Draxler won't be signing for them unless he has been "brainwashed".
Marco Reus
- Thread starter gooDevil
- Start date
Draxler won't be signing for them unless he has been "brainwashed".
I don't know. Maybe they were there to scout Benitez.
I just want some Germans in our team. Spanish and German players are clearly the cream of the crop and Reus, Draxler, Gundogan would improve our team so hopefully we'll get one...
I want Mikitaryan
We already have Kagawa for the role of "number 10 that can't get into the team because we have Rooney and van Persie". If we sign him we'll have two.
Mikitaryan is a better player than Kagawa by far
The fee was closer to 11m from what I recall, where does this figure come from? Is it assuming all potential add-on fees in full?
Reminds me of the Carrick transfer often spouted as 18m when it was 14m plus potential add-ons.
That is highly arguable. I think Kagawa is better, and even if Mkhi is better, it's definitely not "by far", and if Kagawa hasn't been able to displace Rooney/RVP, I can't see this Armenian guy displacing them either.
What are you basing this on?
FM, FIFA or PES... for sure haha
Mkhitaryan isn't a million miles away from Kagawa. He isn't as proven in Europe as Kagawa was but could easily change that over the course of this season.
He's looked a very good signing for them from what I've seen so far this season.
He's looked a very good signing for them from what I've seen so far this season.
Personal opinion. That Armenian guy is a complete player with fantastic skills, fast as feck with a great dribbling.
Dortmund signed him for a lot of money
There's definite ability there, but would you not agree it's very early in his career to be arguing he's better by far than Kagawa?
He isn´t? Kagawa´s biggest success in Europe actually are three good games for United so far. With Dortmund he played one unsuccessful CL group stage and was not much of a help there.
Mkhitaryan was a key and lead player of a fairly strong Donetsk side, which held their own vs teams like Chelsea or Juventus and was also good in most CL matches for Dortmund so far. He is also the star player of his national team and impressed in games vs. bigger football nations like Denmark, Czech Republic and Italy in the WC qualifiers.
In terms of actual ability the Armenian is not head and shoulders above Kagawa, though. They are on a similar level. They share some traits like strong pressing ability and high intelligence, but Mkhitaryan is a more straight forward player. He is faster and better defensively, while the Japanese has a better touch on the ball and is more creative.
The point, which might give Mkhitaryan a slight edge right now is the fact, that he can play other positions besides the "10". He is a really good CM (played there for around half the time at Donetsk) and also a decent CF.
Had he lead Dortmound to win anything?
Kagawa didn't lead Dortmund to anything in Europe either, which is what he was arguing. Neither are proven really on a European level.
Oh, I was referring to European top division football rather than the cup and Kagawa's performances at Dortmund would give him a slight advantage, IMO.
But it's a moot point, they're both good players.
Stranger things have happened.
We need someone to come up with a "Kaka to United"-like campaign to at least get the idea out there.
We need someone to come up with a "Kaka to United"-like campaign to at least get the idea out there.
A good article on the new york times
Mkhitaryan Is Not the Leading Scorer, but He’s Leading the Way
Courage under adversity might be the easiest trait to overlook in the modern Champions League player. He is often seen to be privileged and pampered and paid too much for simply kicking a ball around
But what happened Tuesday night in Dortmund, Glasgow, London and, perhaps most surprisingly, in the Swiss city of Basel helped to dispel that notion.
As Borussia Dortmund, a team deprived of its entire starting defensive back line because of injuries, swarmed relentlessly into attack to beat Napoli, 3-1, the player who was heart and soul of the performance turned out to be Henrikh Mkhitaryan.
He is the Armenian son of a great player, Hamlet Mkhitaryan, who lost his life to a brain tumor at 33. His son was just 7 when that happened.
Playing in his dad’s image, Mkhitaryan did not score on Tuesday. But his fantastic running, passing and desire were at the center of Borussia’s refusal to lose a fourth straight game since the injury epidemic struck.
In Glasgow, Kaká was not just the first scorer, but also the architect of A.C. Milan’s 3-0 victory in the stadium of Celtic. Anyone who has followed Kaká’s downward spiral since he was the world player of the year in 2007 will appreciate that his courage is as great as his talents.
