Yep, I don't think we've had a truly great/reliable RB in ages. The game's evolved to the point where you can't get away with a limited full back anymore if you want to play attacking football. At the moment teams just set up to leave AWB in loads of space because they know he's not a threat on the ball. A quality RB would also help out Sancho/Antony on the wing.
Midfielder, Goalkeeper, Striker - all signed by 29th July.
- Thread starter IrishRedDevil
- Start date
Yep, I don't think we've had a truly great/reliable RB in ages. The game's evolved to the point where you can't get away with a limited full back anymore if you want to play attacking football. At the moment teams just set up to leave AWB in loads of space because they know he's not a threat on the ball. A quality RB would also help out Sancho/Antony on the wing.
Amrabat will most probably be 2nd and last (midfield) signing of the summer. I do agree - biggest concern for me is the ST position. Martial has regressed and gets injured all the time, Hojlund is still young even if has great potential.
It looks like we finally have a bit of a plan and are actually doing the right vocals. I'm still not 100% convinced that Mount is the right midfielder, but we've certainly addressed some key positions. It's definitely a step up from the Woodward days, there's no doubt about that.
It really is, I have argued this point on here many times. Buying players and hiring the right head coach to get those players to play the way you want them to has to happen in a different part of the club than at manager or head coach level. They should have a say in what players they think will work well in their system, but you never buy a player just to please the head coach if you don't think he fits the style of football you want the team to play. Every top team operates that way, we were just stuck in the Ferguson area for too long where we were lucky enough to have a manager who was a genius in terms of building and rebuilding a squad, but we have to face reality, having another manager like Sir Alex is probably not going to happen in our lifetimes.
I was very happy on 29th July.
Shame nothing has happened in over 3 weeks
Shame nothing has happened in over 3 weeks
Goalkeeper: give you that one.
Midfielder: not really
Striker: yes but a prospect at that, an important distinction to make.
Midfielder: not really
Striker: yes but a prospect at that, an important distinction to make.
Yeah wrong profile of midfielder but will reserve judgement on striker until we see Rasmus
Been shambolic since
What an absolute mess this window is turning out to be.
And it started so brightly..
Amazing that this thread title is true yet we've arguably only drastically improved one position (goalkeeper)
Our defence is exactly the same, our midfield is arguably poorer, and our attack in theory is better, but Hojlund is so young and unproven that your can't expect him to be a success immediately.
Our defence is exactly the same, our midfield is arguably poorer, and our attack in theory is better, but Hojlund is so young and unproven that your can't expect him to be a success immediately.
Can’t work out if it’s been a good window or not.
Its absolutely not
So far, we've upgraded only one position and lost a good squad player without a replacement for what he offered.
We’ve upgraded 2 positions. GK and CF we didn’t even have a CF before do its an upgrade
We have, but with a delay. For now its 1 position until he's fit
Todibo + Amrabat as a minimum at deadline day to make this a good window
while also getting rid of Hendo, Maguire (yeah not gonna happen so no Todibo), Bailly + DVB
Ideally also need a backup striker to cover / compete with Højlund. Martial clearly ain't gonna do that
while also getting rid of Hendo, Maguire (yeah not gonna happen so no Todibo), Bailly + DVB
Ideally also need a backup striker to cover / compete with Højlund. Martial clearly ain't gonna do that
So if Onana gets injured for a few games its back to zero?
I'm not calling Hojlund an upgrade till he plays and shows he can handle the PL.
I didn't rate Fred, but to let him go and no one come in who can do his job better is unbelievably inept.
Hes already played 2 games
On paper sure. But do you think Rashford will repeat his numbers from last season? In my opinion there isn't a chance of that. He will regresss to his mean performance and score less.
So best case we might score a similar amount of goals to last season and that was already a pathetic and unsustainable amount for competeing.
So essentially we haven't really upgraded our attack overall because we aren't really much more likely to score more goals.
We need another goalscorer
Mount will be his long term replacement. He is a good presser, and decent on the ball. Yet to see if his conversion to CM works out, but I think it will. I think he will come good eventually.
What worries me more is we dont really have a profile of progressive passing/carrying midfielder(Eriksen our only option). Or a decent Casemiro backup.
Goalkeeper: Yes.
Midfielder: No.
Striker: Young, and also not available for the start of the season.
Midfielder: No.
Striker: Young, and also not available for the start of the season.
Mount will be a good signing eventually, but he’s been brought in to do a totally different job to what we were using Fred for, that’s why I didn’t mention him.
Our midfield is so woefully unbalanced.
At the end of July this window was looking unbelievable. We had made some good additions and we were making nice progress on outgoings.
We peaked when West Ham made their double offer for Maguire and McT, ever since then our window has stalled and the poor start to the season has made people exaggerate this window as being “terrible”.
Realistically if we do the following we should still be calling it a very successful window:
- Sell Henderson
- Sign a deep midfielder (eg. Amrabat)
- Sign a back-up GK
For me, this would be complete a 7/10 maybe an 8/10 window.
Bonus points available if we can:
- Sell Maguire and buy a replacement
- Sell McT
- Sell Martial and buy a replacement
Do all of the above and we’re suddenly looking at a 10/10 window. Frustratingly a few weeks ago we were on track for this, but I do not buy this media narrative that we don’t have enough time to resolve this. 10 days is plenty of time to do some more deals.
We peaked when West Ham made their double offer for Maguire and McT, ever since then our window has stalled and the poor start to the season has made people exaggerate this window as being “terrible”.
