Let’s shop in Aldi from now on because we got a dodgy turkey in M&S that one time

JPRouve said:
They follow the same logic than other transfers, that's why we should never judge the price tag. There is a study somewhere from a few years ago, only around 50% of transfers are a "success".
Click to expand...

That sounds about right but it's also a very good reason not to spend big. Unless it's an absolute sure thing which means a proven player not at the end of their career and only if they fit our system without compromise.

It also goes beyond just the level of their contribution. A high value flop on big wages is harder to get rid of and does damage to the dressing room.
 
Smores said:
That sounds about right but it's also a very good reason not to spend big. Unless it's an absolute sure thing which means a proven player not at the end of their career and only if they fit our system without compromise.

It also goes beyond just the level of their contribution. A high value flop on big wages is harder to get rid of and does damage to the dressing room.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I'm generally against these type of signings even when I like the player. The margin for success is way too small even if the player is very good one bad tackle can ruin the signing which is what for example happened to Neymar, one broken foot put him the shelf for the better part of two seasons and provoked other smaller issues.
 
If you need to replace your bathroom your don't spend your whole budget on the shower and sink and leave nothing for the toilet and bath. We need to replace quite a few players so there is far greater value in improving 5 positions by 60% than replacing 2 positions by 70%.

Look at Liverpool. They spent big on a few players as finishing touches. They didn't start their rebuild by throwing their whole budget at a couple of players.
 
It's not to do with individual price points in my opinion. It's about saying we've got X amount this summer, what improves our squad to the greatest possible degree?

Which positions have we identified as crucial, that cannot wait? How many players do we need in total? Who is here that can be part of an improving side? Until you have a clear picture of these things, you cannot say whether the M&S turkey is better than the Aldi one for our overall goal because we need the potatoes, carrots and stuffing too.

Ultimately, if you cheap out on every position and it compromises quality, you'll eventually buy twice. If you spunk 70 million on a position, he better be bloody good, and secondly it might add to the length of time required to build a competitive squad depending on what you think of the current squad. We need to join the thinking up and I'm hopeful that's where Ralf is crucial as he knows the squad.
 
The Ole supporters are certainly strong believers of this school of thought.
 
JPRouve said:
We haven't really signed a lot of big names and they are not the issue for United, as much as posters want to harp on it. The issue is the accumulation of these following signings that don't actually move the needle.

Lindelof - 35m€
Bailly - 38m€
Fred - 60m€
Matic - 44m€
Van De Beek - 38m€
Shaw - 37m
Maguire - 80m€
Wan Bissaka - 55m€
Schneiderlin - 35m€
Depay - 34m
Herrera - 36m€
Mata - 44m€
Fellaini - 38m€
Mkhitaryan - 42m€
Dalot -22m
Rojo - 20m€
Martial - 60m€

That's the issue of United, in the world of Football these are all large fees and we arguably hit on none of them, none of them can retrospectively be seen as a good deal, you can barely state that you are on par. The likes of Pogba and Lukaku are also failed transfers and people have a lot resentment bu they are not United's problem because you could justify the fees based on actual performances during previous seasons, I would do the same for Mata but the rest are abject and expensive failures and that includes every single signings that we made within the PL.
Click to expand...

Under Ed Woodward, we signed Radamel Falcao, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Romelu Lukaku, Angel di Maria, Paul Pogba, Raphael Varane, Cristiano Ronaldo, Edinson Cavani, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Jadon Sancho. Personally, I would say that all of those are 'big names' and I'd class them as quite lazy signings really.

You could arguably add Juan Mata to that list, who we bought out of panic because he was a big name in the Premier League and had performed well at Chelsea.

I highly doubt that Liverpool, for example, would sign any of the players I have listed.
 
Lentwood said:
Under Ed Woodward, we signed Radamel Falcao, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Romelu Lukaku, Angel di Maria, Paul Pogba, Raphael Varane, Cristiano Ronaldo, Edinson Cavani, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Jadon Sancho. Personally, I would say that all of those are 'big names' and I'd class them as quite lazy signings really.

You could arguably add Juan Mata to that list, who we bought out of panic because he was a big name in the Premier League and had performed well at Chelsea.

I highly doubt that Liverpool, for example, would sign any of the players I have listed.
Click to expand...

That's 10 players in 9 years, it's not a lot. If I follow your logic the likes of Mané, Van Dijk, Keita, Allison, Thiago, Oxlade Chamberlain, Milner or Salah were big names. But anyway this list counts most of our best performers and a few players that didn't cost us much or for which we got our money back. The issue is with the group that I mentioned with players that have costed more money and have been worse performers.
 
JPRouve said:
That's 10 players in 9 years, it's not a lot. If I follow your logic the likes of Mané, Van Dijk, Keita, Allison, Thiago, Oxlade Chamberlain, Milner or Salah were big names. But anyway this list counts most of our best performers and a few players that didn't cost us much or for which we got our money back. The issue is with the group that I mentioned with players that have costed more money and have been worse performers.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure how you come to the conclusion that signing those players is the same as signing AdM, Zlatan, Schweinsteiger or Ronaldo...but whatever, we're getting side-tracked.

