We didn't need to spend 65m to replace backup players with other backup players. Also this comment is extremely debatable.
ESPN - Mourinho wants to sign Skriniar and Romagnoli in Jan
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We didn't need to spend 65m to replace backup players with other backup players. Also this comment is extremely debatable.
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.
A defender famous for his precision long passing and assists from deep is a "short passer" ?
Bailly wont be here long imo
If Skriniar is who Jose wants then fine, but he can't blame Woodward for not being able to complete a deal which is all honesty doesn't look possible in January.
As for Bonnuci and Boateng, both have been quite poor in the past year or so imo
Which bit is debatable? You think Jones/Rojo are ok?
In terms of defending yep. But on the ball they've done their stuff. I think thats telling with regards to our priorities in a CB at the moment. I don't agree with it myself but it seems that we're willing to make our defense weaker defensively to have more quality on the ball. It sounds a bit worrying to me considering our defense has been quite weak defensively already.
Ah, people judging defenders on stats without having actually seen the players or their teams
I struggle to see how we’d be weaker with either Boateng or Bonucci in place of Lindelöf
That said, we should be looking elsewhere, better longer term options are available.
Despite the fact we're leaking goals and Jose keeps blaming "defensive errors"
I think actually Jose wants both, but he (or the club) were looking at the usual experienced names (Bonucci/Boateng) instead of looking for people playing well.
I struggle to see how we’d be weaker with either Boateng or Bonucci in place of Lindelöf
That said, we should be looking elsewhere, better longer term options are available.
Seriously if you think Lindelof has been bad, watch Boateng at the world cup, or Bonucci last season. Shambles
You incerase the standard of defending while Lindelof / Bailly go from adequate starters to becoming the quality cover themselves.
Lets put things into context. I was never a big fan of neither Jones nor Rojo. However, Jones was actually half decent up till this summer. He was competing for our best CB spot for a quite some time, he was a regular with England and he managed to take a spot with England during the WC. So in many ways he was a much safer bet to Bailly who is basically a one season wonder. Rojo was always terrible apart from a couple of months when he sort of stepped up. Lindelof didn't even gave us a couple of months of decent football yet.
Irrespective of that, spending 60m-65m on backup players who aren't even a clear upgrade to what we've already had is utter madness especially since we've already got enough backup players already. There's Rojo, Jones, Tuanzebe and some like myself would add Smalling to that list too. And before you say that 65m are peanuts its really not the case. Its the ongoing rate of what top promising CBs/experienced CBs in their late 20s/early 30s are going for. Skriniar (20m+Cipriani), Lenglet, Bonucci and Rudiger all moved for a similar fee. The real bargains are defenders like Milenkovic who moved for 6m. We needed top quality first teamers not expensive backup players who aren't even better to what we've already got.
Surely this shows that we would still trust Jose? Why hold off if they themselves are now sure?
Are there any concrete rumors? Really liked Skriniar the other day when he played against Barca
@devilish
We wouldn't be letting Jones / Rojo / Bailly go on frees though.
It wouldn't be the fee paid in the truest sense. If Jose is selling to buy then wheres the problem? Wheres the splurge?
We wouldn't be letting Jones / Rojo / Bailly go on frees though.
It wouldn't be the fee paid in the truest sense. If Jose is selling to buy then wheres the problem? Wheres the splurge?
He was held off the ball by fecking Jordi Alba at the second goal.
So you're saying that its ok for the club to constantly waste time in negotiating and fees (there's no way we'll be able to recoup the money we've spend) to allow Mourinho to keep playing football manager and try to sort a problem he's not been able to sort in the past 3 years by throwing more millions to it? Also, what message does it give to prospective players when they notice that our manager tend to quickly lose his trust on players and will move as quickly to other targets as fast as he's able to change his pants? Don't you think that will make the work of our negotiators a tad more difficult?
I am not saying that our manager must be infallible. However Mou had spent 400m on 10 players and none of them look a world beater to me. In fact most seem like very well paid donkeys tbh. Meanwhile our team is struggling, our performance has regressed and all the manager does is jabbing about the club and asking for his new expensive toy.
That's a little harsh @devilish, Mourinho has been horrific this season no doubt, and should lose his job sooner rather than later. That said, he hasn't spent big on one player in that position like Liverpool (75m), Chelsea (50m), City (about a billion quid trying to get it right). Mourinho and the club have bought young and speculative there so far.
