Has there ever been a summer big enough for what we need?

[Skills]

What a terrible post but then looking at most of your posts, not a surprise.

A bit rich coming from someone who's takes on football in the last year have been about as accurate as a dog that can type.

 

[Skills]

Anyways, my point about the LB is about prioritisation. We have 2 senior LBs - we've just been unlucky this season, that they've been both been unfit. Our 3rd choice back up (Dalot) has also been needed at RB because AWB has been unfit.

This won't happen next season, and you'll have £20m+ asset sitting on your bench while you needed to use that money to strengthen elsewhere.

If Shaw can't stay fit next season, we need a first team LB the summer after. That'll be a need. If we sort out the mess elsewhere this summer, upgrading Malacia is then a decent luxury to have.

A need is a CM. We need one because the options we have aren't good enough, or functional enough. We probably need another one too as Casemiro realistically needs to be moved on.

Placing a LB in the same sort of category of priorities (i.e. need) is silly.

 

[didz]

Anyways, my point about the LB is about prioritisation. We have 2 senior LBs - we've just been unlucky this season, that they've been both been unfit. Our 3rd choice back up (Dalot) has also been needed at RB because AWB has been unfit.

This won't happen next season, and you'll have £20m+ asset sitting on your bench while you needed to use that money to strengthen elsewhere.

If Shaw can't stay fit next season, we need a first team LB the summer after. That'll be a need. If we sort out the mess elsewhere this summer, upgrading Malacia is then a decent luxury to have.

A need is a CM. We need one because the options we have aren't good enough, or functional enough. We probably need another one too as Casemiro realistically needs to be moved on.

Placing a LB in the same sort of category of priorities (i.e. need) is silly.

It does, however, seem to be exactly what the club are doing. Given that they want one regardless of what happens with Malacia, I wonder if Shaw might be spending more time at centre back in future.

That would sort of make sense in this market, as it would be a lot more expensive to get a good left sided centre back than it would be to get a fullback in, and in theory playing Shaw in a position with less running up and down might curtail his constant injury problems somewhat.

The point you make about us being unfortunate with both our LBs being unavailable could probably be applied to CM, by the way. Mount has run off with Kate Middleton and Mainoo only got back from injury halfway through the season. Casemiro was also injured for a good while and hasn't really got going when he has been fit. If those three are all available along with Bruno, then I don't know where you see a new midfielder fitting in - that's without considering Eriksen or McTominay. I do agree that we'd need one if we move Cas on, but I'm not sure I see that happening.

 

[AFC NimbleThumb]

Anyways, my point about the LB is about prioritisation. We have 2 senior LBs - we've just been unlucky this season, that they've been both been unfit. Our 3rd choice back up (Dalot) has also been needed at RB because AWB has been unfit.

This won't happen next season, and you'll have £20m+ asset sitting on your bench while you needed to use that money to strengthen elsewhere.

If Shaw can't stay fit next season, we need a first team LB the summer after. That'll be a need. If we sort out the mess elsewhere this summer, upgrading Malacia is then a decent luxury to have.

A need is a CM. We need one because the options we have aren't good enough, or functional enough. We probably need another one too as Casemiro realistically needs to be moved on.

Placing a LB in the same sort of category of priorities (i.e. need) is silly.

When one of those LBs is Luke Shaw, a lack of fitness is not ‘bad luck’ it’s to be expected.

We need better players all over the pitch. If a good prospect at LB is available this Summer you don’t not pursue them because of Luke fecking Shaw.

Yes, we need midfielders but we need to stop going into windows with a ‘we must get an X position’ strategy. That’s the crap that saw us sign Maguire because we ‘had to sign a centre back’ or Antony because ‘we needed a right forward’.

Ineos will hopefully be more fluid & recruitment won’t simply be paint by numbers.

LB is as urgent a need as any.

 

[Insanity]

Aren't we jumping the shark a bit with "all these great appointments and moves INEOS have made" stuff? Who have they hired so far besides that Berrada guy, who is still on gardening leave, as CEO? Besides paper talk, have there been any other appointment or moves they have made? Berrada and dropping the ball on ETH while we still had chance to get something out of the season is all I know so far.

On the OP, I don't think we are going to have a huge summer. Neither should we, imo. I hope INEOS and the new management team see this as a 2-3 year project where they work on first, getting rid of some of our mediocrity and second, recruiting young ad hungry players who can form the basis of our success for the next 5-7 years.

 

[Roboc7]

It’s going to take at least three years to sort the squad out. When you then start looking at who in the current squad is good enough, durable enough and would still be a decent age in 3 years time it’s very slim pickings.

