assest along with Icardi – It will be a nightmare to negotiate with them. If we start to show some form then I could see us going hard after a CB in January – We have decent fixtures to that point and if it can convince the board that it will secure Top 4 then they’ll probably pay
 
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