You are in dreamland if you think our starting eleven is as good as any in the league. How many players start for City/Liverpool on performance from our squad....I can tell you the answer, it is zero.
I get the point of three players rather than Sancho......but how do you know that is blowing the lot, how do you know what we can spend? If SAncho has a huge season and Euros, other clubs could also come in for him, could be an even higher fee and higher wages. Our best opportunity I believe is signing him now, actually no, it was 4 weeks ago.
Yes our squad is actually big but yes needs improving quality wise, that is obvious. But there are also areas in the first eleven hugely need improving....centre back and right wing being the obvious ones.....not left back as we seem to be doing, is that really a priority this summer, seems ludicrous to me.
I'm not sure if you are serious or not, but we won't be winning the league for at least 4 years. That's if we get really really lucky.
Realistically, I'd say 1 league title in the next 10 years.
Our aim is Top 4 - that's it (as evidenced by the last 7 years). As long as we keep winning the 4th place trophy, our owners will be happy.
I do agree with you, but remember, most fans are deluded and believe we are better than we actually are.
We are inconsistent as evidenced in our first league game of the season. Those same fans are making excuses for the loss, chalking it down to fitness. That may well be, but we've scored 3 pts, while some teams are already on 6. A title contending team will never allow 3 pts to slip away so easily. Under Fergie, if a team took 3pts from us, it was like going to war.
It sucks for me to be so negative (I truly believed we were going for the title in Jose's 3rd season, until Woodward said that our squad is good enough - which made me realise that our aim is not to win the league title).
My point is Sancho is not panacea for all the ills of the club - we're in need of a reliable CB, DM, RW and LB. Possibly another striker. That's the reality.
We also seem to have a transfer budget.
So given the need to improve the squad, and transfer budget constraints, do you blow it all on Sancho? Assuming you have the money Dortmund are asking for (which I'm not sure we do), and player's fine with the move... Or do you try and solve other problem areas? Sancho is what, 20 years old? He has a lot of football ahead of him, the club can sign him next year at a more reasonable price.
Other clubs may emerge as competitors, but also other talents may come on to the scene - works both ways.
As for City, feck them - they're hyped to death around your shores, yet the shit the bed anytime they play in Europe. They're an overrated outfit. Their keeper sucks, their CBs suck (fecking Ake and Stones are you kidding me) their LB sucks (Mendy or Zinchenko or whoever the fcuk they play), they have a great mid with KDB - Fernandino - Foden - Sterling - Rodri to be fair. Oh and their striker Jesus sucks. So if you're asking me how many United players would walk into City's, quite a few.
Liverpool are a different matter, they're the best team in England and one of the best in Europe for sure.
Completely agree with your first sentence. It looks like lb may be the signing though and that is without a doubt in my mind, the least important reinforcement this window and we wont be able to sign a player for all the positions so its absolutely crazy that appears to be the one we are pushing hardest at the moment.
Disagree on Sancho though, his contract has longer to run than we thought, another big season and the price wont be lower and more clubs will be in for him. Also, more importantly....we may not even be offering him cl football next season, do you think he still comes here then? (not saying that is right or wrong, just a reality with modern footballers). Other players may arrive on the scene, but this is a potential world class young English talent, it is a different kettle of fish.
As for CIty, whether or not they have sucked in Europe, they have dominated along with Liverpool domestically and whether you think some of these players suck.....have ours been better then? There keeper has been very good domestically....ours has gone from one of the best in the world to full of major errors the last two years, there centre backs bar Laporte havent been that good....but we have Lindelof starting every week, the two you mentioned, one of them is new and the other has barely played for the last season.....cherry pickign with those choices as a comparison soemwhat! Our LB has been injured on and off for most of the season, does WIlliams start over those you mention? Jesus is a very talented striker in my opinion....again, cherry picking, Martial starts over Aguero? Again, no guaranteed starter from us for City, zero. Only player who maybe starts would be Fernandes for Liverpool, thats literally it
Weird, it's not illegal to offer a player a contract. Also, the club still keeps wages at 55% of it's revenue or there abouts. Which by all accounts is a fair amount less than the next best club.Knowing us, we'll go in in January and end up paying more than the asking price is today.
We are terrible at negotiating transfer deals. The guys who negotiate and offer contracts should all be fired for being so bad at their job.
Offering Phil Jones a contact, alone, should be classed as gross misconduct and instant dismissal.
OK here's 2 questions
If you were a selling club, how much would you expect to get for Mason Greenwood?
if your answer is at least around 100m then the answer to the second question is that Sancho is probably worth it
For me the fact he's English doesn't really come into it. He's been consistently racking up big numbers of goals and assists and his contract is 3 years remaining I think.
