Calf injury
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Shame on Ten Hag for not predicting he’d get an injury and miss most of the season
Yes. That’s horrible. He should have known.
Thank God we signed him when we did, could you imagine how this season would have gone if we had waited a year and got him on a free?
Lucky we signed him early as well. Full pre-season and everything - makes a massive difference. Well done to everyone involved.I read he didnt start any of the last 18 games for Chelsea, partly due to carrying an injury. Not sure how he passed a medical....
Also I believe he missed a lot of minutes in the last 18 months more generally. Not signing injury prone players should be transfer 101. Not that its particularly on ETH but just more woeful stuff from our whole recruitment team
Well shame on Ten Hag for bringing a player he has no plan for, even when he was fit he played from the bench and when he did play we were wide open like the great canyon.
It is pretty obvious he was never going to fit in except you bench Bruno and we know that a'nt happening, so waste of time and money.
Additionally brought a player whose recent injury and form record has been poor, so yes shame on ETH
He started 5 games for them from the start of Feb to the end of the season.
I don't get this thing of people saying he had no plans for Mount. People haven't even given it chance to develop. What other player have we signed under Ten Hag without a plan for them?
Amrabat and to a lessser extent Reguilon
You're not sure what their roles are? They are back up DM and LB respectively.
You didn't ask what their roles are, you asked if we have a plan for them.
He missed most of his last three months at Chelsea with a pelvic injury. Before that his injury record was actually good. Not quite Bruno level, but from memory he only missed something like 5 PL games in the rest of the four seasons he was at Chelsea.
So it was more a case of signing him on the back of having one fairly big injury that required surgery. Obviously that carries it's own risks, but it's not the same as signing someone who was historically injury prone.
Coming off the worst period of form in his career too
At least with Antony you've some idea of why we bought him - not specifically his own qualities but we needed a left footed RW.
With Mount I still to this day have no idea why*.
*Well, I do, but I don't want to admit that I do because it's even stupider than signing him in the first place - playing him and Bruno high up and leaving one isolated DM to do midfield on their own.
I really forgot about him, the fact he was so bad when he was available has killed all the hype of players being better when they dont play.
Honestly, considering the way we have been playing this season without him, I would like to agree with ETH that a fit Mason Mount is an absolute necessity.
Nobody could predict that he would miss most of the season injured, I would be reasonable to stop blaming ETH for a transfer that did not work out (yet?) due to a severe injury plague.
Also, I had a really good impression of him playing next to Mainoo during pre-season. I also want him back just because of set piece are horrible when Eriksen is not on the field.
He basically the only consistently midfielder/attacker for us between 2019-2022. Chelsea ran him into the ground. I was complaining about this in 2021 and throughout 2022 and correctly predicted he would eventually succumb to injuries. He was ever present from the moment he made his debut until 2023, and unfortunately it’s been non stop injuries ever since.
I hope he gets back to full health asap. It’s sad to say I almost forget he exists sometimes.
But that would require ETH to drop Bruno or Casemiro and I don’t see that happening, so what will actually happen when he is fit is that Mount will be competing with Mainoo for one spot.
Yep we sort of lucked out with Mainoo this season. Imagine we didn't sign Mount and we Casemiro, Amrabat and McTominay as the only senior CMs.
Besides that Bruno would benefit from rotating with Mount, we imperatively need to rotate Mainoo in order to protect him. I do not want our generational talent to end up like Barcelona's Pedri and Gavi due to being severely overplayed for short-term gain.
Lucked out? We didn't sign a #8 because ETH knew Mainoo was ready.
Utd press release on their website 27th Decemeber that he was "back training on grass".
If you can run on a pitch in December, you can play a game in March.
Awful signing, was never and will never work at Utd.
The plan always was Mount at #8. There's no way Ten Hag would put all his chips on Mainoo doing as well as he did even if he thought he was ready. Mainoo was back up / a player who got a cup game here and there at best this season.
There were early games when everyone was available when he went with Mount, Bruno, DM.
yeah the lack of information is doing mount any favors
Another player that’s missed most the season… add him to a long list of players.
Hits the nail on the head.
The guy is injured. He clearly needs time to get fully fit again and if we want him to stay healthy, we should do the rehabilitation properly. There’s no point people getting angry at an injured player. It’s not his fault. As you have said, he was grossly overplayed for a number of years and is now paying the price.
Im worried about us doing the same thing to Mainoo. A young athletes body changes a lot from 17 to 21/22, and their minutes should be managed accordingly. We’ve seen this before with young talents many, many times.
Really good point with Mainoo. With the season pretty much for gone, we should rest and rotate him.
