I think even if Vidal isn't a Rodriguez or Gotze, he'll at least go some way to satisfying the marketing people. I just don't see us signing a "marquee" forward this summer. Based on actual quotes, Ed seems more willing to spend, though I can't imagine why a manager looking to sign good midfielders would not at least consider Vidal. I'm hoping they both see eye to eye quickly, so that we can get our signings done well before the window closes, whoever they may be.
Manchester United transfer news and rumours for summer 2014
- Thread starter KiD MoYeS
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I think even if Vidal isn't a Rodriguez or Gotze, he'll at least go some way to satisfying the marketing people. I just don't see us signing a "marquee" forward this summer. Based on actual quotes, Ed seems more willing to spend, though I can't imagine why a manager looking to sign good midfielders would not at least consider Vidal. I'm hoping they both see eye to eye quickly, so that we can get our signings done well before the window closes, whoever they may be.
"It is understood Louis van Gaal is keen to reduce the size of his squad with the axe hanging over Fellaini, Kagawa, Nani and Anderson. The Dutchman still has an interest in Mats Hummels, Thomas Vermaelen, Daley Blind and Angel Di Maria. But United are not expecting to make more than two new signings before the transfer deadline."
De Jong and Vermaelen 
Yes. But this sort of a comment to be aligned with, "No value in the market".
De Jong and Vermaelen
Vermaelen I understand, but de Jong is a breathtaking player at what he does. And right now we need that what he does.
Breathtaking? Hmm can't say I agree, pretty decent defensive midfielder but an incredibly limited footballer.
Yeah, breathtaking for the opposing player he clatters to the ground.
Alonso has felt the full force of it
I think that we've left it too late to get some of the signings that Van Gaal will want in. Signings at the top end of the market take a long time to set up. There appears to be a likelehood that Van Gaal will wait until the entire group is together back in Carrington before we'll make any moves in the market. That would give us three weeks to get everything done. Everyone will blame Woody and the Glazers for not getting deals done but the reality will be,IMO, that sacking the manager without a DoF structure in place will have been to blame.
Everyone could see where the deficiences are in the squad. We have too many 10's. We have ineffectual wingers. We lacked quality midfielders. We had no full back cover. We missed defensive experience with Rio and Vidic gone.
Allowing Van Gaal to confirm exactly that has meant we are playing catch up. The decisions should have been taken before he came in, perhaps even before he was signed. Waiting until the last month of the window means that all of the best players are out of range as they've already moved or the teams that they play for have no time to arrange top class replacements and are therefore unwilling to let them go. We will suffer as a direct result of, essentially, dithering again and therefore being left with lesser quality options.
We should abandon this idea of the manager being in charge of everything, and move to a DoF type structure that all of the other top teams employ. It will mean we are not at the whim of managers being fired / taking time to assess the squad / playing catch up. What happens if we have a similar season to last year where we don't get Europe due to not getting the correct players in? Van Gaal gets sacked again, and we are left with the scenario where the new manager has to go through the whole rigmarole again. Take the head coach out of the equation.
Everyone could see where the deficiences are in the squad. We have too many 10's. We have ineffectual wingers. We lacked quality midfielders. We had no full back cover. We missed defensive experience with Rio and Vidic gone.
Allowing Van Gaal to confirm exactly that has meant we are playing catch up. The decisions should have been taken before he came in, perhaps even before he was signed. Waiting until the last month of the window means that all of the best players are out of range as they've already moved or the teams that they play for have no time to arrange top class replacements and are therefore unwilling to let them go. We will suffer as a direct result of, essentially, dithering again and therefore being left with lesser quality options.
We should abandon this idea of the manager being in charge of everything, and move to a DoF type structure that all of the other top teams employ. It will mean we are not at the whim of managers being fired / taking time to assess the squad / playing catch up. What happens if we have a similar season to last year where we don't get Europe due to not getting the correct players in? Van Gaal gets sacked again, and we are left with the scenario where the new manager has to go through the whole rigmarole again. Take the head coach out of the equation.
I see what you are getting at but having the manager in charge of everything has been pretty successful for us over the past 20 years.
Yeah but that was when we could guarantee the continuity. We cannot do that now. Notice that not having a manager did not affect the Barcelona, Bayern, Chelsea or City recruitment for the 2013-14 season. They have a DoF setup. We are shooting ourselves in the foot in not guaranteeing that decisions about the squad are made early. Its not as if Van Gaal hasn't operated under this system before.
