Will this mean that we will be forced to pay a massive premium for less than premium British players?
Has the transfer pool ever been this shallow....?
- Thread starter Litch
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Will this mean that we will be forced to pay a massive premium for less than premium British players?
we should take a leaf out of Chelsea's book
stockpile players and send on extended loans or leave them at their clubs to develop
they might make it at United or we will make a fortune
stockpile players and send on extended loans or leave them at their clubs to develop
they might make it at United or we will make a fortune
Possibly yeah
Agreed. Fans need to develop some patience and less moaning about players that don’t make it, you can’t get every transfer right. Also there’s no guarantee with ‘peak’ huh names either. See veron for example
That’s the way the market will go with the selling clubs knowing the predicament they can take advantage of I guess
£1m is a pretty nice house in most of the UK and as you say very raw talent can be going for 50x that with insane contracts on top.
It's depressing how far removed they are from the average public.
It'd be interesting to see how big the football tax is divided over every member of the UK.
What's the total revenue of all football teams in the UK?
It’s really not a dangerous long term move. Madrid are snapping up an incredible amount of young spanish and Brazilian talent. Their long term planning has been most definitely, un-Madrid like.
Well football is always separate from ‘reality’ but my point is that a £10m investment in the youth team or the training facilities or a new kettle to make the brews is still a massive amount of money. But £10m in the transfer market is enough to get you half of Diogo Dalot who played a grand total of 8 games for Porto.
If anything I see a lot of people saying the same thing, including me. We need to sign Dembele instead of Dortmund for example, or Salah before he goes to Liverpool. You get the idea. This is what we did so well with Ronaldo, and yes sometimes it won’t work out but it needs to be done because signing 30 year old’s for 70m is not a future I want.
They got two superstar players, Modric and Kroos, for absolute peanuts (50 MP combined) but what has been really impressive is their emaculate scouting. Varane 10 ME, Casemiro 6 ME, Asensio 3.5 ME. Just incredible deals for young players who have not only played vital roles in their success but will continue to carry them for the next few years.
Now is the second part of the scouting program, to transfer those young players from being talented partners to leaders of the team. The time has come to replace their old guard of Ronaldo, Ramos, Marcelo, Modric, Kroos and Benzema, it's upto those players (+ Kovacic and Isco) to take up their roles and continue the success brought buy their seniors.
With regards to the market right now, the World Cup added with the reduced transfer deadline has made it more difficult for premier league teams. Arsenal and Liverpool have shown great awareness of the situations and done their business quickly and can now rest easy knowing their squad is prepared for the new season. City maybe didn't require major overhauls given how they won last season, though even they quickly got one of their targets in Mahrez and failed to sign Jorginho.
United and Chelsea have been disappointing given how much change in the squad was required. United did well getting Fred and Dalot early but since then they have still left positions in the squad vacant and now the situation is looking more desperate. Chelsea, well, they couldn't get their manager situation sorted for so long so no wonder they haven't done anything with the squad yet.
Overall, I think it's just a situation of some clubs working more efficiently than others. I don't think you can relate United's struggles with other clubs in Europe because many have managed themselves well. There is a discourse between the manager and board and that has to be settled if United want to do better in the market.
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Are you saying Portuguese passport so the player can avail of the free movement of workers provisions? I understand the link between Portugal & SA however surely it’s extendable to other passports of the Union if they have one / can ascertain such.
I find this very interesting - I’ve had a quick look and the work permit seems to be granted on the basis that a player must represent his country in a certain percentage of matches in the preceding 2 years (1 year if under 21) to be granted such. The country’s FIFA ranking is also relevant.
As an example, to ascertain a work permit for Gabriel Jesus back in 2016/17 - he needed to play 30% of Brazil’s NT matches in the past 12 months but Yerry Mina (as he is older than 21 & Colombia) needed to play 45 % of Colombia’s matches in the previous 2 years to be granted a work permit. Players like Hirving Lozano are in the latter category too.
That seems to be the position but to be honest with you GB, I thought once a player had represented their country once, they were sufficient grounds for the permit. It just goes to show that transfers are a lot more complex & onerous than some think.
That’s an interesting point.
Also could explain why Madrid might be tempted to cash out on a 33 year old Modric for the right money to make way for their next younger and cheaper superstar.
It's actually the fruit of a long term plan, their team is young and talented.
Yeah, I was only echoing similar sentiments on the newbies Real Madrid thread the other day. I believe the renovation will cost €400m and from what I seen in the media - Pérez didn’t want to rename / give the Bernabéu a “surname” so that put paid to the idea of Abu Dhabi investment. I’d still expect a big move for the likes of Neymar, Mbappé next summer though and maybe Hazard / Icardi this year.
Anyway, you subsequently said it was a dangerous game to play and that I fully agree with - if they made a few key signings this summer, they would be looking at perhaps making it 4 UCL in a row and who knows when that cycle of dominance would end. As the saying goes - you strike while the iron is hot.
