Kim Min-jae | signed for Bayern

[tbtt]

It is understandable that Manchester United might not be able to match Bayern Munich's net 10 million wage offer to a player. However, when it comes to the 100-page presentation of the project that Bayern is envisioning, you have to admit the sorry state of your club.

 

[bucky]

Behave. Pavard is not starting ahead of a fit Varane or Martinez.

I honestly don’t see where this sudden hype for pavard has come from. He’s been a decent RB and that’s it. He’s not coming in to become a first choice CB for us. I don’t even want him as a backup option.

I didn't say he would start ahead of Martinez. He'd play alongside him, since he is a RCB. Ten Hag cares about what a CB's preferred foot is.

 

[Chief123]

I didn't say he would start ahead of Martinez. He'd play alongside him, since he is a RCB. Ten Hag cares about what a CB's preferred foot is.

The point still stands. He doesn’t start ahead of Varane any day of his entire career.

Pavard has been a RB all his career not a CB. He’s just an RB that can play CB too. I’d be absolutely worried if he’s brought in to be our first choice CB.

 

[bucky]

The point still stands. He doesn’t start ahead of Varane any day of his entire career.

Pavard has been a RB all his career not a CB. He’s just an RB that can play CB too. I’d be absolutely worried if he’s brought in to be our first choice CB.

He's always been better as a CB and he prefers playing there. This post just shows that you've hardly watched him as a CB.

 

[glasgow 21]

To be fair we don’t even need a CB that badly. Varane & Martinez is our first choice pairing, we have Lindelof perfectly capable of covering either and we just need a reliable fourth choice to allow for rotation and injury replacements. Kim will be a starter for Bayern whereas he probably would not be for us.

agreed which is why is been calling for 20m on Sutalo

 

[Chief123]

He's always been better as a CB and he prefers playing there. This post just shows that you've hardly watched him as a CB.

Did you just start watching Pavard this season?
In his entire career, he’s played the majority of his games as a RB except for this season. Yet you want him to come in and be our number one centre back. Amazing.

 

[OrcaFat]

To be fair we don’t even need a CB that badly. Varane & Martinez is our first choice pairing, we have Lindelof perfectly capable of covering either and we just need a reliable fourth choice to allow for rotation and injury replacements. Kim will be a starter for Bayern whereas he probably would not be for us.

I think we are short of proper competition at CB. We have decent cover with Lindelof, Maguire, Shaw to fill in, but Kim would be proper competition and although it would be tough for him to get ahead of Varane, he could do it some of the time and, allowing for injuries, Kim would start a lot of games for us.

 

[bucky]

Did you just start watching Pavard this season?
In his entire career, he’s played the majority of his games as a RB except for this season. Yet you want him to come in and be our number one centre back. Amazing.

No, I wanted us to sign him, when he was playing at Stuttgart. If anything it's questionable whether you have watched him.

 

[STYLOISRED]

Did you just start watching Pavard this season?
In his entire career, he’s played the majority of his games as a RB except for this season. Yet you want him to come in and be our number one centre back. Amazing.

If we buy Pavard, he is not coming here to become first choice immediately. Yes he has played alot at RB but he has made it clear that he wants to become a full time CB. Who better to learn from than his compatriot??

 

[Anustart89]

How many of you had heard of this guy 2 years back? Let's not be as if we lost out on prime Cannavaro

Don't pretend like you wouldn't call people hipsters if they had been saying that we must sign this South Korean lad at Fenerbahce in 2021.

Not to mention that your argument is stupid in itself as it's suggesting that a player can't go from being relatively unknown to being a very good player in two years. How many knew about Lisandro Martinez two years ago?

 

[Chief123]

How many of you had heard of this guy 2 years back? Let's not be as if we lost out on prime Cannavaro

Im not sure that’s really a solid argument.

A lot of people hadn’t heard of Haaland 2 years before he signed for City when he was at Salsburg.

 

[Dempsey19]

Im not sure that’s really a solid argument.

A lot of people hadn’t heard of Haaland 2 years before he signed for City when he was at Salsburg.

Not sure how that's possible when our scout Tommy Moller Nielsen went to watch him at Molde and he scored 4 goals in 20 minutes. That was 5 years ago now.

