Imposing Ourselves on a team

[CM]

I’d strongly disagree. Pragmatism is the core of everything in football. We dont have the same money as City who we compete with each year, so there will always be a level of pragmatism. City buys a back-up player like Kalvin Phillips for a shit-ton of money, but we need to develop players like McTominay and do with players like Wout because of constrains. Thats the way we can afford giving Rashford a big contract, signing Casemiro, Pogba, etc. That wont change permanently, I believe. You mention two areas in your post that we need to improve next year, but we need a striker even more. How would we buy upgrades in each area if the money just isnt there

If we only have a certain amount of money and player sales are needed to fund a new goalkeeper, then Eth will have to deal with uncomfortable pragmatic decisions again.

it might be that Kane/important targets costs more, and that we cant get sales of Maguire, VdB, Etc over the line to fund a new goalkeeper. Maybe the perfect fit that Eth wants for a goalkeeper is unattainable. Of course he needs to be pragmatic again next season, unless we magically get unlimited money and FFP constrains dont apply to us.

City obviously haven't gone about it in an organic way but the reality is they've been making better football decisions than us for some time. We can't go head to head with them through spending alone but that's also partly because of how badly we've spent our own money. That includes contracts for youth players. It's fine to say we have to develop players but we've given stupid contracts to players like Henderson, Tuanzebe and Brandon Williams which have impeded our chances of selling them for good fees, or even at all. If you're doing that it's no longer advantageous to bring those players through. Liverpool and Chelsea have managed that side of things so much better than us in recent years.

The contracts extend to the rest of the first team too. In the last 12 months we've had to let Matic, Pogba, Mata, Lingard and Ronaldo leave on free transfers because we've either held onto them for too long or given them contracts nobody else would. That's why it's imperative we don't do the same with De Gea. On paper it might seem like a cost saving exercise, but even on reduced terms he'd still be the best paid goalkeeper in the Premier League when his contribution to the team doesn't come close to matching that level, or our ambitions for the future. I can't emphasise enough how stupid it would be to give him that contract under the guise of pragmatism.

We have to get much smarter with our recruitment and we don't have to make a marquee signing every transfer window to facilitate change. I'd happily sacrifice the big names like Casemiro and Pogba if it meant the overall balance of our team was better. Look at Brighton - they operate on a fraction of the budget but they commit to a certain way of playing and don't deviate from it. They are so much more fluent at using the ball than we are as a result. They've got a better football operations than us but if Brighton can do it, there's no excuse for why we shouldn't.

 

[ROFLUTION]

Irrelevant to what I said.

You were factually incorrect with your statement.

We have literally spent more than City have the past decade(or it's very very close). We're not behind them because we spend much less than them. We're behind them, because they've utilized their resources far better than we have.

You reply to a post and enter a discussion about how we need to be pragmatical. Then you bang on about how we dont need to be, because we spent so much anyways. So of course it’s relevant. Please, do enlighten me, can we sign both Kane, Caicedo and Diogo Costa this year? Or do we need to be pragmatic about some of them?

And its not factually incorrect that we spend the same as City. Only if you want to trust City’s numbers. We simply dont know how City pay the players, managers (Mancini’s offshore account says hi). Somehow City dont pay the extra United-tax on players neither. It doesnt help we’ve agreed to pay extra for many years, but so is the market when you see a big desperate club with money.

 

[ROFLUTION]

City obviously haven't gone about it in an organic way but the reality is they've been making better football decisions than us for some time. We can't go head to head with them through spending alone but that's also partly because of how badly we've spent our own money. That includes contracts for youth players. It's fine to say we have to develop players but we've given stupid contracts to players like Henderson, Tuanzebe and Brandon Williams which have impeded our chances of selling them for good fees, or even at all. If you're doing that it's no longer advantageous to bring those players through. Liverpool and Chelsea have managed that side of things so much better than us in recent years.

The contracts extend to the rest of the first team too. In the last 12 months we've had to let Matic, Pogba, Mata, Lingard and Ronaldo leave on free transfers because we've either held onto them for too long or given them contracts nobody else would. That's why it's imperative we don't do the same with De Gea. On paper it might seem like a cost saving exercise, but even on reduced terms he'd still be the best paid goalkeeper in the Premier League when his contribution to the team doesn't come close to matching that level, or our ambitions for the future. I can't emphasise enough how stupid it would be to give him that contract under the guise of pragmatism.

We have to get much smarter with our recruitment and we don't have to make a marquee signing every transfer window to facilitate change. I'd happily sacrifice the big names like Casemiro and Pogba if it meant the overall balance of our team was better. Look at Brighton - they operate on a fraction of the budget but they commit to a certain way of playing and don't deviate from it. They are so much more fluent at using the ball than we are as a result. They've got a better football operations than us but if Brighton can do it, there's no excuse for why we shouldn't.

I agree with almost everything, but obviously we cant buy players the way Brighton can. And neither do we have time to wait for a lot of players to develop. Because of our stupidity for years in the market and our size we’ll always be charged 10-20m more for a player Brighton signs. Brighton might look good this year, but in 2 years who knows, they might have to sell and restart. That would never work at United where trophies are a must. I do agree we need to be smarter with the money and contracts though. Of course De Gea shouldnt be extended at the same wage. I think he himself knows that too. At least Raya has one year left, so that makes room for good negotiations with both.

 

[CM]

I agree with almost everything, but obviously we cant buy players the way Brighton can. And neither do we have time to wait for a lot of players to develop. Because of our stupidity for years in the market and our size we’ll always be charged 10-20m more for a player Brighton signs. Brighton might look good this year, but in 2 years who knows, they might have to sell and restart. That would never work at United where trophies are a must. I do agree we need to be smarter with the money and contracts though. Of course De Gea shouldnt be extended at the same wage. I think he himself knows that too. At least Raya has one year left, so that makes room for good negotiations with both.