Kaká, only 31, is the playmaker whose chronic knee injuries would have finished a lesser man. His time at Real Madrid was blighted, so he is rebuilding himself at Milan and trying to rebuild the Italian club where Silvio Berlusconi’s big spending has run dry.
When the Brazilian headed the first goal against Celtic, the joy on his face was like a beacon to the Milanese. Follow me, he appeared to say.
Mkhitaryan for Dortmund. Kaká for Milan. And in London, a young man called Jack Wilshere, just 21 but already with enough ankle surgeries to make him seem like a scarred veteran, scored both goals in Arsenal’s 2-0 win over Marseille.
In Basel, where the home side outplayed Chelsea for long spells but appeared to be running out of time to get a goal, the breakthrough finally came two minutes from the end. It was scored, brilliantly, by Mohamed Salah.
A winger with speed, balance and tenacity, Salah did on Tuesday what he has done twice before when Basel met Chelsea: he scored. Salah outran the English team’s defense, saw goalkeeper Petr Cech rushing toward him, and from an angle on the left, dinked the ball over Cech’s body.
José Mourinho, the Chelsea coach, speculated afterward that his team lost because players were tired after the international break. Salah, 21, played in Egypt against Ghana last week, he and looked far from fatigued as he put the finishing touch to Basel’s deserved 1-0 victory.
In each of these four games played simultaneously across Europe on Tuesday, there was this essence of men defying the odds against them.
I am drawn toward Mkhitaryan because while he is new to Dortmund, having transferred there from Donetsk a few months ago, he already looks a like a spiritual leader of the team.
“We had to win tonight,” he told reporters after the game. “I would have liked to have scored, but I, we, have to keep working. We cannot give up.”
That, indeed, had been the clarion call from Jürgen Klopp, Dortmund’s manager. Faced with the loss of four of his main defenders, each to long-term injuries and all at the same time, the coach can do two things. He can surrender the season, or he can order the attack.
Klopp only knows the latter. He had three training sessions to pick up his team after losses to Arsenal, Wolfsburg and Bayern Munich, the last a heavy 3-0 defeat on Sunday.
He has had just five months to find another catalyst for his midfield after Munich purchased Mario Götze in the off-season, just as Manchester United bought Shinji Kagawa the previous year. As big a club as Dortmund regards itself, and despite it going all the way to last season’s Champions League final, building and rebuilding is the work of Klopp.
Dortmund paid a fortune to persuade Shakhtar Donetsk to part with Mkhitaryan, but it was a lesser fortune than Bayern Munich used to tempt Götze away. In Donetsk, the club had a habit of playing a theme song whenever specific players scored goals — and many is the time that “Saber Dance” echoed around the Donbass Arena after Mkhitaryan hit the target.
An intelligent young man, determined to study law while he is a player, Mkhitaryan is also now learning his sixth language, German — he already speaks Armenian, Russian, English, French and Portuguese.
The language of Borussia is to circulate the ball, to read the moves of colleagues such as Germany’s Marco Reus and Poland’s Robert Lewandowski and Jakub Blaszczykowski.
That attack-minded quartet are all goal-minded. But as Tuesday demonstrated, when Lewandowski isn’t able to finish off his chances, he is willing to sacrifice, to move deeper, to fight for the ball and to make the passes for others.
Such was Dortmund’s spirit that Napoli was overrun. To stand any chance of reaching the Round of 16, Borussia had to win by two goals because it is possible that these two teams, plus Arsenal, could finish tied with 12 points when the group concludes next month.
The direct results between tied teams would then decide which two of the three qualifies. Napoli had beaten Dortmund 2-1 in Italy, so Tuesday’s 3-1 reversal by the wounded Borussia was paramount.
Reus, Blaszczykowski, and finally the substitute Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang got those goals. But Mkhitaryan set the tempo.
<img src="http://meter-svc.nytimes.com/meter.gif"/>
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/28/s...nrikh-mkhitaryan-is-leading-the-way.html?_r=0
Mkhitaryan Is Not the Leading Scorer, but He’s Leading the Way
Courage under adversity might be the easiest trait to overlook in the modern Champions League player. He is often seen to be privileged and pampered and paid too much for simply kicking a ball around
But what happened Tuesday night in Dortmund, Glasgow, London and, perhaps most surprisingly, in the Swiss city of Basel helped to dispel that notion.
