Michael Keane| signed to Everton.

Do you want Michael Keane back at United?

  • Yes

    Votes: 259 43.0%

  • No

    Votes: 172 28.6%

  • Undecided

    Votes: 171 28.4%
  • Total voters
    602
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Raoul said:
If we are serious about winning at the highest level, we should be looking at better players than Keane.
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Have been saying this for a while. But a lot of people want him only because he is an academy player (nostalgia and all that pretension that we're really great at developing players) and because he is English (despite the fact that we don't need homegrown player for quota, we are more than fine in that aspect).

Smalling and Jones need to be replaced but not with Keane. Keane is more reliable fitness wise, but not as good as them (and to be fair, they aren't that good in the first place). We should get CBs who are fit and who are very good/great, not CBs who are fit and just decent players.
 
yumtum said:
Would rather have Harry Maguire, but then again I'd prefer neither.
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To be fair, a reliable squad player is essential especially if we in europe etc. Its good to have reliable, fit solid back up defenders and he's a good kid to have around in the squad.

BUT, the fact he was an academy player and also he isn't really that great - I would want him for peanuts, and not have to fork out a significant sum, otherwise what is the point.
 
cheeky_backheel said:
There is an home grown quota of 8 players that needs to be met, and currently we only have Rashford, Lingard and Pogba for club with Shaw for FA. That leaves us 4 slots short. If you add a 3rd keeper from the academy, leaves 3 to be met.

Given that Young, Rooney, and Carrick are past it, with Smalling, and Jones always injured, how do we strengthen the squad while meeting the quota. There are very few FA trained players that are available for sale and better than what we have in our area of needs, and, less than a handful that are starter material. Tottenham is not going to sell us Kane or Alli, and, the likes of Toby or Kante are not homegrown.

Keane is a good candidate for this. Even if he is not as good, at least he is injured less often than Jones and Smalling. (Jones has missed 92 days and Smalling has missed 85 days this season alone ). Yet, I think he is better than both Smalling and Jones. Some thought less of Rojo, but one can see how well he has played under Mou. Keane should take Jones spot in the rotation while we look for an Elite defender to replace Smalling.
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Nope, the rule is not 8 homegrown players. It is 8 out of 25, 7 out of 24, 6 out of 23 and so on. And that doesn't count U21 players. Jose has hardly used a 25 men squad, he just doesn't do it. At the moment, we have 20 players + Shaw who still counts as U21 (won't count next season), which means that this season we are fine with just 3 homegrown players.

Next season, I suspect that Rooney will leave, and assuming that Jones and Smalling do so, we will have as homegrown the third keeper, Shaw, Carrick, Young, Pogba and Lingard which leaves us with a squad of 23 players, something that Jose in the past has mentioned as ideal number. And then if Pereira comes back (he will) it means that we can have 24 players in the squad, which is more than Jose typically wants. In fact, Pereira coming will be needed for the season after than when Carrick and Young will likely leave, leaving us with a squad of 23 players which again is perfectly fine. If we need numbers in attack, we can just bring back Januzaj who is homegrown. In 2 years from now, Rashford will count as homegrown, as will Tuanzabe.

Regardless of how you look at it, we are absolutely fine when it comes to homegrown rules, so there are zero reasons to buy a homegrown player for the sake of numbers. Buy him if he is better than not homegrown players, but not just cause he is homegrown. We don't need homegrown players (we have the numbers to go by the rules), we need good players.
 
Michael Keane is a decent defender, nothing more. He's been called up by England, which has started a bit of a bandwagon for him. Much like in the case of John Stones its more heat than light. Not saying either are rubbish. The truth is though, they are good young defenders, not the great young defenders they are being made out to be because they wear the three lions.

Why buy Keane when we have Tuanzebe, who is naturally bigger, stronger and faster than Keane? If Tuanzebe spent a few years at a middle to lower league Premier League team he'd also be getting good press. For the money it would take to buy back Keane we may as well save ourselves the cash and try Tuanzebe out. Neither, right now, looks like another Steve Bruce. There's nothing that suggests Keane will be and Tuanzebe won't, so why spend the money?

To some extent, it'd be like buying back Welbeck when you have Rashford.
 
Sultan said:
Keane might not be an elite defender. You can't really have 4 world class players for the same position. I personally don't think it's a bad idea if Keane can be one of 4 centre-backs needed at a club of United's stature. He would be a very good acquisition to play around 25-30 games a season. He is a homegrown United graduate and knows the premiership. He will only get better with time and learning of quality players.

The risk of purchasing him would be minimal.
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Of course you can't. But a club of United stature should have at least one world class CB, preferably two (Vidic and Rio, Ramos and Pepe, Boateng and Hummels etc). We currently have 0. If we look at the category below world class (you know, Alderweireld category) we again have 0.