I just have an old fashioned notion that the players to be signed must be chosen by the manager to fit into what his vision for the team is. I know different systems have worked elsewhere but I'm not so sure that Chelsea's pre-Mourinho signing were such a success. It certainly gave him a cast iron excuse for not winning the league - "this is not my team".
I totally take your point but I just don't think people like Damien Commoli or Joe Kinnear really help your case
Its not half as bad as you are making out. I can name all major transfers this window on one hand. A lot of players are still up for grabs and like he has stated its all about getting the right players. We have a lot of gaps but realistically we was only every going to sign 4 players. Selling and signing 6+ players is not good for continuity.
And I wouldn't want us to sign more than 4 players. I'm not even after major transfers. I'd actually be happy if we'd signed Vermaelen.. but I would have got it done in June. It was a squad weakness that was obvious to all, so we should have addressed it straight away. We have buggered around waiting for a manager to come in and tell us all the bleeding obvious.
Equally we could and should have long since shipped out those players that hadn't done it as well, leaving just the key players for Van Gaal to work with. Leaving all decisions to a manager who doesn't know how these players are day to day but can't see that until mid to late July was foolhardy at best.
It should have been presented as a fait accompli.
If he can't see Kagawa being out main #10 then thats fine, but surely we need backup? Maybe he thinks he is too expensive for backup and its better to get him off the books and buy a cheaper backup or use him in a way to get other players that strengthen the squad. Right now kagawa doesn't strengthen our squad in anyway. Saying all that, I like Kagawa but the system is the system and if he wants one number 10 and kagawa isn't that then he has to go, because he wont be putting him out on the wing to "Make him happy" because thats not in the system
De Jong is a decent DM, but breathtaking?!
How does that seem like an excuse? Isn't that actually the right thing to do?
I Never thought since 2007 we could out do ourselves by avoiding strengthening the engine room, we just did
It's pretty shocking we could go into the new season with defensive options of just? Rafeal jones smalling Evans shaw, not to mention 4 of those 5 will be injured.
Those defensive options in terms of depth is the classic case of the foolish man who built his house out of sand
Every top squad goes into the new season with atleast 7 to 8 defenders to choose from, not 5
It's pretty shocking we could go into the new season with defensive options of just? Rafeal jones smalling Evans shaw, not to mention 4 of those 5 will be injured.
Those defensive options in terms of depth is the classic case of the foolish man who built his house out of sand
Every top squad goes into the new season with atleast 7 to 8 defenders to choose from, not 5
Yep. Unless we've got some amazing youth players coming through this really does need addressing with some urgency.
The 3-5-2 won't last long with our cb options as they currently are.
Well at this rate, the academy will have to be used, because either no one wants to sign for us, or Woodward has once again failed us.
We lose Ferdinand Vidic and Evra, along with evra's backup, and carrick is injured, and none of them are replaced just to add up numbers and depth, that is without even adding the quality.
Van gaals so called changes are masking the failures by ed Woodward once again. He signs a couple of players before the World Cup, everyone thinks woodward has done his job, when you see the lack of depth at the back the club should be pulling all the stops replacing our departed defenders, but we could be relying on injury prone defenders, and this time we will not have Carrick to play CB if jones smalling or Evans get injured
Did the window close early or something?
Oh it gets even better, our only LB is not fit enough, rafeal is injured. So has it stands July 29th out first choice fullbacks are not even available. Jones smalling and Evans are our only fully fit defenders, 3 defenders we have only have available, just shocking
People can go on give it time, are people saying we will sign 3 defenders and a midfielder before the season starts ? When we are hearing no more than 2 will be signed
People can go on give it time, are people saying we will sign 3 defenders and a midfielder before the season starts ? When we are hearing no more than 2 will be signed
While I was not expecting to see 6, 7 or 8 players coming into the team this summer, I was expecting a bit more urgency to our activity, even with LvG having to finish up his duty with the Dutch. Perhaps it is my inner muppet getting the best of me (okay not perhaps, we will say my inner muppet is taking over), but starting to really lower my expectations for this season. I was not picturing an instant return of the title, but was expecting a real good chance at finishing in the top 4 (3rd or 4th). Without a few more signings to add at least some depth, if not some improvement I am starting to think qualifying for the Europa League will be more realistic, with maybe a decent run at the FA Cup. But without a couple of more additions, we are going to struggle again this season, especially when the inevitable injuries happen.
