"It is simple. To do something, we need to sell players."

[Big Ben Foster]

Not making that mistake at all.

If we use your Casemerio example and your numbers then in 25/26 there would be circa £3.2 million advantage but if you think that a player of his age is going to walk away from a £18.2 million then I would suggest you living in cloud cuckoo land

For one in that £18.2 million almost certainly would be 25% of his initial signing on fee which has to be paid as per league regulations ( signing on fees are spread over the contract term) without sight of the contract we have no idea how much that is but that probably is several million. Then you would have to factor in significant agent fees and compensation in a blink of an eye that £3.2 million is no longer.

Fast forward to 26/27 then of course him walking away for free is a huge plus but as I say I don’t know what the financial situation is if a club doesn’t take up their option

He's right. Your amortization numbers don't account for the fact that if we were to keep these players next year, we're on the hook for a year of amortization anyway. Breakeven analysis has to be done on the margin, not the absolute number.

 

[Squeaky_Bum_Time]

Go to capology or a similar website, sort descending on wages, and start from the top.

Our wage structure is completely out of whack. Casemiro is making more than 4x what Dalot makes, as an example, and has played less than half the minutes this season. That's all season, figures would be more extreme if we reset the counter when Amorim started.

I know minutes played is not the only metric to go by, but it is a decent start to figuring out how much you are contributing.

 

[Red in STL]

Isn’t it farcical that Man Utd have to sell to buy what a complete joke, when city spend nearly 200 million in January and prove ffp is a joke. It’s time we had some owners who fudged the numbers like city and Chelsea do. We’re already behind get these jokers out our club

So basically you want us to cheat

City spent 200m in January because they didn't spend much in the summer + they sold players for decent money, Alverez alone cost them about 14m and they sold him for 80m which in PSR terms is really good business

 

[Big Ben Foster]

Isn’t it farcical that Man Utd have to sell to buy what a complete joke, when city spend nearly 200 million in January and prove ffp is a joke. It’s time we had some owners who fudged the numbers like city and Chelsea do. We’re already behind get these jokers out our club

It has nothing to do with FFP / PSR. The club is broke.

 

[RuudTom83]

The sweet CL money covers a lot of cracks.

Without it you can't waste 350M on Onana, Casemiro, Antony, Mount and Hojlund and get away with it.

 

[Big Ben Foster]

The sweet CL money covers a lot of cracks.

Without it you can't waste 350M on Onana, Casemiro, Antony, Mount and Hojlund and get away with it.

Yes and no. It certainly helps, but the financial malpractice of the last decade was going to catch up with us eventually, even if we had consistently been in the CL.

 

[Red in STL]

Like it or not the OP is right, we need to sell to improve

We currently have perhaps 3 players that would fetch sizeable fees

1. Amad - we'd be nuts to sell him, he's the one player who has improved significantly

2. Mainoo - he's had a poor season no doubt, but he didn't have a proper pre-season and the one before he got injured, he definitey needs to improve but I think a summer off will help him a lot, selling him in the summer IMO would be a mistake

3. Garnacho - if we have to sacrifice a player then he's going to be the one, he needs to prove during the rest of this season he can fit in the system and make better footballing decisions, what he does badly is currently outweighing what he does well by a long way

 

[SER19]

Rashford
Antony
Sancho
And possibly 50% of a big Greenwood fee.

That's over 100m. Even if we had a budget of 50m without them, about 150m is a big budget once it's not wasted. Considering we already bought Dorgu. Not every club can be city and spend 200m in January

 

[terraloo]

He's right. Your amortization numbers don't account for the fact that if we were to keep these players next year, we're on the hook for a year of amortization anyway. Breakeven analysis has to be done on the margin, not the

The point initially being that was not that you keep players next season but that you sell them and that those fees profit if you like which clearly won’t be the case.
All sorts of numbers and factors will create the full picture but informing all that will be what the player agrees to and in particular are they prepared to move on whilst they still have a contract

 

[Martinez4midfield]

I'm really struggling to be onboard with the refusal to sell Garnacho. I find it fascinating that a large portion of our fan base is struggling to see that their blind love for players is one of the largest factors in our demise as a club currently. It's like none of you learn from constantly getting your fingers burned with players, especially in the 'post Fergie era'. This constant blind faith/hope is what has led this club into the position we're in now, obviously mixed with horrendous owners and people like Ed Woodward handing out hundreds of thousands per week like it's peanuts.

