Let’s look at ETH’s signings and loan deals

simplyared

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If you’d asked me the question 4-5 months ago I’d have said it’s the best piece of business we’ve done in ages.

How would you rate them now in order (1-10)?

My assessment would be:

Martinez 9 (class defender)

Eriksen 7 (he came on a free)

Malacia 6 (squad player at best)

Casemiro 5 (big impact when he came and now looks like we’ll be lucky to get another season out of him. At 31yrs cost us £70mil)

Sabitzer 3 (tends to disappear in games and one wonders if he really was playing)

Weghorst 2 (I prefer Martial says it all)

Antony 1.5 (£85mil for what?)

Certainly not been the development we hoped for and truth is we still need a DM, RW and CF.
 
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Antony has a lot of work to do, and he might be the most one footed player I've ever seen play for us, but starting a thread like this and rating him 1.5 is just a bit ridiculous, isn't it? It's juvenile.
 
A thread made out of the depths of pain from last night loss.
 
Casemiro has been a fantastic signing. Without him we'd not be top 4. He has missed too many matches and lacks a bit of rhythm, but I think Ten Hag needs to sit him down and make him understand he's not the playmaker in our team. Win back the ball and give it to Bruno or Eriksen.
Casemiro had 68% pass completion last night, which I find absolutely shocking for a DM.
 
Cas has been great, but I am not sure EtH had much to do with it.
The ones we know fire sure he chose, only 1 has been a success.
 
Meltdown over last night is hilarious.
4 points clear with a game in hand please relax everyone.
We would have taken this after Matchday 2 this season
 
Big mistake paying £86m for Antony. The little idiot going on strike to force through the transfer should have rung enough alarm bells.
 
So far:
Martinez - 9/10
Casemiro - 7/10
Antony - 5/10
Dubravka - 3/10
Eriksen - 7/10
Malacia - 7.5/10
Weghorst - 2/10
Sabitzer - 6/10

Pretty mediocre.
 
I think getting Martinez was an outstanding move.
Getting Antony was not so smart.
Eriksen is fantastic free signing.
Casemiro - I don't think Erik gets the credit. He was available so it happened (regardless of ETH I think). But he was huge for us this season (don't let the last few games cloud over the overall judgment).
Malacia OK, quite a good backup.
Wout - totally missed here, but also seems like we had no budget?

Overall quite good all things considered. He will be smarter next season now that he knows the league. I don't trust his judgment on attacking players though. Not at the moment.

Edit: well I forgot about Sabitzer so that's the best summary.
 
Martinez - 9/10
Malacia - 5/10
Casemiro - 7/10
Eriksen 6/10
Antony - 5.5/10
——
Weghorst - 1/10
Sabitzer 3/10
 
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Think it was an average window, all things considered. Martinez and Casemiro have been great additions, and I do hold hope that Antony will join that list. Eriksen is a meh central midfielder for me, and is only s great signing in the context of being free, Malacia is a but rubbish from what I can see, Sabitzer has been okay and Weghorst is completely useless.

In all, the team has improved a lot from last season.
 
Martinez 8.5
Eriksen 7
Casemiro 7
Malacia 6
Sabitzer 5
Antony 4
Dubravka 2
Wout 2
 
Can we do this after the season is done rather than when we've just lost a game with an unlucky penalty in the dying seconds? Not saying its likely but one of these players could go on a great run of form and then the consensus changes, thats how reactionary these ratings are. People where saying how Casemiro was one of our top 10 signings ever a few months ago.
 
