Have we ever had such a scattergun summer - and will this be the last?

The entire summer hinges on us getting FDJ (and another midfielder).

Anything less will be a failure of epic proportions. Even chels with their eternal rejected bids have done slightly better than us. Slightly.
 
It might not even be scattergun. It could just be that every target is either;
1. unavailable (club won't sell or starting price of negotiations is ridiculous even for us).
2. or doesn't want to come.

I think we probably enter these windows with the mentality that we are a club that challenges for trophies, and just continue to do this each time despite it clearly not working.

Sadly our transfer strategy needs to reflect our position. We should be copying Arsenal, signing or loaning fringe players from top clubs, hoping they improve with us (for a change). Then step by step start to become a team that improves each year to a point where players know we're a safe bet for champions league football and a chance of trophies. Even achieving this will be really expensive as we need to move so many players on who aren't capable of continuous improvement.

We've not got the money available to us to sign world class players. City could do this as they were building because the players knew there was an endless supply of money for the club to achieve their goals. We aren't able to sell that ourselves because the club's owners aren't hell bent on success on the field, to them that would just be a nice to have. Agents won't be recommending us to players who have the ability to play at the top of the European game.
 
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We’re going to have to wait until the final week when agents and players get desperate for a move and bring their asking prices down, otherwise we might as well get ready for a long, long season
 
elmo said:
This part is utter tripe. You really think the club generates less social media engagements if they win the league and we have actual pull to sign the top players?
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Why don't you tell me, if the club still has resources to win the league and sign top players? We as a club is still living on our past exploits and it's starting to really show now.
 
Rajappar said:
Why don't you tell me, if the club still has resources to win the league and sign top players? We as a club is still living on our past exploits and it's starting to really show now.
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That’s a totally different argument from your initial point. The Glazers aren’t spending over a billion dollars just so we can finish second at best so fans can go crazy on social media.
 
Well your search for a CM so far appears to be targeting 4 completely different players...
 
Murtough is out and about knocking on any door he sees. Most people open the door just to laugh at him before telling him to go away. That’s what our transfer approach has been reduced to right now.
 
Outside of his first window (Fellaini debacle) this is worse than anything Woodward over saw.

This was probably the most important transfer window in over a decade and the clowns in charge have completely blown it.
 
I'm sure it will be planned better next year and we will have ready made list of Dutch and Dutch league players ten hag wants to further sign
 
Garethw said:
Outside of his first window (Fellaini debacle) this is worse than anything Woodward over saw.

This was probably the most important transfer window in over a decade and the clowns in charge have completely blown it.
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Not that I necessarily disagree, but it seems like we say this every year!
 
Garethw said:
Outside of his first window (Fellaini debacle) this is worse than anything Woodward over saw.

This was probably the most important transfer window in over a decade and the clowns in charge have completely blown it.
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mostly agree. Ed couldn’t get any deals over the line and ended up paying more for Fellaini than you had to but this year you’ve have literally camped out in Barcelona waiting for Frenkie to green light a transfer that was agreed weeks ago.

It’s not just the fact that you’ve been pushing this one deal so long but you’ve practically got on your knees and begged him to join. It’s made you a global laughing stock. Any midfielder you now pursue after this will know that they might not have even been 2nd choice.

You should have ghosted Frenkie, that way he may have called back.
 
NewGlory said:
Our recruitment is utter shit. Most championship teams are doing better business than us, let alone anybody in EPL. And it has been this way for years.

That said - we don't need to sign new players to do better than fecking 4:0 with Brentford. EtH has players that would allow him to bench the entitled a-holes he is playing. Maybe not enough to beat City, Liverpool, Spurs, or even Arsenal, but he has players he can coach and give chance to, so we can be competitive at least with goddamned Brighton and Brentford.

We do not have to play Rashford, Maguire, McT, Fred, and we can bench Bruno so he can do some reflection.

Sure our club and recruiement are in deep crisis, but also EtH needs to grow some balls, and start accepting the reality that his starting 11 are horrible players who will throw him under the bus
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so who are the players that are meant to be used when you bench our only senior LW, our only 2 CMs over the age of puberty and Bruno?

Seriously, i get what you're saying but honeslty, i think as Man Utd fans we tend to overestimate the capacity of our bench dross to actually play
 
If Ownership does change you would hope for a more streamlined recruitment process than having to run everything past Joel Glazer during the 5 minutes a day his iPhone is turned on. We are often glacial in our moves even when we have full agreement with clubs and players.

I do believe this summer was exceptional though. We did not retain Rangnick but he did give us a parting gift by seemingly persuading Murtough and Arnold that our scouting department was not fit for purpose and so we blew it up. Needed to be done but we are in a window with a department under re-organization and so we are relying on older scouting reports and the managers preferences. ETH is not a scout so if they ask him he is going to say stuff like, Frenkie makes my system work, Martinez is what I want in a defender but he cannot give you alternatives because it is not his job and he has not been studying emerging talents in other leagues.

I am hopeful these issues are resolved for future windows but as noted before, ditching the current owners makes a move to a professional, well run scouting department much more realistic.
 
I think it's pretty clear there is no structure to our thinking. It has been pretty much ETH handing over his ideas, heavily weighted to certain individuals because managers are managers and probably idealistic rather than necessarily familiar with negotiations and commercial aspects. It's for the club to reign them in, but we didn't have that strength, probably because we had to promise him things to attract him, and we don't have any big hitters on our staff.

That's left us with a relatively inexperienced negotiator at this level sorting out the complex De Jong deal, and we've tied up our time and future resources in that deal.

When things haven't come off, and with the start of the season unearthing further problems, we have quite obviously hit a panic button and you've seen money chucked around at random signings in midfield, mysterious links to aging strikers, throwing huge money down on Antony when we've had all summer looking at it.
 
Theo88 said:
so who are the players that are meant to be used when you bench our only senior LW, our only 2 CMs over the age of puberty and Bruno?

Seriously, i get what you're saying but honeslty, i think as Man Utd fans we tend to overestimate the capacity of our bench dross to actually play
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LW: Malacia should be starting ahead of Luke Shaw, every game. Shaw is in horrible form and every time Malacia has played - he has done better. Also we payed a lot of money for him to sit on the bench.
Bruno: has been absolutely horrible (as much as I like him because of past contributions) for over a year now. He needs to be benched and Eriksen needs to start instead of him in his position.
McFred - VdB needs to be given proper chance to replace one of them and for the other, we should have always bought a decent DMF. Hopefully Casemiro will be it, now. In absence of Casemiro, we could have given Garner a chance. Yes, he is youth player but it's not a fact that he would do worse than McT or Fred as DMF. His performances on loan have been great and unless you give meaningful chances - how can anybody ever step up? Of course he is nowhere as good as Casemiro, but I am not convinced he would have been worse than Fred as DMF, since Fred is a horrible DMF
 
Ok I might be in the minority here but I will give the club a SLIGHT benefit of the doubt this season. We have literally changed the whole back room stuff from CEO all the way down to the scouting. Also brought in a new coach with new backroom stuff. Apparently the club had different targets but ETH insisted on his signings which is understandable because it will be easier to bring in players he knows and are quality for his first season, after the shit season we had last season . Every club we try to buy from always add at least 15 million to the price tag plus players want high wages so most deals have collapsed.

Now, if this trends continue next year after everyone has settled in their new job for a year then I will start to worry much more.
 
Will only be the last when we get a proper recruitment structure in place
 
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