Jadon Sancho | £72.9M fee agreed

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Brilliant decision making. You watch him and just know that he will be a wicked player once he fills out physically. Not Greenwood level but not far off. I see a technical winger/AM in him.
Here's hoping. He looks good technically and as you say seems to have an old head on young shoulders. If he reaches Sancho levels it'd be fantastic - anything beyond that would be a massive bonus.
 
Appreciate what Gary did as a player and his history at the club but he does come out with some nonsense.

Of course it’s dragged on we are in a pandemic and they wanted over 100mill last year, the club didn’t want to pay that so didn’t and now that the price is lower we have gone back in for him. If feels like it’s dragged on because we are in a time when we get constant updates. It’s not like years ago when we had to look on teletext to see if we signed someone.
If you can’t get excited about signing 21 year old with so much potential then I’m not sure what your looking for from United. Sure it’s taken a while but that won’t make it any less exciting when he make a his debut in a Utd shirt.
 
You could argue the same for this year. We'd sign only Sancho and Varane. Which in itself is not enough to close the gap on City, but it sure does make the gap smaller.
We were shambles back then. Going after players Mourinho wants and the board was not convinced. Perisic didn't materialise, nor the CB Jose wanted, because there wasn't full cooperation between board and manager, even if Mourinho has stated in numerous interviews that he has a good relation with Ed.

It definitely feels different. You can see the improvement in negotiation management.

Sancho and Varane are far better players though, and plug obvious holes in an otherwise good team. We’ve been crying out for a right winger for nearly a decade, and haven’t had a good defence since Rio and Vidic. They’d improve the first 11 so much it almost makes too much sense to happen.

Definitely feels like something has changed from that window 3 years back.

In hindsight or then and there?
In hindsight. I’m more concerned about what actually happens, rather than what we hoped would happen. I’d rather us move for players that I think have a better chance of improving us, rather than just placating the muppets. For this reason I don’t want us to sign Kane for example - in theory he’s a great signing, but he wouldn’t improve us that much and would leave us bereft in other areas.
 
Then and there as well.

Telles was always going to be 50-50.

VDB was always going to be behind Bruno and Pogba.

And Cavani was a backup that worked out because of Martials injuries and terrible form.

None where signed with the the expectation that they would be playing every week.

You need squads to be flexible. Shaws form and injuries were a concern, Telles could function both as a first team alternative to Shaw, depending on form, potential injuries and opposition. How does that not equate to strengthening the first 11? Did people expect Shaw to perform like he did or remain injury free, christ no.

VDB could function both as a midfield alternative to Pogba/Bruno, in order to rest either of them, or starting alongside them depending on opposition.

Cavani was brought in as a backup to our forwards, but also as a starting player in relation to rotation, injuries or form.

No reason to moan about any of them
 
I do find it a bit amusing that United-fans loved Neville the footballer and hated Carragher the footballer - and Liverpool-fans vice versa
Now United-fans hate Neville the pundit but most actually do find Carragher the pundit to be ok - and Liverpool-fans vice versa :)
 
In hindsight. I’m more concerned about what actually happens, rather than what we hoped would happen. I’d rather us move for players that I think have a better chance of improving us, rather than just placating the muppets. For this reason I don’t want us to sign Kane for example - in theory he’s a great signing, but he wouldn’t improve us that much and would leave us bereft in other areas.

It's a flawed logic when it comes to moaning about the signings we make. We've spent fortunes on players that were intended as obvious first 11 improvements, like Di Maria, Depay, Bailly, Mkhi, Sanchez. How they turned out doesn't change what they were brought in to do. The opinion on Fred has changed, a lot, just like the opinion on Van de Beek might be entirely different next year, was he suddenly an improvement after all then. We're about to spend an absolute fortune on Sancho, expecting him to instantly improve our first 11, if he has a shit first season will people suddenly start moaning about our lack of an attempt at improving the first 11 this summer? I mean, such an amount of stupidity would obviously not be that much of a surprise....
 
You need squads to be flexible. Shaws form and injuries were a concern, Telles could function both as a first team alternative to Shaw, depending on form, potential injuries and opposition. How does that not equate to strengthening the first 11? Did people expect Shaw to perform like he did or remain injury free, christ no.

VDB could function both as a midfield alternative to Pogba/Bruno, in order to rest either of them, or starting alongside them depending on opposition.

Cavani was brought in as a backup to our forwards, but also as a starting player in relation to rotation, injuries or form.