-Didn't sign or even target a number 8 other than Mount (even if he wants to use him at #8, he's still a completely different profile to Mainoo or de Jong, who he really wanted in 2022)
-Mentioned several times early in the season how unfortunate it is that Mainoo is out injured
-When the player returned, he was immediately introduced to the team and became one of the first names on the team sheet
But you want to force this narrative that Mainoo was only going to be a squad player with not much more than cup appearances?
Coming off the back of a long injury at Chelsea and overall poor form, and filling no obvious role in the team.
I'm not going to shite on the guy for being injured, it's not his fault same as it wasn't Jones' or Shaw's or any of our other long line of permacrocks (Mount isn't here yet of course, but not a great start on this front I'm sure you'll agree).
What I will say though is that it was a hell of a lot of money to spend on such a player, at a time when we could have improved many other positions instead had we decided to. Lots of people pointed this out at the time and so far it's proven to be a dreadful transfer.
Injuries aside - that much is surely at least partially on ETH.
I don’t think us fans are angry at Mount himself (at least I’m not), I’m frustrated at the club for sanctioning the hefty transfer fee on a player that had evidently been struggling with injuries and that was soon to be OOC / available for free, in a position we didn’t really need. Hopefully Mount overcomes the injury issues as it would be super helpful to give Bruno and sometimes Mainoo a rest to keep them fresh and at their best.
Regarding Mainoo, I agree, I think it’s essential we sign a player with a similar skill set that can rotate with him so we can bring him into the fold more gradually to protect him. Ideally 6/8 that could play with him and alongside him.
Mount is basically that mould of footballer (defensive work rate, ball carrying, goal scoring, passing) that you're describing. For me Mount and Mainoo are interchangable with Mainoo better defensively and Mount better at counter pressing / attacking. FdJ is unique so there's no point comparing.
re: remarks that Unfortunate that Mainoo is injured -- I need the full context. Was that when we had basically no midfielders? Putting together the full narrative is hard because there was a time there was no #8 / DM were available. Mainoo was introduced because there was literally no other option (I guess other than playing McT and Bruno at #6 and #8).
I can put together the list:
WOL: Mount, Bruno, Casemiro (Mainoo injured)
TOT: Mount, Bruno, Casemiro (Mainoo injured)
NFO: Eriksen, Bruno, Casemiro (Mount, Mainoo injured)
ARS: Eriksen, Bruno, Casemiro (Mount, Mainoo injured)
BHA: Eriksen, Bruno, Casemiro (Mount, Mainoo injured)
Bayern: Eriksen, Bruno, Casemiro (Mount, Mainoo injured)
BUR: Hannibal, Bruno, Casemiro (Mount, Mainoo injured)
CPL (cup): Mount, Bruno, Casemiro (Mainoo injured)
CPL: Mount, Bruno, Casemiro (Mainoo injured)
Gala: Mount, Bruno, Casemiro (Mainoo injured)
Mostly Mount has been selected for the #8 role whenever he was available and it's clear to me atleast that this was Plan A for us during the transfer window. Eventuall when Mainoo got in the squad, there was no DM (Amrabat and Casemiro were injured) and McT was the only "#8" available.
EVE we started with Mainoo, McT, Bruno and that continued against Gala, Newcastle, dropped against Chelsea, Bou, Bayern, Liverpool in favor of Amrabat and eventually re-stated. Why was he dropped? He picked experience for a pretty important fixture run through the season.
Sure it's possible he always intended to play him but I don't think any manager worth their salt will rely on a promising young player to start every game. We'll never know because both weren't fit at the same time.
Ten Hag really does know how to pick an injury prone player doesn’t he. Of the 8 outfield players he’s signed permanently: Mount, Malacia, Martinez, Eriksen and Casemiro have all been missing for lengthy periods of time.
I'm lazy to search for the quotes but I'm pretty certain ETH was praising Mainoo a lot and he also started him in 4 out of 5 pre-season games before he picked up an injury vs Madrid. And when he returned from injury, he instantly became one of the first names on the team sheet as well as one of our best players.
Mount and Mainoo are also very different types of midfielders IMO.
The initial plan could well have been to have Mount and Bruno as advanced 8s up top with Casemiro in a single pivot behind them, but he also signed Amrabat (who can't play single pivot), and from ETH's comments earlier in the season, and pre-season, it was clear to me that he's counting on Mainoo to be an important player for us this season as well. Mainoo could also play #6, though I think he's somewhat wasted there
Just because he signed Mount, it doesn't mean that Mainoo was only going to get limited minutes and cup appearances if we had no injuries. He signed Mount and Amrabat, whilst also putting his faith in Mainoo. These are three vastly different profiles. There was always going to be different game plans, different setups, and a lot of rotation. Just because Mount was very likely signed to be a starter in midfield, that doesn't mean Mainoo's minutes would've been reduced. This season for him was always going to be like how Garnacho broke into the first team in 2022/23.
