One transformational signing

Insanity

Most apt username 2015
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If you can only one signing this winter to transform our team, which position would you buy for?

For me it has to be the striking position. There are holes all over the squad but I think a striker with a good hold-up and eye for the goal will have the most positive impact on our attacking play and overall style of play. Someone who can hold the ball, link-up, bring others in and score some goals would be gold dust.

Which position would you strengthen?
 
I have no idea whom it would be, but we desperately need a Luis Suarez type winter signing
 
Insanity said:
If you can only one signing this winter to transform our team, which position would you buy for?

For me it has to be the striking position. There are holes all over the squad but I think a striker with a good hold-up and eye for the goal will have the most positive impact on our attacking play and overall style of play. Someone who can hold the ball, link-up, bring others in and score some goals would be gold dust.

Which position would you strengthen?
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I think the opposite, with 10 clueless buffoons behind him Lewandowski would not be scoring in this team. We need a lot but the most glaring need is probably an attacking left sided wing back.
 
I don't think such a concept is viable because United are suffering in four primary positions in this system which is realistically five but I'll cut the strikers some slack:

1. Left sided 10

2. Central midfield

3. Right wing back

4. Left wing back

Those are the positions I would identify as critical and then to lesser extent you have the likes of Onana, Martinez and the strikers. Midfield is perhaps the biggest issue the last few games, there's been a redundancy progressing the ball from defense to midfield and since Bournemouth, teams are pressing to congest the middle.

I'm not singling Kobbie out as it's not he's fault but Mainoo is not a double pivot player at professional level football under any circumstances. Erik and Southgate have done his career a disservice shoehorning him into this responsibility. He played as a striker / winger under Eamon Mulvey and Travis Binnion for the youth team. Yes, he can play in the midfield but not at a high level, coaches are supposedly intended to train players around their strengths, it's baffling that Mainoo's highlights reel for United is made up of his attacking threat beyond the midfield, yet he keeps being thrown centrally. I will personally lose a huge amount of credibility with Amorim if in the next few months he persists with Kobbie in that role.

Bruno doesn't advance the ball when it's at his feet, he's a link with being able to distribute the ball. Not that he's the level of Xavi but it would be like playing him as a false 9, he probably does a job but its a shot in the foot compared to his influence in the midfield. The problem with Bruno is he doesn't have the discipline to play centrally so if he's no good as a wider 10 or in a central midfield role he's got zero use in Amorim's system and should be omitted with Rashford with priority of the team developing further forward.

Dalot is a fullback and a quality one at that but absolutely one of the worst wingbacks in the league. He's one dimensional in attacking phases but also out of sorts defensively, anytime the opposition float one out wide and he has to deal with the bounce and or an attacker running in he's finished. Him and Martinez are a carbon copy of one another in this 5 at the back system, they cannot sort themselves out positionally to defend.

Mazraoui does offer more versatility but assessing the needs of the team and the feasibility of players and their natural tendencies United look better with Anthony as the wingback as opposed to himself. I would rather see Maz play as the right sided center half with Yoro and De Ligt then out further afield out wide.

I do feel however that some of these positions aren't all solved with new signings. Midfield the team is better with Ugarte / Case and I would like Amorim to attempt to play Kobbie as the left 10 for a few games with either Amad on the right or Garnacho on the right / Amad as the wingback.
 
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Roy Keane. Would love to see him go bananas on every lazy bastard in this team.

Since he’s retired it’s hard to find a player who could transform a team. All the players of today is just robots.
 
Rooney as our 9 when he's sacked by Plymouth.

Would still run rings around hojlund and zirkzee despite weighing 20st.
 
You need to be realistic about how much one signing can improve us. We're 14th or whatever, and it not by chance, but by merit. Maybe if we get a top class striker we can start scoring some goals and get to 8th. That's it. We are a thousand miles from being a good side.
 
With us looking so weak in attack it'd surely have to be a game changing attacker, be it the actual striker or number 10.

Would feel odd wasting the opportunity on a left wing back unless you can find a Roberto Carlos or suchlike.
 
Mike Smalling said:
You need to be realistic about how much one signing can improve us. We're 14th or whatever, and it not by chance, but by merit. Maybe if we get a top class striker we can start scoring some goals and get to 8th. That's it. We are a thousand miles from being a good side.
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Before this game, people were saying we were winning on XG, so maybe that deadly striker could make that impact though.