No reason to moan about any of them
Nobody is moaning about any of them, merely saying they weren’t going to add any additional quality to the first 11. Something you’ve acknowledged yourself by referring to them as “alternatives” and “rotation”. Nobody has an issue with that, after all first 11’s win games while squads win titles. No United fan would take the importance of rotation for granted, Fergie built his sides on that very principle. However we also needed to improve the starting 11, and the signings made last summer weren’t going to do that really.
 
Not sure you understood the question. I'm asking what he's shown so far that suggests he'll turn out better.

I’m aware that, at this stage, it is very little. His relationship with the ball just seems special. He has a natural command over it, and a great brain too. He has a natural self-confidence/arrogance on the pitch too. He also comes from very little and seems grounded. Things like that lead me to believe he’ll make the absolute most of the talent he has.
 
Today is my birthday... I stopped caring about it ages ago and don't really like the fact that I'm getting older. I don't want attention, just wanna treat it like any other day... But today I'd love to get some attention from the club. A gift in announcing Sancho! Big day today :D
 
I’m aware that, at this stage, it is very little. His relationship with the ball just seems special. He has a natural command over it, and a great brain too. He has a natural self-confidence/arrogance on the pitch too. He also comes from very little and seems grounded. Things like that lead me to believe he’ll make the absolute most of the talent he has.
Fair play...I like the look of him a lot too. One of those players that's likely to get bums on seats and then get them out of them. Perhaps I'm being overcautious...I remember thinking that Luke Chadwick was going to be special (though that probably says more about my judgment of players than anything!)
 
I’m aware that, at this stage, it is very little. His relationship with the ball just seems special. He has a natural command over it, and a great brain too. He has a natural self-confidence/arrogance on the pitch too. He also comes from very little and seems grounded. Things like that lead me to believe he’ll make the absolute most of the talent he has.

Agree with the point you made. He has very good first touch and the weight in his passes is very good. He is more of a playmaker with very good close control. His defensive work rate was very good too, not sure how or why, he always end up winning possession easily. Looks very good talent.

Also saying all that, we shouldn't wait for young players to come good. We need first team players too and that's how we can build strong squad. I remember the point you made about the age of all the players and how close they are, but that's a gamble we should take at this point. We need very good wide player who can create and score, we did lot of ground work for this deal starting from the summer he was ready to leave City.
 
You need squads to be flexible. Shaws form and injuries were a concern, Telles could function both as a first team alternative to Shaw, depending on form, potential injuries and opposition. How does that not equate to strengthening the first 11? Did people expect Shaw to perform like he did or remain injury free, christ no.

VDB could function both as a midfield alternative to Pogba/Bruno, in order to rest either of them, or starting alongside them depending on opposition.

Cavani was brought in as a backup to our forwards, but also as a starting player in relation to rotation, injuries or form.

No reason to moan about any of them

Your pretending we used our summer well last year.

We did not.

It was mediocre at best and highlighted our poor planning.
 
It's a flawed logic when it comes to moaning about the signings we make. We've spent fortunes on players that were intended as obvious first 11 improvements, like Di Maria, Depay, Bailly, Mkhi, Sanchez. How they turned out doesn't change what they were brought in to do. The opinion on Fred has changed, a lot, just like the opinion on Van de Beek might be entirely different next year, was he suddenly an improvement after all then. We're about to spend an absolute fortune on Sancho, expecting him to instantly improve our first 11, if he has a shit first season will people suddenly start moaning about our lack of an attempt at improving the first 11 this summer? I mean, such an amount of stupidity would obviously not be that much of a surprise....
I don’t think anyone would complain about a 75m signing not being an attempt to improve the first 11. Just spending that amount of money would be a clear difference in intent from last summer to this.

Obviously I’m not saying you can predict how players will work out, but you can implement a strategy to give yourself the best chance of success. That’s what the fans wanted when we were busy throwing 400k a week at 30 year old players whose legs had gone. It’s not sustainable and hasn’t worked for us. See Falcao, Bastian, Sanchez, Di Maria etc. Sancho is so far away from that, and it’s great to see. I’d be amazed if anyone criticised the club for signing him, even if he ends up playing like Bebe’s one legged cousin.
 
Gary finds yet another thing to moan about



I don't know how any ManUtd fan can't be excited for this transfer even if dragged for a year. The relief and joy when the official announcement is made is something else.