As Borussia Dortmund, a team deprived of its entire starting defensive back line because of injuries, swarmed relentlessly into attack to beat Napoli, 3-1, the player who was heart and soul of the performance turned out to be Henrikh Mkhitaryan.
He is the Armenian son of a great player, Hamlet Mkhitaryan, who lost his life to a brain tumor at 33. His son was just 7 when that happened.
Playing in his dad’s image, Mkhitaryan did not score on Tuesday. But his fantastic running, passing and desire were at the center of Borussia’s refusal to lose a fourth straight game since the injury epidemic struck.
In Glasgow, Kaká was not just the first scorer, but also the architect of A.C. Milan’s 3-0 victory in the stadium of Celtic. Anyone who has followed Kaká’s downward spiral since he was the world player of the year in 2007 will appreciate that his courage is as great as his talents.
Kaká, only 31, is the playmaker whose chronic knee injuries would have finished a lesser man. His time at Real Madrid was blighted, so he is rebuilding himself at Milan and trying to rebuild the Italian club where Silvio Berlusconi’s big spending has run dry.
When the Brazilian headed the first goal against Celtic, the joy on his face was like a beacon to the Milanese. Follow me, he appeared to say.
Mkhitaryan for Dortmund. Kaká for Milan. And in London, a young man called Jack Wilshere, just 21 but already with enough ankle surgeries to make him seem like a scarred veteran, scored both goals in Arsenal’s 2-0 win over Marseille.
In Basel, where the home side outplayed Chelsea for long spells but appeared to be running out of time to get a goal, the breakthrough finally came two minutes from the end. It was scored, brilliantly, by Mohamed Salah.
A winger with speed, balance and tenacity, Salah did on Tuesday what he has done twice before when Basel met Chelsea: he scored. Salah outran the English team’s defense, saw goalkeeper Petr Cech rushing toward him, and from an angle on the left, dinked the ball over Cech’s body.
José Mourinho, the Chelsea coach, speculated afterward that his team lost because players were tired after the international break. Salah, 21, played in Egypt against Ghana last week, he and looked far from fatigued as he put the finishing touch to Basel’s deserved 1-0 victory.
In each of these four games played simultaneously across Europe on Tuesday, there was this essence of men defying the odds against them.
I am drawn toward Mkhitaryan because while he is new to Dortmund, having transferred there from Donetsk a few months ago, he already looks a like a spiritual leader of the team.
“We had to win tonight,” he told reporters after the game. “I would have liked to have scored, but I, we, have to keep working. We cannot give up.”
That, indeed, had been the clarion call from Jürgen Klopp, Dortmund’s manager. Faced with the loss of four of his main defenders, each to long-term injuries and all at the same time, the coach can do two things. He can surrender the season, or he can order the attack.
Klopp only knows the latter. He had three training sessions to pick up his team after losses to Arsenal, Wolfsburg and Bayern Munich, the last a heavy 3-0 defeat on Sunday.
He has had just five months to find another catalyst for his midfield after Munich purchased Mario Götze in the off-season, just as Manchester United bought Shinji Kagawa the previous year. As big a club as Dortmund regards itself, and despite it going all the way to last season’s Champions League final, building and rebuilding is the work of Klopp.
Dortmund paid a fortune to persuade Shakhtar Donetsk to part with Mkhitaryan, but it was a lesser fortune than Bayern Munich used to tempt Götze away. In Donetsk, the club had a habit of playing a theme song whenever specific players scored goals — and many is the time that “Saber Dance” echoed around the Donbass Arena after Mkhitaryan hit the target.
An intelligent young man, determined to study law while he is a player, Mkhitaryan is also now learning his sixth language, German — he already speaks Armenian, Russian, English, French and Portuguese.
The language of Borussia is to circulate the ball, to read the moves of colleagues such as Germany’s Marco Reus and Poland’s Robert Lewandowski and Jakub Blaszczykowski.
That attack-minded quartet are all goal-minded. But as Tuesday demonstrated, when Lewandowski isn’t able to finish off his chances, he is willing to sacrifice, to move deeper, to fight for the ball and to make the passes for others.
Such was Dortmund’s spirit that Napoli was overrun. To stand any chance of reaching the Round of 16, Borussia had to win by two goals because it is possible that these two teams, plus Arsenal, could finish tied with 12 points when the group concludes next month.