United have the means to buy a top drawer finished product centre half, understandable maybe that in year 1 Pogba was the big money signing, year 2 it was Lukaku, but whoever manages us in Jan or next summer should be allowed to splash big on a CB.
That is correct, he is not worth the fee at the moment. He will make mistakes here, but he has potential, much more than the CBs we currently have here. I prefer Koulibaly over him. Romagnoli though isnt good enough.
You can point out errors for most defenders. Overall hes very good.
Skriniar is a no-brainer. 23 years old, good enough for United, would basically be a reliable starter for at least 5 years.
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.
The point stands, he doesn't get bullied often, its not a pattern, he made a mistake.
I won't judge him purely because of one error, I liked the way he kept Coutinho quiet.
And please stop with this PL players built thrice as him stuff. Defending is much more than physicality.
Personally I'd have sacked off Jones a few seasons ago purely because as a player he's completely unreliable. I'm never a fan of having squad players that when asked to help the team ends up injuring themselves after a few games. To me, irrespective of his ability (I don't rate that much either myself) if you can't prove your fitness then you're a wasted resource. He's a complete non entity.
Rojo is slightly different because he's had to deal with a bad long term injury. But he's had almost a year to get his fitness, confidence and match sharpness back and he's still not being used.
Also, we'd be spending 65m on a first team player (at least hopefully) which means we'd be benching one of our 30m signings (unless its Smalling that gets dropped but I think thats doubtful).
Why not back him in the Summer then?
He's bought two CBs on the ongoing transfer rate for top quality young CBs coming from smaller clubs and both aren't an upgrade to the backup players we've got. In total he spent 80-85m in defence and yet we still play with Smalling, Shaw and the makeshift failed 33 year old winger of your choice. That means we will probably need to spend another 70m-90m on a top quality CB to break the cycle which will take the expenditure to 160m-170m with no guarantees that it will set things up.
You can notice a similar situation in midfield. We still lack a top quality RW despite spending 30m on Mkhitaryan. We still lack quality cover/competition on the left flank despite bringing in Sanchez. Meanwhile Herrera & Mata are probably leaving, Fred (50m) is yesterday news and by the looks of it we will soon need a DM as Matic legs seems going more quickly then Mou's career. Oh well maybe they were all meant to be backup players as well.
Meanwhile we've spent 75m on someone whose got no first touch, all our players bar Shaw had regressed and the three players who are extremely talented seem unhappy (DDG, Martial and Pogba) with the former two heading dangerously towards the end of the contract.
United has the means to bring in a top drawer finished product centre half. In fact they gave Mou 50m for Fred whom by the looks of it, he had already fallen out of love with. However should we trust Mourinho with that sort of money? After all his transfers had disappointed so far
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I was never a big fan of backup players period. A big club like United should have 2 sort of players ie first teamers and players with the necessary talent/attitude/potential to usurp that role.
I am also not a big fan of Woody either. However he's already shown that he's willing to spend big dosh when needed. Having a manager who constantly asking to strengthen the same role at 30m a pop because he had fallen out of love with them is not acceptable especially since he seems that this is not an isolated problem. He's doing the same in midfield (Mkhitaryan, Fred, Sanchez and even Pogba) all of which had costed the club important sums of money.
Seriously guys but how could you accept us being at 10th place, with wingers still playing as fullbacks,defence still in shambles, top quality players refusing to renew the contract and the manager constantly moaning about the club's lack of ambition after we spent a looping 400m?
Bailly's an upgrade on Jones (never ft) and Rojo though, and he's still very young for a centre half. He's a player signed with the right intentions in mind and has shown periods of excellent form. Dalot the same again, intentions are bang on, great price for a young talent. Lindelöf I'll give you, after already buying Bailly this was a shit move and a waste of money.
What we're severely lacking though is a top drawer defender.
The bolded I completely disagree with, we have great competetion on that left flank, so much so that our fan base can't stop arguing about who should play there. After a great performance v. Liverpool it's Rashford 100%, he to play there, then after a spell of poor form it's Sanchez, then Martial and the merry-go-round goes on and on.
That we haven't addressed the RW since 2011 blows me away, for a club that has always relied on it's wingers this is absolutely mind-boggling.
The bolded imho is hyperbole and an attempt to look at everything in a negative light, when you can quite easily
° Zlatan was a great signing short-term signing that allowed us to spend the big money on Pogba.