Martinez 9 (class defender) - agree

Eriksen 7 (he came on a free) - agree

Malacia 6 (squad player at best) - you need squad players such as him to compete with the starting 11 and provide cover. Or else its players like Williams covering for any Shaw injury

Casemiro 5 (big impact when he came and now looks like we’ll be lucky to get another season out of him. At 31yrs cost us £70mil) - disagree. We dropped vital points in the games he missed

Sabitzer 3 (tends to disappear in games and one wonders if he really was playing) - loan signing for cover, not really judging

Weghorst 2 (I prefer Martial says it all) - loan signing cause we literally had no striker, not really judging

Antony 1.5 (£85mil for what?) - disagree with your rating. I'd say he's ben a 6 so far
 
The signings are quite good in my opinion, it’s the loans that have baffled, all good players but come on this is United.
Hopefully after a year with us I just hope he is developed a better understanding of the right type of players that will improve us. It seems 6 months wasn’t enough of an insight here.
 
A 5 for Casemiro? Who we were talking about being one of the signings of the season during our run of form?
 
Martinez 7/10 excellent at passing and a leader, but I think he has massive weaknesses at defending and is nowhere as good as Caf thinks.

Casemiro 7.5/10 was one of our two best players earlier, but has massively slowed down.

Eriksen 7/10 a good player coming for free, but should be a squad player next season.

Malacia 5/10 an overall mediocre player but very cheap and young. He is third choice LB which brings the question, why do we need a third choice LB?

Antony 3/10 he would have been okay if he would have cost 20m instead of 100m. Should be a backup player at most.

Sabitzer 5/10 mediocre overall, not better than Fred or McTominay.

Weghorst 1/10 worst regular United player I have ever seen. Would genuinely take Bebe over him. We play with 10 men when he is on the pitch.

Butland NA has not played

Overall, for the money spent we have not got good value. Casemiro, Martinez and Eriksen have been good but not spectacular, and the first two have cost a shitload. Antony has been bad and had cost 100m. The others have been bad but cheap (or on loan).

We have done same thing we always do. Give full power to the manager to sign players, then overpay for said players, while there is better (and cheaper) value out there.
 
Woodzy said:
A 5 for Casemiro? Who we were talking about being one of the signings of the season during our run of form?
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5 is a joke
But he started poorly., then was fantastic and has been poor again since the suspension.
I'd have to go with 7 based on how up and down a season he's had.
 
Not great, not terrible. The stain of Antony's transfer is just too big to ignore. Also, his futile chase of De Jong. But he doesn't carry the ultimate responsibility for these blunders.
 
Probably better than any other transfer window in the last 10 years.
 
You would need to weight them in terms of the investment and long-term impact of the move. Getting it completely wrong on a desperation move like Wout Weghorst is bad, but we can just let the loan deal expire and look elsewhere. It's much worse getting it wrong on a expensive player like Antony, who is supposed to be a part of the team for years to come.

That being said, I would score them like this:
- Martinez 9/10 - Excellent defender and a leader that has brought a lot of fight to the defense.
- Casemiro 7/10 - Was genuinely world class for a period, but has lost his way a bit. Might have overpaid for him.
- Eriksen 7.5/10 - Has performed better than I expected, and he was free. Given our midfield situation, it was a good move to get a quality player for nothing.
- Malacia 5/10 - Still young, but starting to make a lot of mistakes. Mostly bought as a back-up though.
- Antony 4/10 - Jury is still out, but it's not looking very positive these days. Still, he is young and clearly has the technical ability.
- Weghorst 3/10 - Terrible player, but we desperately needed to get someone in to make up the numbers.
- Sabitzer 6.5/10 - Good move. I think he is a good all-round midfielder, and I wouldn't mind him being part of the squad for next season.
 
So far:
Martinez - 10/10 - completely reinvigorated our defence & immediately formed a great partnership with Varane

Casemiro - 8/10 - slightly iffy start, then found his groove. Has waned a bit recently but would argue due to over-reliance and fatigue.

Antony - 6/10 - started well, waned, had a good spell, waned again. Looks to be taking a bit more to adjust and a massive victim of a ridiculous transfer fee.

Dubravka - 3/10 - meh

Eriksen - 7/10 - not physical enough for a CM but a great free transfer. Helped the spine be much more comfortable on the ball. Would rather we get an upgrade and move Eriksen to 10 and compete with Bruno.