Look at what your loyalty to players has done to this club over the past decade. The same player that received your (our, I am not in this camp personally, I see players for what they are. I do not wear red tinted glasses for the sake of it) love and admiration only 7-8 years ago, is now playing for a club in the Midlands, on £325k p/w and has been nothing short of atrocious for the past 2.5 years, basically since his purple patch in 22/23. What did your loyalty to this player achieve? Please I need to know. If we'd have sold him off the back of his purple patch at the end of 22/23, we'd have probably received offers north of £60/70m, quite easily, but we didn't. We instead made him one of the highest earners at the club, again, OFF THE BACK OF A PURPLE PATCH and he then returned true to his real form and stunk the place out. Now we're here.

There are other names that can be added to this to; Jesse, Martial, Pogba (kind of), Shaw. These players were given all of the loyalty from the fans and what did they/have they done in return? Shaw has unfortunate injuries but my god he should've been sold a while back. He is NEVER fit. Only now is a majority of the fan base onboard with selling him, but it's almost too late now.

You're allowing yourselves to get your fingers burned again if you do it with Garnacho. Garnacho is NOT the player you think he is, or who he thinks he is. The eye test proves it and so do the numbers. He's made 80 PL apps so far and his numbers are not great by any means. If we are offered £60m+ for him in the Summer, he has to go. We would be morons to turn it down. There are better players than Garnacho out there, for cheaper too. Charles De Ketelaere is one of them.

From my own perspective, I've never really been on the Garnacho bandwagon as much as some other fans have, and I just mean that from a general point of view. I've not overrated him, I've seen him for what he is, a young winger from the academy that was promoted to the squad due to depth in that position being dreadful (Rashford & Antony).

Garn is not what he himself thinks he is I'm afraid, it's as simple as that. He can wear the CR7 boxers, have the flashy hair and do the suii, it all means jack when anyone with even a slither of football knowledge can see that he has the football IQ of a Pub League player, and that isn't an exaggeration either. As someone that has watched every game so far this year, and for years prior, he really hasn't been overwhelmingly amazing at all. His decision making has improved since Ruben arrived and he was dropped etc, but prior to that he honestly struggled to get the basics right, it was quite spectacular to watch actually.

A few months ago he was approached outside OT by a fan who criticised him for not passing the ball more often and questioned his decisions etc. Of course this is not what a fan should be doing to a player before a match, but he was voicing the opinions of the fans that watch football with their eyes and not with their red tinted glasses.

At one point this season, a specific page on social media reported on him with the following headline..


Players listed:

• Saka
• Dembele
• Kvara
• Mbappe
• Leao
• Nico Williams
• Olise
• Foden

The headline was of course clever with their wording, because Saka had the exact same stats as him, and 4 of the others had FAR less minutes than him with their stats not being that far away from Garn's at all.

At this stage of the season, Garna had the most shots attempted, dribbles attempted, worst passing distance and worst passes attempted out of that entire list. So he had taken the most shots with a poor conversion rate, had passed the least with the least passes attempted and had an absolutely shocking dribbles attempted to complete ratio, but that wasn't reported by said page, only his G+A. Poor reporting, poor analysis and it quite frankly gets the moronic fans on his side with no context.

Regarding his dribbles completed, at this point in the season he had attempted 30 dribble take ons in all comps and was successful a grand whopping of SIX (6) times. 70% of those occasions he failed miserably. That was the worst ratio by a country mile out of all of those players listed. Again, if you are a proper fan of the club though, you don't need the stats and/or data to tell you this, the eye test was enough, because he was doing it week in week out with little to no success. For all of us United fans, think of the Chelsea game in November, this one sticks with me as we could've put that game to bed if Garn had even a slither of football intelligence.

