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

Massive Spanner said:
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.
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I think more time needs to pass for that to be judged. I remember certain windows with Ole and Mourinho we said the same. When we signed Maguire, Bruno and AWB in one summer, or when we signed Pogba, Mkhi and Bailly or when we signed Sancho, Varane and Ronaldo.

There's a possible scenario where Casemiro starts to rapidly decline next year while Antony continues to frustrate and is eventually benched. Would that still make last summer's window that good? I don't think so.
 
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Weghorst and Sabitzer get a pass for me simply because it's clear they're the best we could afford. You can't really blame ETH for that. Antony has a lot to prove though, we've spent 150m pounds on Sancho and Antony which is abysmal expenditure.
 
As said this thread should be done again at the end of the season.
 
Baneofthegame said:
A 5 for Casemiro? We'd be mid table without him this season, Jesus Christ.
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Came to say this, without Casemiro I really struggle to think where we may be, he's been crucial for us this season. Yeah he's dropped off a bit since the suspensions but so has the team as a whole.
 
Anthony has done alright. I agree I don’t particularly see a very high ceiling which for that price tag isn’t great but for a flashy winger in a new league he’s done pretty well.
 
Let me rate players after a stinging last minute loss. Totally unbiased and without a clouded judgement.
 
Leg-End said:
Came to say this, without Casemiro I really struggle to think where we may be, he's been crucial for us this season. Yeah he's dropped off a bit since the suspensions but so has the team as a whole.
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This is my point, as a season he has been great, the whole squad has looked jaded the past month or so, Antony has been disappointing but that's due to his price tag and our owners waiting for two dismal results to release more funds.
 
Massive Spanner said:
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.
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Then it would naturally not make sense to label as perfect.
 
Martinez is the only deal that was spot on and will be great for the future.

Eriksen and Casemiro are short term business that we aren't going to build anything upon, in a team still rebuilding and not anywhere close to win major trophies. Eriksen's saving grace is him being free.

Antony is a huge flop.

Weghorst is one of the worst players I have ever seen play for us.

Sabitzer is the epitome of meh player. I barely notice him on the pitch.

Malacia didn't show he can even be a decent backup option.

It's not really a good window no matter how much you look into it. Only one player out of them showed he can be here long term. The rest are either short term business or straight out awful players.

In the future when we look back at this window, it will be considered a huge failure. Remember how we look now at the "Maguire - AWB - James" market. This will be similar.
 
Some of the revisionism in this thread is ridiculous.

You all need to go for a long walk and get last night out of your heads.
 
el3mel said:
Martinez is the only deal that was spot on and will be great for the future.

Eriksen and Casemiro are short term business that we aren't going to build anything upon, in a team still rebuilding and not anywhere close to win major trophies. Eriksen's saving grace is him being free.

Antony is a huge flop.

Weghorst is one of the worst players I have ever seen play for us.

Sabitzer is the epitome of meh player. I barely notice him on the pitch.

Malacia didn't show he can even be a decent backup option.

It's not really a good window no matter how much you look into it. Only one player out of them showed he can be here long term. The rest are either short term business or straight out awful players.

In the future when we look back at this window, it will be considered a huge failure. Remember how we look now at the "Maguire - AWB - James" market. This will be similar.
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Agree 100% with this!
 
el3mel said:
Martinez is the only deal that was spot on and will be great for the future.

Eriksen and Casemiro are short term business that we aren't going to build anything upon, in a team still rebuilding and not anywhere close to win major trophies. Eriksen's saving grace is him being free.

Antony is a huge flop.

Weghorst is one of the worst players I have ever seen play for us.

Sabitzer is the epitome of meh player. I barely notice him on the pitch.

Malacia didn't show he can even be a decent backup option.

It's not really a good window no matter how much you look into it. Only one player out of them showed he can be here long term. The rest are either short term business or straight out awful players.

In the future when we look back at this window, it will be considered a huge failure. Remember how we look now at the "Maguire - AWB - James" market. This will be similar.
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I'm very glad someone also sees this. Most important aspect is that this summer window was much more about the present than about the future - we have paid top dollar for players that were supposedly ready to instantly elevate us to another level, and if you do the short term fixes, you either get results immediately or it's a failure. There's always an alternative cost to fixing our midfield with 30+ players that you just know won't be there in a few years, you could blood in a youth player, you could buy a speculative lad and hope he turns into a world beater etc. etc. We missed on this and decided we go all out for immediate fixes, which is not a bad strategy in itself, but can heavily backfire if you don't become good instantly. If we end up with the League Cup this season and barely scrapped top4, was it really worth it to be looking at another rebuild in a year or two? Are we any better placed for the next season than we were for this one, considering the money we have spend and that the pot is not unlimited? I'm not sure.
 
