Guaranteed successful signings

kopviolator said:
To be honest I thought Pogba back was pretty guaranteed success. I feel stupid now.
Click to expand...

I still think the transfer was moderately successful. He looked good in a midfield of Matic, Herrera and Pogba with him in that LCM / #10 type role. Unfortunately that promise was never fulfilled. Matic fell off a cliff, Herrera left and in come McFred.

Yet another what-if in terms of squad building. Fred honestly might have been fine to replace Herrera but not replacing Matic was criminal.
 
Teja said:
I still think the transfer was moderately successful. He looked good in a midfield of Matic, Herrera and Pogba with him in that LCM / #10 type role. Unfortunately that promise was never fulfilled. Matic fell off a cliff, Herrera left and in come McFred.

Yet another what-if in terms of squad building. Fred honestly might have been fine to replace Herrera but not replacing Matic was criminal.
Click to expand...

one of the biggest dissapointments in football for me. Bloated ego, bloated salary, occasional good performances but mostly average in spite of insane talent, poor workrate and in the end he left for free, the second time. I'm sure Juve arent too happy with him either but at least they got 80m for him he left them.
 
Bruno.

Can't think of a single Portugese player we signed that flopped here.
 
Teja said:
I still think the transfer was moderately successful. He looked good in a midfield of Matic, Herrera and Pogba with him in that LCM / #10 type role. Unfortunately that promise was never fulfilled. Matic fell off a cliff, Herrera left and in come McFred.

Yet another what-if in terms of squad building. Fred honestly might have been fine to replace Herrera but not replacing Matic was criminal.
Click to expand...
Ole literrally had a winning team. All he had to do is sign someone to fill the Matic role, and someone to replace Herrera, and he would still be in the United job.

Instead he went with Bruno, and tried playing him alongside Pogba which created an imbalance. Once he signed Ronaldo, the emabalance was even bigger and that ended up costing him his job.
 
Mr. MUJAC said:
There aren't that many at all even if you go back to the 1960's.

The only certs for me were Denis Law, Martin Buchan, Ray Wilkins, Bryan Robson, Roy Keane, Andy Cole, Rio Ferdinand, Van der Sar.

Everyone else was either:

1. Are they too old? (Davies, Greenhoff, Anderson, Sheringham, Blanc, Falcao, Cavani)
2. From overseas so I never saw them play. (Schmeichel, Kancheskis, etc)
3. From Scotland/Ireland...so can they make the transition? (Forsyth, Macari, Daly, Strachan, McClair)
4. Had injury issues in the past (Ian Storey-Moore, Parker, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Sanchez, Varane)
5. Played for a smaller club so could they make the step up? (Coppell, Hill, Birtles, Ince, Irwin, Thomas, Shaw)
6. Were good rather than great players to begin with (McQueen, Jordan, May, Berg, Fellaini)
7. Would they fit into squad as they had 'reputations' for being difficult. (Cantona, Yorke, Pogba, Lukaku, Ibrahimovic...even Ronaldo in second spell)

So guaranteed successful signings are quite rare in my opinion.
Click to expand...
Rooney, RvP?
 
ArmaDino said:
Ole literrally had a winning team. All he had to do is sign someone to fill the Matic role, and someone to replace Herrera, and he would still be in the United job.

Instead he went with Bruno, and tried playing him alongside Pogba which created an imbalance. Once he signed Ronaldo, the emabalance was even bigger and that ended up costing him his job.
Click to expand...

Yeah 100% agree. Actually winning it is a different matter given Pep but we could've been a lot closer than we were.

It's tempting to view the post Fergie period as one bland period full of mediocrity but I don't think that's true. We were on track / off track, invest one window drop investing as soon as we reach cl level or invest, do well and invest in the wrong areas afterwards. Extremely frustrating rollercoaster. It's a whole essay to write about peaks we hit and the errors that followed.

For me, when a guy like Rangnick says the squad needs open heart surgery, it's not that we signed bad individuals or that the whole team is crap but lots of square pegs, round holes, 180 degree changes in philosophy, no consideration to the age profile and plans for the squad peaking at the right time etc.
 
Rio and Rooney would be 2 that I would say that I had no doubt’s about. That was pre Ravel Morrison though and when I still had blind faith or maybe gut instinct.

Since then only Sancho had me that level of generational talent but that’s so far proven false.

As for the big foreign signings who I used to see as exotic, then Veron should have been the man. Also we should have got Blanc in the mid 90s.
 
bosnian_red said:
You're just selectively picking guys out in hindsight though. So many of these signings flop. Di Maria was one for us, Sanchez another, Sancho, Varane, Ronaldo, Casemiro, Ibra, Pogba, schweinsteiger more.. Mata you said, but he was a #10 we signed to play out of position and did ok at best, far from a guaranteed success before and the outcome...
Click to expand...
The fact that they mentioned Mata shows that they aren’t selectivity picking with the benefit of hindsight
 
Luke Shaw
Only 17 and was already in a Premier League team of the year.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.