Malacia - 7.5/10 - low expectations for a relatively cheap deal. Shown spells of his potential but still very young.

Weghorst - 3/10 - is a body where we need a body

Sabitzer - 6/10 - seems to suffer a bit from McFred syndrome. Neither a definite DM or CAM and not good enough to be an all-round CM for us.
 
Rozay said:
Think it was an average window, all things considered. Martinez and Casemiro have been great additions, and I do hold hope that Antony will join that list. Eriksen is a meh central midfielder for me, and is only s great signing in the context of being free, Malacia is a but rubbish from what I can see, Sabitzer has been okay and Weghorst is completely useless.

In all, the team has improved a lot from last season.
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I'm not sure what more you could ask for from a window, then? No club gets every signing perfect. It's easily the best one we've had in a long, long time.

Weghorst is absolutely shocking but we had no money left and needed a striker badly so he was at least worth a punt.
 
simplyared said:
If you’d asked me the question 4-5 months ago I’d have said it’s the best piece of business we’ve done in ages.

How would you rate them now in order (1-10)?

My assessment would be:

Martinez 9 (class defender)

Eriksen 7 (he came on a free)

Malacia 6 (squad player at best)

Casemiro 5 (big impact when he came and now looks like we’ll be lucky to get another season out of him. At 31yrs cost us £70mil)

Sabitzer 3 (tends to disappear in games and one wonders if he really was playing)

Weghorst 2 (I prefer Martial says it all)

Antony 1.5 (£85mil for what?)



Certainly not been the development we hoped for and truth is we still need a DM, RW and CF.
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Too harsh on Casemiro and Antony. Remember how we looked without Casemiro and even though he has faded after his two red cards he has still been a great addition to our MF. Regarding Antony I wouldn’t be so fast to write him off. Sure he came with a hefty price but he shows character and fighting spirit and has chipped in a few coming to a notoriously difficult league.
 
For the money spent we could have done a lot better, not sure anyone could argue otherwise.
 
Wilt said:
Big mistake paying £86m for Antony. The little idiot going on strike to force through the transfer should have rung enough alarm bells.
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Jesus Christ. Antony isn't the 'little idiot' here.
 
Most of the signings have been good.
Not the Jan loans, but then I don't think we can really penalise him for those, club didn't want to spend.

Antony we overpaid for, the rest of the summer signings were good additions, aside from Dbravka I would say
 
Our hit rate with players in which we've paid north of 50m for is pretty damn shocking you have to say:

Fred - £53m
Anthony Martial - £54m
Bruno Fernandes - £56.7m
Casemiro - £60m
Angel di Maria - £67.5m
Romelu Lukaku - £76.2m
Jadon Sancho - £76.5m
Harry Maguire - £80m
Antony - £86m
Paul Pogba - £94.5m

You could argue we've had one genuine hit in Bruno, although Casemiro has been class this season in the main.

But yeah, its a shit show in the way we scout and buy players.
 
Think it's too early to judge Antony, and he's had some good spells for him to warrant another season to prove himself. He's not yet in the Sancho territory of being deemed a hopeless signing.
 
Martinez - 8/10

Malacia - 6/10

Casemiro - 7.5/10

Eriksen 6.5/10

Antony - 7/10

——

Weghorst - 2/10

Sabitzer 5/10



Looking back at this just tells you what this club is about. The majority, to be fair, weren't Ten Hag's first-choice signings. He wanted Frenkie de Jong first, but we then moved on to Rabiot and ended up with Casemiro, who, in my opinion, is a club signing. Our recruitment has been looking for a defensive midfielder for ages. The Martinez situation is interesting – he wanted Timber first, probably because he can cover the right-back position as well. However, as we know, Timber signed a new deal, and we ended up with Martinez, who also worked under Ten Hag and knows his system well.