 

[izec]

With the way football is regarding commercial interests and global markets etc. i'm surprised this club wasn't interested in Kim, partly because he was the best defender in Italy, but also for marketing reasons. On a side note, i thought we had a pretty huge following in South Korea.

Maybe we were interested, but he chose Bayern. I dont believe we were far down the road, but if we buy a CB this summer, i am sure we were 'monitoring' the situation

 

[Baxquux]

Very disappointing to hear this be honest, but I do wonder if the club were really that interested to begin with.

As others have said, Timber probably seems the more likely. Is he as good though?

Ten Hag was definitely interested.

Not sure how that's possible when our scout Tommy Moller Nielsen went to watch him at Molde and he scored 4 goals in 20 minutes. That was 5 years ago now.

Yeah, he was discussed on here (and within the club) when Ole explicitly recommended him whilst EH was still at Molde. Whether the 'time difference' story about completing his signing is true or not, the club 'done fecked up'

 

[Idxomer]

Not sure how that's possible when our scout Tommy Moller Nielsen went to watch him at Molde and he scored 4 goals in 20 minutes. That was 5 years ago now.

And United were in for him again in 2019 before he signed with Dortmund.

 

[Baxquux]

And United were in for him again in 2019 before he signed with Dortmund.

Yeah, although at that point he was signed to Raiola and they were demanding release clause in contract plus heavier agents fees: the club still should have paid this and allowed the clause, in all honesty, but the Molde transfer was the time to strike

 

[bosnian_red]

We were never seriously interested simply because we have bigger priorities and have a top class player in that position already.

Given that we need 3 other starters far more urgently, it never made sense to sign someone who is turning 27 for big money in a position we have a 30 year old top class CB. You can argue he suits Ten Hag more, and if the squad is complete it'd be a different question, but with how our squad is currently assembled, the state of our rebuild, it made 0 sense.

 

[bosnian_red]

Why Varane?
He plays on the left side for Napoli from what I have seen and no manager is going to guarantee one player starts in front of another...that is just stupid.

He's right footed and Ten Hag likes playing right footed on right side. But either way, we have Varane and Martinez. That's our starting pair, unless one is injured. Nobody guarantees starts regardless of performance, but every manager very obviously does talk to players about their realistic roles, whether they are seen as key, squad or long term starters but short term sub. A player like Kim Min Jae won't go somewhere where he'll be a bench player. He will go to be a starter and wouldn't accept a deal to be a bench/rotate player when he can go to a top club and be a starter. United wouldn't go for him and tell him to be a bench player just like they wouldn't tell Varane he is no longer gonna be a starter when fit. Nobody squad builds like that. It'd only make sense it Kim was injury prone as well and older where both him and Varane are in the same boat. Both together don't make sense, and Martinez is the key starter at LCB anyway.

 

[pascell]

We were never seriously interested simply because we have bigger priorities and have a top class player in that position already.

Given that we need 3 other starters far more urgently, it never made sense to sign someone who is turning 27 for big money in a position we have a 30 year old top class CB. You can argue he suits Ten Hag more, and if the squad is complete it'd be a different question, but with how our squad is currently assembled, the state of our rebuild, it made 0 sense.

Having 'a' top class player in that position isn't good enough, defences win you titles and you need minimum two top quality CBs. CB is obviously a priority to ten Hag as we're now being linked to Disasi as he's our fall back option.

His release clause was not big money especially for a player entering his prime and coming off winning the league with Napoli.

Striker may be a more pressing position, but what are our options for that position? Hojlund for the reported €80-100m who would be the world's most expensive back up striker.

 

[bosnian_red]

Having 'a' top class player in that position isn't good enough, defences win you titles and you need minimum two top quality CBs. CB is obviously a priority to ten Hag as we're now being linked to Disasi as he's our fall back option.

His release clause was not big money especially for a player entering his prime and coming off winning the league with Napoli.

Striker may be a more pressing position, but what are our options for that position? Hojlund for the reported €80-100m who would be the world's most expensive back up striker.