° Bailly is a promising young CB that has looked excellent in his periods of good form.
° Dalot is a huge talent, the kind of signing our fan-base constantly whinge about us not winning the race on.
° Pogba is our best player by a mile.
The true disappointing transfers so far are Mhiki, Lindelöf, Lukaku (considering the cost) & Sanchez.
A- Bailly is hardly the fittest player of the lot and there's nothing to suggest he's better then Jones when both are fit.
B- I don't mind seeing us giving Rashford a chance. Instead Mou went for the big name on ridiculous salary instead. Which kind of demoralised Martial and damaged Rashford chances of playing there.
Best intention and hype never get anyone anywhere in football.Its what happens on the pitch week in week out that matters. We should have learnt that long ago with Wes 'worth double then Rio' Brown, Ronnie 'the new Bruce' Wallwork and the new 'Duncan Edwards' Jones. My argument is relatively simple. The club had invested huge sums of money and that had barely been translated in terms of performance. In fact, the team had regressed from last season. Now I understand that no manager is infallible. However, it is expected that most signings made for decent sums of money (20m+) should be successful. You're making the likes of Lindelof and Bailly look like when SAF's bought Henriquez, Bellion, Fortune and Djemba Djemba. The fees simply don't match.
As a fan I'd say give Mou all the money he wants. We all love a bit of football manager + it would also mean he'll shut his gob for the time being. However I understand the club's hesitation in providing him with huge sums of money to spend since he's constantly wasting it. Now if he's able to make it to 4th place with the team he had spent so much money to assemble then by all means give him a second chance. However he's coming to a point when he's got to justify such expenditure.
I concede that Zlatan's signing was a success.
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Come on dev, you know full well Bailly & Lindelöf are Mou's versions of Jones and Smalling, don't be so obtuse. Ages/transfer fees with inflation etc are pretty much bang on also.
All those signings were made with the right intentions, well, except Lindelöf considering SAF had great CB's already, Mourinho didn't. As Fergie also found out, the best way to sort your back 4 out is to break a World transfer record for a Jaap Stam or a Rio Ferdinand. Klopp has figured that out also recently.
Don't get me wrong, this season is on Mourinho, no doubt, but last Summer big money should have been spent on a Jaap Stam/Rio Ferdinand type, regardless of whether or not we had bought a couple of young centre halfs the previous Summers. Just as with the RW spot, our lack of a big investment there in many years is shocking.
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The situation is teeny weeny different though. SAF already had Rio and Vidic at the time and the only way he could bring cover for them was to aim for one of these 4 options
a- promising players
b- backup players (the Henning Berg type of player)
c- old players (the Laurent Blanc type)
d- youth talent
There's no way a Chiellini would come to United knowing fully well that he'll end up sitting on the bench while the R&V owned the defence. Thus he spent decent money on Smalling and Jones aka promising talent which, considering their age + the fact they were English, represented value. They were so much value that the two most experienced (and skint) managers at top club level went for them both (ie SAF and Wenger). Looking back he sort of nailed the former (Smalling) while injuries ruined the latter
Mou didn't had that problem. United urgently needed at least 1 World class CB (probably 2). Instead he aimed for 2 CBs whom we spent 60m upon whose as good as what we've already have (bar Smalling whose better). When that didn't worked out he asked to spend another 70m-80m on another CB.
Yes, generally I agree but in this instance it was quite telling.
He would get slaughtered here if he had a good game other than a mistake that has a big part to play in a goal conceded.
He wouldn't be an immediate solution and we're not lacking in projects (Bailly,Lindelöf).
Agreed, hence why I think Lindelöf was a dopey signing. We needed a proper proper centre half then, not another "talent".
Yes, I think Koulibaly would be more in line with our needs. I just think he is quite happy where he is. If I'm not mistaken Chelsea has tried for him multiple times, the first being something like 3 years ago.
I agree. But if thats the only mistake he makes in the next few months its not a big deal. If he makes several mistakes over that period thats where its a big issue.
Both signings were dopey.
a- we should have gone for a top quality CB (possibly two) in the first place. Jones, Smalling, Rojo and Tuanzebe could easily cover the backup defender role
b- if Mou was dead set on gambling on two young defenders then he shouldn't have gambled on two who would have costed us 30m a pop.
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.