If United want to spend 30/40 million which im quite happy with they really need to work harder at idenifying players earlier and do their ground work
In this current market including next summer, we wouldn’t even get one buyer sniffing at £100m for Mason.OK here's 2 questions
If you were a selling club, how much would you expect to get for Mason Greenwood?
if your answer is at least around 100m then the answer to the second question is that Sancho is probably worth it
For me the fact he's English doesn't really come into it. He's been consistently racking up big numbers of goals and assists and his contract is 3 years remaining I think.
If United want to spend 30/40 million which im quite happy with they really need to work harder at idenifying players earlier and do their ground work
Some people keep saying our Starting 11 is as good as any. Are they only concerned about the Premier League? Do they not consider the Champions League at all? Also, our starting 11 is definitely not as good as any with Lindelof and Harrr Maguire at the back. Far from it. And with Pogba being a hit or miss every other game further exacerbates our problems. And relying on an 18 year old Mason Greenwood a part of the Starting 11 is also worrying.He's worth that to Dortmund, he's not worth that to us.
Strategically, and given how condensed the season will be, I would have gone for 3 players (LB, Upamecano and a DM) now rather than blowing the load on Sancho. Next season I go for Sancho.
United's starting 11 is as good as any in the league - we proved it by beating City home and away, beating Chelsea home and away, beating Leicester home and away, beating Spurs and drawing there. Our Achilles heel is when we can't field the starting 11. Therefore, and given the condensed season, strengthening the squad rather than the starting 11 should be the top priority.
My 2 pence.
which raises the other question....In this current market including next summer, we wouldn’t even get one buyer sniffing at £100m for Mason.
Difference is we don’t need to sell Mason to balance our books or stay afloat. Selling players isn’t part of our business model, as we have vast revenues from sponsorships, merchandising and TV.which raises the other question....
who is spending 100m on a footballer these days
PSG? Chelsea maybe, City never have
the main point I was making though was that if we wouldn't sell Mason for 100m then Dortmund are more than justified in asking that for Sancho
The only way he goes for 60/70 is if his contract is at 12 months or Dortmund need cash quick
Who's being unrealistic now? Liverpool were 8th in Klopp's fist season (that's 4 years ago!) and in a few short years they made 2 CL finals and were 3 inches from back to back titles. Things change quickly in football - and yes, I think most fans underrate current United players. As part of a competent, well-drilled system and with a few additions they'd be challenging for the league.
WowDortmund are probably well within their right in asking for it but we’d be mad to pay it in my opinion, certainly not worth it from what i’ve seen of him.
Sarr to me looks just as good for less than half the price, bet his stats would be around the same as Sancho’s if he was at Dortmund.
I didn't cherrypick the choices, I just looked at who started the game vs Wolves. But regardless, my point is that City don't have a squad filled with world class players in every poisition. City have a great coach who drills his players into a SYSTEM that works for them. Individually they're not that amazing, other than a few genuine world class talents like KDB, Sterling and Aguero.
The same thing with Klopp's Liverpool, he's been a system with average to good players and added a few superstars in between.
How many thought Henderson was a superstar when he was moving from Sunderland?
Or Wijnadlum from Newcastle?
Or Robertson from relegated Hull?
Or Salah (who got discarded from Chelsea and played for Fiorentina and Roma not Inter or Juventus)
Or Mane (who many on the CAF were laughing when LVG expressed an interst in the player)
Or Firmino?
At the time of the move, none of these players were what you call a superstar, none of them moved for astronomical prices, none of them attracted serious interest from other big time clubs. Klopp went to the CL final with those players and missed the League by a couple of inches. Goes to show good players can look world class in the right system.
Our players are good, but they're not playing for Klopp or Guardiola so they look a lot worse than they are...
Would agree with that sentiment on Liverpool, not City though, they spent millions on players many sides would want...and "only 3 world class players"...even though I disagree on that number, how many sides have three world class players in them, not many. Going back to your original sentiment though, the majority of both sides players would walk into our side....our playes walking into there sides...again....zero
It makes sense to sign him if you're a team that is looking for the missing piece for £108m. But if you're a team that is still looking for multiple pieces to the puzzle then it makes little sense.There's no point raising this topic in the Sancho thread as every second post is a 'Happy Sancho Day' one and don't necessarily feel that a rational discussion can be covered there. Here's my thought process around the whole Sancho saga. Initially, I was a bit skeptical around the 100 million numbers being quoted and was relatively confident that we'll get him for figures quoted for Havertz i.e. 90 million including add-ons.