Overall, Garn is not the player that he thinks he is, and he's not the player that your average fan thinks he is either. He's a somewhat freshly promoted academy prospect that has some promising qualities but also carries some damning negative traits too, which balances him out. There will be fans that might respond to this post and claim that I'm being harsh or unfair. If you truly think this then you're one of the problems with this club. Ruben has dropped him and the board are clearly interested in listening to offers for him, if you think you know better then that's fine, but I'm here to tell you that you don't. If an offer was to come in at the right asking price (£70m currently) then we would be completely insane to not accept it. We could layer the contract with insane sell on clauses / buy back clauses etc to sweeten the deal if he all of a sudden turns into who HE thinks he is, but at this moment in time selling him would be a good decision from the board.

Great post, I wish Wilcox or whoever could read it. Should be stickied here for when we're in another relegation scrap and people are calling for the next managers head because Mainoo is getting blown past a recently promoted midfielder and Garnacho keeps kicking it directly to their keeper every time he touches the ball. All while being on 300k a week because they are fan favorites from the academy.

 

[justsomebloke]

I think we can raise around 160-180m with sales and imagine INEOS will be good to use that for incomings.

Rashford - 40m
Antony - 30m
Sancho - 25m
Malacia - 10m
Garnacho - 60m
Zirkzee - 40m (I think he may stay as well depending on how the rest of season goes)

That’s 165m-205m. Plus we have been able to move on some of our highest paid players in Rashford, Martial, Varane, Sancho as well as some others like Eriksen , Lindelof, Antony, Evans, Malacia. Casemiro only had a year left so he is gone either way next season. That only leaves the issue of Mount, and Shaw. We just have to pray that they can find some fitness at some point.

We see those calculations every year. But we have never, so far, been able to sell all the players we want to shift, or anything near it.

Anyway, even if we do, we'll have six outright holes in the squad that have to be filled (1lwb, 1rwb (or cb, if we want to use Maz at rwb), 2 cm, 1 no10, 1 striker.) Which doesn't bode well.

 

[Scarecrow]

I'm really struggling to be onboard with the refusal to sell Garnacho. I find it fascinating that a large portion of our fan base is struggling to see that their blind love for players is one of the largest factors in our demise as a club currently. It's like none of you learn from constantly getting your fingers burned with players, especially in the 'post Fergie era'. This constant blind faith/hope is what has led this club into the position we're in now, obviously mixed with horrendous owners and people like Ed Woodward handing out hundreds of thousands per week like it's peanuts.

Look at what your loyalty to players has done to this club over the past decade. The same player that received your (our, I am not in this camp personally, I see players for what they are. I do not wear red tinted glasses for the sake of it) love and admiration only 7-8 years ago, is now playing for a club in the Midlands, on £325k p/w and has been nothing short of atrocious for the past 2.5 years, basically since his purple patch in 22/23. What did your loyalty to this player achieve? Please I need to know. If we'd have sold him off the back of his purple patch at the end of 22/23, we'd have probably received offers north of £60/70m, quite easily, but we didn't. We instead made him one of the highest earners at the club, again, OFF THE BACK OF A PURPLE PATCH and he then returned true to his real form and stunk the place out. Now we're here.

There are other names that can be added to this to; Jesse, Martial, Pogba (kind of), Shaw. These players were given all of the loyalty from the fans and what did they/have they done in return? Shaw has unfortunate injuries but my god he should've been sold a while back. He is NEVER fit. Only now is a majority of the fan base onboard with selling him, but it's almost too late now.

You're allowing yourselves to get your fingers burned again if you do it with Garnacho. Garnacho is NOT the player you think he is, or who he thinks he is. The eye test proves it and so do the numbers. He's made 80 PL apps so far and his numbers are not great by any means. If we are offered £60m+ for him in the Summer, he has to go. We would be morons to turn it down. There are better players than Garnacho out there, for cheaper too. Charles De Ketelaere is one of them.

From my own perspective, I've never really been on the Garnacho bandwagon as much as some other fans have, and I just mean that from a general point of view. I've not overrated him, I've seen him for what he is, a young winger from the academy that was promoted to the squad due to depth in that position being dreadful (Rashford & Antony).

Garn is not what he himself thinks he is I'm afraid, it's as simple as that. He can wear the CR7 boxers, have the flashy hair and do the suii, it all means jack when anyone with even a slither of football knowledge can see that he has the football IQ of a Pub League player, and that isn't an exaggeration either. As someone that has watched every game so far this year, and for years prior, he really hasn't been overwhelmingly amazing at all. His decision making has improved since Ruben arrived and he was dropped etc, but prior to that he honestly struggled to get the basics right, it was quite spectacular to watch actually.