Outside of Onana, Dalot, Marrtinez, Mainoo, Mount, Garnacho, Højlund and Rashford, And that’s being optimistic on few of those, I don’t see many others. There are a lot who we know aren’t good enough or who will be 32-34 years of age and/or who already struggle to stay fit for 30 league games a season.

One window is nowhere near enough and have to be realistic about how many can come in and how many can leave. But the volume of players who are bought and sold needs to increase because the problems with the squad aren’t being solved by the players already here. Maybe you get a couple from academy or someone like Amad turns it around but there is a shit load to do.

 

[Fletchageddon]

INEOS/Brailsford don't muck about but they do muck up in the early stages. So I say they will clear out ALL the deadwood and bring in ALL the positions we need however half or most of them will end up not working out. They will then correct this over the next two windows. They did this with Team Sky in cycling and Nice. Came in all Billy Big Balls and then had to take their oil.

They are ambitious though so if we need 10 players they will bring in 10 players. These guys are clever, used to winning and having the best of everything, United will be no different.

 

[Woziak]

It’s going to take at least three years to sort the squad out. When you then start looking at who in the current squad is good enough, durable enough and would still be a decent age in 3 years time it’s very slim pickings.

Outside of Onana, Dalot, Marrtinez, Mainoo, Mount, Garnacho, Højlund and Rashford, And that’s being optimistic on few of those, I don’t see many others. There are a lot who we know aren’t good enough or who will be 32-34 years of age and/or who already struggle to stay fit for 30 league games a season.

One window is nowhere near enough and have to be realistic about how many can come in and how many can leave. But the volume of players who are bought and sold needs to increase because the problems with the squad aren’t being solved by the players already here. Maybe you get a couple from academy or someone like Amad turns it around but there is a shit load to do.

I hear what you’re saying however I think it can be done in two phases

Totally agree on the players we should keep with the additions of AWB whose 25 and Scott McTominay whose 26 remember we need a 25-27 man squad we simply can’t get rid of 17-18 players, even in two windows. As much as I’m annoyed by a 29 year old Bruno this season, he’s clearly playing with a serious injury and needs a rest. We should take captaincy off of him and make him a squad player for one more season who has to earn his place back.

We can’t do everything this summer and it’s impossible that all of those players have seriously declined from a season they finished 3rd and reached two domestic cup finals. We need to approach this is two phases.

Phase One - Summer 24/Winter 25
We need to remove the easy and obvious squad players like ; DVB, M Greenwood, V Lindelof, Hanibal, F Pellistri, Amad, A Martial. These players contracts are either terminating or they are on relatively low wages and therefore easy to sell, you could add Varane and AWB but we should try and keep both for at least one more season. Only Saudi will pay R Varane £500-600k per week, no one else will give him £250k so if we can renew for £200-250k per week it’s a no brainer. We might add A Fernandez but we should have kept him but I think his loan is an obligation to buy. We might get £75-85m for all of those but would free up at least £750k per week if we could resign Varane on a 2 year new deal.

Now for the more difficult players to sell or loan from the club this summer; H Maguire, Antony, J Sancho, Casemiro, Eriksen. All of these players are on 200k+ per week and are not moving unless someone matches their salary. The club is still using John Murtough and Matt Hargreaves to try and complete transfers as Omar Berada, Dan Ashworth and J Wilcox are currently not working at the club and may not start to June/July at the earliest, there’s simply far too much to do and fans want Bruno, L Shaw and Rashford sold this summer too, it’s not possible. Harry Maguire will only go if an Italian or Spanish team offer him 200k per week and a 4 year contract plus pay the club £30m, it’s not going to happen. I think we will sell J Sancho for maybe £35m to Juventus or Barcelona, Antony will go out on loan maybe back to Ajax and Casemiro will be sold if a Saudi bid of 30-40m comes in which is highly likely. No one is paying a £10m transfer fee and £170-200k per week for Eriksen whose legs have gone, he’ll see it out the final year of his contract.

Summer Players in ;
The squad will hopefully look something like this after September 1
GK- A Onana, A Bayinder, T Heaton(HG)
Defenders - D Dalot, AWB(HG), R Varane, H Maguire(HG), J Branthwaite*(HG), L Shaw, T Mallacia(Sold in Winter), L Shaw(HG), M Gutierrez* , W Kambwala(HG), L Martinez, J Evans?
Midfielders - K Mainoo(HG), A Onana*,
S Mctominay(HG), Bruno, C Eriksen, M Mount(HG), J Neves*
Attackers - M Rasford(HG), A Garnaucho(HG), R Hojlund, *M Olise(HG), I Subiabre*/S Lacey(HG), J Zirkzee *

Phase one would be completed with the club getting rid of T Mallacia after he regains fitness and C Eriksen in the January window then buying another BTB midfielder like E Palicious, Y FoffanaK Thurham if he regains his form, let’s put this into perspective this would be an incredible summer and highly unlikely to happen.

