which is perfectly fine as backups
Manchester United transfer news and rumours for summer 2014
- Thread starter KiD MoYeS
- Start date
-
Nik (@Rood) and Imran (@Annihilate Now!) discuss United's fantastic win away against Athletic Club in the semi-final of the Europa League.
They also pick out the positives of United's 4-3 loss away at Brentford, and Nik reviews a day out at Old Trafford watching Manchester United Women qualify for the Champions League.
which is perfectly fine as backups
Another quiet day. Getting worried now.
I'm not saying it would be easy to galvanise the fans enough to prompt a change of ownership but I am saying it would be possible. You're right in saying Spanish or German fans have more power. But why should British fans be any different? Pipe dream I know but I'd like to see much more fan power at our club.
Ed has probably been having a nice Sunday lunch somewhere.
It's a sunday
So what's our excuse Monday to Saturday?
The only way would be to get regular fans together. Contact the supporter clubs and see how they are feeling about things and then decide which game you will boycott without the club getting wind of it. If none of the supporter clubs coaches showed and all the Irish contingent, that would seriously reduce the crowd numbers. It would have to something dramatic. Although they would probably explain it away with traffic problems or something.
We're incapable of both attracting and executing a world class signing.
But nothing is going to happen on a sunday anyway. Obviously deadline day is a Sunday but that's an exception.
Problem is that there are always fans who will say they will always support the team whatever. While they just put money in the clubs coffers why would the owners care.
See I'm that stressed I am talking to myself, meant to edit post not reply to it.
I would need more than a 1 match thing. It would need a genuine campaign. And unfortunately, the more the Glazers 'panic' buy every window the less likely a united push from fan groups will be.
They will spend big in the next 2 weeks simply because they have to, I reckon 4 in for £100 million.
Much as us fans will suffer so will the Glazers, the cost of no CL next season would be £50 million + , plus the Adidas clause would knock another £20 million + off the turnover, wouldn't surprise me if some other sponsorship's have CL clauses in too, the new deals that are negotiated will be less because of the no CL, the share price will be heavily affected in the long term, and then there's LvG there is no way he will tarnish his reputation if there are clowns above him not doing their job properly, he will either bring them down, or walk away, there is just no logic in getting people in.
I reckon 3-4 in for £100 million +, if they don't, and settle for Rojo, and maybe Blind then we are in trouble, but it won't happen.
City's bench is ridiculous. And they still have top players missing.
During the SKY supplement podcast the panel sort of agree that our board still haven't learned and they still aren't ready to pay over the odds for players and that's what holding us back. They also said we've not signed Di Maria because we don't agree with the money involved. They also say we don't have good relationships to make these kind of deals happen.
That is why I don't agree with owners being executive directors.
Board of Directors
Avram Glazer
Executive Co-Chairman and Director
Joel Glazer
Executive Co-Chairman and Director
Edward Woodward
Executive Vice Chairman and Director
Richard Arnold
Group Managing Director and Director
Kevin Glazer
Director
Bryan Glazer
Director
Darcie Glazer
Director
Edward Glazer
Director
Robert Leitão
Director
Man Utd Sawhney
Director
John Hooks
Director
That is why I don't agree with owners being executive directors.
Last edited:
The worry for me is the injury record. Has that been better for them in event years, I wouldn't mind trying them as our primary backs. But as it is, we need a reliable presence and we don't have that.
Part of why DDG's been successful is that the Rio/vidic/evra axis made life easier for him. They would deal with balls other keepers might go for, allowing DDG to stay on his line. I don't think our current crop have the ability to do that on their own without a more talented, more experienced player guiding them. Could see DDG being left exposed a fair bit more like yesterday, leading to him taking more risks to cover for our CBs
Watched that, seems so odd what is going on, it has just been obvious what we need for months, and with all the promises it makes leaving it this late even more perplexing, we have the money, there are people who can be signed, if we don't get top 4 this season then the cost to the Glazers will be huge, so I'm firmly in the camp of it will happen, just getting a bit twitchy now.
Re not wanting to pay over the odds, that was just a bit of a daft thing to say, Shaw, Fellani, and Mata were all over their true value for me, more likely agents trying to take the piss out of us, and us resenting it.
Also the thing that goes against it is the world wide/country wide support. There are always fans as you say going to one off matches. If it was like say a Newcastle United where the fans are more localised it would be easier to organise.
That's the thing that bother me with this football club and why i can't blame solely Woodward, from what i've understand Gill and Ferguson were arrogant prick who were convinced that they were above anything and anyone, the club refuse to have contacts with agents, with the press, they don't attend to scouting convention (according to Mitten).
Football is an industry based on contacts if you have them everything is easy, that's why Monaco and Madrid use Mendes as "DOF", why PSG signed Leonardo, why Moggi still works with Juventus, etc...
This club chose to play alone and he will die alone.
You could say that given the money that will be at stake if we fail to secure 4th spot and they know this for sure but then why they wait until the price hikes or other club snatches our target or end up overpaying? I think there is serious incompetency or structural problem when it comes to transfer.
It's odd i'll admit, just hope the hold up for the key target Vidal is due to us wanting be sure over his knee, and him wanting to be properly fit until he takes his medical, would make sense then, as he would be a huge signing.