A few months ago he was approached outside OT by a fan who criticised him for not passing the ball more often and questioned his decisions etc. Of course this is not what a fan should be doing to a player before a match, but he was voicing the opinions of the fans that watch football with their eyes and not with their red tinted glasses.

At one point this season, a specific page on social media reported on him with the following headline..

None of the players above (I'll list below) have more goals + assists this season than Alejandro Garnacho - 11/11/2024

Players listed:

• Saka
• Dembele
• Kvara
• Mbappe
• Leao
• Nico Williams
• Olise
• Foden

The headline was of course clever with their wording, because Saka had the exact same stats as him, and 4 of the others had FAR less minutes than him with their stats not being that far away from Garn's at all.

At this stage of the season, Garna had the most shots attempted, dribbles attempted, worst passing distance and worst passes attempted out of that entire list. So he had taken the most shots with a poor conversion rate, had passed the least with the least passes attempted and had an absolutely shocking dribbles attempted to complete ratio, but that wasn't reported by said page, only his G+A. Poor reporting, poor analysis and it quite frankly gets the moronic fans on his side with no context.

Regarding his dribbles completed, at this point in the season he had attempted 30 dribble take ons in all comps and was successful a grand whopping of SIX (6) times. 70% of those occasions he failed miserably. That was the worst ratio by a country mile out of all of those players listed. Again, if you are a proper fan of the club though, you don't need the stats and/or data to tell you this, the eye test was enough, because he was doing it week in week out with little to no success. For all of us United fans, think of the Chelsea game in November, this one sticks with me as we could've put that game to bed if Garn had even a slither of football intelligence.

Overall, Garn is not the player that he thinks he is, and he's not the player that your average fan thinks he is either. He's a somewhat freshly promoted academy prospect that has some promising qualities but also carries some damning negative traits too, which balances him out. There will be fans that might respond to this post and claim that I'm being harsh or unfair. If you truly think this then you're one of the problems with this club. Ruben has dropped him and the board are clearly interested in listening to offers for him, if you think you know better then that's fine, but I'm here to tell you that you don't. If an offer was to come in at the right asking price (£70m currently) then we would be completely insane to not accept it. We could layer the contract with insane sell on clauses / buy back clauses etc to sweeten the deal if he all of a sudden turns into who HE thinks he is, but at this moment in time selling him would be a good decision from the board.

Longest football post I read in a while. Good effort.

 

[zizi]

I'm really struggling to be onboard with the refusal to sell Garnacho. I find it fascinating that a large portion of our fan base is struggling to see that their blind love for players is one of the largest factors in our demise as a club currently. It's like none of you learn from constantly getting your fingers burned with players, especially in the 'post Fergie era'. This constant blind faith/hope is what has led this club into the position we're in now, obviously mixed with horrendous owners and people like Ed Woodward handing out hundreds of thousands per week like it's peanuts.

Look at what your loyalty to players has done to this club over the past decade. The same player that received your (our, I am not in this camp personally, I see players for what they are. I do not wear red tinted glasses for the sake of it) love and admiration only 7-8 years ago, is now playing for a club in the Midlands, on £325k p/w and has been nothing short of atrocious for the past 2.5 years, basically since his purple patch in 22/23. What did your loyalty to this player achieve? Please I need to know. If we'd have sold him off the back of his purple patch at the end of 22/23, we'd have probably received offers north of £60/70m, quite easily, but we didn't. We instead made him one of the highest earners at the club, again, OFF THE BACK OF A PURPLE PATCH and he then returned true to his real form and stunk the place out. Now we're here.

There are other names that can be added to this to; Jesse, Martial, Pogba (kind of), Shaw. These players were given all of the loyalty from the fans and what did they/have they done in return? Shaw has unfortunate injuries but my god he should've been sold a while back. He is NEVER fit. Only now is a majority of the fan base onboard with selling him, but it's almost too late now.

