January....

Dave Smith said:
Where are you getting the money to buy Camavinga, Haaland and Ajer? I ask as Covid has wiped £140m off the balance sheet, the deadwood are on massive wages that no one else will pay (i.e. Utd are lumbered with them) and the club have spent approx £110m since Jan 2019 (Bruno + Summer signings.)

Only clubs that can spend in Jan are the Billionaire/State owned clubs who have benefactors that will dip into their own reserves. The Utd's and Dippers of this world are not going to go FIFA mode anytime soon.
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Manchester United is still one of the richest clubs in the world! Don't forget that they spent about £50 mln for Fernandes, £80 mln for Maguire, £50 mln for Wan-Bissaka , £90 mln for Pogba, and especially about £40 mln for van de Beek who is a bench player. I don't think that even many top italian or german clubs would be able to spend so much money.
Ajer is very cheap compared to them, he costs about £20 mlns, i don't think that only a Billionaire/State owned club can buy him in January.
With a proper strategy we can also get Camavinga in the summer, and Haaland in 2022. I don't mean to buy all three of them in January.
 
leges said:
Manchester United is still one of the richest clubs in the world! Don't forget that they spent about £50 mln for Fernandes, £80 mln for Maguire, £50 mln for Wan-Bissaka , £90 mln for Pogba, and especially about £40 mln for van de Beek who is a bench player. I don't think that even many top italian or german clubs would be able to spend so much money.
Ajer is very cheap compared to them, he costs about £20 mlns, i don't think that only a Billionaire/State owned club can buy him in January.
With a proper strategy we can also get Camavinga in the summer, and Haaland in 2022. I don't mean to buy all three of them in January.
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City, Madrid and Bayern are just 3 of the big clubs that are going to need a CF replacement in 2022. Good to be positive but don't see Haaland joining us over them unless we break the bank, and even then he seems to be more interested in glory and achievements than just cash.

Similarly, Camavinga is on every major club's radar at this point it'd take a miracle for us to land his signature.
 
UnitedSofa said:
Predict what you think will happen in Jan.
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Ole will give the same shortlist of overpriced players. Ed will fail to sign any of said players due to the current pandemic times. Caf blames Ed for not backing Ole when the team continues sinking into mediocrity. Rinse and repeat.

Of course, being not a fan of Ole, I would love it if none of this happens. :D
 
Most clubs will not do deals in January unless they're really struggling financially - it might cost them too much in terms of performances so they'd probably prefer to hold out till the summer. I doubt there'd be players coming in. It would be another opportunity to get a few off the books though and we should be actively looking at offloading some of the deadwood.
 
Micky Targaryen said:
Ole will give the same shortlist of overpriced players. Ed will fail to sign any of said players due to the current pandemic times. Caf blames Ed for not backing Ole when the team continues sinking into mediocrity. Rinse and repeat.

Of course, being not a fan of Ole, I would love it if none of this happens. :D
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If we don't provide Ole with 200m per year then we are setting him to fail. He made it to 3rd place (no trophies) after all.
 
archiebald said:
Good to be positive but don't see Haaland joining us over them unless we break the bank, and even then he seems to be more interested in glory and achievements than just cash.
Similarly, Camavinga is on every major club's radar at this point it'd take a miracle for us to land his signature.
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Agreed, I just don't see United being as appealing as one of the European giants that are almost guaranteed domestic success and will perform strongly in the CL.
Whatever your thoughts are about the release clause, we missed the boat with Haaland, simple as.
 
devilish said:
If we don't provide Ole with 200m per year then we are setting him to fail. He made it to 3rd place (no trophies) after all.
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amazing how the narrative has changed. most of the forum agreed that we needed to add quality, and after a summer that hasn't impacted the starting 11 a jot, except perhaps telles who is a general unknown, the narrative is now that ole has the squad to do better than third. the pochetino guy even said ole had one of the best squads in premiership history. A crazy swing
 
GledTheRed said:
Need Amad Traore to come in and perform like prime Messi from day one.