Of course, I'm not saying we should become Brighton. The point I'm making is more about the way they play. Their individuals aren't as talented as ours (although they have got some good ones) but they're capable of playing that way because they commit to it and don't compromise on principles for the individual. We could learn something from that.

De Gea shouldn't be extended full stop. As I said, even on half of his current wages he remains the best paid goalkeeper in the Premier League. There's no room for sentiment with that. Look at the improvement of City when they brought in Ederson, Liverpool with Alisson and Arsenal with Ramsdale. All of those teams improved dramatically when they brought their goalkeeper up to speed with the times. We can't be afraid to make that decision - going back to the Brighton point, even De Zerbi had the strength of character to drop Robert Sanchez for Jason Steele when he's done well for them in the last couple of seasons. Smaller teams than us don't have the same blind loyalty we do to some players.

 

[Theonas]

yeah, it probably helps that they’ve had the best manager in the world during that time, and apparently nobody ever wants to leave.. I find it all a bit dubious.. and obviously we only know about the amounts of money they choose to tell us about, let’s not forget that they’re under investigation for breaking premier league financial rules. They could have spent double what we’ve spent for all we know.

Ferran Torres and João Cancelo wanted to leave only recently. They also missed out on top targets to direct rivals like Van Persie, Fred an Jorginho. Also it's not really weird that top players don't want to leave a team that plays on the front foot and are winning trophies. No one wanted to leave us back in the days either with the exception of Cristiano Ronaldo. We are a big club, but we look like a small club when our fans start acting like our rival's fans under Fergie with all their excuses about our money and the refs and all that.

 

[Telsim]

Fully agree. I'm sick to death of the shambles of football we are playing. I hate counterattacking football with a burning passion. I don't accept a style of football where the initiative is on the other team. I don't think it's a style befitting a big club, unless the situation calls for it. You can't impose yourself when your squad is full of technically deficient and weak-minded players. We need too many improvements across the pitch. But for that to happen the club must commit to this style of play, and buy players and hire managers according to this vision. Right now, there's no vision and no continuity. That requires a competent structure and we don't have that. This is reflected in the squad we have. A patchwork of styles and players.

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

You reply to a post and enter a discussion about how we need to be pragmatical. Then you bang on about how we dont need to be, because we spent so much anyways. So of course it’s relevant. Please, do enlighten me, can we sign both Kane, Caicedo and Diogo Costa this year? Or do we need to be pragmatic about some of them?

And its not factually incorrect that we spend the same as City. Only if you want to trust City’s numbers. We simply dont know how City pay the players, managers (Mancini’s offshore account says hi). Somehow City dont pay the extra United-tax on players neither. It doesnt help we’ve agreed to pay extra for many years, but so is the market when you see a big desperate club with money.

I entered the discussion about how we can't compete with City financially.

That's not true. For discussion's sake, I'll trust City's numbers. Either way, we've spent a massive amount on players. Our problem isn't our outlay on players. It's that our spending is often incoherent.

It's only our own fault for overpaying on certain players. You can probably name 5 players right away that we've overpaid for in the past few seasons. For City in the past 10 years, you'd struggle to name 5.

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

Fully agree. I'm sick to death of the shambles of football we are playing. I hate counterattacking football with a burning passion. I don't accept a style of football where the initiative is on the other team. I don't think it's a style befitting a big club, unless the situation calls for it. You can't impose yourself when your squad is full of technically deficient and weak-minded players. We need too many improvements across the pitch. But for that to happen the club must commit to this style of play, and buy players and hire managers according to this vision. Right now, there's no vision and no continuity. That requires a competent structure and we don't have that. This is reflected in the squad we have. A patchwork of styles and players.

I can only hope next season, we see improvements of playing proactively vs the top sides.

Heavily agree with the bolded as well. Whoever the new owners are, I hope they constantly commit to no longer playing like the underdogs vs top teams. That way, there's a clear guideline and progression path with recruitments(both for managers and players).

 

[Hammondo]

I entered the discussion about how we can't compete with City financially.

That's not true. For discussion's sake, I'll trust City's numbers. Either way, we've spent a massive amount on players. Our problem isn't our outlay on players. It's that our spending is often incoherent.

It's only our own fault for overpaying on certain players. You can probably name 5 players right away that we've overpaid for in the past few seasons. For City in the past 10 years, you'd struggle to name 5.

Agreed, we have more or less kept up with them but absolutely clueless with our buys. We don't have the management structure or football knowledge in our club.

 

[Bestietom]

We need some young players in the engine room . Midfield is the heartbeat of all top teams but we seem to run out of steam in the second half of games. Casemiro and Eriksen for all their skills just run out of steam in games.
We need someone like Caiceda or Sangare there.

 

[Baneofthegame]

The board didn't decide to keep De Gea this season. Ten Hag did.

So where was he going? Who was buying him? All this revisionism is beyond annoying at this stage.

Dave is on 400k a week, he's been a great servant to the club and by all accounts before the two shit games to start the season we had no more budget for transfers. So who are our options? Henderson already threw his toys out the pram and wanted out before ETH got there.

 

[UNITED ACADEMY]

The board didn't decide to keep De Gea this season. Ten Hag did.

I’m not sure how you have that perspective. What if the board told him we can’t have 375k wages de gea on the bench or we can’t afford to sign new keeper, what can ten Hag do?

 

[The Irish Connection]

The keys for me are press resistance/good passing and ball winning. Martinez is perfect in this sense.
Caicedo would be another perfect example. He is great at playing passes around the corner to beat pressing and is very hardworking and aggressive without the ball.
The more players we have that are experts in those areas the better we will get at dominating matches.