You're allowing yourselves to get your fingers burned again if you do it with Garnacho. Garnacho is NOT the player you think he is, or who he thinks he is. The eye test proves it and so do the numbers. He's made 80 PL apps so far and his numbers are not great by any means. If we are offered £60m+ for him in the Summer, he has to go. We would be morons to turn it down. There are better players than Garnacho out there, for cheaper too. Charles De Ketelaere is one of them.

From my own perspective, I've never really been on the Garnacho bandwagon as much as some other fans have, and I just mean that from a general point of view. I've not overrated him, I've seen him for what he is, a young winger from the academy that was promoted to the squad due to depth in that position being dreadful (Rashford & Antony).

Garn is not what he himself thinks he is I'm afraid, it's as simple as that. He can wear the CR7 boxers, have the flashy hair and do the suii, it all means jack when anyone with even a slither of football knowledge can see that he has the football IQ of a Pub League player, and that isn't an exaggeration either. As someone that has watched every game so far this year, and for years prior, he really hasn't been overwhelmingly amazing at all. His decision making has improved since Ruben arrived and he was dropped etc, but prior to that he honestly struggled to get the basics right, it was quite spectacular to watch actually.

A few months ago he was approached outside OT by a fan who criticised him for not passing the ball more often and questioned his decisions etc. Of course this is not what a fan should be doing to a player before a match, but he was voicing the opinions of the fans that watch football with their eyes and not with their red tinted glasses.

At one point this season, a specific page on social media reported on him with the following headline..

None of the players above (I'll list below) have more goals + assists this season than Alejandro Garnacho - 11/11/2024

Players listed:

• Saka
• Dembele
• Kvara
• Mbappe
• Leao
• Nico Williams
• Olise
• Foden

The headline was of course clever with their wording, because Saka had the exact same stats as him, and 4 of the others had FAR less minutes than him with their stats not being that far away from Garn's at all.

At this stage of the season, Garna had the most shots attempted, dribbles attempted, worst passing distance and worst passes attempted out of that entire list. So he had taken the most shots with a poor conversion rate, had passed the least with the least passes attempted and had an absolutely shocking dribbles attempted to complete ratio, but that wasn't reported by said page, only his G+A. Poor reporting, poor analysis and it quite frankly gets the moronic fans on his side with no context.

Regarding his dribbles completed, at this point in the season he had attempted 30 dribble take ons in all comps and was successful a grand whopping of SIX (6) times. 70% of those occasions he failed miserably. That was the worst ratio by a country mile out of all of those players listed. Again, if you are a proper fan of the club though, you don't need the stats and/or data to tell you this, the eye test was enough, because he was doing it week in week out with little to no success. For all of us United fans, think of the Chelsea game in November, this one sticks with me as we could've put that game to bed if Garn had even a slither of football intelligence.

Overall, Garn is not the player that he thinks he is, and he's not the player that your average fan thinks he is either. He's a somewhat freshly promoted academy prospect that has some promising qualities but also carries some damning negative traits too, which balances him out. There will be fans that might respond to this post and claim that I'm being harsh or unfair. If you truly think this then you're one of the problems with this club. Ruben has dropped him and the board are clearly interested in listening to offers for him, if you think you know better then that's fine, but I'm here to tell you that you don't. If an offer was to come in at the right asking price (£70m currently) then we would be completely insane to not accept it. We could layer the contract with insane sell on clauses / buy back clauses etc to sweeten the deal if he all of a sudden turns into who HE thinks he is, but at this moment in time selling him would be a good decision from the board.

With all due respect,

I'm really struggling to be onboard with the refusal to sell Garnacho. I find it fascinating that a large portion of our fan base is struggling to see that their blind love for players is one of the largest factors in our demise as a club currently. It's like none of you learn from constantly getting your fingers burned with players, especially in the 'post Fergie era'. This constant blind faith/hope is what has led this club into the position we're in now, obviously mixed with horrendous owners and people like Ed Woodward handing out hundreds of thousands per week like it's peanuts.