To complete phase one would mean selling or loaning 10-11 players, recouping a value of £140-160m and then adding another £200m to bring in 7 players. This is the bare minimum to get the squad competing for CL football again.

Phase Two would be dependent on phase one because by Summer 2025 you would need to cash in on Maguire/Varane/Bruno and maybe rashford hoping that a group of absolute elite players aged 23-26 are available and able to elevate a CL qualifying squad to a CL/PL wining squad?
This is where you would have to buy best in class in Summer of 2025 like F Witz, D Costa(if Onana slides), A Silva, Vincinius Junior, E Ferguson. This squad would compete for a PL.

I’m not convinced by Everton’s Onana and would prefer Fofana who would be 1/2 the price too but he’s not PL proven?

 

[Scandi Red]

Global warming will fix this.

 

[bosnian_red]

People definitely need to ease expectations. There's a very real chance Ashworth isn't in until 2025. Which means that we don't invest tons of money to do major squad changes and instead focus on "preparing" the club, fixing our finances, setting up a lot behind the scenes, fixing our age profile a bit, and go for safer signings (or our transfer strategy doesn't change for a year). If they feel there's no obvious managerial candidate as well, and Ten Hag and his staff is costly to replace, plus some doubts on if they should give him another year .. well that could further just be reason for delaying the true kickstart of the project.

There's a lot to rebuild, on and off the pitch. Not everyone who you go for can even come in to their roles in time for next season let alone this transfer window. It's unrealistic to expect major changes will happen before the planned main people who would be charge of these decisions aren't allowed to start working yet.

 

[AshRK]

People definitely need to ease expectations. There's a very real chance Ashworth isn't in until 2025. Which means that we don't invest tons of money to do major squad changes and instead focus on "preparing" the club, fixing our finances, setting up a lot behind the scenes, fixing our age profile a bit, and go for safer signings (or our transfer strategy doesn't change for a year). If they feel there's no obvious managerial candidate as well, and Ten Hag and his staff is costly to replace, plus some doubts on if they should give him another year .. well that could further just be reason for delaying the true kickstart of the project.

There's a lot to rebuild, on and off the pitch. Not everyone who you go for can even come in to their roles in time for next season let alone this transfer window. It's unrealistic to expect major changes will happen before the planned main people who would be charge of these decisions aren't allowed to start working yet.

Good sensible post. Although I do think we need decent revamp of our squad irrespective of the squad but I just do not see this summer being the answer for everything.

Having said that we defenitely need a CB, a CM and a back up striker. These are bare minimum.

 

[Roboc7]

I hear what you’re saying however I think it can be done in two phases

Totally agree on the players we should keep with the additions of AWB whose 25 and Scott McTominay whose 26 remember we need a 25-27 man squad we simply can’t get rid of 17-18 players, even in two windows. As much as I’m annoyed by a 29 year old Bruno this season, he’s clearly playing with a serious injury and needs a rest. We should take captaincy off of him and make him a squad player for one more season who has to earn his place back.

We can’t do everything this summer and it’s impossible that all of those players have seriously declined from a season they finished 3rd and reached two domestic cup finals. We need to approach this is two phases.

Phase One - Summer 24/Winter 25
We need to remove the easy and obvious squad players like ; DVB, M Greenwood, V Lindelof, Hanibal, F Pellistri, Amad, A Martial. These players contracts are either terminating or they are on relatively low wages and therefore easy to sell, you could add Varane and AWB but we should try and keep both for at least one more season. Only Saudi will pay R Varane £500-600k per week, no one else will give him £250k so if we can renew for £200-250k per week it’s a no brainer. We might add A Fernandez but we should have kept him but I think his loan is an obligation to buy. We might get £75-85m for all of those but would free up at least £750k per week if we could resign Varane on a 2 year new deal.

Now for the more difficult players to sell or loan from the club this summer; H Maguire, Antony, J Sancho, Casemiro, Eriksen. All of these players are on 200k+ per week and are not moving unless someone matches their salary. The club is still using John Murtough and Matt Hargreaves to try and complete transfers as Omar Berada, Dan Ashworth and J Wilcox are currently not working at the club and may not start to June/July at the earliest, there’s simply far too much to do and fans want Bruno, L Shaw and Rashford sold this summer too, it’s not possible. Harry Maguire will only go if an Italian or Spanish team offer him 200k per week and a 4 year contract plus pay the club £30m, it’s not going to happen. I think we will sell J Sancho for maybe £35m to Juventus or Barcelona, Antony will go out on loan maybe back to Ajax and Casemiro will be sold if a Saudi bid of 30-40m comes in which is highly likely. No one is paying a £10m transfer fee and £170-200k per week for Eriksen whose legs have gone, he’ll see it out the final year of his contract.