As for CB I feel we were convinced we had Vermaelen until Wenger moved the goal posts, so this has fecked us up.
It astonishes me that so far from the games I've watched this weekend we've been the worst team and unless we do something about it in the coming 2 weeks, we could see a disaster in the making. I just hope that we don't blame van Gaal if it comes to that.
The blame is firmly with the Owners & their appointed personal who deal with transfers.
Van Gaal is a proven winner.
Van Gaal is a proven winner.
This, if the "the number don't add up" rumour is true then we all know who to blame, and they are proper idiots.
Well, hopefully the details will emerge after 1.sebtember.
It's all we've got, not adding to this squad properly is madness,
Two seasons on the trot, you can't then blame the managers. It has to then come down to the CEO and the board.
By far the least entertaining. The united we know has literally disappeared.
It does seem that we loose quite a few targets due to wanting to save a couple of million quid.
I think van Gaal knows we need players, and so does Woodward, and if we don't sign anyone, then it's only going to hit the club, and the Glazers hardest. Failing to qualify for the Champions League will cost us a lot of money i'd imagine, which means less money for the Glazers. I don't think they're that stupid, they know to make money you have to spend money, and they're happy to spend money, as the signings of Mata, Shaw and Herrera show. It seems to me that Woodward just has no idea how to close a deal. He's more used to making money than spending it, so his mentality will be to spend as little as possible. If this continues, chances are it's going to create a huge rift between van Gaal and Woodward.
The other day on sky they said of the 20 teams in the PL we've brought in the least amount of players, given we only brought in Fellaini last summer the same surely applied then as well - two summers running we've brought in less players than the other 19 sides in the league 
Last edited:
Last season I couldn't imagine the impact of not qualifying for the Champions League for the 1st time would have on our club never mind a 2nd, 3rd and 4th time. I was almost laughed at when I mentioned the possibility of not making top 4 back in November. You can write off 1 bad year as a mistake but in football 2 years or more is a long time, all the trophies you've won in the past count to nothing and you quickly fade into history.
The other day on sky they said of the 20 teams in the PL we've brought in the least amount of players, given we only brought in Fellaini last summer the same surely applied then as well - two summers running we've brought in less players than the other 20 sides in the league
And needed more than anybody else
Which is why i believe the Glazers are willing to spend, van Gaal wants to spend, but Woodward is really out of his depth.
We all heard his interview about United being able to do things other clubs can't, and that we're more than happy to break the transfer record again. This was said after Season Tickets had sold, so presumably it wasn't a ploy to sell tickets. It seems that that Woodward can talk the talk, and promise the world, but he can't walk the walk. It's almost like he believes United are entitled to cheaper prices because we're United, and we DESERVE cheaper prices. He needs to realise, quickly, that we are lagging behind, not only in the transfer market, but if things don't change, possibly even the league too.
I think the defeat against Swansea did shake the club up a bit, and i do honestly think we're going to really push hard on some deals. Whether they'll come off or not is another matter. I just hope we don't go panic buying and buy average players at super inflated prices (Fellaini).
In that same interview Woodward mentioned that we're moving on some targets and to watch this space. What happened to those targets and record transfer fees? Why did we leave everything to the last 2 weeks of the window like we did last summer? Why are we not learning from our mistakes? If things remain the same after the next 2 weeks it's like the club stopped in time after Sir Alex retired and we never moved forward from that spot and let's not fool ourselves, it has to be top players being brought in and not the likes of Blind. We need proven top quality players.
Why do people keep talking like we've not already signed 2 players and spent £60m in the process? And LVG has told us why there haven't been further signings since then. Because he wanted time to assess his squad in a new system.
I'm confident we'll all be happy in 2 weeks time and we'll be celebrating another Studward Day.
How do you remain so optimistic? Serious question.
Powerful drugs.
I completely agree with you. As i said, Woodward is promising the world, but delivering absolutely nothing.
It's plain to see that we have the money to spend, and i'm happy we're doing things in private again, but we really need to get moving on targets we do have in mind. Why wait until the last 2 weeks of the window? Perhaps van Gaal genuinely did want to see how his squad copes in a competitive situation. Yes it's all well and good saying we beat Real, Liverpool, Valencia etc, but they weren't genuine competitive games were they? If we lost, it really wouldn't have mattered, there was nothing serious to loose. We loose a PL game, we loose 3 points. That could be the difference between Champions League or not. LvG saw for himself the squad wasn't good enough. Maybe all the deals he had lined up are now being pushed through. We don't know. It IS clear to see something is happening though, by the way van Gaal is talking in his pressers. We just have to wait and see. It's true though, deals CAN be done in a day if they really want to be. Deadline day is frantic with deals being done quickly. It's possible to sign a player is 24/48 hours. Once the fee is out of the way, personal terms and medicals are pretty straightforward, and if a deal gets that far, it's unlikely to fail i'd imagine.
I am on some painkillers that have a fair kick, but that's only part of the reason for my optimism!
I expect us to sign Vidal, Rojo, a CB (perhaps Benatia) and maybe even Cuadrado too. I believe LVG genuinely did want to assess the squad which has delayed any signings up until this point. They clearly aren't panicking, based on LVG's 24 hour comment, so neither am I.