The point is, we shouldn't be looking at those players, we shouldn't even be thinking about signing those players...with the possible exception of Pogba.

At least with Shaw, AWB, Martial, Depay the thinking was correct, even if the execution was arguably poor.

So we have two issues

1) The issue I raised, which is targeting/signing the wrong type of player in the first-place
2) Making poor quality signings when we do target the right profile

So it's not looking good on either front and we're due a full overhaul hopefully!
 
JPRouve said:
We haven't really signed a lot of big names and they are not the issue for United, as much as posters want to harp on it. The issue is the accumulation of these following signings that don't actually move the needle.

Lindelof - 35m€
Bailly - 38m€
Fred - 60m€
Matic - 44m€
Van De Beek - 38m€
Shaw - 37m
Maguire - 80m€
Wan Bissaka - 55m€
Schneiderlin - 35m€
Depay - 34m
Herrera - 36m€
Mata - 44m€
Fellaini - 38m€
Mkhitaryan - 42m€
Dalot -22m
Rojo - 20m€
Martial - 60m€

That's the issue of United, in the world of Football these are all large fees and we arguably hit on none of them, none of them can retrospectively be seen as a good deal, you can barely state that you are on par. The likes of Pogba and Lukaku are also failed transfers and people have a lot resentment bu they are not United's problem because you could justify the fees based on actual performances during previous seasons, I would do the same for Mata but the rest are abject and expensive failures and that includes every single signings that we made within the PL.
Click to expand...

Agreed. It is really easy to say we should buy the next up and coming player early on before they move to a club (like Dortmund or another lower PL club) that is able to hold on and sell for 70+ million. The reality is though that those clubs also have numerous failed transfers to go along with the success stories. Additionally, the bar for success at those clubs is much lower than it is for us. Getting a good top half premier league player is really not that hard. most of those signings you mentioned above could fit into that category. Getting a player that is suited to a title challenging side is a much different conversation as the supply is so much more limited.

You then have the added issue of offloading all of the mistakes. It is a lot easier to sell a player with wages that 20+ other clubs across Europe can match. With our "failed signings" the only clubs that will want them are typically ones that cannot afford them. I think we need a bigger emphasis on wage controls on our lower level players. Dan James for example was not on outrageous wages so we didn't really lose much on taking a punt on him and were easily able to offload him. Having the likes of Mata, Jones, Bailly etc on huge wages relatively makes it so much harder though.
 
Lentwood said:
I'm not sure how you come to the conclusion that signing those players is the same as signing AdM, Zlatan, Schweinsteiger or Ronaldo...but whatever, we're getting side-tracked.

The point is, we shouldn't be looking at those players, we shouldn't even be thinking about signing those players...with the possible exception of Pogba.

At least with Shaw, AWB, Martial, Depay the thinking was correct, even if the execution was arguably poor.

So we have two issues

1) The issue I raised, which is targeting/signing the wrong type of player in the first-place
2) Making poor quality signings when we do target the right profile

So it's not looking good on either front and we're due a full overhaul hopefully!
Click to expand...

Let's be clear about something there is nothing wrong about signing big name players, those players are big names for a reason and they are almost exclusively signed by other big clubs. United issue is largely about signing subpar players for big name money.
 
JPRouve said:
That's 10 players in 9 years, it's not a lot. If I follow your logic the likes of Mané, Van Dijk, Keita, Allison, Thiago, Oxlade Chamberlain, Milner or Salah were big names. But anyway this list counts most of our best performers and a few players that didn't cost us much or for which we got our money back. The issue is with the group that I mentioned with players that have costed more money and have been worse performers.
Click to expand...
They also seem to have a robust system that incorporates the whole club.
1. Keita was very hyped, hasn't been used that much but has been kept involved and motivated
2. The magical net spend is good: how they managed the whole Coutinho situation was impressive
3. They scouted and bought well, Robertson for example and Salah was by no means a given
4. When it was evident they needed to strengthen core areas in GK and central defence they spent big and well
5. They obviously train well, I saw TAA on our local news TV playing chess at some kids tournament! I did wonder how many of ours would be able to match that!

We have a lot of work ahead, but I'm more positive about it than I've been in a while. I'll be red forever anyway!
 
Frank Grimes said:
Is this thinking flawed? Do all our signings have to be under a certain price? I think we should sign the best players available to give us the best possible chance of success. Am I wrong?
Click to expand...
I think you can overpay for exceptional players with immense work rate.
But we shouldn’t be overpaying for squad players or for mediocre talent. Instead those positions should be filled with cheaper hungrier talent.

like I got this butter from France that was out of this world. That’s okay to pay for that,even if expensive. But if it was a normal ass butter there’s no point for paying a lot and giving huge wages. It’s just not exceptional and not to the standard of my butter. Also if i pair my exceptional butter with an exceptional baguette, then i have the start of something special. But if the baguette is mediocre and over priced, and gonn she in my pantry for too long it throws everything off.
 