We have 2 top quality CBs. Martinez is brilliant at LCB, Varane is brilliant at RCB but will miss some games with injuries. So you need a capable squad player (Lindelof) to cover games where he's injured and you need a young CB with potential to be marked as the long term replacement (lower the age of the group and replace Maguire). Kim is far to good/experienced for either of those 2 roles, so it never made sense.

In what way is CB a priority? ST, CM, GK are the 3 priorities, and that's been repeated by most sources too.

Of course his release clause was a good price but roughly 50m is still big money and it's roughly what we can afford to spend on each of GK, CM and ST this summer. We don't have the budget for a 50m CB, along with the wages he'd then command. But mainly it was just the squad roles aspect.

Having 2 world class CB compete for the same position given weaknesses at GK, CM and CF wouldn't make sense, CBs don't rotate much in general, and we have a very good deputy for Varane anyway, and can cover Martinez really well with Shaw and have Dalot or Malacia cover LB (or the young kid who came back from loan from Preston). We can sell Maguire and not touch our defence and be pretty much fine in defence unless someone picks up a serious injury. We can cover normal absences as it is.

Agree striker is hard but we simply have to do something. Thuram on free, Ramos, hojlund, someone from south America... Time for the scouts to prove their worth because we currently don't have a PL level option there, let alone a top CF. We already have CL level center backs with ok cover. It's fine.

 

[Walters_19_MuFc]

We only hget a centre back if Maguire or Lindelof leaves. If that is the case, it should be someone with potential, who can eventually take over from Varane.

Timber would probably be ten Hag's first choice. Disasi has been mentioned, but I know nothing about him.

 

[RedBanker]

Don't pretend like you wouldn't call people hipsters if they had been saying that we must sign this South Korean lad at Fenerbahce in 2021.

Not to mention that your argument is stupid in itself as it's suggesting that a player can't go from being relatively unknown to being a very good player in two years. How many knew about Lisandro Martinez two years ago?

I have nothing against KMJ. If he comes here and is actually good, he will shine. If he is just another Italian league false star, then he will be found out. What's stupid is your interpretation of my post. Let me make it simpler for you. The moaning about possibly not signing this guy is as if we have lost out on signing prime Cannavaro.

 

[pascell]

We have 2 top quality CBs. Martinez is brilliant at LCB, Varane is brilliant at RCB but will miss some games with injuries. So you need a capable squad player (Lindelof) to cover games where he's injured and you need a young CB with potential to be marked as the long term replacement (lower the age of the group and replace Maguire). Kim is far to good/experienced for either of those 2 roles, so it never made sense.

In what way is CB a priority? ST, CM, GK are the 3 priorities, and that's been repeated by most sources too.

Of course his release clause was a good price but roughly 50m is still big money and it's roughly what we can afford to spend on each of GK, CM and ST this summer. We don't have the budget for a 50m CB, along with the wages he'd then command. But mainly it was just the squad roles aspect.

Having 2 world class CB compete for the same position given weaknesses at GK, CM and CF wouldn't make sense, CBs don't rotate much in general, and we have a very good deputy for Varane anyway, and can cover Martinez really well with Shaw and have Dalot or Malacia cover LB (or the young kid who came back from loan from Preston). We can sell Maguire and not touch our defence and be pretty much fine in defence unless someone picks up a serious injury. We can cover normal absences as it is.

Varane would be the capable squad player, he should be being phased out of the team with Martinez and Kim being the long term CB partnership. It made plenty of sense as it would've improved our first XI.

It was a problem because Varane cannot be depended on this season and long term to stay fit. Lindelof is not good enough to step up either.

We're going to be lucky to bring in a ST for the right money, we've shown our hand saying we'd be willing to pay £100m for Kane to then tell the world we're not going to bid for him. In that situation I'd get a stop gap solution and allocate some budget to improve CB.

I guess it depends what direction you want the club to go in, if you want us to challenge for major honours then we have to improve on what we've got.

Lindelof is not a good enough deputy for a team that's challenging for major trophies.

 

[RedBanker]

Im not sure that’s really a solid argument.

A lot of people hadn’t heard of Haaland 2 years before he signed for City when he was at Salsburg.

Not making any arguments here. Just saying that the moaning is way over the top and unjustified. Haaland is a Ballon D'or level player and his talent was known years ago and surely you are not comparing a 50 goal per season guy with a CB who's had one good season in Italy?

