Jose Fonte

The Man Himself said:
Yup. I am waiting for that too. We should offer him to Milanese clubs. Player can be happy/accept to go because of history and those two clubs have now some cash to spend and won't mind an established international player as they won't be getting any top or better player yet.
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Would be good for all parties involved, except of course the club which buys him.
 
One of the better CB's in the league for £8m seems far too cheap.

I'd be delighted if we signed him. An improvement on Rojo and Jones.
 
Akash said:
We have Blind, Baily, Smalling, Jones, Rojo, Mensah plus the likesof Tuanzebe. I don't see any point in signing him even as a backup.
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Sell Rojo and Jones is hardly ever fit. That leaves us with just Blind, Smalling and Bailly as our senior CBs. Fonte won't be a bad back up option I feel. Till the likes of Tuanzebe are ready to step in, we could do with some experience.
 
Just another Rojo, surely? Decent but not that good so he'll end up looking out of his depth and his reputation will take an unfairly harsh hit.

Better to try and usher Tuanzebe or Williams into contention, both could potentially be top quality CBs.
 
Tiber said:
Too expensive? 8m or anything close is the cost of a marsbar in footballing terns these days. If you get a few good years out of him thats a cheap deal
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Sorry, may have been unclear, I don't believe that figure is correct. It's not worthwhile for Soton to sell for £8m (as you say, is a bowl of soup in today's market) and anything more it's not good value for us.
 
I knew the usual calls to play 18 year olds would be in effect in this thread. Smalling, Bailly, Fonte and Blind would give us a good core 4 CB's for the season and at 32 Fonte isn't going to be getting in the way of anyone's development.

Rojo should be sold and Jones would be as well if it was my call, but I can see him going on loan to Sunderland if they sell Kone or maybe to Hull if Phelan remains in charge.
 
Brightonian said:
Just another Rojo, surely? Decent but not that good so he'll end up looking out of his depth and his reputation will take an unfairly harsh hit.

Better to try and usher Tuanzebe or Williams into contention, both could potentially be top quality CBs.
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He's nothing like Rojo, he's a PL experienced CB who has been an injury free and consistent performer for 3 seasons now, Rojo on the other hand is error and injury prone,. Fonte isn't an exciting buy but he's a good, reliable CB. Williams is only 17 and I imagine his responsibility will be as the U21 Captain this season, while Tuanzebe could do with a loan to get some real senior playing time week to week. I don't get this rush to throw every teenager into the deep end these days, there's nothing wrong with steady development like we have seen recently with Kane and Lingard.
 
Brightonian said:
Just another Rojo, surely? Decent but not that good so he'll end up looking out of his depth and his reputation will take an unfairly harsh hit.

Better to try and usher Tuanzebe or Williams into contention, both could potentially be top quality CBs.
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Fonts has a brain and he can defend. The problem with him, is I'm not sure how he copes in a high line.
 
Pointless signing. I hope this isn't true.
 
Would be a good signing to play alongside Smalling. Sounds speculative though.
 
Would much rather sign Pepe. I don't even like Pepe.
 
Devil may care said:
He's nothing like Rojo, he's a PL experienced CB who has been an injury free and consistent performer for 3 seasons now, Rojo on the other hand is error and injury prone,. Fonte isn't an exciting buy but he's a good, reliable CB. Williams is only 17 and I imagine his responsibility will be as the U21 Captain this season, while Tuanzebe could do with a loan to get some real senior playing time week to week. I don't get this rush to throw every teenager into the deep end these days, there's nothing wrong with steady development like we have seen recently with Kane and Lingard.
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But similarly, I don't get this rush to buy every player who's been consistent for Southampton and the like and expect them to stand up to the spotlight at United. They tend to produce exactly the same quality of football but be dismissed by fans and caftards as 'average' and 'not good enough' because, shock horror, United and Southampton have different standards. It's what happened to Schneiderlin last season, in which he was basically pretty good but because he didn't look like Keane every game and had a couple of bad ones it's suddenly as if he's been a big mistake or something.

Ffs, you've already got about 40% of the forum acting as if Bailly - not kicked a ball in the PL yet - deserves to start more than Smalling - probably the league's second best CB overall last season - simply because he's new and was the best defender at Villarreal for one season, according to the three or four matches that anyone on here is likely to have seen him play.
 
Brightonian said:
Just another Rojo, surely? Decent but not that good so he'll end up looking out of his depth and his reputation will take an unfairly harsh hit.

Better to try and usher Tuanzebe or Williams into contention, both could potentially be top quality CBs.
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No way he's an experienced consistent performer in the league, he will not be out of his depth at United at all.
 
dannyrhinos89 said:
No way he's an experienced consistent performer in the league, he will not be out of his depth at United at all.
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The number of times I've heard this... you'll probably be turning on him with the rest as soon as he has a dodgy game. As I said above, Schneiderlin got the exact same treatment.
 