No pressure kid.
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to be fair, one thing we know about ole is that he will protect the kid, he probably couldn't be better off coming in to united than under any manager i have seen. not saying ole gets everything perfect but his handling of most of rashford and greenwood has been good, and seems happy to think long term with the likes of pellistri
 
We won't do any first team signing in January unless if we sell some. Covid means no fans in Old Trafford and it means no money coming to the club and that means we will need to consider to save some cash for summer or wages.
 
Crashoutcassius said:
amazing how the narrative has changed. most of the forum agreed that we needed to add quality, and after a summer that hasn't impacted the starting 11 a jot, except perhaps telles who is a general unknown, the narrative is now that ole has the squad to do better than third. the pochetino guy even said ole had one of the best squads in premiership history. A crazy swing
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Ole spent around 200m last season. There's no way the club would spend another 200m this summer especially since

a- we're in the middle of a pandemic
b- a big chunk of that were spent on 'talent' like Maguire and James.

In my opinion United had spent smart this summer. VDB and Telles are quality, Pellistri and Diallo has talent (the latter has the potential to become WC) + Cavani is an intriguing signing on a free. Ultimately our main issue remains defence ie the same defence Ole had already spent 145m upon.
 
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devilish said:
Ole spent around 200m last season. There's no way the club would spend another 200m this summer especially since

a- we're in the middle of a pandemic
b- a big chunk of that were spent on 'talent' like Maguire and James.

In my opinion United had spent smart this summer. VDB and Telles are quality, Pellistri and Diallo has talent (the latter has the potential to become WC) + Cavani is an intriguing signing on a free. Ultimately our main issue remains defence ie the same defence Ole had already spent 145m upon.
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we really do say that 145m like it is oles fault and like pep hasn't spent twice as much + on full backs alone and still has a full back issue. What has actually happened is Ed bought Ole 2 defenders, one of which was a target from the prior summer. I'm not sure where city would be if they signed mangala 42m and walker 50m for pep and said enough is enough pep, you can't have Diaz 60m, Ake 40m, cancelo 60m, angelino 10, porro 10m, laporte 60m, mendy 50, danilo 30m, ederson 40, stones 50m, bravo 16m.... zinchenko 1.8m (finish strong)

ole got 2 defenders and now 3, we can't just say that the shop has to be shut now forever it is just ridiculous
 
Crashoutcassius said:
we really do say that 145m like it is oles fault and like pep hasn't spent twice as much + on full backs alone and still has a full back issue. What has actually happened is Ed bought Ole 2 defenders, one of which was a target from the prior summer. I'm not sure where city would be if they signed mangala 42m and walker 50m for pep and said enough is enough pep, you can't have Diaz 60m, Ake 40m, cancelo 60m, angelino 10, porro 10m, laporte 60m, mendy 50, danilo 30m, ederson 40, stones 50m, bravo 16m.... zinchenko 1.8m (finish strong)

ole got 2 defenders and now 3, we can't just say that the shop has to be shut now forever it is just ridiculous
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Manchester City rely on a DOF. Our decision making in terms of players acquisition are taken by the manager. It's been like that since forever although we're slowly seeing changes to it (and about time). For the record I do believe that City should change their DOF.

PS: Maguire played record games last season and had been made captain by Ole at record speed despite having the same leadership of a zombie who had just suffered a lobotomy. He is an Ole signing.
 
January should be focused on sales.
  • Romero
  • Jones
  • Rojo
  • Fosu Mensah
  • Lingard
  • Ighalo loan end
Just focus on getting what we have to play well, since the group is good (but bloated without these gone). Next summer further buying and selling.
 
Probably make the same offer for Sancho we made during the summer and it will either be accepted or the next offer will be a lot less.
 
Personally I'd sign Buendia from Norwich or Stengs from AZ Alkmaar I think it is. We need a proper striker as well but I don't see where we're getting him. Haaland and Sancho aren't realistic imo.
 
If we’d actually got the signings Ole wanted on paper we’d have one of the best young teams in Europe. It’s on the club those players aren’t here now. I know any manager can just tell their owners to go out and buy the most expensive young players and our coaching has looked uninspired but at least he is targeting the right players. we just need to get better at getting exactly what the team needs. Whoever the manager is.
 