Realistically if we do the following we should still be calling it a very successful window:
- Sell Henderson
- Sign a deep midfielder (eg. Amrabat)
- Sign a back-up GK
For me, this would be complete a 7/10 maybe an 8/10 window.
Bonus points available if we can:
- Sell Maguire and buy a replacement
- Sell McT
- Sell Martial and buy a replacement
Do all of the above and we’re suddenly looking at a 10/10 window. Frustratingly a few weeks ago we were on track for this, but I do not buy this media narrative that we don’t have enough time to resolve this. 10 days is plenty of time to do some more deals.
Should have kept out ego in check and accepted that 60m double offer
How are you rating it if we don’t do any of the above?
Need more. Especially in Midfield and attack.
Hopefully more business gets done before the window is shut
Hopefully more business gets done before the window is shut
I still maintain the view these were all sensible transfers, unfortunately the team has more areas where we need to improve, the fact that Wolves felt comfortable leaving AWB completely without anyone marking showed that there are still players in our squad the opposition doesn't care about leaving completely free because they know the players can't do anything useful with the ball or at least only in a very limited capacity. We switched out the GK to have one that is comfortable playing good progressive passes, same needs to happen with our FBs now and yes we probably need another good defensive option in midfield.
I’m not saying we don’t need another goalscorer. I agree we do. Does not mean we didn’t upgrade from Weghorst at CF
Promising start, terrible end. If it stays like this of course.
Yeah we did but doubt it results in more goals than we scored last season
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Until 01.09.2023 23:00 I predict:
OUT:
Henderson
Bailly
Williams
Van de Beek
IN:
Amrabat
GK Nr.2 (who?)
This is a bare minimum.
OUT:
Henderson
Bailly
Williams
Van de Beek
IN:
Amrabat
GK Nr.2 (who?)
This is a bare minimum.
Tend to agree
Wan Bisakka got the goal winning assist against wolves so yeh leaving hin unmarked wasnt their best idea was it
So far:
GK: Onana in, De Gea out, Henderson tbd.
CB: Didn't sell Maguire and Bailly, didn't bring anyone. Lost the Pavard bid.
WB: Telles out.
MF: Mount in, Fred out. Didn't sell McTominay and Van de Beek. Amrabat still an option.
W: Elanga out.
CF: Hojlund in, MG (who was suspended anyway) out. Didn't sell Martial.
On the one hand United improved its squad in key positions, even when the jury is still out on Mount and Hojlund. On the other hand the defense is esentially the same as last season (when it was OK until the injuries came), some of the obviously discarded players like Henderson, Bailly and Van de Beek haven't been moved out, and the triple M is still there despite some good offers.
Ideally Maguire-McTominay-Martial could have been sold and Pavard-Amrabat-Ferguson could have been brought in. Then you'd get:
GK - Onana, someone experienced on loan (my money is on Navas) and someone from the youth squad.
CB- Varane, Martinez, Lindelof, Pavard (who can also play WB).
WB- Shaw (who can also play CB), Wan-Bissaka, Dalot.
MF- Casemiro, Amrabat, Mount, Eriksen, Bruno, Mainoo.
W- Garnacho, Antony, Pellistri, Sancho (who can also play as an AM).
CF- Rashford (who can also play on the wing), Hojlund, Ferguson.
Which would be a pretty robust squad IMO. No big stars but no evident weak spots either.
GK: Onana in, De Gea out, Henderson tbd.
CB: Didn't sell Maguire and Bailly, didn't bring anyone. Lost the Pavard bid.
WB: Telles out.
MF: Mount in, Fred out. Didn't sell McTominay and Van de Beek. Amrabat still an option.
W: Elanga out.
CF: Hojlund in, MG (who was suspended anyway) out. Didn't sell Martial.
On the one hand United improved its squad in key positions, even when the jury is still out on Mount and Hojlund. On the other hand the defense is esentially the same as last season (when it was OK until the injuries came), some of the obviously discarded players like Henderson, Bailly and Van de Beek haven't been moved out, and the triple M is still there despite some good offers.
Ideally Maguire-McTominay-Martial could have been sold and Pavard-Amrabat-Ferguson could have been brought in. Then you'd get:
GK - Onana, someone experienced on loan (my money is on Navas) and someone from the youth squad.
CB- Varane, Martinez, Lindelof, Pavard (who can also play WB).
WB- Shaw (who can also play CB), Wan-Bissaka, Dalot.
MF- Casemiro, Amrabat, Mount, Eriksen, Bruno, Mainoo.
W- Garnacho, Antony, Pellistri, Sancho (who can also play as an AM).
CF- Rashford (who can also play on the wing), Hojlund, Ferguson.
Which would be a pretty robust squad IMO. No big stars but no evident weak spots either.
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One of the main reasons our transfer activity appears so underwhelming is the increased expectations put on these new signings due to the underperformance of the players in the team who were here last season.
Turning out to be a horrible, horrible window, not just because of what we have and haven't done but because of what all our rivals are doing.
Based on business so far, against our rivals, we've definitely gone backwards.
We're selling talented academy players albeit with buy backs which is fair enough but not selling Maguire, VDB and McT while signing Mount has been really poor.
A week and a bit to fix it, we easily need another striker, a midfielder, a GK2 and a CB.
Based on business so far, against our rivals, we've definitely gone backwards.
We're selling talented academy players albeit with buy backs which is fair enough but not selling Maguire, VDB and McT while signing Mount has been really poor.
A week and a bit to fix it, we easily need another striker, a midfielder, a GK2 and a CB.