We need to get one or two great CBs, not players who are decent and offer nothing more than what we have. Keane would be our fifth best CB, but with Jones being perma-crock maybe could be considered as fourth best. It makes absolutely no sense to sign him, bar to make United die hards happy that we get an another academy player. He isn't Pogba to justify spending a lot of money on him, he is just an another Shawcross/Welbeck/Cleverley, an okay player but not good for us.
 
Raees said:
To be fair, a reliable squad player is essential especially if we in europe etc. Its good to have reliable, fit solid back up defenders and he's a good kid to have around in the squad.

BUT, the fact he was an academy player and also he isn't really that great - I would want him for peanuts, and not have to fork out a significant sum, otherwise what is the point.
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But we've got a few average central defenders, why pay £20m+ on another, reckon if they don't take a starting 11 spot then there's no point buying more, Smalling, Bailly and Rojo are ample if we can get another world class defender.

We need to stay clear of Keane, he's another Cahill who is a bit meh really.
 
I like him though he needs to brush up a few things defensively, a lot of it is down to experience. And I reckon Mourinho would improve him.
 
yumtum said:
But we've got a few average central defenders, why pay £20m+ on another, reckon if they don't take a starting 11 spot then there's no point buying more, Smalling, Bailly and Rojo are ample if we can get another world class defender.

We need to stay clear of Keane, he's another Cahill who is a bit meh really.
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I agree, which is why if the price is £20m, I wouldn't want him - would be a pointless signing at that price.

Smalling/Jones are just unreliable fitness wise and tbh I just want them gone by now.
 
Raees said:
I agree, which is why if the price is £20m, I wouldn't want him - would be a pointless signing at that price.

Smalling/Jones are just unreliable fitness wise and tbh I just want them gone by now.
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There's no way a young player transfers to United sub £20m anymore, as much as Smalling and Jones are unreliable, I think keeping one of them with Bailly and Rojo current first choice would be enough if we splurged on a world class centre half.
 
I wonder what tree all these world class and available central defenders are growing under? Maybe google maps will show the way...
 
Revan said:
Have been saying this for a while. But a lot of people want him only because he is an academy player (nostalgia and all that pretension that we're really great at developing players) and because he is English (despite the fact that we don't need homegrown player for quota, we are more than fine in that aspect).

Smalling and Jones need to be replaced but not with Keane. Keane is more reliable fitness wise, but not as good as them (and to be fair, they aren't that good in the first place). We should get CBs who are fit and who are very good/great, not CBs who are fit and just decent players.
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Yup, couldn't agree more. Although the strange retort in here to anyone that doesn't want / rate Keane is that "we can't have a squad full of world class players" Righteo...
 
What is it people don't like about him? I think many forget he's still young and can improve a lot in the next few years.

He's good on the ball, fairly quick (kept up with Martial in a sprint) seems a good natural defender? I don't think he will ever go onto be our best defender but he would be a solid squad option.
 
Nuts said:
He'd make a great partner for Bailly and would have all the motivation, coming back, to do well. I think it'd be a good move.
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We already have Rojo for that. If we want to improve we should be looking at the Godin/Bonucci calibre not Keane.
 
Revan said:
Of course you can't. But a club of United stature should have at least one world class CB, preferably two (Vidic and Rio, Ramos and Pepe, Boateng and Hummels etc). We currently have 0. If we look at the category below world class (you know, Alderweireld category) we again have 0.

We need to get one or two great CBs, not players who are decent and offer nothing more than what we have. Keane would be our fifth best CB, but with Jones being perma-crock maybe could be considered as fourth best. It makes absolutely no sense to sign him, bar to make United die hards happy that we get an another academy player. He isn't Pogba to justify spending a lot of money on him, he is just an another Shawcross/Welbeck/Cleverley, an okay player but not good for us.
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Who do you think is available? It's more about finding good deals like Bailly who was not that well known when we signed him but has turned out to be great for us. The absolutely mammoth deals involving hyped players is a tedious game to watch for the fans and we may not end up with the desired outcome - look at Mangala, Stones. I'd say Rojo and Bailly would both command starting places next season, though we need good backups for them.
 
Robbie Boy said:
Yup, couldn't agree more. Although the strange retort in here to anyone that doesn't want / rate Keane is that "we can't have a squad full of world class players" Righteo...
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Indeed. Which would have been justifiable if we had a couple of world class CBs, and so we would get some decent backups who can be relied. The problem is that we don't have any world class CB, and any CB in the category right below that. We have a few decent CBs (in fact all of them at the moment would be classified just decent), but not a single of them is in the category of Alder, let alone Godin, Bonucci and co.

We need to aspire better than Keane if we plan to aspire more than the fourth place/Europa league trophy.
 
Classical Mechanic said:
Jones and Rojo are done. Dead men walking and not worth keeping at the club whichever way you look at it. The rest are prospects. TFM hardly looks like he is being groomed to be a CB either. We will need one senior back up by the end of this season by my estimation. Remember we were in for Fonte early this season.
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He's changed so many opinions this season, great improvement!
 