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devilish said:
Manchester City rely on a DOF. Our decision making in terms of players acquisition are taken by the manager. It's been like that since forever although we're slowly seeing changes to it (and about time). For the record I do believe that City should change their DOF.

PS: Maguire played record games last season and had been made captain by Ole at record speed despite having the same leadership of a zombie who had just suffered a lobotomy. He is an Ole signing.
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That's incorrect we have a transfer committee or panel or such like. Transfers are a team effort, not only decided by the manager.
 
Red_toad said:
That's incorrect we have a transfer committee or panel or such like. Transfers are a team effort, not only decided by the manager.
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True in fact we've seen a radical change from buying overpriced local talent we've bought the summer before last to making smart signings this year. Ergo the many complaints by the Ole groupies (fans and pundits) that we're setting him to fail for not spending another 200m in the middle of a pandemic
 
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Ali Dia said:
If we’d actually got the signings Ole wanted since he came in on paper we’d have one of the best young teams in Europe. It’s on the club those players aren’t here now. I know anyone can just go out and buy the best young players and our coaching has looked uninspired but at least he is targeting the right players. we just need to get better at getting exactly what the team needs. Whoever the manager is.
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One thing I'm curious about is whether Haaland was opposed by Joel 'Martial-is-our-Pele-don't-block-his-development' Glazer.
 
We'll buy another attacking midfielder. People will be losing their shit because there is a video of him destroying some 3rd league Norwegian club, but he's 4th in pecking order and he'll get 2 minutes of playing time every 5 games.
He'll be chosen for player of the season because he'll never lose the ball, passing neatly to De Gea every time he gets it.

We'll also address right Wing position by buying 13 year old Brazilian wonderkid. Well, he was second choice to Kingsley Coman, but 5m cheaper.

We'll also extend Pogba and Mata contracts.

Seems about right, considering the way we do business.

Anyway. The most likely scenario is we increase the squad quality by selling Rojo, Jones and Lingard.
 
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hungrywing said:
One thing I'm curious about is whether Haaland was opposed by Joel 'Martial-is-our-Pele-don't-block-his-development' Glazer.
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I’d say it’s a solid mixture of Joel not having a clue about football and being way out of his league, his dithering and most likely having to run every big decision by all his siblings and shareholders and Ed just being Ed. They dropped the ball big time on haaland bellingham and sancho (but I can understand he was by far the hardest transfer of the summer to get done) I can’t believe we’d to do another half a season without a right winger and realistically Diallo is going to take ages to settle in so it’s looking like yet another season without a starting natural right winger. Mental!
 
Ali Dia said:
If we’d actually got the signings Ole wanted on paper we’d have one of the best young teams in Europe. It’s on the club those players aren’t here now. I know any manager can just tell their owners to go out and buy the most expensive young players and our coaching has looked uninspired but at least he is targeting the right players. we just need to get better at getting exactly what the team needs. Whoever the manager is.
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If we spend 200m per year then we'll probably be one of the best teams in 2-3 years. Unfortunately that's not how a successful business operate. We have to balance the books and managers are hired to properly coach their players and get the best out of them.

Luckily for us we seem to have dodge a bullet with Sancho. We weren't that lucky with Maguire though. 80m in cash for a CB whose probably slower then Sir Alex........Leicester must have laughed their way to the bank.
 
I seriously think we would go for a RW and possibly a defender. I dont think Dortmund will sell us Sancho. I think a loan deal is possible and it would be Ousamane Dembele, simply because they need funds and desperately want a defender and Depay. Taking someone off the wage bill will be a plus for them. Loan with an option to buy
As far as defender is concerned I think a probable deal can happen if Upamecano buyers line up. Because in that case they would have to buy him. Although knowing Scrooge McDuck, he will be half arsed about the lad going to pool or something
 
devilish said:
If we spend 200m per year then we'll probably be one of the best teams in 2-3 years. Unfortunately that's not how a successful business operate. We have to balance the books and managers are hired to properly coach their players and get the best out of them.
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I agree. The coaching and our play looks really poor but when you are still relying on players like mata and matic and we still have no attacking threat from the right side then what can you expect. I doubt Ole wants to depend on them .Pogba and Martial weren’t his signings but they are 2 of his most important players. He’s just doing his best with them even in terrible form and trying to keep his job. The organisation above ole is clearly bad and it’s all culminating in the mess we see on the pitch.
 
