Inflation mate, can hit individuals hardWhy is every player of ours and their dog on £300k a week nowadays?
Mason Mount's Many Misfortunes (please don't make another waste of money post)
- Thread starter horsechoker
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How on earth can you spent 60M, give him the 7 shirt number, and dont have a clue where to play him...
Because he’s injured
Fred’s contract wasn’t up was it? We sold him for a fee. We could have actually let him go for free next summer and got Mount for free. Instead we made a loss of about £50m, for a player on much higher wages, who has barely played a game, and probably isn’t as good a fit for the team as Fred was.
Agents. They know we're rich and that the guys running us do not have the sharpest football minds and management skills.Why is every player of ours and their dog on £300k a week nowadays?
Hopefully that's changing now.
Why is every player of ours and their dog on £300k a week nowadays?
They’re almost certainly not, the media just run with it because people accept it as being true.
We originally offered £40M, I seem to remember. That seemed more than reasonable.
When our offer was turned down, we should have said thanks, but no thanks.
We could have had that fella who went to Spurs for £40M, and he's actually really good at football. Probably could have paid him half as much, too.
When our offer was turned down, we should have said thanks, but no thanks.
We could have had that fella who went to Spurs for £40M, and he's actually really good at football. Probably could have paid him half as much, too.
I'm still not really at a point where I can judge him as a player at our club, as we've barely seen him in action. I've never really got him, so my judgement is still pending. Hopefully he can have a worthwhile contribution before the season is over.
I was quoting you. You said £40 million in your first post.
This is absolutely wild. One is one of the best all round midfielders in the world, the other is a system player at best. Mount won player of the year at Chelsea because he's a local lad who put in a shift and generally they've been pretty shit outside of one Champions League run. Likewise, Rice is actually an England mainstay, Mount has made 24 starts for England and finished exactly 8 games. Rice has started 44 in that time and actually finished 31 of them.
I'm sure Bayern were interested, but not for anywhere near £55m. Likewise, there's a reason Arsenal went for Havertz over him.
Bayern were even more interested in McTominay
Looking forward to Mason strutting his stuff in a Utd shirt...will be like a new signing.
They'd be top if they bought him
Yeah, he would have been scoring all kinds of clutch goals, unlike Kane, who is just stat padding against the likes of FC Schwarzburg
Right now McTominay is the most dangerous super-sub in the world.
Those are possession type of midfielders who are used to involve in a lot of build up play for which Bruno and Mount aren’t.
Yeah I was about to say, Bruno in particular is not smart enough in possession for that comparison to be a sound one (neither is Casemiro compared to Rodri).
£55 was a great deal for a young, English player with international experience, who can play all across the front line and was Chelsea’s POTY.
He’s a lad who actively chose to leave Chelsea as he wanted to play for Manchester United, and he hasn’t had a proper chance to show us what he’s got yet. I think it’s poor form as a supporter to write him off as a bad signing so early. Maybe if we get behind him as a fanbase it will help him find his best form when he returns?
He’s a lad who actively chose to leave Chelsea as he wanted to play for Manchester United, and he hasn’t had a proper chance to show us what he’s got yet. I think it’s poor form as a supporter to write him off as a bad signing so early. Maybe if we get behind him as a fanbase it will help him find his best form when he returns?
If we didn't already have Bruno (or had unlimited freedom to spend money however we liked) I'd agree. But Bruno is our captain, is freakishly never, ever absent and plays a similar role to Mount. It was a bit of a headscratcher before he signed and he obviously didn't have much of a chance to prove himself before getting injured. And I know it's an unfair criticism as players can't help getting injured, but we've been down this road before with perennially unavailable players languishing at the club and then subsequently struggling to establish themselves (while making an absolute fortune in the process).
I'm looking forward to him coming back because he's a different kind of player and he's relatively flexible. It'd be nice if he hits the ground running to give him and the fans a boost.
my man’t melieve munited maid mixty million mounds mor mim.
Yes, it does worry me that he could be one of those that never really settles in after an early injury. But equally, he could really crack on when he's back so let's hope for that.
Bruno is never injured, until one day he will be... We don't have anyone else who can play the no10 role (Eriksen is approaching the end and McTominay isn't the man) so we need a quality back-up and successor for our 30 year old captain. If Mason can have a good season next year then the role will be his soon thereafter. If you ask me, this is potentially an incredible piece of succession planning, carried out for a great price. I really hope the boy makes it.
gundogan has 8 qualities but I see your point.
Maybe I should rephrase that to prematurely prioritising a 10 when we do not have the foundation to play that way successfully.
I would love to see his Chelsea top form in the Utd shirt but after 2 consecutive seasons full of injuries I'm afraid it will never happen.
It's not really 2 seasons. It was only towards the the end of last season where he got injured (March 2023), and I think the expectation is that he'll come back in March 2024. So it'll be 12 months. Obviously it's not ideal but it's also not as bad as a lot of people make out.
Even if he manages to stay fit and has a massive upturn in form I don't see he will ever be considered as being signed at a great price given there was only a year left on his contract
While squad depth is absolutely important, it's not a fair comparison. City can easily have the luxury of having expensive players on their bench because they have zero weaknesses in their first eleven. We, on the other hand, went into last summer realistically needing better players at 3 or 4 positions in the first eleven, so blowing a significant portion of our budget on a backup players was incredibly reckless.
Havertz has been fairly brilliant. Quietly settling in, influence growing since the turn of the year. He’s pretty crucial to how Arsenal play now.