Look at what your loyalty to players has done to this club over the past decade. The same player that received your (our, I am not in this camp personally, I see players for what they are. I do not wear red tinted glasses for the sake of it) love and admiration only 7-8 years ago, is now playing for a club in the Midlands, on £325k p/w and has been nothing short of atrocious for the past 2.5 years, basically since his purple patch in 22/23. What did your loyalty to this player achieve? Please I need to know. If we'd have sold him off the back of his purple patch at the end of 22/23, we'd have probably received offers north of £60/70m, quite easily, but we didn't. We instead made him one of the highest earners at the club, again, OFF THE BACK OF A PURPLE PATCH and he then returned true to his real form and stunk the place out. Now we're here.

There are other names that can be added to this to; Jesse, Martial, Pogba (kind of), Shaw. These players were given all of the loyalty from the fans and what did they/have they done in return? Shaw has unfortunate injuries but my god he should've been sold a while back. He is NEVER fit. Only now is a majority of the fan base onboard with selling him, but it's almost too late now.

You're allowing yourselves to get your fingers burned again if you do it with Garnacho. Garnacho is NOT the player you think he is, or who he thinks he is. The eye test proves it and so do the numbers. He's made 80 PL apps so far and his numbers are not great by any means. If we are offered £60m+ for him in the Summer, he has to go. We would be morons to turn it down. There are better players than Garnacho out there, for cheaper too. Charles De Ketelaere is one of them.

From my own perspective, I've never really been on the Garnacho bandwagon as much as some other fans have, and I just mean that from a general point of view. I've not overrated him, I've seen him for what he is, a young winger from the academy that was promoted to the squad due to depth in that position being dreadful (Rashford & Antony).

Garn is not what he himself thinks he is I'm afraid, it's as simple as that. He can wear the CR7 boxers, have the flashy hair and do the suii, it all means jack when anyone with even a slither of football knowledge can see that he has the football IQ of a Pub League player, and that isn't an exaggeration either. As someone that has watched every game so far this year, and for years prior, he really hasn't been overwhelmingly amazing at all. His decision making has improved since Ruben arrived and he was dropped etc, but prior to that he honestly struggled to get the basics right, it was quite spectacular to watch actually.

A few months ago he was approached outside OT by a fan who criticised him for not passing the ball more often and questioned his decisions etc. Of course this is not what a fan should be doing to a player before a match, but he was voicing the opinions of the fans that watch football with their eyes and not with their red tinted glasses.

At one point this season, a specific page on social media reported on him with the following headline..

None of the players above (I'll list below) have more goals + assists this season than Alejandro Garnacho - 11/11/2024

Players listed:

• Saka
• Dembele
• Kvara
• Mbappe
• Leao
• Nico Williams
• Olise
• Foden

The headline was of course clever with their wording, because Saka had the exact same stats as him, and 4 of the others had FAR less minutes than him with their stats not being that far away from Garn's at all.

At this stage of the season, Garna had the most shots attempted, dribbles attempted, worst passing distance and worst passes attempted out of that entire list. So he had taken the most shots with a poor conversion rate, had passed the least with the least passes attempted and had an absolutely shocking dribbles attempted to complete ratio, but that wasn't reported by said page, only his G+A. Poor reporting, poor analysis and it quite frankly gets the moronic fans on his side with no context.

Regarding his dribbles completed, at this point in the season he had attempted 30 dribble take ons in all comps and was successful a grand whopping of SIX (6) times. 70% of those occasions he failed miserably. That was the worst ratio by a country mile out of all of those players listed. Again, if you are a proper fan of the club though, you don't need the stats and/or data to tell you this, the eye test was enough, because he was doing it week in week out with little to no success. For all of us United fans, think of the Chelsea game in November, this one sticks with me as we could've put that game to bed if Garn had even a slither of football intelligence.

Overall, Garn is not the player that he thinks he is, and he's not the player that your average fan thinks he is either. He's a somewhat freshly promoted academy prospect that has some promising qualities but also carries some damning negative traits too, which balances him out. There will be fans that might respond to this post and claim that I'm being harsh or unfair. If you truly think this then you're one of the problems with this club. Ruben has dropped him and the board are clearly interested in listening to offers for him, if you think you know better then that's fine, but I'm here to tell you that you don't. If an offer was to come in at the right asking price (£70m currently) then we would be completely insane to not accept it. We could layer the contract with insane sell on clauses / buy back clauses etc to sweeten the deal if he all of a sudden turns into who HE thinks he is, but at this moment in time selling him would be a good decision from the board.