GailWynand said:
Who do you think is available? It's more about finding good deals like Bailly who was not that well known when we signed him but has turned out to be great for us. The absolutely mammoth deals involving hyped players is a tedious game to watch for the fans and we may not end up with the desired outcome - look at Mangala, Stones. I'd say Rojo and Bailly would both command starting places next season, though we need good backups for them.
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I am not a scout, neither know exactly United finances.

But I think that we might be able to tempt Juventus with an offer for Bonucci who is arguably the best in the world. We can look for the very top prospects like Gimenez (who likely wouldn't cost much more than Keane and is far better) or Laporte. If we sell De Gea, we might ask for Varane in return. Pepe will be a free agent and despite his cuntinesh, he is exactly what we need (a great experienced CB). Godin might decide to leave Atletico if so do Simeone and Griezmann. Van Dijk might be the best realistic option from the league. And surely, there are other options right there.

I don't think that neither Rojo nor Bailly (at least not yet) are all that great. They have played good this season, but they are far from the best CBs in the world. There is room for improvement even on the starting positions.
 
elmo said:
You do realise that there's a quota that needs to be met for the squad submitted to the Premier League right?

It's a huge reason why the likes of Stones have gone for huge amount despite being nowhere near ready to be playing for the top teams.
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Yes mate, I've played football manager too.
 
There is always room for improvment, but I for one would love to see Michael Keane back at the club. Does nostalgia play a part ? Yeah sure - but also the fact that he is a brilliant defender who will get better. So yes to Keane from me. I don't think we need to sign a world-class defender, because I feel Bailly soon will be just that and any 2-3 of Jones, Smalling, Keane and Rojo is good enough to be his partner in a really good defense.
 
Good player, but when I saw him in our crowd (before he announced he was leaving Burnley)... not for a second did I think "we're signing him".

I assumed he was taking the chance to watch the team in his heart, while doing his homework on how to combat "Manchester United without Ibrahimovic"... unfortunately for him that homework didn't include Martial in form.
 
Jones should fetch 15m. Replacing him with Keane for just 5m makes sense to me.
 
Adisa said:
Jones should fetch 15m. Replacing him with Keane for just 5m makes sense to me.
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Jones barely play a game, will be very surprised if we get more than 10 Million for him. You can sell a less talented player but selling injury prone player is very hard.
 
Adisa said:
Jones should fetch 15m. Replacing him with Keane for just 5m makes sense to me.
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I agree with the above post. The potential is worth the investment but the injury record is a problem. I'm not sure what his value would be or who would want a player that they have solid evidence now will likely be injured more than most players. I think we will add a CB and maybe not sell any of the ones we have for another 12 months to see what shape we are in. Let's face it we could have done with 5 proven CB's this season.
 
Raoul said:
We already have Rojo for that. If we want to improve we should be looking at the Godin/Bonucci calibre not Keane.
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Agree with this. No point stockpiling average players when we could be looking for actual improvements.
 
lysglimt said:
There is always room for improvment, but I for one would love to see Michael Keane back at the club. Does nostalgia play a part ? Yeah sure - but also the fact that he is a brilliant defender who will get better. So yes to Keane from me. I don't think we need to sign a world-class defender, because I feel Bailly soon will be just that and any 2-3 of Jones, Smalling, Keane and Rojo is good enough to be his partner in a really good defense.
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Bailly and Rojo are already our two starting CBs (injuries aside). If we buy a defender, he would need to be better than either. Otherwise we should just keep what we have and use Jones, Smalling, Blind, Tuanzebe and CBJ as back ups.
 
He is the current flavor of the month. Just like Ryan Shawcross before him.
 
Bailly is class. He needs a world class partner then we should be ok with Rojo, Keane and Blind. Two top defenders and three good ones as cover. Mike and Jones can go.
 
If Mourinho thinks he's good enough and brings him back this summer I wouldn't cry, the man seems to know a defender when he sees one, I watched Keane in the youth and thought he was a pretty good prospect, Jones, Smalling and Rojo in their time here have proven unreliable with their fitness, so bringing Keane back in place of one wouldnt be the worst decison ever.
 
IMO, whether Keane is good enough is up to Mourinho. But our record this season has showed it's not ultimately about the individuals. A good system is paramount. I do agree that we need a leader but I expect us to still sign more than one CB.
 
Nuts said:
What does Keane not do well enough for you?
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For starters he would need to be as good as our current two CBs and clearly better than Smalling or Jones.

City have been linked with Bonucci. That is the calbre we should be pursuing.
 
Raoul said:
If we can find another Bailly then I'm all for it. I don't sense Keane is in that category.
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He's in an almost identical category to Bailly before we signed him. Same age, also having his first big breakthrough season and getting rave reviews for his performances.

The main difference is that he's already used to the league and having spent so much time at the club, will be the most well-scouted signing ever (well, him and Pogba anyway)
 
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