Summer Players in ;
The squad will hopefully look something like this after September 1
GK- A Onana, A Bayinder, T Heaton(HG)
Defenders - D Dalot, AWB(HG), R Varane, H Maguire(HG), J Branthwaite*(HG), L Shaw, T Mallacia(Sold in Winter), L Shaw(HG), M Gutierrez* , W Kambwala(HG), L Martinez, J Evans?
Midfielders - K Mainoo(HG), A Onana*,
S Mctominay(HG), Bruno, C Eriksen, M Mount(HG), J Neves*
Attackers - M Rasford(HG), A Garnaucho(HG), R Hojlund, *M Olise(HG), I Subiabre*/S Lacey(HG), J Zirkzee *

Phase one would be completed with the club getting rid of T Mallacia after he regains fitness and C Eriksen in the January window then buying another BTB midfielder like K Thurham if he regains his form. lets put this into perspective this would be an incredible summer and highly unlikely to happen.

To complete phase one would mean selling or loaning 10-11 players, recouping a value of £140-160m and then adding another £200m to bring in 7 players. This is the bare minimum to get the squad competing for CL football again.

Phase two would be dependent on phase one because by Summer 2025 you would need to cash in on Maguire/Varane/Bruno and maybe rashford hoping that a group of absolute elite players aged 23-25 are available and able to elevate a CL qualifying squad to a CL/PL wining squad?

AWB is on about 90k a week, if you renew his contract he becomes unsellable and he’s not good enough and just becomes a comfortable overpaid backup. Same for Mctominay he’s 27, you probably have to pay him 100k a week to keep him and then he’s unsellable as well. These guys have to go over next couple of windows and ideally bring in a profit.

I hope you are right and it can be done quickly but I can’t see it happening that quickly. Offloading players is going to be a huge issue. There’s little incentive for teams to sign likes of Sancho, DVB etc when they can just take them on loans. Loads of players will want pay offs to leave, some you can sell you’ll have to maybe keep and run their contracts down just to maintain a squad.

All that will hinder who you can bring and how quickly, and the full capability of the new staff won’t be up and running until next summer so this is likely to take 3 years or more.

 

[Woziak]

AWB is on about 90k a week, if you renew his contract he becomes unsellable and he’s not good enough and just becomes a comfortable overpaid backup. Same for Mctominay he’s 27, you probably have to pay him 100k a week to keep him and then he’s unsellable as well. These guys have to go over next couple of windows and ideally bring in a profit.

I hope you are right and it can be done quickly but I can’t see it happening that quickly. Offloading players is going to be a huge issue. There’s little incentive for teams to sign likes of Sancho, DVB etc when they can just take them on loans. Loads of players will want pay offs to leave, some you can sell you’ll have to maybe keep and run their contracts down just to maintain a squad.

All that will hinder who you can bring and how quickly, and the full capability of the new staff won’t be up and running until next summer so this is likely to take 3 years or more.

I’m not disagreeing with you but I think AWB is our K Walker, he’s not great offensively but he’s a cheat code defensively, don’t really want to get rid of a player like that when you can still buy Frimpong play him in a 4312 formation and have Dalot whose just as good on the left as the right. We need 5 full backs, modern football is so intensive and you will always have injuries, it’s only going to get worse in the next few years.
The CL/EL have just added 2 extra games, now in January so the winter break is reduced, next year teams like City will play 70 games due to the club World Cup, they will simply increase their squad from 25/26 to 28/29 to cope with this, more subs will soon be 6/7 per game in Phases and the PL will soon let you name 12 man benches like the CL. Just look at the bench United had against Everton, it was an embarrassment to this great club and needs sorting out asap, either a new medical team are brought in or more players on lower wages.

Scott McTominay loves the club so much he’s signing for 75k per week he’s not a problem, he’s just not good enough to start but as a squad player he’s more than capable, united fans slagged off Fred and now we wish we had him back, why ?
Because he has what we currently lack legs and the ability to run all game!

I have a feeling thar Sir Jim’s recent interview where he said “Carrington” wasnt so bad after initially injecting £257m cash into the club to build a new training ground, he may start to move some of that money into a transfer kitty for this summer.

 

[bosnian_red]

Good sensible post. Although I do think we need decent revamp of our squad irrespective of the squad but I just do not see this summer being the answer for everything.

Having said that we defenitely need a CB, a CM and a back up striker. These are bare minimum.