 

[MyBloodIsRed]

I mean why do we even delude ourselves thinking we will get a smart signing while the Glazers are still here this summer? This has January written all over it. They won't spend a penny until it's sold next summer after Round 104 of bidding.

 

[Mmm-Qatarian]

I can't pretend I know heaps about Kim's ability but if he really is going to be earning nearly 200k a week at Bayern I'm not massively bothered about us not trying to better that.

As it stands, centre back isn't a position that we desperately need to be upgrading. Varane and Martinez is a very strong starting pairing, and Lindelof is a capable third choice. Feck it, unpopular as it might be even Maguire is not a completely awful fourth choice option to have (although I would be looking to sell him this summer), and Shaw is also capable of filling in there.

I think it'd be good to sign a centre back this summer but I wouldn't really want us to be paying 200k per week to one given that they would more than likely not be a guaranteed starter.

 

[aeh1991]

We should get rid of De Gea and offer KMJ the same wage as Bayern. Who knows if this might turn him. He has always dreamt of playing in the EPL.

 

[Dempsey19]

We should get rid of De Gea and offer KMJ the same wage as Bayern. Who knows if this might turn him. He has always dreamt of playing in the EPL.

Not sure if KMJ would be a good GK. But it's a bold strategy Cotton lets see if it pays off.

 

[OrcaFat]

I have nothing against KMJ. If he comes here and is actually good, he will shine. If he is just another Italian league false star, then he will be found out. What's stupid is your interpretation of my post. Let me make it simpler for you. The moaning about possibly not signing this guy is as if we have lost out on signing prime Cannavaro.

He’s better than (most of) the CBs at the club. We are short of genuine competition for Varane and Martinez so it is disappointing we won’t sign him.

We do have some other gaping holes to plug so it’s not a disaster. However, I don’t think it works as a simple list of priorities. We will strengthen in as many areas we can and the actual players we sign will be dictated by availability/ options in the various positions. For example, better to get a top CB than a mediocre striker even though striker is a “higher” priority.

 

[roseguy64]

You cannot force anyone out, but by that logic I'm not sure how top clubs ever manage to sell any of their players? But somehow they do.

Tell him he's not going to be captain, shirt number will change and he's not in the first team plans. Very few fit and healthy players insist on sitting on the bench when they could just leave to a club where they will play.

Players are forced out yes but sometimes even then they stick around or are only able to be loaned out. The asking price might be too high or their wages are too high and they don't want to give that up.

 

[Anustart89]

I have nothing against KMJ. If he comes here and is actually good, he will shine. If he is just another Italian league false star, then he will be found out. What's stupid is your interpretation of my post. Let me make it simpler for you. The moaning about possibly not signing this guy is as if we have lost out on signing prime Cannavaro.

Surely the moaning on here isn’t based on people thinking he’s the greatest centre half that’s ever walked the earth. It’s the combination of his ability, attributes, our CB situation and the very reasonable release clause which wouldn’t hamper our spending elsewhere as much as signing a more proven player for £100m would. You don’t see anyone here crying because we’re not going for Gvardiol at £85m are you?

 

[RedBanker]

He’s better than (most of) the CBs at the club. We are short of genuine competition for Varane and Martinez so it is disappointing we won’t sign him.

We do have some other gaping holes to plug so it’s not a disaster. However, I don’t think it works as a simple list of priorities. We will strengthen in as many areas we can and the actual players we sign will be dictated by availability/ options in the various positions. For example, better to get a top CB than a mediocre striker even though striker is a “higher” priority.

It's disappointing true. But so is not being able to sign many other players who are/were what we needed and moved to other clubs. Don't agree with your point about the striker. We had a good defensive record last year. What we didn't have were goals. I would rather we buy a young CB but a top class striker such as Osimhen.

 

[RedBanker]

Surely the moaning on here isn’t based on people thinking he’s the greatest centre half that’s ever walked the earth. It’s the combination of his ability, attributes, our CB situation and the very reasonable release clause which wouldn’t hamper our spending elsewhere as much as signing a more proven player for £100m would. You don’t see anyone here crying because we’re not going for Gvardiol at £85m are you?