United in the top 4 (contesting for the title)
Martial back in form, rashy in top form... Bruno with 10 goals.. (all from penalties)...

no new signing ....
 
Ali Dia said:
I agree. The coaching and our play looks really poor but when you are still relying on players like mata and matic and we still have no attacking threat from the right side then what can you expect. I doubt Ole wants to depend on them .Pogba and Martial weren’t his signings but they are 2 of his most important players. He’s just doing his best with them even in terrible form and trying to keep his job. The organisation above ole is clearly bad and it’s all culminating in the mess we see on the pitch.
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Managers tend to have work with players who weren't brought by them. No disrespect towards Ole but Pogba and Martial had contributed more to the team then the 80m slow CB he brought.

I am pretty sure that Sir Alex would have preferred having the likes of Pogba, VDB and Bruno at his disposal then ancient Scholes + Giggs with Cleverley doing the running. We certainly have more talent in that midfield then we had in Sir Alex last year

Regarding Matic and mata they should have been phased out by now by Fred, McT and Greenwood. I am particularly worried about our squad discipline lately. AWB breaking covid rules, Lingard losing his way, Greenwood acting like a brat, Pogba speaking crap and Maguire going full Rambo mode in Greece. You start wondering if we have sacrificed discipline in the name of a happy dressing room
 
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Ali Dia said:
I agree. The coaching and our play looks really poor but when you are still relying on players like mata and matic and we still have no attacking threat from the right side then what can you expect. I doubt Ole wants to depend on them .Pogba and Martial weren’t his signings but they are 2 of his most important players. He’s just doing his best with them even in terrible form and trying to keep his job. The organisation above ole is clearly bad and it’s all culminating in the mess we see on the pitch.
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Good, balanced post. A rarity around these parts.
 
Ali Dia said:
I’d say it’s a solid mixture of Joel not having a clue about football and being way out of his league, his dithering and most likely having to run every big decision by all his siblings and shareholders and Ed just being Ed. They dropped the ball big time on haaland bellingham and sancho (but I can understand he was by far the hardest transfer of the summer to get done) I can’t believe we’d to do another half a season without a right winger and realistically Diallo is going to take ages to settle in so it’s looking like yet another season without a starting natural right winger. Mental!
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I'm hoping Diallo/Traore has a mini-Bruno type effect. It would have been so nice to get Haaland, Bellingham and Traore; hire a good attacking coach, start contending for the title and re-sign Haaland to a release-clauseless bumper contract.

Regarding the Joel Glazer thing, I'm just wondering very specifically about his Martial-is-Pele-praise-Buddha thing. How deep his Martial-luv runs.
 
devilish said:
Managers tend to have work with players who weren't brought by them. No disrespect towards Ole but Pogba and Martial had contributed more to the team then the 80m slow CB he brought.

I am pretty sure that Sir Alex would have preferred having the likes of Pogba, VDB and Bruno at his disposal then ancient Scholes + Giggs with Cleverley doing the running. We certainly have more talent in that midfield then we had in Sir Alex last year

Regarding Matic and mata they should have been phased out by now by Fred, McT and Greenwood. I am particularly worried about our squad discipline lately. AWB breaking covid rules, Lingard losing his way, Greenwood acting like a brat, Pogba speaking crap and Maguire going full Rambo mode in Greece. You start wondering if we have sacrificed discipline in the name of a happy dressing room
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Not this season to be fair. Maguire has been ordinary but at least he’s standing up to be counted and we know he will at least continue to give his all. Pogba has been a needless distraction (as always) and he’s majorly held us back when he has played jogging around half arsing it. He’s been trying to play martial into form for months now when he couldn’t look any less confident because he has no other options apart from the Cavani panic buy.