Additionally, he’s settling in alongside another brand new midfielder in Rice, as his club implements a new approach. Arsenal have gone the City route and have Odegard and Havertz operating so far forward, with Rice working as a poor man’s Rodri. It’s showing signs of really working.
Cant compare his signing to Mount. I think he’ll finish the season as one of the best signings by anyone.
With the amount of time he has been out of the game in consecutive seasons, there has to be serious concern about his future as a top level pro. Who knows what this is taking away from him in terms of athleticism, and who on earth will be the least bit surprised if he finally comes back and breaks down again within a couple of months?
How many players actually come back from so long out and just carry on as the player they were before the injury (s)?
How many players actually come back from so long out and just carry on as the player they were before the injury (s)?
Really? I can't say I've see tons of him this season but when I have he's looked just as bang-average as he did for Chelsea.
£55m for him will turn out to be a bad deal, just by virtue of him being a good player but not great at anything. The definition of a squad player. Think Lucas Vasquez. Or John O'Shea. Is anyone paying £55m for them? The answer is no.
He won't get assists since he won't take many corners here, he won't get goals since he won't be playing in the front 3 of a 3-5-3 system and won't be able to take the spaces to score from that he did at Chelsea because Bruno takes those spaces. So we've signed a midfielder for big money.. who has almost no specialisation in being a midfielder. Running around a lot and being able to pass ten yards hardly warrant big money. Hell Mctominay is limited too but he's a big fecker who is a great finisher. Truth is if we scouted anyone outside of players from Ajax or the Dutch League that Ten Hague has watched, you can find a similar calibre squad player for £20m. Hell Brighton are finding better players like Enciso for cheaper. I actually would have preferred Gallagher or Haveertz, both have more to their game than Mount does.
He won't get assists since he won't take many corners here, he won't get goals since he won't be playing in the front 3 of a 3-5-3 system and won't be able to take the spaces to score from that he did at Chelsea because Bruno takes those spaces. So we've signed a midfielder for big money.. who has almost no specialisation in being a midfielder. Running around a lot and being able to pass ten yards hardly warrant big money. Hell Mctominay is limited too but he's a big fecker who is a great finisher. Truth is if we scouted anyone outside of players from Ajax or the Dutch League that Ten Hague has watched, you can find a similar calibre squad player for £20m. Hell Brighton are finding better players like Enciso for cheaper. I actually would have preferred Gallagher or Haveertz, both have more to their game than Mount does.
Not Havertz but think Gallagher would have been great for us.
He's basically been out for a year. One month more than Martinez. And considering Mount is expected back soon while Martinez is out for another couple of months, he'll probably have less time out in total (as long as he doesn't break down again).
There seems to be this belief that Mount has been struggling for injury for absolutely ages. In reality he only got that bad injury for the last three months of last season (March 2023). Before that he only missed a total of five league games in his four seasons at Chelsea.
Great post.
Nice to see a bit of positivity on this topic.
Yeah, he’s quietly going from strength to strength. My girlfriend supports Arsenal and I catch a lot of their games. He looked like a square peg in a round hole at the start of the season but he’s increasingly more important to them.
What I will say is that Martinelli, Saka, Odegaard, Rice are all better in their positions than he is in his, so he’s always going to look less impressive. He’s definitely found his feet though and certainly not anything like a flop. I really like him as a player.
There are massive doubts around Martinez’s fitness; whether he’ll ever be as robust as pre-injury really remains to be seen. Mount’s missed a lot of football, and for someone who’s game is reliant on industry, it’s a big issue.
Financially his fee relative to return this season is horrifying.
Literally money down the drain.
Yeah he's injured so he deserves a chance to shine but that's the on Pitch perspective.
Commercially it's a disaster
Giggs? Rooney's a shout too.
For comparison, I've only taken League games. Games missed = not in squad.
Mount
Season 23/24: 17/24 games missed
Season 22/23: 14/38 games missed - pelvic injury mostly.
.. no big injuries before this. Some seasons completely injury free.
Giggs:
Season 96/97: 11/38 games missed
Season 97/98: 8/38 games missed
Season 98/99: 14/38 games missed
Season 99/00: 6/38 games missed
Season 00/01: 7/38 games missed
Season 01/02: 13/38 games missed <--- Starts Yoga/self fellatio around here I think.
Season 02/03: 2/38 games missed
Season 03/04: 5/38 games missed
The most worrying thing this season is we don't know what injury Mount has. Ten Hag doesn't really tell the cause of Malacia's injury neither.
I'm not sure if Ten Hag or the club confirmed it, but it's been widely reported that Mount's injury in September was a hamstring while his more recent one was a calf.
Malacia's was a knee injury that he had surgery on in the summer, but then had a setback and needed further surgery.
Giggs had massive issues with his hamstrings, and essentially changed his game to accommodate that, arguably never being the same player he was again. By his own account, he never fully turned on the afterburners again, accepting his body simply couldn’t handle it; he played within himself to get by, but because his top level was so high, dropping down a notch or two wasn’t the end of the world, plus he had the ability to hone other skills and modify his game. I think we all agree Rooney was never the same player again after that metatarsal disaster.
I think they had so much more ability than a Mount, that the workaround was doable as they were still superior to most on a football pitch. My concern for Mount is he needs every sinew of the attributes he is touted for and can’t afford a drop off because, with due respect, he doesn’t have world class ability or attributes to pick and choose from - Mount without his engine and mobility would be severely compromised.
I’m in the camp that thinks he was a very meh signing to begin with - and that’s the full fitness version of him - so I do sincerely hope that the injurie don’t rob him of the chance to prove himself at his best. That would be a real shame.
Nevermind that he would have been a free transfer had we waited.
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