You'd worry about creating enough though.
 
I don't think any one signing transforms this team.

But the signing that would have the greatest impact is an elite attacking player in any of the attacking positions, simply because elite attackers generally tend to be the highest impact players.

Dropping a Cole Palmer type elite 22 year old into the #10 positions wouldn't fix everything, but it would provide as much of an immediate lift to the team as anything else is likely to.
 
We have nobody who can score goals consistently. Signing a left wing back and watching him put crosses in whilst Hojlund is in front or behind them and Zirkzee not bothering to get in the box would be pointless.
 
Sandikan said:
Before this game, people were saying we were winning on XG, so maybe that deadly striker could make that impact though.

You'd worry about creating enough though.
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I do think a great striker would improve us by a lot, but not necessarily a transformation. We're still well short in so many other areas.
 
Most important thing to improve performances is that Amorim gets more coaching time with them. He should be able to get out best 11 to a decent standard.

I think another ten would be a good investment. I think amorim has to be forced to work with hojlund if the club believes in him at all so I don't like the idea of blowing money on another striker.
 
Someone like Cavani when he arrived, I remember the first few games watching him actually attack the ball and make proper striker runs was a breath of fresh air after watching Martial and Rashford fail to do the basics as number 9s. I feel similar about Zirkzee and Hojlund.
 
A CF of course. But we aren't getting a worthwhile one. So after CF, a top #10 and a LWB should be priorities
 
Need a world class attacking player first and foremost, that can finally elevate our terrible attack. Need a midfielder who can actually control the game. And if we're stick by the system being deployed right now, then we need a world class caliber LWB badly. So we need to hit on 3 signings.
 
Given the amount of space Dalot gets at wing back, definitely a player who can play there and consistently threaten by either taking on his man or crossing well.
A top class striker would be a close second.
 
Sooo much pressure on any new signing.

No one signing can turn this shit show around.

Add to that, it would need to be a cheaper option as Sir Jim ain’t gonna be breaking any transfer records.
 
Just like getting rid of 1 individual things don't get fixed. 1 signing will not transform or fix this team either.

In this team we need about 6 top players to come in and then see where we are as far as top 4 is concerned. That is banking on some players playing better than we are seeing and a couple of young players getting better as well

We are probably 12 top players from having a squad capable of challenging and 16 players from winning top honours.

We don't have many players that are actually good enough to get into the top squads in the league.
 
sullydnl said:
I don't think any one signing transforms this team.

But the signing that would have the greatest impact is an elite attacking player in any of the attacking positions, simply because elite attackers generally tend to be the highest impact players.

Dropping a Cole Palmer type elite 22 year old into the #10 positions wouldn't fix everything, but it would provide as much of an immediate lift to the team as anything else is likely to.
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Agree. Someone who can score would lift the team and transform its presently chronically low levels of confidence. Confidence is such an important factor in football and is often overlooked. Today, for example, there was a widespread perception that we could play all day without scoring. We desperately need an elite level goal scorer to revive the team and restore hope. For that reason, that’s the position ( doesn’t matter the precise place in attack) I’d go for.
 
Has to be a striker for me. I'm not dialled into football outside of United these days, but if Osihmen is doable I'd be up for bringing him in.

I know are plenty of issues behind the striker but feel we can make that work with what we have, assuming we've got someone with a bit of presence up top who can start finishing chances.
 
Osimhen. We need a physical goalscorer with some real confidence, and one who makes opposition defenders have a hard day. No one player will be transformational, but he'd give us a huge lift.
 
There’s no one signing that will transform this team. That kind of thinking, in part, has led us to where we are now. The squad is deficient in talent, physicality, competitiveness and mentality. We have needs in every single area of the pitch. We need 3 - 4 proper players (to start with) for any significant change to be had.
 
Whilst everyone here is correct that a single signing alone won't be enough to "transform" this side, I do think the side we currently have would get considerably better if you just added a capable left wing-back.

I've said this in his player performance thread already but today's game perfectly exposed the issue with Dalot at left wing-back. I'm not annoyed at Dalot for this, to be clear, since it's not an issue of attitude but more that he simply offers no real attacking threat on the left flank because he cannot use his left food well enough. The commentators were praising Dalot as "one of our more effective attacking players today" since he got on the ball a lot but this entirely ignores the fact that this was evidently a deliberate defensive decision on Wolves' behalf. They were happy and able to leave space open on the left flank in favour of closing off the centre of the pitch and the right hand side because Dalot isn't capable of stretching the pitch by taking the ball to the byline and we don't play with a left-winger who can compensate for that. This has the knock-on effect of reducing the available space available for the rest of the side, since Wolves aren't punished for funnelling our attacks down the left side.