JPRouve said:
Are they? Vlahovic ended up being a very expensive signing for Juventus and he isn't really close to be worth it, he may be in the future but for the moment it's not guaranteed success, Alvarez is an unknown and Diaz is the one that could have been but we don't really know anything about the circumstances surrounding his transfer and whether he was already on his way to Liverpool or not.

The quotes from Rangnick and the different articles on these subjects are frankly stupid and in the case of Rangnick worrying because he isn't thinking carefully, he just names players for the sake of it.
Click to expand...
Good points JP and of course we don’t really know the inner workings at the club but the state of our squad and the fact that we’ve let go of our head of scouting (or something along those lines) means we’re probably looking for a change. We’ve had so many signings who seem to be “misses”. Of course it all implies bigger structural issues (& not necessarily just a scouting problem) as well.
 
Spending exceptional prices on an exceptional player is fine.

But part of having an efficient recruitment team is being able to identify exceptional players for less than exceptional prices. If we can't do that we'll fail.

If we're spending massive money on a player we essentially need them to become arguably the best in their world in their position. Otherwise why are you spending more on them than you would nearly every other player in the world who plays in their position? That's a very narrow margin for successful purchases. And because our resources are limited those purchases come with opportunity cost, at a time when we need to get through a high volume of transfer business anyway.

As part of our entire multi-year rebuild cycle there may well be one or maybe two times when we feel a player is so outstanding and exceptionally suited to our side that they're worth the sort of outlay that sides like City and Liverpool have rarely made as part of their squad-building. But if it's happening more regularly than that it suggests a problem with our ability to identify alternatives.

Declan Rice being an obvious example of the sort of signing to avoid. A fine player, but is he so good that he justifies 70m+ outlay when compared to every other defensive midfielder in world football who will cost less than that? Clearly not. In that case we wouldn't be paying extra for the best, we'd be paying extra for the most obvious.
 
I fecking love Aldi, me. In M&S you see hoity toity shitheads who think spending five quid on a sandwich means they're part of the royal family. It's like us thinking if we break the British record for a signing that suddenly makes us league champions again.

Can I also point out that Aldi is cheaper because they're also incredibly efficient?

fecking love Aldi.
 
Last edited:
JPRouve said:
They follow the same logic than other transfers, that's why we should never judge the price tag. There is a study somewhere from a few years ago, only around 50% of transfers are a "success".
Click to expand...

If paying top dollar really doesn’t increase the chance of a transfer being a success then that’s an excellent reason to never sign the most expensive players.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
If paying top dollar really doesn’t increase the chance of a transfer being a success then that’s an excellent reason to never sign the most expensive players.
Click to expand...

Since I'm cheap I want to agree with it but at the same time every evaluation has to be entirely linked to the player in question and not his price tag. Some players are unique talents and these players are rarely for sale, so if they somehow hit the market, you have to consider it. So I wouldn't say never but that it should be extraordinary.

Now this isn't just true for top dollar signings, it's true for all signings and why some PL fans are a bit misguided when they look at clubs spendings and declare that team A is better than team B because they can spend more on a player, this is extremely wrong especially when it comes to upcoming, average or slightly above average players, those are everywhere and available at wildly different prices. The last point is where United's dealings are tragic, we continuously spend way too much on players that offer no guarantee and who often don't even have the required track record, we take very expensive punts, an example of that would be Maguire who is a player that had never played a minute of European competitions group stage before his record transfer.
 
We need to start shopping in lidl and then buy a few from Harrods
 
In SAF's 26 year reign, he only bought two ready made world class players (RvP and Veron). Everyone else was bought as a young up-and-comer and then coached into a world class talent at Carrington.

The important thing isn't how much money you spend. It's about player profiles and buying the right individuals who can become loyal soldiers to the cause.

It's actually been Woodward's Galactico strategy that broke 'the United way'. It's a policy only worked for Real Madrid because the hispanic world (which makes up the majority of the planet's pool of top talent) idolises that club in a way that Manchester United simply can't match. Obviously we can equal them in terms of fanbase size. But our fanbase isn't necessarily in the world's traditional footballing strongholds. Which means that United are more easily seen as a rich club that's a stepping stone to earning money rather than a destination for earning glory. We can't rely on spending big. We have to spend smart.

Incidentally, neither Pep nor Klopp have relied on ready made world class players either. They've mostly taken the Fergie route of moulding potential into superstars. That's what we need to get back to.

If EtH needs to buy 6 unproven CBs for £250m and then sell 4 of them for £100m, let him do it. That's how you unearth talent and find diamonds in the rough - even if Twitter winds up criticising you for failing with 4 of your purchases. It's certainly a better strategy than buying only 2 'fully proven' CBs for £150m and then being stuck with them whether or not they can adapt to life at Old Trafford.

Nobody gets every transfer right. A success rate near even 70% is extremely rare. And yet Woodward's Disneyland policy forced all our managers to try and do precisely that. Shopping at M&S for 10 years has been what's got us in this mess. Shopping at Aldi (with a big budget) is the smart and proven path to success.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.