We'll definitely do a midfielder and a center back. Both of those positions have multiple players in their 30's, injury prone players, players likely leaving. Probably we'll sign a mid 20's right center back and replace 1 of Maguire, Lindelof or Varane, and keep the other 2 for next season. And in midfield, depends on if Casemiro and Eriksen leave or just one of them. Mctominay will almost certainly stay, and our midfield group will likely be Mainoo, Mount, Bruno, McTominay with a new ball winning midfielder if Casemiro leaves. Backup striker yeah, but also I have no clue who. It'll be someone for cheap, probably someone older and physical to just rotate Hojlund occasionally. Nothing major, but its still a big help.

Put all that together and when you consider who will likely stay, and you've got a squad of...

Onana, Altay

Dalot, Wan Bissaka
New RCB, Maguire, Kambwala
Martinez, Lindelof, Evans
Shaw, Malacia

New physical mid, McTominay
Mainoo, Mount
Bruno

Garnacho, Antony
Rashford, ???
Hojlund, new backup CF

There's talk of a new LB, but I'm skeptical given it's a freak situation this season and depends on pre season fitness of Malacia and Shaw IMO. We'll probably get a new winger like Olise (personally not a fan but my guess), just because we have a clear gap of needing one more in the rotation. But Antony isn't going anywhere for now, nobody will pay what would be asked. A backup CF I genuinely have no clue who we'd go for, we won't have a lot of money for that and the actual long term pieces should be the DM and the CB. Wan Bissaka and McTominay aren't going anywhere, ideally we'd replace 2 CB's but only 1 of the 3 will likely leave... Basically we'll do the bare minimum I think in terms of replacing players probably leaving, still some improvement but mostly what they deem as safe signings before we get Ashworth in.

 

[Scanny]

Trying to fix all our immediate problems every summer is why we are in a perennial mess in the first place. We need to think long term instead of patching up problems.

Completely agree. If fans think the team will be fixed in one transfer window this summer there is going to be a lot of disappointment.

 

[MikeUpNorth]

We'll definitely do a midfielder and a center back. Both of those positions have multiple players in their 30's, injury prone players, players likely leaving. Probably we'll sign a mid 20's right center back and replace 1 of Maguire, Lindelof or Varane, and keep the other 2 for next season. And in midfield, depends on if Casemiro and Eriksen leave or just one of them. Mctominay will almost certainly stay, and our midfield group will likely be Mainoo, Mount, Bruno, McTominay with a new ball winning midfielder if Casemiro leaves. Backup striker yeah, but also I have no clue who. It'll be someone for cheap, probably someone older and physical to just rotate Hojlund occasionally. Nothing major, but its still a big help.

Put all that together and when you consider who will likely stay, and you've got a squad of...

Onana, Altay

Dalot, Wan Bissaka
New RCB, Maguire, Kambwala
Martinez, Lindelof, Evans
Shaw, Malacia

New physical mid, McTominay
Mainoo, Mount
Bruno

Garnacho, Antony
Rashford, ???
Hojlund, new backup CF

There's talk of a new LB, but I'm skeptical given it's a freak situation this season and depends on pre season fitness of Malacia and Shaw IMO. We'll probably get a new winger like Olise (personally not a fan but my guess), just because we have a clear gap of needing one more in the rotation. But Antony isn't going anywhere for now, nobody will pay what would be asked. A backup CF I genuinely have no clue who we'd go for, we won't have a lot of money for that and the actual long term pieces should be the DM and the CB. Wan Bissaka and McTominay aren't going anywhere, ideally we'd replace 2 CB's but only 1 of the 3 will likely leave... Basically we'll do the bare minimum I think in terms of replacing players probably leaving, still some improvement but mostly what they deem as safe signings before we get Ashworth in.

Yep, this is basically what I expect too.

 

[tomaldinho1]

City's summer the season Pep finished 3rd is the biggest we'll ever see in my opinion. 6 first team players + others. An entire back 5: Ederson, Walker, Laporte, Danilo, Mendy along with B Silva for good measure + Douglas Luiz, a suspiciously low fee for Harrison from one of their CFG clubs in the US and some other lesser knowns. Transfermarkt lists that as a £270m window which is aggressive in 17/18 without even factoring in the 115 charges allegations have that season as one of the big question marks.

The reality of what a normal rich club can do is buy 1-2 big names a year. Add on 1-2 squad/decent players. if Ineos can change how we do transfers, there is scope for higher volume if you go for the younger names outside of the PL or within a year of their contract ending. Winning things takes a bit of time but squad building doesn't have to, we can get to a good place very quickly in my opinion with a bit of shrewdness and common sense.