Why should we be so worried about CB when we have major concerns for GK, midfield and above all else, striker positions. We should save our inner muppets for/if when we don't buy in those positions. If you asked me 50 mils for KMJ or 35 mils for MacAllister, i would go for the latter because midfield is where we lost many critical games last year, with/without Casemiro.

 

[Chief123]

Not making any arguments here. Just saying that the moaning is way over the top and unjustified. Haaland is a Ballon D'or level player and his talent was known years ago and surely you are not comparing a 50 goal per season guy with a CB who's had one good season in Italy?

I agree I don’t think losing out on KMJ is a major setback. The key thing was the price he was available at. It was a low risk transfer for a promising defender. There was still the risk of transitioning from Serie A to Prem which hasn’t been a great success for many. In fact I genuinely can’t think of a Serie A defender who has excelled in the prem afterwards.

 

[bosnian_red]

Varane would be the capable squad player, he should be being phased out of the team with Martinez and Kim being the long term CB partnership. It made plenty of sense as it would've improved our first XI.

It was a problem because Varane cannot be depended on this season and long term to stay fit. Lindelof is not good enough to step up either.

We're going to be lucky to bring in a ST for the right money, we've shown our hand saying we'd be willing to pay £100m for Kane to then tell the world we're not going to bid for him. In that situation I'd get a stop gap solution and allocate some budget to improve CB.

I guess it depends what direction you want the club to go in, if you want us to challenge for major honours then we have to improve on what we've got.

Lindelof is not a good enough deputy for a team that's challenging for major trophies.

Making Varane a squad player when he is on 350k per week and still a top class CB isn't a realistic thing. Yeah he gets some injuries but he's still an elite CB. You just deal with the knocks best you can and we dealt with them well this past season. Lindelof is a good backup CB so just agree to disagree there, he did well as cover for Varane and I'm very comfortable with that.

 

[Anustart89]

Why should we be so worried about CB when we have major concerns for GK, midfield and above all else, striker positions. We should save our inner muppets for/if when we don't buy in those positions. If you asked me 50 mils for KMJ or 35 mils for MacAllister, i would go for the latter because midfield is where we lost many critical games last year, with/without Casemiro.

Because you can have multiple priorities in the team, with CB being one of them. This deal is obviously more time-dependent considering the release clause. Plus, injuries happen over the course of a season and in order for us to play the type of football that the manager wants us to play I’d rather have a more suitable defender play there rather than Lindelof and Maguire who appeared in 35 and 31 games respectively last season, not to mention the fact that our starting left back was moved to CB for a number of games, which weakened us at left back.

 

[UnitedSofa]

Have I missed the news that KMJ had signed for Bayern or are we getting hysterical over something that hasn’t happened yet? Again.

 

[Red in STL]

Because you can have multiple priorities in the team, with CB being one of them. This deal is obviously more time-dependent considering the release clause. Plus, injuries happen over the course of a season and in order for us to play the type of football that the manager wants us to play I’d rather have a more suitable defender play there rather than Lindelof and Maguire who appeared in 35 and 31 games respectively last season, not to mention the fact that our starting left back was moved to CB for a number of games, which weakened us at left back.

CB is the lower of the priorities though, we could have 4 WC CB's in the squad which would mean nothing if we don't have a striker and at least one more CM

 

[Anustart89]

CB is the lower of the priorities though, we could have 4 WC CB's in the squad which would mean nothing if we don't have a striker and at least one more CM

I agree that it’s a lower priority than ST, but the Kim situation is time-sensitive due to the release clause as I pointed out in my previous post. If we are forced to sign all players in order of priority then Kim’s release clause isn’t going to be valid once we get to the CB part of the list.

If the club knows that it’s after a CB then this would represent great value for money considering the release clause in relation to his showings in Napoli.

 

[Red in STL]

I agree that it’s a lower priority than ST, but the Kim situation is time-sensitive due to the release clause as I pointed out in my previous post. If we are forced to sign all players in order of priority then Kim’s release clause isn’t going to be valid once we get to the CB part of the list.

If the club knows that it’s after a CB then this would represent great value for money considering the release clause in relation to his showings in Napoli

You have to be realistic, spending the money on him means we don't sign what we actually need more because of how much we can actually spend