If wed shrewdly reinvested the lukaku money for much less than the wages of Ighalo and Cavani combined we could have Lautaro Martinez or Haaland playing up there on a long term deal. It’s pathetic planning and recruitment biting us in the arse again and again. Throw signing a clearly declining matic up for 3 more years instead of upgrading in a vital position that we still have no cover in and put mata firmly back into the first team and it’s half the squad that’s unsettled, too old or haven’t been good enough to challenge for years now. I feel for Ole. He’s inherited these problem positions from his predecessors and the owners lack of drive and vision and he’s still probably going to end up getting us top 4 again. If we had Haaland (release clause and all) instead of martial since last Jan and Bellingham or Sancho coming in instead of Mata I’m certain we’d have picked up a lot more points this season and the dressing room would be in better shape. I also think we’d have a much better chance of removing haalands release clause due to improvements in performances and atmosphere around the club if we’d actually got him in back then than we do of ever getting him now. We’ve well and truly missed out it looks like. Bruno is currently our only creative outlet so I’m sure he’s going to become unhappy carrying the team at some stage.

When Pogba, the face of your team, takes every opportunity to offer his services around and take a pop at our club behind the scenes it can’t be good for morale or discipline and sets a tone. How many more United managers will have to deal with him until the penny drops? Greenwood is just small stuff that would have been hidden back in the day. I would wager Oles hands will be tied on what to do with Pogba until the very last minute in typical glazer fashion while the dressing room needlessly suffers on in the meantime. We are spending elite level money but really really badly.

saying all that I agree our football has been awful given the amount of international talent we put out on the pitch every week but considering the glaring problems we’ve had with recruitment going back to Fergie’s last years and that still persist today then it’s not really surprising that an inexperienced manager can’t always get a tune out of the group.

Better managers have tried and failed and some of these players you feel would happily throw yet another manager under the bus than take a real look at themselves and their form over a longer period. Get rid I say. The likes of Pogba shouldn’t outlast another manager whatever happens when he is clearly one of our biggest problems as an organisation. Ole has been nothing but decent with him, protective even and this is how he repays him? Fergie was right about Pogba. Jose was also right about Pogbas attitude and martial not being consistent or hungry enough to be the main man in a top team and I don’t know how many other managers we need to see fail before the realisation hits. These guys need major competition for their places and if they don’t like it they can feck off. The owners shouldn’t be buying players over the managers head or making players untouchable especially when they fail repeatedly. The glazers, our recruitment and the aforementioned players are bigger problems for the club than Ole or who we get to manage next. Until the owners see that their way is failing miserably It’ll be the same players phoning it in and letting the manager and fans down.
 
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Ali Dia said:
Not this season to be fair. Maguire has been ordinary but at least he’s standing up to be counted and we know he will at least continue to give his all. Pogba has been a needless distraction (as always) and he’s majorly held us back when he has played jogging around half arsing it. He’s been trying to play martial into form for months now when he couldn’t look any less confident because he has no other options apart from the Cavani panic buy.

If wed shrewdly reinvested the lukaku money for much less than the wages of Ighalo and Cavani combined we could have Lautaro Martinez or Haaland playing up there on a long term deal. It’s pathetic planning and recruitment biting us in the arse again and again. Throw signing a clearly declining matic up for 3 more years instead of upgrading in a vital position that we still have no cover in and put mata firmly back into the first team and it’s half the squad that’s unsettled, too old or haven’t been good enough to challenge for years now. I feel for Ole. He’s inherited these problem positions from his predecessors and the owners lack of drive and vision and he’s still probably going to end up getting us top 4 again. If we had Haaland (release clause and all) instead of martial since last Jan and Bellingham or Sancho coming in instead of Mata I’m certain we’d have picked up a lot more points this season and the dressing room would be in better shape. I also think we’d have a much better chance of removing haalands release clause due to improvements in performances and atmosphere around the club if we’d actually got him in back then than we do of ever getting him now. We’ve well and truly missed out it looks like. Bruno is currently our only creative outlet so I’m sure he’s going to become unhappy carrying the team at some stage.