For this reason, if I were to pick a single transformative signing, it would 100% be a capable left wing back. My dream signing in this department who might just be available is Alphonso Davies. If there's any indication that we'd be able to get him this summer, I'd say we should be open to paying wages of up to £250k if it's affordable from an FFP perspective. Davies is still one of the world's best attacking left backs, and is also perhaps one of the best athletes in the game.

With that said, I believe it will be extremely difficult for us to get Davies signed. We're not going to finish in the Champions League places at the end of this season (there's a decent chance we'll be closer to the relegation spots at this stage!), and there's frankly going to be interest in Davies' signature from a number of much better clubs, not least of which his parent club Bayern Munich. Keeping this in mind, my dream signing who is somewhat realistic would be Girona's Mikel Gutierrez. Gutierrez is accustomed to playing as an extremely aggressive left-back for Girona, and has even played as the left wing-back in Amorim's preferred 3-4-3 formation on occasion. In doing so, he has put together some of the most impressive attacking numbers of any full back in Europe this season, and I imagine will be a more feasible option for us when wages and competition are taken into consideration than Davies. His athleticism isn't quite on the level of Davies', which is why I'm not quite as sure on him settling seamlessly into the Premier League, but I nonetheless think he's a player we should be tracking heavily going into January and the summer.
 
Mmm-Qatarian said:
Whilst everyone here is correct that a single signing alone won't be enough to "transform" this side, I do think the side we currently have would get considerably better if you just added a capable left wing-back.

I've said this in his player performance thread already but today's game perfectly exposed the issue with Dalot at left wing-back. I'm not annoyed at Dalot for this, to be clear, since it's not an issue of attitude but more that he simply offers no real attacking threat on the left flank because he cannot use his left food well enough. The commentators were praising Dalot as "one of our more effective attacking players today" since he got on the ball a lot but this entirely ignores the fact that this was evidently a deliberate defensive decision on Wolves' behalf. They were happy and able to leave space open on the left flank in favour of closing off the centre of the pitch and the right hand side because Dalot isn't capable of stretching the pitch by taking the ball to the byline and we don't play with a left-winger who can compensate for that. This has the knock-on effect of reducing the available space available for the rest of the side, since Wolves aren't punished for funnelling our attacks down the left side.

For this reason, if I were to pick a single transformative signing, it would 100% be a capable left wing back. My dream signing in this department who might just be available is Alphonso Davies. If there's any indication that we'd be able to get him this summer, I'd say we should be open to paying wages of up to £250k if it's affordable from an FFP perspective. Davies is still one of the world's best attacking left backs, and is also perhaps one of the best athletes in the game.

With that said, I believe it will be extremely difficult for us to get Davies signed. We're not going to finish in the Champions League places at the end of this season (there's a decent chance we'll be closer to the relegation spots at this stage!), and there's frankly going to be interest in Davies' signature from a number of much better clubs, not least of which his parent club Bayern Munich. Keeping this in mind, my dream signing who is somewhat realistic would be Girona's Mikel Gutierrez. Gutierrez is accustomed to playing as an extremely aggressive left-back for Girona, and has even played as the left wing-back in Amorim's preferred 3-4-3 formation on occasion. In doing so, he has put together some of the most impressive attacking numbers of any full back in Europe this season, and I imagine will be a more feasible option for us when wages and competition are taken into consideration than Davies. His athleticism isn't quite on the level of Davies', which is why I'm not quite as sure on him settling seamlessly into the Premier League, but I nonetheless think he's a player we should be tracking heavily going into January and the summer.
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This.

Davies is the pipe dream signing which we should definitely be exploring but Gutierrez would be a very good plan B.
 
No no no no NO! Stop this madness.

There is no magic bullet, be it player or manager. The only way out of our situation is pain and suffering and hard work. The sooner the fanbase resolve to this and get behind the team/manager the better the ride will be for us all, cos you can bet your as it will be some ride alright!
 
We need 4 or 5 players. We could get prime Messi or Maradona and we wouldn’t win with this squad.
 
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