Also it's for few clubs this would be turned into positive saying how they identified the player and signed him no matter what even though it was a delayed transfer, like Bayern with Sane, Liverpool with VVD, City with Laporte, Mahrez
 
Gary finds yet another thing to moan about


So insufferable, isn’t he? That’s exactly what our prospective super summer signing wants to see from a Man Utd legend who’s going to be moaning about him on television for the whole of next season tweet.
 
Fair play...I like the look of him a lot too. One of those players that's likely to get bums on seats and then get them out of them. Perhaps I'm being overcautious...I remember thinking that Luke Chadwick was going to be special (though that probably says more about my judgment of players than anything!)

I’d go a step further with Chadwick in that I actually thought he was quality, and then he was sold. It’s something I’ve always thought of for years. It may have been due to the fact that I was quite young at the time so my memory is hazy, but he was one of a few players who I felt was actually making a real impact, and then he left. Like, almost as if we sold Greenwood to West Ham or something this summer!

There are a few young players like that at different clubs who the few times I saw them, they looked like potential superstars, then the next time I saw them, they were in the Championship or something and I’m scratching my head as I must have missed a bit in between!
 
Today is my birthday... I stopped caring about it ages ago and don't really like the fact that I'm getting older. I don't want attention, just wanna treat it like any other day... But today I'd love to get some attention from the club. A gift in announcing Sancho! Big day today :D
Happy Birthday Champ . I hope you get your wish:devil:
 
He's spot on, it's not a moan.
He’s not spot on. A transfer isn’t some sort of entertainment put on by the club, it’s a necessary function of running a football club and part of that function is ensuring the finances are feasible. The latter is only now being determined.

So if fans are being stroppy and impatient and think the club has somehow managed to make this transfer boring for them.. that’s on the fans for being such weirdos.
 
I didn't know Joel Glazer was on Redcafe!

Last year we did feck all to strengthen the team. Then fell short in the league and two cups. Maybe that statement would change if we had signed a single starter who wasn't a free agent.

As for ending up like Barca? Despite Covid the Glazers paid more than £23m in dividends in the financial year, so spare me the crocodile tears about financial prudence when it comes to spending an extra £30m on a key target. Saving that money put more money in the owners pocket, it didn't save the club from bankruptcy.
:boring:

See it's the usual if you don't agree with me you must be a Glazer/Glazer lover shit beloved of the caf.
 
He’s not spot on. A transfer isn’t some sort of entertainment put on by the club, it’s a necessary function of running a football club and part of that function is ensuring the finances are feasible. The latter is only now being determined.

So if fans are being stroppy and impatient and think the club has somehow managed to make this transfer boring for them.. that’s on the fans for being such weirdos.
I'd say that these days every transfer is tedious, what with the neverending twitter updates and ITKs and other silly stuff. I'm never as excited as I was, say, when we signed Rooney. Thought that might just be me getting older.
 
He’s not spot on. A transfer isn’t some sort of entertainment put on by the club, it’s a necessary function of running a football club and part of that function is ensuring the finances are feasible. The latter is only now being determined.

So if fans are being stroppy and impatient and think the club has somehow managed to make this transfer boring for them.. that’s on the fans for being such weirdos.
This is just daft. The whole sancho saga is a farce. We royally flecked it up last summer and panicked toward the end of the window. It's fine to get him now but it's not a transfer that should take 2 summers to complete.

United were in feck all position to play hard ball last season, and the farce happened from there. This window we resolved it fine, but to suggest this was remotely efficient is laughable.

It's not about entertainment, it's more about the fact that it's gone on so long that an excitement factor for the fans has gone, not least because he's a signing for last window not this window. And Gary's right, we should be looking at whose next.
 
Transfers are off the pitch business that happen behind the scenes, since when are they meant to be exciting? Sure the announcement but not the process. It feels dragged out because we got the same journalists and media outlets spouting the same crap every day for weeks on end.
 
This is just daft. The whole sancho saga is a farce. We royally flecked it up last summer and panicked toward the end of the window. It's fine to get him now but it's not a transfer that should take 2 summers to complete.

United were in feck all position to play hard ball last season, and the farce happened from there. This window we resolved it fine, but to suggest this was remotely efficient is laughable.

It's not about entertainment, it's more about the fact that it's gone on so long that an excitement factor for the fans has gone, not least because he's a signing for last window not this window. And Gary's right, we should be looking at whose next.

Do you know what happened last summer?

We enquired early and were told it’s €120m and had to be completed by a certain date. We were never spending €120m last summer so we never followed up on it despite Dortmund talking about us needing to make a bid and the fact we know the price all summer.