Indeed. Clubs have sound financials and don’t need to sell to survive. You want to keep your best players and don’t sell unless it’s silly money.
"Supposed" targets and actual targets are 2 different things though. The fact is that we've signed a 19yr old who is apparently the most promising RB in Europe, but I guess we can just ignore that and focus on the rumours about players who we'll probably never actually sign.
This would also mean years where you are not aiming to win the title. You have to give time for developing such players.
A net spend post with sincere replies and no
s. Am I still on the caf?Yeah I remember us losing out on a few back in the day because they didn’t qualify for a work permit. It’s all well and good people saying we should be milking the SA market but it’s not that simple. That’s why we had tie ups with clubs in Belgium and Portugal in the past but it didn’t really work out for whatever reason.
Re Portuguese passport I used to date a Brazilian girl and she wanted to stay in the country so perused a Portuguese link through a great grandparent or something like that. Apparently it’s quite common
And the Stadium being rebuilt. I am sure when their squad weaknesses get exposed (banking on this season without Ronny), there will be some chaotic spending soon.
There is plenty of talent out there, prices are crazy and it’s more competitive but ultimately the problem at United is we have been shocking in the transfer market.
We could have bought Maguire for half of what we paid for Lindelof a year ago, after 40 odd games for Leicester all of a sudden we were interested at 60m and Lindelof was hardly trusted all season. That kind of sums up the mess we have been in terms of transfers.
A combination to varying extent of poor scouting, planning, coaching and decision making means we can spend fortunes and get nowhere. Addressing that is what is more important than the market itself.
We could have bought Maguire for half of what we paid for Lindelof a year ago, after 40 odd games for Leicester all of a sudden we were interested at 60m and Lindelof was hardly trusted all season. That kind of sums up the mess we have been in terms of transfers.
A combination to varying extent of poor scouting, planning, coaching and decision making means we can spend fortunes and get nowhere. Addressing that is what is more important than the market itself.
The market is not shallow. Just this year Lemar, Malcom, Vinicius Junior, Keita, Goretzka, Lenglet, Martins, Caldara, Arthur, Odriozola, Torreira, Golovin have moved. These are all young players with great potential. Jose is just looking for ready made solutions, that is the problem. I don't know who signed off on Dalot transfer but I am sure it wasn't Jose. Shaqiri, Mahrez, Malcom all would have been an improvement on our right wing now. But we only wan't Willian or Bale. On top of that players like Pulisic and Bailey are available but we have zero interest.
That's the problem because that's the pressure he's under. He has to deliver. When a manager must deliver immediately they will look for ready made solutions just as City did last year when they bought Walker, Mendy and Danilo to address their weakness at FB.
We need to bring in a few ready made players so that we can then supplement them with younger, more long-term looking options. We should bring in Toby to guide and help along our younger CBs like Bailly and Lindelof as they develop.
Our RW is in poor shape because lack both an older, more developed option and a younger long-term option there. Realistically we need 2 players for that position, not just 1.
I do think Mourinho not bringing in 1 over 3 summer transfer windows in charge is a failure on his part, but I don't blame him for wanting more plug and play options like Willian and Perisic, who can play there, over the last 2 summers. In fairness to Mourinho if he'd have got Perisic last summer we'd likely look a more balaned side and perhaps we'd be more willing to throw cash at a player like Malcom, something we should have done more of anyways.
As things stand I see RW, LB as our biggest areas of concern long term. In the short term an experienced CB and a reliable RB option are others. Mourinho is to blame, but Woodward and the board have been poor over a number of years as well. I'd say that even if Jose's recruitment hasn't been perfect the level of our work in the transfer market has improved since his arrival.
It only seems shallow due to how quick we are to dismiss targets because they're not exactly who you want.
This is just market rules: seller clubs know EPL clubs have tons of money to spend, so they will naturally ask for more money, even if they ultimately sell them to another league by a lower price.
That's what we used to under Fergie. We hardly do this anymore.
This is much easier said than done, for a couple reasons.
First, a lot of these players, especially the most highly regarded ones, aren't going to want to come to a big club at ages 19-22 unless they see a pathway to regular first team football. And a club like United has a very hard time guaranteeing that, for good reason: Unless the player is exceptional, giving lots of minutes to young players learning on the job is going to hurt current-year competitiveness. This may not have been such a big deal when United was battling with one or maybe two other clubs for the title every year. But with top four not guaranteed and needing just about everything to go very, very right to win the title in any given season its now very difficult to let young players learn on the job.
Second, the clubs holding these star young players have much more capacity and willingness to hold onto the young players. They can offer wages that might be below United but still represent huge fortunes to a 20-year-old. And they have the motivation to keep players because why should they sell for 10m when this player might have a breakout season and some desperate big club could offer 60m the following summer?