When Pogba, the face of your team, takes every opportunity to offer his services around and take a pop at our club behind the scenes it can’t be good for morale or discipline and sets a tone. How many more United managers will have to deal with him until the penny drops? Greenwood is just small stuff that would have been hidden back in the day. I would wager Oles hands will be tied on what to do with Pogba until the very last minute in typical glazer fashion while the dressing room needlessly suffers on in the meantime. We are spending elite level money but really really badly.

saying all that I agree our football has been awful given the amount of international talent we put out on the pitch every week but considering the glaring problems we’ve had with recruitment going back to Fergie’s last years and that still persist today then it’s not really surprising that an inexperienced manager can’t always get a tune out of the group.

Better managers have tried and failed and some of these players you feel would happily throw yet another manager under the bus than take a real look at themselves and their form over a longer period. Get rid I say. The likes of Pogba shouldn’t outlast another manager whatever happens when he is clearly one of our biggest problems as an organisation. Ole has been nothing but decent with him, protective even and this is how he repays him? Fergie was right about Pogba. Jose was also right about Pogbas attitude and martial not being consistent or hungry enough to be the main man in a top team and I don’t know how many other managers we need to see fail before the realisation hits. These guys need major competition for their places and if they don’t like it they can feck off. The owners shouldn’t be buying players over the managers head or making players untouchable especially when they fail repeatedly. The glazers, our recruitment and the aforementioned players are bigger problems for the club than Ole or who we get to manage next. Until the owners see that their way is failing miserably It’ll be the same players phoning it in and letting the manager and fans down.
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I can't think of many players whose performance hasn't waned this season. Martial, Greenwood, Matic, Shaw and even the likes of Bruno had seen a dip in their performance. Which kind explain why we're in 10th place. That's a concern. Good managers tend to improve players through coaching. I can make you a list of players that I cringed whenever their name popped up on the lineup and who went on improving and becoming useful under Sir Alex. Some like Andy Cole and Gary Neville ended up becoming first teamers and key players in our team. That's what top managers do. They improve players

However my biggest concern is how many players are breaching disciplinary measures. We had AWB breaking covid rules, Maguire going full bust up in Greece, Greenwood breaking rules in Iceland and that on top of Pogba usual 'I feel unhappy' BS and Lingard not focusing on football again. That's bad very bad. I had the 'pleasure' of having a mate whose unfortunately is a Liverpool supporter. He was very close to Houllier (ie I spoke to the guy myself once via his phone) and he told me the crap good old chap Evans faced to keep the dressing room happy. Basically Ince would choose the formation on Evans behalf. Which kind of explains why such great talent was sold so cheaply the moment the frenchman took full control over Liverpool. I hope that we do not have a good old chap Ole at the wheel ie someone who'll accept anything just to have a happy dressing room.

Regarding transfers there was no way on earth that United would have spent big in the middle of a pandemic not after we nIearly spent 200m last summer, 140m of which on overrated/overpriced players who are nowhere near to WC. That stinks of naivety from Ole/Pundits part. Sure we should have signed Cavani and Diallo earlier then we did and we should have tried to sign a CB as well. However considering everything we did had a productive summer with VDB/Telles being mint and Pellistri and Diallo being quite interesting prospects.

To conclude I think we've been messing up ever since Sir Alex retired. Moyes was out of depth, LVG had no idea of how the EPL works and that was something he himself ended up admitting while Mourinho is burned out and its only a matter of time before clubs notice that. With Ole we've gone full circle ie we signed a manager whose out of depth again. Having said that I do agree that the manager is not a problem. Actually he's a subset of a bigger problem and that is a board who keeps taking football decisions despite having no idea of what football is. A knowledgeable board would have brought in top people (DOF, head of recruitment etc) which in turn would made us more efficient on the transfer market they would have hired a top manager and they would hire top coaches to aid him. I mean look at the picture. Take Phelan out of the picture and they all look like boy scout leaders rather then manager/coaches of the biggest club in the world. Their CV kind of suggest the same thing.

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