The direct results between tied teams would then decide which two of the three qualifies. Napoli had beaten Dortmund 2-1 in Italy, so Tuesday’s 3-1 reversal by the wounded Borussia was paramount.
Reus, Blaszczykowski, and finally the substitute Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang got those goals. But Mkhitaryan set the tempo.
<img src="http://meter-svc.nytimes.com/meter.gif"/>
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/28/s...nrikh-mkhitaryan-is-leading-the-way.html?_r=0
Apparently we've been told we'll have to shell out all of £40 million for this lad.
http://www.espn.co.uk/football/sport/story/268893.html
http://www.espn.co.uk/football/sport/story/268893.html
Manchester United have reportedly been told to stump up £40 million if they want to sign Marco Reus from Borussia Dortmund.
Reus' contract contained a £29.4 million buy-out clause however it is believed the situation changed after Bayern Munich triggered a similar clause in Mario Gotze's contract to snatch him from Dortmund last summer.
Now, whether or not we need a player like him (I think he'd be a sound buy for us for what it's worth) £40 million is surely a bargain for a player like him in this market? If that's what Dortmund consider a reasonable sum we should bite their hand off. We're not going to though, are we. 
40 million quid is everything but a bargain for a player we aren't really sure will suit our game.
That would be a great signing but I don't see it happening until after the World Cup or next year, if ever. Don't see why he'd leave, they aren't exactly a small club, or in need of money.
Far superior then anyone we have apart from Rooney and van Persie though. Would instantly slot in on the left, and I'm sure we'd adapt a bit to fit him in to be more offensive then our normal wingers are.
Far superior then anyone we have apart from Rooney and van Persie though. Would instantly slot in on the left, and I'm sure we'd adapt a bit to fit him in to be more offensive then our normal wingers are.
From what I've seen of him he certainly would suit our game and is the sort of reliable, deadly contribution we've missed down the wings of late.
No idea why he'd want to come to us mid-season in a WC year but it sounds like we might have been sniffing around. Alternatively it could just be paper bollocks.
Our wingers have been well under par for quite some time but I don't see Reus solving that. He isn't a true winger who beats players in 1 v 1's and whips in crosses or takes shots. He's great in transition but a lot of situations our wingers are faced with a slow paced 1 v 1's in which they have to come up with something from nothing, really don't see him being worth that sort of outlay.
Fair doos. I think he'd be a solid addition to our team especially if we sort the midfield out too and start playing some proper football again. Either way I think £40 million is a very fair price for a player of his calibre these days.
Daily Mail story = Bollox
Ah well that's that fecked then.
Nani. In all seriousness I'd want to see our wingers fail while getting proper service from midfield before entertaining the idea signing a new one.
The midfield is a different issue, it's needed improving for a long time but the flanks have been equally poor for two seasons now. Ideally we should be looking to sort both areas out.
Sticking with Reus - I asked you that question because there really isn't many better options for the wings, certainly not any who are semi-available. Personally £40million is the absolute top I would want United to pay, but the market is so inflated right now that it could well be fair value. We aren't going to do any better than Reus so it would be a good signing if it goes through, albeit expensive.
For everyone talking about this release clause. That only kicks in, in 2015.
The earliest this will happen is next summer, and even so, Dortmund will only let him go for a fortune seeing as he's their best player once Lewandowski leaves. Unless he hands in a transfer request, can't see this happening until his release clause kicks in. They're trying to get him to sign a new contract getting rid of that clause. He's in a bit of a bad patch of form though, but he's my ultimate muppet transfer.
Was listening to the Guardian football podcast yesterday and they had some German journalist on who said that there was absolutely no chance of this deal happening. Not really a definite source or anything but I suppose it's as good as anything the Daily Mail has.
James Richardson did say that we were interested in Alessio Cerci though.
James Richardson did say that we were interested in Alessio Cerci though.
The fact that the German press haven't reported on the Reus rumour says it all really. Dailymail is a joke.
Very fair price for such a fantastic player. When the likes of Willian and Lamela fetch the same and 30m seems to be the go to amount slapped on players with even the slightest glimpse of top level talent, we should get it done. Whether there's any truth to this or if we're even interested is another matter altogether.
There was a better chance of Fabregas joining United than Reus does.