I'd have him for this price (surely too low for Southampton to consider selling?) if it'd also mean getting rid of Rojo and Jones.
 
Brightonian said:
But similarly, I don't get this rush to buy every player who's been consistent for Southampton and the like and expect them to stand up to the spotlight at United. They tend to produce exactly the same quality of football but be dismissed by fans and caftards as 'average' and 'not good enough' because, shock horror, United and Southampton have different standards. It's what happened to Schneiderlin last season, in which he was basically pretty good but because he didn't look like Keane every game and had a couple of bad ones it's suddenly as if he's been a big mistake or something.
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Schneiderlin was an all action box to box for Southampton, in a possession obsessed team a lot of his natural game was taken away, and I admit he looked overawed by being at United. Fonte though would be coming in as a steady addition to the back 4, a squad player on a relatively low fee, there wouldn't be any great hype or expectation. I also don't think most of us who think he'd be a good buy are saying it because we want to see him start, it's because we don't want to see Rojo or Jones and think that 17 and 18 year olds should go on loan and develop at a regular pace.

Ffs, you've already got about 40% of the forum acting as if Bailly - not kicked a ball in the PL yet - deserves to start more than Smalling - probably the league's second best CB overall last season - simply because he's new and was the best defender at Villarreal for one season, according to the three or four matches that anyone on here is likely to have seen him play.
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Yes, I have seen that, I don't get it, I know he's poor on the ball but as a pure defender he's top class IMO and in a Mourinho team defending is the primary function of a CB, Jose even mentioned Smalling after the Community Shield win when asked about Bailly, in a way that made me sure that he see's Smalling + 1 as our CB partnership this season.
 
Unneeded signing in my opinion, we have Smalling and Bailey with Blind and TFM as back up even Jones could play a part.

Rojo is being used as back up left back to Shaw so if Mourinho is signing another player for defence it HAS to be a right back to replace Darmian who he clearly doesn't rate.
 
An experienced cb will make us less dependent on Smalling, he will prove stability to cbj and Bailly and will allow us to get rid of Jones and rojo
 
Brightonian said:
The number of times I've heard this... you'll probably be turning on him with the rest as soon as he has a dodgy game. As I said above, Schneiderlin got the exact same treatment.
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Fonte very rarely makes mistakes though he's been one of the most consistent defenders for the last few seasons now. Plus it's bloody 8 million, an absolute steal for a one of the best defenders In the league which he is.
 
I don't think we need him. Smalling is 26 and will be 27 this november. He has experience and senior CB to lead the defense. We have Blind who will be playing in the defence. Jose never mentioned Blind's name when talking about midfielders.

Also we have Carrick, Rooney, Valencia, Ibra who are all 30 or 30 plus, they all will be in the first 11. Surely we don't need few more 30 plus players starting for us?
 
One of the best and most underrated defenders in the league. Been in the Team of the Season for like three years running now and has formed great partnerships with the likes of Lovren, Alderweireld and Van Dijk.

It just shows how adaptable he is, that he could have such great chemistry with every new partner comes along.

The fact that he's 32 makes me want him here even more. He's just what we need. A proper experienced leader who will organize things and give his players a bollocking if they put a foot wrong. He's Portuguese aswell so he will go well with Mourinho.

Really hope this one happens. I think he's easily better than all of our CB options at the minute.
 
Why would we sign someone who's only got maybe 2 seasons left? Bit too short term for my liking.
 
whatwha said:
Why would we sign someone who's only got maybe 2 seasons left? Bit too short term for my liking.
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Like Zlatan?

Jose is doing what he needs to do to win the title this year.
 
whatwha said:
Why would we sign someone who's only got maybe 2 seasons left? Bit too short term for my liking.
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Perfect signing IMHO. Jones and Rojo blatantly aren't up to the task, leaving Smalling and an inexperienced Bailly, assuming Jose doesn't fancy Blind there long term. He'll help bring Bailly on while providing us with a some solidity at the same time. I've got nothing against bringing in a player for the short term if it will be to the benefit of the team, in much the same way Liverpool did with Gary McAllister, he was invaluable in Gerrard's development.
 
whatwha said:
Yes, I'm well aware we have Zlatan. We shouldn't make a habit of coming up with stop gap solutions though.
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We already have the future at the club, up top we have Rashford and Martial and in defense we have Bailly, Tuanzebe and Williams, but they are all really young, so players like Ibra and Fonte give them a couple of seasons development room to bed in at senior level and make their mistakes.
 
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