I'm sure that LVG will be on the lookout for a new LWB and a RWB
Let them vent. We have seen many of such posts mocking the panick goblins on here last summer, but they were right to lose their shit as it turned out.
But to go Into the new season with what we have at the back, is a time bomb waiting to go off. We could easily go into periods of the season without a first choice CB available
The question is who should know that we are short in defence ? The CEO or the manager ? Who identifies the needs of the team ? The man who does has stated that heis giving all the current players a chance before making a new signing, are we now saying that it's all a conspiracy to dupe the fan base into believing that we want to make signings but the manager is holding us back ? Why would that manager be in on it when it is his neck that will be on the line should that defence costs us CL football again ?
I definitely agree that we need need a couple of centrebacks, a versatile fullback and a defensive midfielder . That defence is a ticking time bomb.
I think a bit of both, I think van gaal and Woodward should share the blame of we do not strengthen the defence. I do have this gut feeling, that once again there is a bit of a tight ass mentality from the owners once again.
Say we go into the new season with 2 new signings, a midfielder and a defender that is still not enough. What ever we think about butner, to lose all of Ferdinand Vidic Evra and butner and not replace their quality and numbers, is a dumb move from both party's. Shaw has replaced Evra, but the rest have not been replaced.
The chances of rafeal Evans jones smalling staying fit all season, is has big of a chance has messi joining us
My gut feeling, is? van gaal will replace the numbers lost at the back with academy players. Real Madrid did this in the 2003/04 season
The signings of Herrera, Shaw and another are the signings we should have done last season (not necessarily Shaw but a new LB) so with those two we haven't really started the strengthening part, we are still making up for last summer's failure, imo. I also think it's in Van Gaal's nature to rely heavily on the academy/reserves so we might sign one or two more players but his focus will be on the youth. Whether that will pay off I don't know.
I have no problem with academy players coming through, unless they are good enough that is what counts. Oh I agree these players should have happened last season, to be honest the squad rebuilding should have started in 2011, as the teams cycle from 2006 came to an end in 2011
I just hope that we are not always behind in the signings, as we cannot keep making up for one summers poor showing
Our defence is not only injury prone and short of three players, but it also has a lot of question marks over whether the individuals have the quality to be a top 4 defender.
I think everyone expected us to have signed more than two players by now and most of us felt that we would have a one-off summer in which we bought a few established stars to make up for years of underwhelming recruitment.
It's frustrating that Woody and the club constantly bang the drum about us being the biggest club in the world and having boat loads of cash for top stars yet Barca and Real have each signed two world class players in no time. Players that had long contracts at well-off clubs - for money we have never came close to spending. And that's coming from the position of already being a million miles ahead of us. There squads values must be six times ous, and that is a reflection of the quality they have.
Very frustrating. Hopefully something changes soon.
I think everyone expected us to have signed more than two players by now and most of us felt that we would have a one-off summer in which we bought a few established stars to make up for years of underwhelming recruitment.
It's frustrating that Woody and the club constantly bang the drum about us being the biggest club in the world and having boat loads of cash for top stars yet Barca and Real have each signed two world class players in no time. Players that had long contracts at well-off clubs - for money we have never came close to spending. And that's coming from the position of already being a million miles ahead of us. There squads values must be six times ous, and that is a reflection of the quality they have.
Very frustrating. Hopefully something changes soon.
Ok I'm a little worried with no transfers at this stage. Hopefully it's because we're chasing some big names, and not because we have to do our commercial duties&new deals first.
Didn't LVG say that he wanted to observe our current squad for 3 weeks before dipping into the transfer market? That was only a week ago.
What about Herrera and Shaw?
Yeah well, I assume it's obvious in which area we need to strengthen. We lack in numbers in defense (especially if we are to play 3 at the back), I thought it doesn't need an assesment. You might be right though.
We've signed two for 30m each, tbf.
First this was almost two weeks sgo. Second judging by his comments he have already established what kind of players we need.
OK, it was 12 days ago. But, on the flip side he said 3-4 weeks.
This morning the Guardian Rumour Mill reports United is after Ross Barkley, this afternoon they report Barkley has just signed a 4 year extension with Evertion. Sigh.
van Gaal has seemingly made a decision on Fellaini without seeing him and he was willing to let Ferdinand and Evra go without seeing them first hand so he and everyone else knows where we need strengthening, so I don't buy this "assessing the squad" stuff. Van Gaal admitted early on that he'd given woodie a list of who he wanted and who could go so you'd assume it's just a matter of time before we start securing some of our targets.