Your whole premise is that because some other academy player didn't work out, it means the next one won't. Not to mention all the benefit of hindsight you've applied.

The issue isn't Garnacho, or Mainoo, or Yoro, Hojlund, , etc. These are 19/20 year old kids being are are being held to a standard that we expect of mature and experienced players.

Nani came to utd at the same age Garnacho is now, and into a settled squad with the likes of Giggs and Ronaldo on the wings shouldering the pressure and burden. For how long was he inconsistent and frustrating?

Vinicius Jr scored 5 goals for Madrid at that age, Rodrygo 2, Saka 7, Salah 2, etc etc etc.

The eye test suggests that Garnacho has ample talent, even if there plenty he needs to work on and develop. But again, he is 20. If he was playing for another team we would be looking a buying him. The fact that he is linked for £60/£70m money suggests that he clearly is a more talented player than you are giving credit for. Even saying that is a 10-20% premium puts his value at £50m player.


How did De Ketelaere compare 3 years ago at that age? Not to mention we already paid a premium for one player from Atalanta, how much would De Ketelaere cost us?

Now to be perfectly clear - I am explicitly not saying that Garnacho will become that superstar player, I have no more idea than you do as to whether or not he can fulfil his potential. But for a player who has come through our academy and is on the right trajectory, we should absolutely not be looking sell for any footballing reason.

 

[DevTheRed]

Looks like a recipe for relegation to me

Because of the players being sold or the ones being kept?

 

[Pexbo]

Because of the players being sold or the ones being kept?

Because whatever that lot raise won’t be enough to replace them.

 

[OleGunnar20]

Because whatever that lot raise won’t be enough to replace them.

It's definitely a gamble, but drastic measures are needed with this squad now.

Shop smart, bring in a free transfer / loan or two and promote from the youth and we could very well be much stronger than before, and in a healthier position financially.

It's whether you trust our scouting / transfer team to pull it off I suppose. I'd like to see it done regardless really, as I'm sick to the back teeth of this gaggle of numpties we've assembled.

 

[kanobbk]

With all due respect,

Your whole premise is that because some other academy player didn't work out, it means the next one won't. Not to mention all the benefit of hindsight you've applied.

The issue isn't Garnacho, or Mainoo, or Yoro, Hojlund, , etc. These are 19/20 year old kids being are are being held to a standard that we expect of mature and experienced players.

Nani came to utd at the same age Garnacho is now, and into a settled squad with the likes of Giggs and Ronaldo on the wings shouldering the pressure and burden. For how long was he inconsistent and frustrating?

Vinicius Jr scored 5 goals for Madrid at that age, Rodrygo 2, Saka 7, Salah 2, etc etc etc.

The eye test suggests that Garnacho has ample talent, even if there plenty he needs to work on and develop. But again, he is 20. If he was playing for another team we would be looking a buying him. The fact that he is linked for £60/£70m money suggests that he clearly is a more talented player than you are giving credit for. Even saying that is a 10-20% premium puts his value at £50m player.


How did De Ketelaere compare 3 years ago at that age? Not to mention we already paid a premium for one player from Atalanta, how much would De Ketelaere cost us?

Now to be perfectly clear - I am explicitly not saying that Garnacho will become that superstar player, I have no more idea than you do as to whether or not he can fulfil his potential. But for a player who has come through our academy and is on the right trajectory, we should absolutely not be looking sell for any footballing reason.

You've taken things out of context while simultaneously choosing to ignore some of the facts and figures that I've gone into the effort of providing. You're also willingly being ignorant and turning a blind eye to a myriad of damning traits that Garnacho possesses, while only focusing on his positives which seem to be what?

Vinicius Jr scored 5 goals for Madrid at that age, Rodrygo 2, Saka 7, Salah 2, etc etc etc.