Or any of the perma-injured. Malacia has now been out longer than Keane was when he did his cruciate.
Shaw has been unavailable for more games than available in almost 10years.
Mount just added to the list of vaguely unavailable. He was fairly vague on the pitch in any event but still.
I think the whole Out of Contract thing is being overplayed. Having a year left gave us the opportunity to get him for a better fee. Not much else in my mind. The bigger question, more important question, is whether he was the right player to go after. I think most will say no.
On the contract, if we hadn’t signed him, someone else would have last summer. And in the unlikely event no one did, I suspect he would’ve signed a new contract. I think it’s extraordinarily unlikely Chelsea would’ve let him walk on a free. By far the most likely outcome was that he would’ve signed elsewhere. So the idea we could’ve gotten him for free a year later, is at best wishful thinking in my opinion.
I think the only question worth answering was whether spending 55m on Mount last summer, was the best way to spend our available funds. All the contract situation did was reduce his fee. Again, I think most agree that he probably wasn’t the right profile of player for what this team needs. And that just leads us back to the strategic decision making at the club.
Now he’s here, I think he can still be an important player for the club, but I don’t think we’ll see much of that this season. We’ll see how he fits in next year, likely under a new manager. At worse he is a high quality rotation option, at best he is a very consistent, high quality homegrown player who is effective in several positions. How this will turn out is anyone’s guess at this point.
Pretty much everyone and their mother had been saying we need another DM and a playmaking #8, for a while now. I’d preferred we’d have saved the Mount money and the Amrabat loan money, and gone after someone like Barrella. It’s just terrible decision making from the club.
I would say Mount is a £55-60m player on a good day with 2 years on his deal. Given the season he had just had, the fact his contract was running out and Chelsea were very clear they weren’t going to offer him what he wanted, meant he really should have been about a £40m player which many of us on here thought was the reasonable fee to pay when the original interest came out. As he was out of contract we had the upper hand, so should have made Chelsea sweat until July-August when they would likely have brought down their demands as they needed the money FFP credit to do their dealings last summer.
Instead for some reason we thought it was important to rush the transfer and pay over the odds as per and give Chelsea a huge boost early on that window. If he has two years left we don’t have the same upper hand but with one year left it was extremely strange transfer tactics, especially as he shouldn’t have been a priority over Onana or Hojlund anyway.
One thing we can agree on is that he wasn’t how we should have been using our budget full stop. This all being said I actually quite like Mount but he was not what we needed in midfield last summer and when we needed a top deeper lying midfielder (not Amrabat level) and also a rotation ST alongside Hojlund (and a CB but that was obviously dependent on Maguire).
I mean, I am not sure on the debate about when in the window was the right time to buy him. Maybe we could’ve waited until the end and gotten him for cheaper. Maybe not. Many would say it is better to get players in early, so they have a full preseason with the squad. Depends on how long term of a view one takes of the transfer, But by virtue of even debating it, we are highlighting that we were always going to pay a feee for him. He was never likely to join on a free. How much could he have been gotten for with a better negotiating team? Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe 40m like you say, maybe 45+5, maybe Chelsea wouldn’t have budged and driven the price up the longer we waited.
I think the only important question, again, is whether we should have allocated that budget to his signing in the first place (we agree), and of course the statement that we need a better negotiating team in place. Our new CEO himself has commented on the importance of not overpaying for players; so hopefully that is something the INEOS era will address.
The point I was trying to get across earlier, and have been for months (on this forum) is that unless you have a player that is dedicated to signing for your club on a free, come hell or high water, a la Mbappe and Madrid (perhaps); then the whole “last year of his contract” thing, only means a discount on the price. How big of a discount is open to debate. Depends on a variety of factors. The risks associated with not signing a target with one year left, in the hope of getting him for free in a year, are substantial. Which is usually why players are sold. And if there is a lot of interest in the player, then the selling club still has a lot of leverage. In Mount’s case, Liverpool, Arsenal and Bayern were all interested. After talking to ETH he decided it was United; but if we’d failed to move for him, I have no doubt he’d have ended up at one of the others.
So when I look at Mount’s signing, I ask myself “was he worth signing for 55m?”. I think it’s the only question worth asking. I don’t ask myself “Was he worth signing for 55m when he had one year left on his deal?”, because the remaining duration of his previous contract has no bearing on his value to our squad.
Mount has never been fully fit. He was injured at Chelsea.
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