It is a conundrum for big clubs. There is no easy answer.
I think the transfer pool is there but getting rid of players to make way seems to be the problem.
We still have a lot of deadwood on the pay list, that we need to get rid of first.
We still have a lot of deadwood on the pay list, that we need to get rid of first.
This is a fallacy. We've done this more under Woodward/his managers already in comparison to the large majority of the Gill/Ferguson era.
So much so that lots of people still want us to buy more superstars.
I think we are heading towards a market where free agency plays a much more important role than in the past. You used to only see a handful of players run down their contracts until the end but right now I think it will become much more common as transfer fees have become too extreme for most clubs to pay them, largely caused by mid tier teams getting more and more money through TV deals and sponsorships.
When the likes of Everton and West Ham are paying north of £30m for any half decent footballer they try to sign you cannot expect them to charge similar for their best players so it drives the prices up and up.
When the likes of Everton and West Ham are paying north of £30m for any half decent footballer they try to sign you cannot expect them to charge similar for their best players so it drives the prices up and up.
We still do that. Blind, Darmian, Bailly, Lindelof, Fred are basically all that kind of signings, the issue is these players can cost £40m now too.
Yes patience is required unless some of those young players hit the ground running.
The pressure Jose is under to challenge for the PL and CL titles is immense hence he will always look for proven players, particularly ones he has worked with before or know off. This is where fan patience is required so that an environment is created where young kids can be given chances to succeed. If fans are
always shouting about the manager or the board then they will continually try to buy their way to titles and this doesn’t work anymore with the prices reaching critical silliness levels. The board and sponsors need to buy in. Some teams need to go back to basics, us included. What style of football? What profile of players? I suppose this is where a strong DoF would come in.
Most top flight clubs in all leagues aren't struggling to make ends meet, in fact a lot of them are thriving with millionaire owners so there is no imperative to sell. Also football clubs as well as most sports clubs are now generally considered good investments. Add rising TV money to the equation and you can see why most clubs will not sell at anything less than a premium.
Only a financial crash of some sort would reverse the current trend.
Only a financial crash of some sort would reverse the current trend.
I for one still have troubles understanding that Richarlison was 50m pounds. That’s what you need to pay for a decent player who had half of a decent season if you buy from the league.
I’d love to see us take few sub 10m punts and get another two young, but not too young players like Dalot. Maybe our scouting team haven’t found anyone worth a shot, or maybe it’s Jose who’s satisfied with his youth. This I don’t know
I’d love to see us take few sub 10m punts and get another two young, but not too young players like Dalot. Maybe our scouting team haven’t found anyone worth a shot, or maybe it’s Jose who’s satisfied with his youth. This I don’t know
The transfer pool has been this shallow before yes. Back in 02 - 05 there wasn't a lot of players on the market that were considered top class. I think if you look at our transfers from that period there was a lot of mediocrity. You don't sign many Zidanes / Ronaldos. You have to hope you buy youth that realises potential. That's just where we are right now. If you look at the teams that did well at the world cup you can't say they all had a group of standout mature players. That France team surely is one of the youngest ever to win it.
Just no sense in the market.
Yeah, this is a big reason. Every club is demanding massive fees for players who are good but should in an ideal world only be going for 10-20 million max. Although we are getting into an era where it will become normal it is still not currently sustainable for football clubs to be doing that consistently and for every player they sign.
After reading some of these posts, I'm think I'm wrong. When City started buying players, I can't say I was worried cause not sure I'd have considered most of them to be world class (not in the way I look at them now anyway). None of the players they signed, we couldn't have signed either. Salah and Mane at Liverpool equally. Kante at Chelsea.
In the same way in our signings, I think you have to go back to DDG for another team to say, why didn't we go for him. Then there are signings we have made that either haven't consistently delivered (as yet) or they couldn't afford anyway. Most of our most recent signings were better at their other clubs than they have been here. Some of our competitors signings would cost more if they were sold after signing them, majority of ours would cost less. When's the last time our competitors have been linked with trying to buy our best players but it seems we are always trying to buy theirs? Generally excepted that Martial is available, our brightest talent but we can't get his value but if Sane became available, there would be a queue (with us in it)....
The pools not shallow if you are patient and know how to use the right bait.....
In the same way in our signings, I think you have to go back to DDG for another team to say, why didn't we go for him. Then there are signings we have made that either haven't consistently delivered (as yet) or they couldn't afford anyway. Most of our most recent signings were better at their other clubs than they have been here. Some of our competitors signings would cost more if they were sold after signing them, majority of ours would cost less. When's the last time our competitors have been linked with trying to buy our best players but it seems we are always trying to buy theirs? Generally excepted that Martial is available, our brightest talent but we can't get his value but if Sane became available, there would be a queue (with us in it)....
The pools not shallow if you are patient and know how to use the right bait.....
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Pogba?