We came back in this summer because we felt the price was likely to come down to something more realistic and within our financial resources and it looks like we have managed to negotiate the transfer before July in the middle of an international tournament.
 
He's spot on, it's not a moan.

of course it’s a moan. We’ve saved 30m by waiting a year and effectively got Amad and Sancho for last years Sancho price.

We obviously didn’t think Sancho was worth the price they wanted last year, so what were we supposed to do?
 
This is just daft. The whole sancho saga is a farce. We royally flecked it up last summer and panicked toward the end of the window. It's fine to get him now but it's not a transfer that should take 2 summers to complete.

United were in feck all position to play hard ball last season, and the farce happened from there. This window we resolved it fine, but to suggest this was remotely efficient is laughable.

It's not about entertainment, it's more about the fact that it's gone on so long that an excitement factor for the fans has gone, not least because he's a signing for last window not this window. And Gary's right, we should be looking at whose next.

Surely another term for the excitement factor, as you call it, is entertainment?
 
A transfer should be to make the team better and result in success on the pitch. All of the rest of it is irrelevant.
If your transfer business is grossly inefficient it creates opportunity cost which affects the pitch. Nevilles gripe is nothing to do with how we went about it this window and more toward how we were foolishly thinking Dortmund can cave in the final hours of last window, before panicking toward last minute signings.
 
of course it’s a moan. We’ve saved 30m by waiting a year and effectively got Amad and Sancho for last years Sancho price.

We obviously didn’t think Sancho was worth the price they wanted last year, so what were we supposed to do?
Not pursue him until the dying embers of the last window. If we like him but he's too expensive, move on early. That's literally what Chelsea did.

He's spot on, just because it's highlighting a poor aspect about the club doesn't mean he's just a moaner for the sake of it.

Some fans especially here are so sensitive that a genuine observation about club efficiency is taken almost personally.
 
Agree with the point you made. He has very good first touch and the weight in his passes is very good. He is more of a playmaker with very good close control. His defensive work rate was very good too, not sure how or why, he always end up winning possession easily. Looks very good talent.

Also saying all that, we shouldn't wait for young players to come good. We need first team players too and that's how we can build strong squad. I remember the point you made about the age of all the players and how close they are, but that's a gamble we should take at this point. We need very good wide player who can create and score, we did lot of ground work for this deal starting from the summer he was ready to leave City.

Perhaps times have changed. Demand is greater. And I agree that we shouldn’t wait for our ‘young players’ as a rule, I am viewing Amad as an exception to that, personally. More in a different bracket of ‘our special young players’.

In my time as a United fan, we’ve always, or often had good young players like a Rossi or whoever, but then there have been a few potential superstars who we have absolutely created a clear 3 year plan to harvest. Ronaldo was young on one wing, Giggs was seasoned on the other. We would have never just bought a 25 year old to start ahead of Ronaldo at 19, it was a development spot in our team, shared between him and Fletch because we saw obvious reward in the longer term that needed an investment in time.

I think Rashford’s emergence was similar. He was 18, and there was clearly no chance that we were going to just look for a Luka Jovic level 23 year old to put ahead of him after his flurry of goals when he came through. We went for Zlatan as part of some sort of succession plan to bridge the gap, but I think there was a clear sense of us betting on his talent. I remember talk of Vardy and others at the time, but word was that we didn’t want to put someone in front of Rashford. Similar with Greenwood and Cavani arguably, in terms of succession planning. I put Amad in that sort of bracket as a big money talent we clearly believe in, and it seems a clear change in strategy to then put another one a year or two in front of him. That’s not really how we’ve ever done it I don’t think. I’m not against another right winger, but having bought Amad as a potential superstar young RW, I wouldn’t have thought we needed to buy another potential superstar young RW. To me, we’ve already bet on one of those, and personally, I’d have gone for a different profile to bridge the gap, so to speak. Not necessarily Perisic, but that sort of profile perhaps, who can come in and be relied upon immediately for a couple of seasons. Someone around 30. That seems to me how we have always developed our special young talent with a clear integration plan. It’s been much discussed in the Varane thread that he turned us down due to us just signing Phil Jones at the same age for big money.

I respect that others may disagree, and a fans nature is also to want all the good players and want them now, but it doesn’t all add up to me. I can’t imagine we’d have spent what we spent on Amad last summer if we had completed the Sancho deal back then, for example. Sancho himself is young, and needs plenty of time to develop and adapt.
 
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