I wouldn't exactly call overpaying for a striker that's banned for 4 months smart business. Nor is paying 50m quid for a guy from the Austrian league. Also when you compare the sure bets and the risks we took on players with massive potential, guys like Varane and Casemiro are infinitely more important to this team than Martial, Sancho, Antony have shown to be, who we gambled big on because of age and future.
If we want talented young players get them straight from the source or even our own academy, not from an Atalanta, Ajax, Monaco, Dortmund etc.
Hojlund, Sesko, Toney are still going to cost us a fortune anyways. I'm not saying we should pay the 100m Spurs want, but those other options look worse to me.
Nobody advised to "overpay". Thats the thing here. Bring in good value for good money. Look out so you don't get fleeced again. The chances of that are there with Kane. As good as he is.
Kane has just scored 30 goals for a Spurs team with no creativity whatsoever. We have the most productive number 10 in terms of chance creation in the league and Eriksen, with whom he had a great relationship in the past.
You also seem to be more or less writing off the next three seasons. Don’t we want to compete before Casemiro, Varane, Eriksen and Bruno are also too old and need replacing?
FFS. Football isn't a card game where you put one card into another deck and then they perform without anything.
And to your question: Of course we want to compete. People look at fecking Brighton. Look at Newcastle. Those teams have been "competing" well in the last one or two years. And thats without going crazy on the market. What you are suggesting is doubling down on problematic decisions - nobody forced us to bring in Casemiro or Varane. There is already the need to bring in deputies for them right now. Because we have Lindelof and ... nobody to replace Casemiro. We won't be able to do that because next season, you will scream for Costa or Maignan for 70 million and the season after for Frimpong for 60.
I'll say it again - nobody is against paying big money. But you have to have a plan. And going big on 30yo striker in the hope that he might help us limp over a line next season (of course only if other teams slip up) doesn't sound like a particularly good plan to me.
I don't think you can really spend 120-130 million on a player if you're not confident he can play at the EPL level. And I don't like the idea of putting all our eggs in one basket as far as strikers go.
The thing about Kane is that we all already know he's going to produce, and his production won't fall off as much as it does for strikers who rely on speed. I'd much rather we spend the 80 million on Kane and then sign a young striker or two in the hopes that they'll eventually take over once Kane ages out.
I wouldn't be surprised if Kane still has 75 EPL goals in him, and given that, I'd love it if he scored them for us over the next 3-4 seasons. With a player like him, some of our losses end up being draws and some of our draws end up being wins.
Granted - nobody is advising going crazy on unproven youngsters. I just look at Alvarez who went to City for 25 million and I'm asking myself if there aren't other players around like that.
The trouble is half the forwards we are linked to who are severely below that level of quality are still being quoted at £60m too. Then the £40m you save might buy us another player but even then of what level, position and quality? For example is Rabiot on a free and Kane for £100m any worse than the combination of £100ms worth of two players you could pick out?
I’m also not sure how much Bruno, Varane, Casemiro will want to have another year of not seriously challenging for a title and our lack of goals is something that is seriously concerning. It’s not due to lack of chances but lack of finishers in my view.
Maybe this sounds stupid but I couldn't care less about what they want or not. The club should be the focus of everything. And not individual players or managers or a single season. I'd like to see ManUtd rise to the top again and I don't think, those short-term solutions will do that.
Now I’d be happy enough with most of the players were linked with because they are good and importantly fit options that could develop or could offer excellent finishing but Kane for me represents the best striker for the next 3 seasons without question. I don’t see a scenario where we sign him and he doesn’t win us more games with the goals he brings and improve us with his overall CF play.
I’m genuinely curious who you would bring in instead and for what fee you’d imagine they could be attained for?
I certainly wouldn't let me push into bad business. If it really is the case that there is not a single semi-decent striker option for a reasonable fee out there, then I'd probably try to bring in a veteran somehow and delay the decision for one year. Not like the team couldn't do with 100 million investments in other places. I am sure this is a hot take and its not a case of me being completely sure that it is a good decision but for now I don't think the football world isn't taking us very seriously. I'd rather pass and be proactive then being the fool who either stands alone when the music stops (like with Sancho) or end up with an extremely expensive player we probably didn't even planned to buy (Antony, maybe even Casemiro).