 

[Roboc7]

I’m not disagreeing with you but I think AWB is our K Walker, he’s not great offensively but he’s a cheat code defensively, don’t really want to get rid of a player like that when you can still buy Frimpong play him in a 4312 formation and have Dalot whose just as good on the left as the right. We need 5 full backs, modern football is so intensive and you will always have injuries, it’s only going to get worse in the next few years.
The CL/EL have just added 2 extra games, now in January so the winter break is reduced, next year teams like City will play 70 games due to the club World Cup, they will simply increase their squad from 25/26 to 28/29 to cope with this, more subs will soon be 6/7 per game in Phases and the PL will soon let you name 12 man benches like the CL. Just look at the bench United had against Everton, it was an embarrassment to this great club and needs sorting out asap, either a new medical team are brought in or more players on lower wages.

Scott McTominay loves the club so much he’s signing for 75k per week he’s not a problem, he’s just not good enough to start but as a squad player he’s more than capable, united fans slagged off Fred and now we wish we had him back, why ?
Because he has what we currently lack legs and the ability to run all game!

I have a feeling thar Sir Jim’s recent interview where he said “Carrington” wasnt so bad after initially injecting £257m cash into the club to build a new training ground, he may start to move some of that money into a transfer kitty for this summer.

I don’t think Mctominay is a capable squad player and even if he was was he’s pretty much the most profitable player to sell. 30m pure profit, virtually nobody else we want to sell generates any profit let alone that kind of money. This is the peak time to sell him, to fund a squad rebuild the money has to come from somewhere and clinging on to these average players on big money to bulk up the squad is counter productive.

The time to sell AWB is now as well, if not he leaves for nothing next summer, the way the financial regulations are changing you can’t carry overpaid squad players you can’t sell. We can’t afford to buy Frimpong and be paying big wages to two other right backs. Unless some of these players are willing to take pay cuts there’s just no way their contracts can be renewed especially as INEOs are desperate to cut costs and streamline.

 

[tenpoless]

One summer cant fix a decade of bad transfers. That is without mentioning how inflated players prices are nowadays.

 

[NoPace]

If we can find a few buys like Varela for Porto (11M) then yeah, in theory could plug the main 6 holes (ST, Winger, CM, DM, left-sided defender, RCB) and just hope Dalot never misses a game.

 

[CannonBalls]

Fully agree. Just like Arsenal this coming summer probably needs a RW to compete with Saka, a CM to replace Partey if he leaves, and a goalie to replace Ramsdale if he moves on as well. It is a constant cycle.

We ourselves still need 6 positions ideally to compete with the best squads

CM (6/8 - Partey replacement)
Winger (Nelson replacement)
GK (Ramsdale replacement)

ST (upgrade on Havertz/Jesus)
LB (upgrade on Zinchenco/Kiwior)
CCB (Gabriel/Saliba backup)

 

[jesperjaap]

We have 3 big problems for next summer

A- it's already March and we are still working with pretty much last year's staff

B- FFP

C- our summer is dependent on players actually accepting to leave the club. That's a problem as most of them are on silly salaries

Regarding option c, also clubs wanting to buy them and pay fees and salaries .

As for the original post, in one window it is a lot, especially in one window and we havent got close despite needing to for several seasons but Klopp over his first calendar season surebought loads, Mourinho too at Chelsea and Guadiola had two huge firstsummers in terms of turnover.

I think the key thing is they arent all needed to be big first team starters....rcb, dm should be....also, for me allthe lb is weird, injured yes but we have one of the best lb in the world....neither of our rb are first teamers and had lots of time, one should go and an attaking rb a priority over lb for me. Other positions I think we can look at cm, wing, striker but they dont need to be big buys.

I think where we fail in thesummer isatually selling though. Probably seeing the likes of RAshford and evenFernandes starting all the time....neither are title winning players, we wont sell bigger players we should be. OPnion only but take them out and sign players like Foden, Palmer obviously using as examples not genuine targets) and we would improve....Bet slaughtered but take outFernandes andout in a genuine attaiable player like Eze.....make a profit, we would be abetter side, same withRashford for a newproper talent....that should be two of our big transfers for me.....and we could make profit from it too

 

[NoPace]

We ourselves still need 6 positions ideally to compete with the best squads

CM (6/8 - Partey replacement)
Winger (Nelson replacement)
GK (Ramsdale replacement)

ST (upgrade on Havertz/Jesus)
LB (upgrade on Zinchenco/Kiwior)
CCB (Gabriel/Saliba backup)

Difference is you can probably sell Nketiah, Nelson and Ramsdale for 70M combined to mid-table sides and that pays for your striker.

Backup keeper won't cost a ton, so basically just paying for a Partey/Jorginho replacement and an LB. I don't think you need a CB with Gabriel, Saliba, Tomiyasu, Kiwior and White as options since Timber will presumably get games at RB and White can play RCB.