From a recruitment point of view, it's not great. I thought John Murtough and Richard Arnold could've done better in negotiations (maybe because Matt Judge resigned and we just appointed Adidas executive Matt Hargreaves to lead negotiations). Fair play, most of the money came later from the credit facility that the Glazers assigned late in August. We ended up overspending on Antony by £35m after initially being quoted £50M, and his wages went from £20k to £200k. You can argue the same for Casemiro. In January, granted, because of our overspending, we didn't have any money to spend. We went from looking at Gakpo and Felix (on loan) to considering Wout Weghorst and Vincent Aboubakar. You can argue the latter would've been 10 times better. Sabitzer, to be honest, was not planned or expected; however, I will give them credit that they got that deal quickly on deadline day. Fair play, for no money, that's an okay window – remember, we could've gotten no one, like last year.
 
Martinez is brilliant, no doubt.
Eriksen was a smart signing
Casemiro is quality, but we overpaid given his age
Malacia is fine. Young cheap player who looks like he could be a solid squad player for years

Antony is terrible and horribly overpriced. Probably even worse value than Maguire ffs
Weghorst is a disaster. What was Ten Hag thinking?
Sabitzer is just meh...

We've had worse transfer windows, but there's still big room for improvement.
 
The OP was extremely harsh on Casemiro and Antony.

Martinez - 9 - After a tough first two games (even then he was nowhere near as bad as some made out) he was probably the best defender in the league before the World Cup. Dropped off a touch after that but looked a huge success up until his injury.

Eriksen - 7 - If taking into account that he came on a free then I'd up his rating to an 8 or 8.5. Obviously we've overplayed him and relied on him too much this season, but he should continue to be an extremely valuable part of the squad for a few years to come. Great free signing which is something we should take advantage of more often.

Malacia - 6 - A cheap squad player who has struggled recently, but up until then I'd say he was the type of signing we need to make a few more of to help strengthen the squad as a whole. Time will tell whether his recent poor form will be an outlier or whether he will end up not good enough.

Casemiro - 7 - The first I feel OP was extremely harsh on. Took a little time to get going, then was arguably our best and most important player for a significant portion of the season. The very unfortunate suspensions knocked him out of his rhythm and he's been inconsistent since, but I expect he will play a big role in the next few years. Obviously there's a chance that he won't and this has been the start of a significant decline, but for now I'd say that's the less likely option. Having a more solid partner should also help.

Sabitzer - 3 - Had two or three good games in the #10 role, otherwise he's been poor. Basically is the same as McTominay in the sense that he moves around avoiding the ball and provides very little.

Weghorst - 3 - He was better than he gets given credit for in the early days (had about 6 decent/good games in his first 12) but since then has been very poor.

Antony - 6 - Obviously very overpriced so if we're taking that into account then his rating would drop (certainly not a 1.5 though that OP said), but as a player he's been decent-to-fairly good for the majority of his performances. Isn't dangerous enough around the box (either scoring or assisting) but he does do a quite a bit to help the team as a whole keep it's shape, possession of the ball, and defensively.
 
Jericholyte2 said:
So far:
Martinez - 10/10 - completely reinvigorated our defence & immediately formed a great partnership with Varane

Casemiro - 8/10 - slightly iffy start, then found his groove. Has waned a bit recently but would argue due to over-reliance and fatigue.

Antony - 6/10 - started well, waned, had a good spell, waned again. Looks to be taking a bit more to adjust and a massive victim of a ridiculous transfer fee.

Dubravka - 3/10 - meh

Eriksen - 7/10 - not physical enough for a CM but a great free transfer. Helped the spine be much more comfortable on the ball. Would rather we get an upgrade and move Eriksen to 10 and compete with Bruno.

Malacia - 7.5/10 - low expectations for a relatively cheap deal. Shown spells of his potential but still very young.

Weghorst - 3/10 - is a body where we need a body

Sabitzer - 6/10 - seems to suffer a bit from McFred syndrome. Neither a definite DM or CAM and not good enough to be an all-round CM for us.
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This is pretty much how I see it too.
 
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