The more the saga has went on, the more people seem to be convinced that Sancho is absolutely worth it and is the answer to all our problems. In my opinion, Sancho was never going to be the only missing piece and we had to sign 2-3 first team quality players to get near challenging. With the pressure rising on the board, there's a good chance that we might succumb and pay the full fee (assuming Dortmund accept) which would leave us in a precarious position towards other weaker positions. Similar to when Pogba was signed, I expect Sancho to be a good player in the short term without having the groundbreaking impact that suddenly makes us challengers. I don't think even the most ardent advocate of Sancho's signing would disagree with this. Naturally, we can't just consider the short term as he might be a longer term signing. There arises another of my doubts considering that we need short term improvements as well. Now let me point out some facts which outline my skepticism:
Some other points raised in other threads include a lack of options for RW apart from Sancho. I refuse to buy this argument because if Sancho is the only option in the world then why do we have scouts. A 10 year old playing FIFA could tell us who to sign.
- A potential 100 million player is still not first choice for England and hasn't really sparkled when given the chance
- His stats are exceptional but Bundesliga stats can go the Mkhitaryan way or the Aubameyang way. But the element of uncertainty still persists
- There are disciplinary issues which led him to being dropped last year
- In general, 100 plus million players have rarely been particularly successful signings for anyone
I know that there are advocates of buy one world class 100 million than 3 average 30 million player arguments are there and I'm one of them too. I just don't think that Sancho should be worth this much and if we were to sign him, I could already visualize the extra scrutiny that would be there on him and how journalists would be dying to declare him a flop. A start like Havertz for him would be fodder for clickbaits all through the season.
Maybe I'm being overly pessimistic and he might turn out to be the world beater he's made out to be. I'm just not sold on the risk associated with it and the impact it will have on the player fees for our future prospects. I think being financially prudent and successful in the market aren't mutually exclusive and we should try to find cheaper alternatives. Currently, even if we find a decent rotation option for Greenwood/Rashford in the range of sub-50 million, we should be good.
TL;DR: Not convinced that we should spend 100 million on Sancho. Cheaper alternatives should be looked at.
Chilwell 50m, Kavertz 70-100m, Ake 40m.No imo. I think Neymar and MBappe are basically exceptions on price that wont be matched for a while. Coutinho and Dembele followed but i think prices were resettling closer to the price we payed for Pogba.
From that context i think Sancho would just about be fair at 120m in a normal year. Its not a normal year though so its definitely excessive. Its a summer when a champions league winning thiago is worth 30m, Sane is going for 40m. Simple fact is our money could go further elsewhere. I dont think it will or we'll improve the team as much as getting Sancho would but thats another matter.
Leaving aside covid theres a recession on the way. Football won't be unaffected by this one.
The only thing that decides the worth of anything is how much value the buyer expects to get from it. When you consider that most club owners are businessmen, they tend to be quite good at calculating said expected value. I would say some footballers are worth more exactly that if not more, considering how much income they generate to their bosses. If your farts could generate north of a 100 million pounds, they also will be worth 100 millions pounds.Not a single footballer in the history of the game is worth 100 million pounds. It's ridiculous.
The worst thing that could happen is that he flops and then we keep him around not playing on huge wages for the next 15 years, extending his contract every few years with even higher wages because we won't lose an asset for free this way. This concept is also known as 'The Phil Jones'.With a guy like him, i ask myself "Whats the worst thing that could happen?" He flops and we sell him when he's 24-25 and recoup 60-80mil back. Atleast thats what a decent selling club could do
I cant understand why anybody except our parasite overlords would be worried about the fee. I only care about improving the team and I cant see anybody else as exciting and perfect for our problem position. I could not give one single feck that it might mean the parasites losing a few million in payouts.
They have but they haven't broken the bank on a single one. By breaking the bank, I mean those mega transfers à la Pogba or Van Dijk or what the Spanish clubs and PSG do. @Suedesi is right, the players they bought were considered full of potential and ready to take the next step at the time of buying like Agüero, Silva, De Bruyne, Sterling, Jesus, Bernardo, Stones, Ederson and Laporte or good players if not bonafide world beaters like Walker, Gündogan, Rodri, Fernandinho and Otamendi.Would agree with that sentiment on Liverpool, not City though, they spent millions on players many sides would want...and "only 3 world class players"...even though I disagree on that number, how many sides have three world class players in them, not many. Going back to your original sentiment though, the majority of both sides players would walk into our side....our playes walking into there sides...again....zero
If you're talking commercially, then that is the job for United's commercial and accounting department. Obviously, as a business the club will have looked at alternatives to Sancho. We can have similar debates about players being paid millions. Obviously the owners are making money so for them its an investment.TL;DR: Not convinced that we should spend 100 million on Sancho. Cheaper alternatives should be looked at.
If you're talking commercially, then that is the job for United's commercial and accounting department. Obviously, as a business the club will have looked at alternatives to Sancho. We can have similar debates about players being paid millions. Obviously the owners are making money so for them its an investment.
We are football fans and our focus should be purely on football.