So a pretty normal 120M type summer if the midfielder costs 60M, the LB costs 30M and you spend another 30M on a top young player position irrelevant.

 

[NWRed]

Things are nowhere near as bad as some make out. 90% of our issues, both defensively and offensively, are due to the absences of Shaw and Martinez and deterioration of Casemiro, therefore we need:

2 midfielders, a replacement for Casemiro and a backup for the replacement
a way to keep Martinez and Shaw fit
a suitable backup for Shaw

Surplus to requirements (without replacement):
Martial, Sancho, Mejbri, Pellistri, Williams, Greenwood, van de Beek

There are others who I would allow to leave if suitable offers came in and replacements found but they aren't likely to happen.

 

[Bondi77]

Holiday in a Spanish resort always used to do me!

 

[Marwood]

Things are nowhere near as bad as some make out. 90% of our issues, both defensively and offensively, are due to the absences of Shaw and Martinez and deterioration of Casemiro, therefore we need:

2 midfielders, a replacement for Casemiro and a backup for the replacement
a way to keep Martinez and Shaw fit
a suitable backup for Shaw

Surplus to requirements (without replacement):
Martial, Sancho, Mejbri, Pellistri, Williams, Greenwood, van de Beek

There are others who I would allow to leave if suitable offers came in and replacements found but they aren't likely to happen.

I think thats optimistic.

The front four haven't functioned properly for two seasons. Something needs to be done about that beyond hoping the defensive players can fix it.

 

[matt10000]

FFP may well reduce the price of players.

 

[NWRed]

I think thats optimistic.

The front four haven't functioned properly for two seasons. Something needs to be done about that beyond hoping the defensive players can fix it.

Garnacho and Hojlund are good and getting better, Fernandes just needs a rest sometimes and McTominay is a great option. Amad deserves a chance to get some game time too.

Rashford and Antony are major concerns but unless PSG come in for Rashford he's going nowhere and Antony is here for at least one more season too so I don't see what can be done there.

 

[VeevaVee]

McT is fine as backup. We ‘just’ need to get to a point where backup quality aren’t playing so many games. We also need more interchangeable quality too though. We’re a long way from having a great first team, with excellent options and decent backup.

 

[Roboc7]

Things are nowhere near as bad as some make out. 90% of our issues, both defensively and offensively, are due to the absences of Shaw and Martinez and deterioration of Casemiro, therefore we need:

2 midfielders, a replacement for Casemiro and a backup for the replacement
a way to keep Martinez and Shaw fit
a suitable backup for Shaw

Surplus to requirements (without replacement):
Martial, Sancho, Mejbri, Pellistri, Williams, Greenwood, van de Beek

There are others who I would allow to leave if suitable offers came in and replacements found but they aren't likely to happen.

The squad is a shit show and won’t be fixed by signing a few players, year after year people convince themselves we only need 2-3 players or that there are good foundations etc. In reality the squad needs to be gutted and the vast majority of the players gone over next 2-3 years just like Liverpool and Arsenal did. That is strategy we should have adopted a long time ago and until we do we’ve got no chance.

 

[Woziak]

Well you could say we’ve extended the summer to British Summer time start date

April-May
Ineos Planning stage, John Murtough Sabotage stage, Quick players sales before May 30th;
Potentially - B Williams, F Pellistri, M Greenwood, A Fernandez, Hanibal, DVB

Released Players - R Varane, A Martial, S Amrabat, S Horetire,

June-July
Here the issue Euros start middle of the month so must try and get 2 big incoming transfers done in the first week, this will show us how efficient Ineos will be with transfer. The key question of whether the Manager continues or new manager comes in will also be confirmed maybe as early as late May.

August-Mid September
Omar and Jason Wilcox will have to be working 24/7 to probably still and try and sell 80% of the earlier list and recruit at least 5 or 6 players to improve the team on top of the 1 or 2 completed before the Euros.
Dan Asworth turns up 1st September and has 1 to 1 with Eric or new coach saying that he’s being reviewed again after the first 10 games!

 

[UnrelatedPsuedo]

INEOS/Brailsford don't muck about but they do muck up in the early stages. So I say they will clear out ALL the deadwood and bring in ALL the positions we need however half or most of them will end up not working out. They will then correct this over the next two windows. They did this with Team Sky in cycling and Nice. Came in all Billy Big Balls and then had to take their oil.

They are ambitious though so if we need 10 players they will bring in 10 players. These guys are clever, used to winning and having the best of everything, United will be no different.

Ineos just sponsor a cycling team. That’s it. They have nothing to do with running it. Brailsford yes of course, but he’s not full time at United anyway.