This is where the scouting department has to come in. FFS I'd take a guy on Mitrovic level from Spain or Italy to help us out if nothing better is available. But I'll give you that - Shelling out 100 million on Muani or 60 for Hojlund would be problematic to me as well (still not as problematic as Kane as with a young player, you could at least sell him to get a few bucks back).
Re: Casemiro
I look at the prospect of our current season with and without Casemiro and I’m comfortable in saying he’s been a huge success this season. We absolutely needed him to be here this season and unquestionably are worse off without him. Longevity while desirable wasn’t the major issue before he arrived. He’s bought us time to develop or find a longer term successor.
Well I agree then. He has been a success in his first season. I was talking about him being a success as a transfer and thats still to be seen.
An interesting point about the possibility of Kane cannibalizing goals that others would score, but I'm not sure of that. Under the present no circumstances let's take a look at our players who are expected to score goals.
Rashford. With respect to Rashy, your point is well taken. He might drop off 5-6 from the current 22 goals he has in all competitions this season.
Martial. Your point is not well taken.
Sancho. Nope.
Antony. Nope.
Wout. Nope.
Garnacho. It seems more likely than not that Garnacho's goal production will increase next season even with Kane.
There's not much in our attack to worry about being cannibalized.
As for speculation as to the goal tally Harry would add, I've been thinking more like 20-25 rather than 25-30. Harry is currently on 29 goals in all comps and there's no reason to believe that he'll collapse next season into a 15 goal scorer as you suggest. But what I do believe is this, that because Harry has excellent holdup play and can find a key pass in the final third that not only will he NOT cannibalize goals from Rashford, Sancho, Antony and Garnacho -- he will substantially improve their production.
Just going off the eyeball test only, but it seems pretty obvious to me that after we let go of Cavani and Ronaldo we've been playing without a striker for almost the entire season. Unless you have medical knowledge of Kane's fitness that he's about to collapse as a footballer, he would be the perfect fit for us.
That said, I have my doubts that Harry would want to join United. But if he is interested, and if we can get him for no more than the 80m that he's reasonably worth right now, we'd be daft to pass up on him...unless there really is something to the Mbappe rumors, which I doubt even more.
Good points but I'd add one point that bringing in Kane would bring the necessity to play differently or to more precise attack differently. Rashfords biggest (I hope not but maybe his only one) is running in behind the defense. Thats not Kanes game. So we probably have to be become better on the ball. Not saying it definitely isn't working but it brings its own difficulties as well.
Using the logic here we should only sign 29 year old players, you are right it's nonsense
But it was a misunderstanding. I didn't want to say that Toney is approaching his peak, he is well into it - but he's still 3 years younger than Kane who is in his prime right now (while some are seeing signs of decline). Toney is on an upward trend, not that I want to pitch him as the solution but I think, if the price is right, then at least we could get 4 years out him. With Kane I don't expect more than 2. For more money and probably bigger wages as well.
I don't think it's just a question of how many goals it's when he scores them as well, he's scored in 75% of PL games this season, if he was able to do that with us it would be transformative in the number of games we win rather than draw or even lose
The problem I have with a younger striker is that by the time whoever it is capable of scoring like Kane obviously can we'll be replacing our other best players because of age, to take advantage of Casemiro, Bruno, Varane we need a top striker now
We are starting to go in circles. I understand, some would want to take advantage of the Players in our team who are older right now. Fair enough. Don't think there is much into it but I can follow the train of thought
They’re fecking headcases. No other way around it.
There has not been a more obvious signing to blast the budget on since Ferguson packed in. Just do it. Break the bank. Ay, we need a goalkeeper, and we need a midfielder, but Kane is transformative. We go from a fairly decent side to one with one of the best out and out forwards on the planet.
Vlahovic, Oshimen, your man at Atalanta. Even if they come good then that could be two or three years. By that time Varane, Casemiro and Bruno are on the way out.
It’s been ten years since we won the title. Twenty will come around just as quick. Kane would be the single biggest factor in changing that by far.
1st: Lets not get personal, ok? We have a discussion on a football matter, I can understand people saying we have to make use of Casemiro and Varane as long as they are here and Kane might help with that. I don't think it is going to work but I can understand the notion.
2nd: Its been 10 years, you are right. But you can't watch United and think that we are just a Kane away from being the best team in the league... Our best chances (in my personal opinion) is investing in the whole team and keep working improving us on a team basis. Short term thinking is all we did in the last 10 years, continueing this forever will not miraclously change its outcome.
edit: sorry for long post, should have separated.
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