Manuel Ugarte | Romano - he’s signed | Awaiting Club announcement

[BuzzKillington]

Has a footballer stopped developing their game at 23?

Judging by our players, they don’t seem to develop too much after that point.

 

[BorisManUtd]

Hopefully he's quality signing for ten Hag but also for the club in general when another manager comes in. Most probably our transfer window is finished when McTominay and Ugarte deal go through at some point next week.

 

[didz]

Has a footballer stopped developing their game at 23?

The first name that came to my head was also Michael Owen but that's probably not accurate since he did develop in a way.

To your actual point, yeah for a midfielder, 23 is very young. But we start a 19-year-old and he's really good, so that probably is warping some perceptions. Ugarte should well get better which is exciting, because he was already good enough to replace Palhinha at Sporting aged 21. He did pretty well in England.

 

[Hammondo]

He isn't. There is no missing piece that unlocks everything.

He might be one of many pieces that gets the team to where our new owners want. Which is challenging for major trophies in about three years' time. And given that's the timeframe, those two months make little difference.

Exactly. He seems to be a good DM who sticks to his DM role well. He won't fix our play but he will add to our midfield defense and physicality well.

 

[TheReligion]

The first name that came to my head was also Michael Owen but that's probably not accurate since he did develop in a way.

To your actual point, yeah for a midfielder, 23 is very young. But we start a 19-year-old and he's really good, so that probably is warping some perceptions. Ugarte should well get better which is exciting, because he was already good enough to replace Palhinha at Sporting aged 21. He did pretty well in England.

Thank you. For at least engaging and offering an opinion.

I think CM is a tough place to learn and experience is key. At 23 he’s got plenty to offer and his ball winning, work rate and turnovers are really promising. Positioning and on the ball work can develop.

 

[LawCharltonBest]

He must’ve said this exact same thing every day for about a month.

Guess his tweet tomorrow

 

[IrishRedDevil]

Pleased we are finally getting this sorted. Will certainly help make us more difficult to play against / through.

Feel like we need 1 more attacker / striker though.

 

[flameinthesun]

Pleased we are finally getting this sorted. Will certainly help make us more difficult to play against / through.

Feel like we need 1 more attacker / striker though.

Yeah if we can shift Sancho and get another winger in it will be a fantastic summer.

 

[NK86]

He isn't. There is no missing piece that unlocks everything.

He might be one of many pieces that gets the team to where our new owners want. Which is challenging for major trophies in about three years' time. And given that's the timeframe, those two months make little difference.

This idea that we will compete in 3 years is very difficult to understand - especially considering the spine of our team barring the striker are either in their prime or nearing it. You want a young team with the spine growing together for it to make sense that in 3 years they will have matured enough and have played together enough to then compete at the highest level with the additional sprinkling of a couple of superstars - much like what we have done in the past or what Arsenal are doing currently.

We don’t seem to be like that at this moment. Our best player would be past his peak or near that. Our current backline would be past or near 30. It’s not the end of the world, but you don’t start dominating for a long time with your best players past their best or nearing their sell by date.

We should be getting a coach in now who will mould this current team to compete by next year. I don’t understand this 3 year horizon when we don’t even have the right man at the helm at the moment.

 

[didz]

This idea that we will compete in 3 years is very difficult to understand - especially considering the spine of our team barring the striker are either in their prime or nearing it. You want a young team with the spine growing together for it to make sense that in 3 years they will have matured enough and have played together enough to then compete at the highest level with the additional sprinkling of a couple of superstars - much like what we have done in the past or what Arsenal are doing currently.

We don’t seem to be like that at this moment. Our best player would be past his peak or near that. Our current backline would be past or near 30. It’s not the end of the world, but you don’t start dominating for a long time with your best players past their best or nearing their sell by date.

We should be getting a coach in now who will mould this current team to compete by next year. I don’t understand this 3 year horizon when we don’t even have the right man at the helm at the moment.