This is irrelevant to my case against Garnacho, and you've chosen to apply hindsight when using this example too. Shall we list all of the players that were highly touted at a young age and then compare their numbers when they hit the age of 26+ too? I think you'll find that there are far more misses than hits when it comes to it. Also, my issue with Garnacho isn't just his numbers, as part of my post explained. It's his football IQ, his first touch, his finishing abilty etc. These things, while they can be slightly improved with coaching, they can only be SLIGHTLY improved, and that's part of my point. His footballing IQ has got to be one of the worst I've seen from a Premier League and International player. That isn't an exaggeration either, and I'm pretty sure most would agree. Footballing IQ is something you either have or you don't. It's one of the major factors in a players development all the way from young academy level to their possible and potential professional debut. Garnacho seems to have been allowed to lack in this department due to his physical attributes (pace & agility) being far more important at that level of football. He's then been promoted to United's first team due to depth and other issues at 17/18, and that is where his IQ really gets displayed for the world to see.

If he was playing for another team we would be looking a buying him. The fact that he is linked for £60/£70m money suggests that he clearly is a more talented player than you are giving credit for.

I disagree. In that case, why are we not looking at other 20yr old wingers to develop? Or in fact, 20yr old players of any position to develop and hope that they become a world beater? We outbid Madrid, Liverpool, Chelsea, Bayern etc for Yoro's signature. Those same teams are not, and were not, in for Garnacho in January. It was public news that he was available in the January window and the only team that really came knocking was Napoli, and that's because they'd just lost their generational talent in Kvara and received a nice fee in the process. Chelsea supposedly enquired but that's where it was left, and Chelsea is a terrible example as they've proved that they are splashing the cash in any direction and hoping that one of the players turns into a hit... and as we all know, they're failing with this current tactic, other than Palmer of course. Mudryk, Madueke, Nkunku, Jackson, Enzo, even Sancho to an extent have been dreadful and their fees are all extortionate.

How did De Ketelaere compare 3 years ago at that age? Not to mention we already paid a premium for one player from Atalanta, how much would De Ketelaere cost us?

Far better IQ (not difficult), first touch, overall athleticism (height, strength, size), finishing, striking ability, agility, trickery, vision, passing ability. The list is almost endless. He's 23 currently and valued at €35m. Even with United tax added to that he wouldn't break the bank.

we should absolutely not be looking sell for any footballing reason

We absolutely should be looking to sell him because £60m of fresh money off the books puts us in an incredible position to fill out our team with talent in every position. We could layer his contract with clauses left, right and centre to future proof it, if he turns into the player that he, and seemingly you, thinks he is and we can turn a further profit from him. If we hold onto him because of blind faith yet again, then this club will never ever get out of this rut it's currently in. It's time to remove the Player FC glasses and support Manchester United, not Alejandro Garnacho FC.

 

[Tallis]

We see those calculations every year. But we have never, so far, been able to sell all the players we want to shift, or anything near it.

Anyway, even if we do, we'll have six outright holes in the squad that have to be filled (1lwb, 1rwb (or cb, if we want to use Maz at rwb), 2 cm, 1 no10, 1 striker.) Which doesn't bode well.

Offcourse - they never happen but still fun to do these calculations. Let’s see if INEOS can deliver - they did manage to sell Greenwood, Sancho (loan + sale) and McT in one window. Of the lost I listed, Rashford is the biggest risk. I don’t anticipate issues in selling Antony, Garnacho and Zirkzee (in the event we want to).

 

[dave1956]

What does the forum think the club should do if the present squad players decide to honour their contracts and refuse to be sold.

 

[horsechoker]

What does the forum think the club should do if the present squad players decide to honour their contracts and refuse to be sold.

Start playing another sport

 

[soapythecat]

What does the forum think the club should do if the present squad players decide to honour their contracts and refuse to be sold.

There is nothing the club can’t do. Once the window is closed, they will need to integrate them and use them. Rashford, Casemiro, Shaw, Mount and possibly Antony will all be playing for us next season as no one will buy them. Antony out on loan again maybe if he keeps his form up. Casemiro and Rashford won’t have a single bit of interest. Next season is already a right off but we do get rid of a few come 2026.

 

[Red in STL]

There is nothing the club can’t do. Once the window is closed, they will need to integrate them and use them. Rashford, Casemiro, Shaw, Mount and possibly Antony will all be playing for us next season as no one will buy them. Antony out on loan again maybe if he keeps his form up. Casemiro and Rashford won’t have a single bit of interest. Next season is already a right off but we do get rid of a few come 2026.

Are you sure Shaw and Nount will be playing for us?