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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Yeah we should have bought a cheaper RW and ST instead of spending £85m on Antony
 
Kaos said:
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.
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Believe me it's not
 
The writing off of Antony is completely insane given our tendency to completely fall apart when we take him off. We need more from him in terms of output obviously, which will come but the reality this year he's been primarily used to get us from point A to point B and then slow the game down to build attacks higher up the pitch, which is exactly what he does.

Martinez - 9
Casemiro - 8
Eriksen - 8
Antony - 6/7
Malacia - 6
 
Offside said:
Anthony has done alright. I agree I don’t particularly see a very high ceiling which for that price tag isn’t great but for a flashy winger in a new league he’s done pretty well.
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I just don't see how 4 goals and 1 assist in 21 games qualifies as doing pretty well in a new league. We'd be bantering the hell out of him if he was playing for another team, especially his antics on the pitch.
 
I think that he has done a good job so far. The only bad signing is Antony and he can still turn things around. Mid-season loan deals are tricky and full of compromise so I wont judge Ten Hag too harshly there. All in all, if last summer is a sign of things to come then the future looks bright.
 
Dramatic as feck with Casemiro, he is a class player and all his stats point to it. The problem is we are asking him to be something he isn't on top of what he is, which will be solved with the right problem.
  • Eriksen - 8, excellent free signing and used in a way we didn't expect but has been very important
  • Malacia - 7, very good squad player, young with potential to grow but won't overtake Shaw because Shaw is one of the best around
  • Martinez - 9, genuinely think he is one of the best LCBs in the world, world class player
  • Casemiro - 8, exactly what we've needed for years, been world class this year, think he can perform to a very high level for another 3 years
  • Antony - 5, think he has huge potential and might turn into a top player. Currently a useful player and we are better with him, though he is frustrating. Would have been 6-7 if he was 50-60m, but he was 80m or whatever, so a 5.
  • Weghorst - 4, ran around a lot, but isn't good obviously. Options were non existent, so I'm not gonna get too upset at it, and we needed anybody, so he was still better than just getting nobody IMO.
  • Sabitzer - 6, needed a short term loan to replace Eriksen, he's more like a Fred and I called it before but he still did a decent job. Doesn't mean we should sign him though.
 
Red Star One said:
I'm very glad someone also sees this. Most important aspect is that this summer window was much more about the present than about the future - we have paid top dollar for players that were supposedly ready to instantly elevate us to another level, and if you do the short term fixes, you either get results immediately or it's a failure. There's always an alternative cost to fixing our midfield with 30+ players that you just know won't be there in a few years, you could blood in a youth player, you could buy a speculative lad and hope he turns into a world beater etc. etc. We missed on this and decided we go all out for immediate fixes, which is not a bad strategy in itself, but can heavily backfire if you don't become good instantly. If we end up with the League Cup this season and barely scrapped top4, was it really worth it to be looking at another rebuild in a year or two? Are we any better placed for the next season than we were for this one, considering the money we have spend and that the pot is not unlimited? I'm not sure.
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We don't need to rebuild. Most of our players will still be at their peak in two years. Casemiro could still be a top player then for all we know. But even if he's not, winning the first trophy in god knows how many years and being back in the CL is huge for development of this group of players.
 
For me the main issue is the strategy, chase De Jong all summer who despite what people said was not our most important need. We spent months chasing him when we literally had no defensive midfielder, I genuinely don’t know what the plan was for if we actually got him FDJ and Fred? FDJ and Eriksen? We would be 10th.

On top of that we then paid double the amount for a player we could have got at the beginning of the window and I know many will say this is because of Murtough or whatever but it should reach a point where ETH tells him Antony is never a 90m player and there are countless wingers we couldve got even at that late stage for a fraction of the price who are level or even better than Antony who is the most limited player I have ever seen in a United shirt. Not because of a lack of ability, the man has one foot. He is always going to be a limited player in that sense and thus never good enough to be a starter here, Robben is the exception rather than the rule

I worry about the summer because I dont see us getting in the two midfielders we desperately need because we are spending the whole summer chasing a backup center back while we’re an injury away from Fred being back in the team. Of the top 6 only us and Spurs have the same players that cost us goals regularly in 2019 still playing regularly and costing us in 2023, absolutely blows my mind that.
 
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