Yoro and Mainoo are young players nowhere near their prime and part of the long-term spine, along with Hojlund and Zirkzee.

Toss in Garnacho and Amad on the wings and I would think it was pretty obvious we're building for the future.

 

[Dominos]

Pleased we are finally getting this sorted. Will certainly help make us more difficult to play against / through.

Feel like we need 1 more attacker / striker though.

Yeah if we can shift Sancho and get another winger in it will be a fantastic summer.

There is a question of what we want, and what we have room for in the squad.

We have 6 attackers for 3 position already in Hojlund, Zirkzee, Rashford, Antony, Amad and Garnacho. There is realistically no room for another big signing without stockpiling players who won't play any significant games.

Now, would I love for us to sell Rashford and Antony and bring in 2 new attackers? Sure. But we know it's not happening.

What we need to be focusing on for now is bringing players in where we can realistically create space. Shipping out Mctominay and Eriksen creates space for 2 new midfielders. Ugarte should not be our last midfield signing.

 

[Rolaholic]

There is a question of what we want, and what we have room for in the squad.

We have 6 attackers for 3 position already in Hojlund, Zirkzee, Rashford, Antony, Amad and Garnacho. There is realistically no room for another big signing without stockpiling players who won't play any significant games.

Now, would I love for us to sell Rashford and Antony and bring in 2 new attackers? Sure. But we know it's not happening.

What we need to be focusing on for now is bringing players in where we can realistically create space. Shipping out Mctominay and Eriksen creates space for 2 new midfielders. Ugarte should not be our last midfield signing.

Think we'll bring in at least Ugarte and try a cheeky bid for someone else on deadline day.

If that doesn't work out then I'm sure we'll take a hard look at the free agent market

 

[NK86]

Yoro and Mainoo are young players nowhere near their prime and part of the long-term spine, along with Hojlund and Zirkzee.

Toss in Garnacho and Amad on the wings and I would think it was pretty obvious we're building for the future.

Amad and Garnacho are not part of the spine. Our current spine is Onana, Martinez + De Ligt/Yoro, midfield of Bruno/Cas/Mainoo, Hojlund. So you can clearly see the spine is not really as young as you would think that in 3 years time they would be maturing together. In fact our best player would be 32 at that point.

I am just saying you don’t suddenly get a new spine and compete in 3 years. Just take a look ar most top teams and their spine is either world class players at their peak or are top young players who have played together and maturing at the same time. Ours is not in either situation at the moment.

 

[didz]

Amad and Garnacho are not part of the spine. Our current spine is Onana, Martinez + De Ligt/Yoro, midfield of Bruno/Cas/Mainoo, Hojlund. So you can clearly see the spine is not really as young as you would think that in 3 years time they would be maturing together. In fact our best player would be 32 at that point.

I am just saying you don’t suddenly get a new spine and compete in 3 years. Just take a look ar most top teams and their spine is either world class players at their peak or are top young players who have played together and maturing at the same time. Ours is not in either situation at the moment.

Yoro, Mainoo, Hojlund, and Zirkzee are top young players who will play together and mature at the same time. That's building a spine for the future. We can't just skip the part where they play together and develop, hence the whole 3 years time thing.

And I never said Amad and Garnacho were part of the spine. I used them as further evidence of building for the future. Because for some reason you needed it pointing out.

 

[mav_9me]

This idea that we will compete in 3 years is very difficult to understand - especially considering the spine of our team barring the striker are either in their prime or nearing it. You want a young team with the spine growing together for it to make sense that in 3 years they will have matured enough and have played together enough to then compete at the highest level with the additional sprinkling of a couple of superstars - much like what we have done in the past or what Arsenal are doing currently.

We don’t seem to be like that at this moment. Our best player would be past his peak or near that. Our current backline would be past or near 30. It’s not the end of the world, but you don’t start dominating for a long time with your best players past their best or nearing their sell by date.

We should be getting a coach in now who will mould this current team to compete by next year. I don’t understand this 3 year horizon when we don’t even have the right man at the helm at the moment.