 

[devilish]

McT is fine as backup. We ‘just’ need to get to a point where backup quality aren’t playing so many games. We also need more interchangeable quality too though. We’re a long way from having a great first team, with excellent options and decent backup.

In which position exactly? He can't play as DM as he lacks the positioning, the workrate and the anticipation to do that job. He lacks the technique and the work rate as a B2B player. He can play as no 10 in a very direct side. But we have better options in that role and quite frankly we are already well stocked in that position. We can't keep on playing a 'throwing the kitchen sink' tactic anymore

 

[Lee565]

I thought in eth first summer he had the kitty available and free reign to sell players but he squandered it with paying way over the odds for most players and ignoring ragnick advice as to selling players on asap

 

[OverratedOpinion]

Rome wasn't built in a day.

Trying to fix our entire squad in one summer would more than likely set us back further.

 

[Insanity]

We have needed a "big summer" every summer for the last XI years. Even that "Title winning team" was on it's last legs and needed a big summer, especially since our miracle worker retired. However, we have managed to feck up every summer window since then. Each time we have missed out on our primary targets and/or massively overpaid for mediocre players. It started with Fellaini and it has continued with Onana, Mount etc.

This time too we do need this big summer. The works starts with getting some of the mediocre players, who are sitting on huge wages, out. Varane, Maguire, Casemiro, Sancho, Shaw, Eriksen, AWB, Martial, McTominay & Lindelof all need to be shown the door. A couple will leave on a free but we'd need to find buyers for the rest. One would hope that we are already working on getting them out. However, besides the CEO, who is currently on gardening leave, we haven't made another serious appointment on the football side. Dof is pending, technical director is pending, haven't heard very much on a head of recruitment. Has the work started on streamlining the recruiting?

With the murmurs of INEOS wanting to continue with ETH (@Sarni 's sarcasm becoming a reality), seems like they are ready to write off next season too while they get this "perfect structure" in place.

 

[NWRed]

The squad is a shit show and won’t be fixed by signing a few players, year after year people convince themselves we only need 2-3 players or that there are good foundations etc. In reality the squad needs to be gutted and the vast majority of the players gone over next 2-3 years just like Liverpool and Arsenal did. That is strategy we should have adopted a long time ago and until we do we’ve got no chance.

Define 'the vast majority'. The squad needs depth but the first team has a huge amount of talent, we've just had some bad injury problems and Casemiro's legs going practically overnight with insufficient backup.

Onana, Shaw (when fit), Martinez (when fit), Dalot, Mainoo, Fernandes, Garnacho and Hojlund could all be starters in a team challenging for the title, Varane too probably and Rashford as well if he gets his head straight.

 

[Roboc7]

Define 'the vast majority'. The squad needs depth but the first team has a huge amount of talent, we've just had some bad injury problems and Casemiro's legs going practically overnight with insufficient backup.

Onana, Shaw (when fit), Martinez (when fit), Dalot, Mainoo, Fernandes, Garnacho and Hojlund could all be starters in a team challenging for the title, Varane too probably and Rashford as well if he gets his head straight.

It doesn’t have a huge amount of talent, been hearing that for years and it’s simply not true. By vast majority I mean you’d only want about 5 or 6 of this lot in 3 years time. It’s a squad full of players in one or more category of deadwood that should have gone years ago, players whose peak has been and gone, players who can’t stay fit, can’t play well in back to back seasons or who are just simply not good enough. Those that don’t fit in are few and far between.

This group of players is never winning a title, wouldn’t even get close and a few signings or some better luck wont fix that. Arsenal and Liverpool had sense to recognise they were shit and needed to completely rebuild to compete.

 

[Mickeza]

We haven’t gone into a season with a squad capable of winning the league since Moyes - if that’s the question.

 

[NoPace]

In which position exactly? He can't play as DM as he lacks the positioning, the workrate and the anticipation to do that job. He lacks the technique and the work rate as a B2B player. He can play as no 10 in a very direct side. But we have better options in that role and quite frankly we are already well stocked in that position. We can't keep on playing a 'throwing the kitchen sink' tactic anymore

No question.

If you can get 25M for him from West Ham or Forest and spend that on a talented #6/8 in his early 20s it's a no-brainer after the Mount purchase. We have 3 first team midfielders for next year (Bruno, Mount, Mainoo) and none of them can sit deep and defend.

We can survive with 5 guys in midfield for a year. Plug in say a top DM and a decent young player who can play as a 6/8 and we'll be okay.

Bruno- Mount
Mainoo- 6/8 - Mount
DM1 - 6/8

and then if you need to loan in a 6th guy, find a free, or promote a youngster or play Lisandro there for 5 games over the season during an injury crisis, I'm not sure there's a significant dropoff really.