Arguably we don't have the most important piece that is the manager. However we do have an excellent collection of young players starting with Yoro, Mainoo, Garnacho, Amad, Zirkzee, Hojlund complemented by others at a very good age such as Martinez, Dalot. Clearly we need a lot more, probably a better manager, probably have to phase out Bruno and Rashford etc. But say we get someone like Klopp, we can definitely challenge for the title in 3 years. Of course that's an extremely difficult task.

 

[Telsim]

I was very bullish on this transfer, probably still am, but yesterday did a lot to cool my enthusiasm. He is needed to keep the press and shore up the midfield, but also clearly not enough. And I'm hoping that once Ten Hag is sacked, the club finally gets a proper possession coach and puts an end to this counterattacking nonsense. I hope Ugarte can fit in then as well.

 

[Dominos]

Think we'll bring in at least Ugarte and try a cheeky bid for someone else on deadline day.

If that doesn't work out then I'm sure we'll take a hard look at the free agent market

We're hearing very little about Eriksen leaving, and no talk about bringing another midfielder in. The midfielders we've been linked to seem to be us trying to signal to PSG that we have alternatives to Ugarte if they don't lower their demands. There's very little suggestion that we're looking at another midfielder after Ugarte.

Frankly, given how bad our midfield was last season it's criminal there hasn't been a complete rebuild of this area. It's extremely concerning they think 1 midfield signing is enough.

We've gone into the new season with weaker midfield options than last season. We seem to do this every summer where we suffer bad results in the first 3 games of the season because we can't get our transfer business done early. 2 quality midfielders signed earlier in the window and we likely win that game yesterday. De Ligt not having any pre-season and so sat on the bench is another example of how not getting business done early costs us. These are points that could cost us come the end of the season.

 

[BorisManUtd]

I was very bullish on this transfer, probably still am, but yesterday did a lot to cool my enthusiasm. He is needed to keep the press and shore up the midfield, but also clearly not enough. And I'm hoping that once Ten Hag is sacked, the club finally gets a proper possession coach and puts an end to this counterattacking nonsense. I hope Ugarte can fit in then as well.

Same here. We'll need Ugarte to be useful player for another coach/style of play and not just under a manager that could be gone in few months.

 

[sullydnl]

This idea that we will compete in 3 years is very difficult to understand - especially considering the spine of our team barring the striker are either in their prime or nearing it. You want a young team with the spine growing together for it to make sense that in 3 years they will have matured enough and have played together enough to then compete at the highest level with the additional sprinkling of a couple of superstars - much like what we have done in the past or what Arsenal are doing currently.

We don’t seem to be like that at this moment. Our best player would be past his peak or near that. Our current backline would be past or near 30. It’s not the end of the world, but you don’t start dominating for a long time with your best players past their best or nearing their sell by date.

We should be getting a coach in now who will mould this current team to compete by next year. I don’t understand this 3 year horizon when we don’t even have the right man at the helm at the moment.

The three year horizon is based on the principle that there's no manager on the planet who could get this patchwork collection of players competing for the PL/CL by next year. It's a completely unrealistic notion, so not a goal new owners were ever going to target regardless of the squad's age profile. They understand the mess they've inherited.

But also, most of our players will still be at a fine age in three years time. The only currently-central players who would be in their thirties at that point are Bruno, Casemiro (who we are already looking to replace), Shaw (who we already can't rely on due to injuries), Maguire (who we've effectively already replaced with De Ligt/Yoro) and Onana (who as a goalkeeper would still be fine at 31). Everyone else will be somewhere in their mid/late 20's, and bolstered by years' more additions to build a new spine.

 

[JustinC00]

Our current spine is Onana, Martinez + De Ligt/Yoro, midfield of Bruno/Cas/Mainoo, Hojlund. So you can clearly see the spine is not really as young as you would think

Replace Casemiro with Ugarte and the average age of that spine would be 23.8 years old with only 2 being over 26 That spine definitely isn't as old as you seem to be implying.

 

[Rojofiam]

Amad and Garnacho are not part of the spine. Our current spine is Onana, Martinez + De Ligt/Yoro, midfield of Bruno/Cas/Mainoo, Hojlund. So you can clearly see the spine is not really as young as you would think that in 3 years time they would be maturing together. In fact our best player would be 32 at that point.

I am just saying you don’t suddenly get a new spine and compete in 3 years. Just take a look ar most top teams and their spine is either world class players at their peak or are top young players who have played together and maturing at the same time. Ours is not in either situation at the moment.

"Spine" for you means most important central players? Because I don't see how Garnacho isn't part of it otherwise.

 

[Marcus]

I love it when players only want to play for United. Helps with the bargaining of the transfer fee. Is this a new United strategy to make the player take that stance? If so, we'll done.

 

[E-mal]

I was very bullish on this transfer, probably still am, but yesterday did a lot to cool my enthusiasm. He is needed to keep the press and shore up the midfield, but also clearly not enough. And I'm hoping that once Ten Hag is sacked, the club finally gets a proper possession coach and puts an end to this counterattacking nonsense. I hope Ugarte can fit in then as well.

Not positive about anything mate, until this manager is rid off together with the likes of Bruno, Rashford and Casemiro. Fed up with them

 

[We need an rvn]

Not positive about anything mate, until this manager is rid off together with the likes of Bruno, Rashford and Casemiro. Fed up with them

Hate to sour the good attitude but those three ain’t going anywhere as rashford signed a £350k contract just last year, bruno no idea what he’s on but won’t be small change for his new one and Case has a few years to go on his behemoth contract

Any other club could flog them to Saudi for £1m a week I’m sure, but we’ll have to pay them to leave

I think take the captaincy off Bruno and we might see something we can all put up with - but I hate seeing him with that captains arm band on

 

[RopersReturn]

Hate to sour the good attitude but those three ain’t going anywhere as rashford signed a £350k contract just last year, bruno no idea what he’s on but won’t be small change for his new one and Case has a few years to go on his behemoth contract

Any other club could flog them to Saudi for £1m a week I’m sure, but we’ll have to pay them to leave

I think take the captaincy off Bruno and we might see something we can all put up with - but I hate seeing him with that captains arm band on

It’s a probably a distant memory for some, but I remember the relief of seeing Maguire stripped of the captaincy.

 

[E-mal]

Hate to sour the good attitude but those three ain’t going anywhere as rashford signed a £350k contract just last year, bruno no idea what he’s on but won’t be small change for his new one and Case has a few years to go on his behemoth contract

Any other club could flog them to Saudi for £1m a week I’m sure, but we’ll have to pay them to leave

I think take the captaincy off Bruno and we might see something we can all put up with - but I hate seeing him with that captains arm band on

Annoying but true. I was hoping we didn’t give Bruno a contract and let him leave for the right fee. I just don’t think we will be able to play cohesive dominant football with him in the side.

Rashford we can get rid off if he stops getting game time but Casemiro, we are really in trouble.

Let’s rid Sancho at least and that will be a good start

 

[golden_blunder]

We're hearing very little about Eriksen leaving, and no talk about bringing another midfielder in. The midfielders we've been linked to seem to be us trying to signal to PSG that we have alternatives to Ugarte if they don't lower their demands. There's very little suggestion that we're looking at another midfielder after Ugarte.

Frankly, given how bad our midfield was last season it's criminal there hasn't been a complete rebuild of this area. It's extremely concerning they think 1 midfield signing is enough.

We've gone into the new season with weaker midfield options than last season. We seem to do this every summer where we suffer bad results in the first 3 games of the season because we can't get our transfer business done early. 2 quality midfielders signed earlier in the window and we likely win that game yesterday. De Ligt not having any pre-season and so sat on the bench is another example of how not getting business done early costs us. These are points that could cost us come the end of the season.

I think most people accepted that this season and the build up to it was about getting the support structures in place and doing some business in the transfer window. Nobody expected a complete rebuild of the first team squad. Rome wasn’t built in a day

 

[TheReligion]

I think most people accepted that this season and the build up to it was about getting the support structures in place and doing some business in the transfer window. Nobody expected a complete rebuild of the first team squad. Rome wasn’t built in a day

I think most people with a brain did..

 

[golden_blunder]

I think most people with a brain did..

There is still a fair few transfer zombies around who think we should be after 2x midfielders, a winger, a striker and a left back

 

[Drainy]

Season was always about building a better squad, implementing a coherent way of playing, development of players and team cohesion, competing in the cups and getting back into the top four.

Then further squad replenishment next summer and let's see whether we've got a good enough squad to compete at that point and repeat with fine tuning or under a new manager if current one fails

 

[DevilRed]

Well. At least he will give us legs in midfield and won't be scared to get on the ball...right?

 

[FrankDrebin]

So, is this going to be permanent now that McTom is off to Italy ?

 

[antohan]

This game is boring. Do I list one that has improved?

It's not that bad a game actually.

Patterns emerge, e.g. young exciting forwards that get destroyed/derailed by injuries and don't have it in them to recover or reinvent themselves like a Giggs.

Which leads you to something more akin to: which areas can be developed beyond 23? These tend to leave physical aspects aside, technique less so but within reason, and they have more to do with maturity and experience.

That's why a player's peak is typically older as you move away from the attack and back to goal. You also see forwards that become very proficient defenders late in their careers, but not the other way around.

 

[bb8]

The question was do players stop developing at 23? And your answer was, bizarrely, “Marcus Rashford”

I’m sure you’re capable of actually pulling together a coherent response so I’m bewildered as to why you didn’t.

To answer your question more directly: yes, many midfielders and forwards especially don't develop much further after 23.

A typical age curve looks something like this:

• Age 18-22: The key development years
• 23-28: prime years
• 29-31: decline begins
• 32+: typically pretty rapid decline

Players can get better from 23-26, but usually not by leaps and bounds. More common with defenders and goalies as they're less dependent on athleticism.

 

[Godfather]

He would be 1 of 2 CM needed

 

[BuzzKillington]

I think most people accepted that this season and the build up to it was about getting the support structures in place and doing some business in the transfer window. Nobody expected a complete rebuild of the first team squad. Rome wasn’t built in a day

This, for me, is why this transfer doesn’t make sense for a fee north of £30m.

If we’re not going to be the finished article this season, why spend large sums of cash on a flawed player who doesn’t really do what we need?

Make do, muddle through, keep the cash for next summer, and see what’s available then.

This transfer feels like an AwB or Maguire transfer. Retrospectively not bad if it’s at the right price, but he’ll become a spacegoat the minute his limits become apparent at a higher fee.

 

[Highfather_24]

Always felt we needed to sell McT first to get this transfer going. Otherwise it would have been a loan with obligation, which would have sucked. So hopefully this gets done now.

People thought Eriksen going would help with this, but I dont think sellign Eriksen gives us any sorts of funds. And I dont think he's leaving either.

Ugarte will be our only midfield signing this season. Big responsibility.

 

[Adamsk7]

I’d still kick the payments down the track to next year if it means we can invest in a further midfielder or striker. I know we need a left back but honestly covering that position isn’t as bad as being light in either of the other areas

 

[Highfather_24]

This, for me, is why this transfer doesn’t make sense for a fee north of £30m.

If we’re not going to be the finished article this season, why spend large sums of cash on a flawed player who doesn’t really do what we need?

Most folks are already dreaming up a 100M bid for Wharton next season, essentially thinking of replacing Ugarte befoere we even sign him. Doesnt bode well, particularly at this price point.

 

[JJ12]

I’d still kick the payments down the track to next year if it means we can invest in a further midfielder or striker. I know we need a left back but honestly covering that position isn’t as bad as being light in either of the other areas

Which striker is available this late in the market? Toney probably the best option but that's a bit meh