Our recruiting strategy is good for where we are at.

shamans

Thinks you can get an STD from flirting.
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I see a lot of people moan about our bad recruiting and where to point the blame at. From manager to DOF to owners. The owners are cnuts and they've wrecked this club but let's face some of the facts here.

We are a club of Man United's stature finishing outside of top 4 and getting drubbed by crap teams. We want to go for players that match our standard: FDJ, Sancho etc but they need a lot of convincing and extra money to join us. People point at how City and Liverpool wrap up their deals early or how a mid table premier league club does. We don't have that situation, it's not easy for us.

I'm sure we could have wrapped up Arnoutovic and overpaid for Rabiot in the first month, but that's not what we want.

This summer, we tried getting some premium players. Some snubbed us, some decent players joined us. Now the transfer season is ending and yes we are hunting at the bargain aisle now with the likes of Pulisic, but so what? Would you rather we don't try going for big players at all and just go straight for the average players? And also, would you rather we sign no one because the A lister we wanted doesn't end up here? What's the logic in that.

Also don't get why folks complain about us being in for multiple players and the "panic". There are probably a good 10-15 players who could play at RW for us over what we have for instance. I'd rather we try all those players than fixate on one.
 
Na we should have been looking at young, hungry players. We shouldn't have even wasted our time trying to go premium considering our budget and the amount of new players we need. I'd rather we get five Malacias than one FDJ. There's middle ground between premium players and Arnoutovic/Rabiot looking for one final payday.
 
kps88 said:
Na we should have been looking at young, hungry players. We shouldn't have even wasted our time trying to go premium considering our budget and the amount of new players we need. I'd rather we get five Malacias than one FDJ. There's middle ground between premium players and Arnoutovic/Rabiot looking for one final payday.
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Who is a player we missed out on that we wouldn't have had we not looked at premium players?

I also don't think 5 Malacias are worth 1 FDJ. Maybe financially, but you need one or two proper high quality players in your team and we have none, barring Ronaldo who is 38 this season.
 
Your board wasted vast chunks of time going for players that were just not likely/wanting to come. With De Jong I understand that was complicated but its been a pretty constant feature in the reports that he doesn't want to come and would only come having been shoved head first out of the door

The players that have been brought in this year are decent enough on paper, though I do think you've overpaid on Martinez but that probably comes with the territory.

However put into context against the other teams in the so called big 6 and it looks less impressive. Man City and Liverpool both needed less to start with coming from a position of relative strength (though Liverpool's start has been rough to be fair) and the other three teams (Tottenham, Arsenal and Chelsea) all look a fair bit stronger than they did last year in terms of their side.

If you want to break back into the top 4 you are going to need more than a couple of 'ok-good' players. Thats the type of level I'd expect West Ham to be at, not a Manchester United.

HOWEVER, it should be noted that the transfer window is far from finished and I've teams do some very significant stuff in this timeframe still. Upto you whether you think this board is capable of that kind of activity.
 
It's the main reason we're at where we're at and why we're going to prolong it.
 
You can always sign players who can get you to top 4 status and avoid getting ass whopped by the likes of Brentford. If a couple seasons later, you harbor ambitions of challenging for the title, then you have both the clout and opportunity to attract top end talent while also possibly selling on the quality players you signed now to fund those purchases. At least, that's how a well run club would operate.
 
Utd heap said:
Yeah you're right mate we are nailing this.
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More keeping afloat in choppy waters. Small clubs are thrashing us, we have a reputation for overpaying so every player and his agent want a go at us to get a meaty contract or a last pay day and we want good players.
 
shamans said:
More keeping afloat in choppy waters. Small clubs are thrashing us, we have a reputation for overpaying so every player and his agent want a go at us to get a meaty contract or a last pay day and we want good players.
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I hear you but this is probably just another argument to get our business done far earlier. Now we look undoubtedly like a crisis club, wecould have pretended we weren't a month ago.
 
kps88 said:
Na we should have been looking at young, hungry players. We shouldn't have even wasted our time trying to go premium considering our budget and the amount of new players we need. I'd rather we get five Malacias than one FDJ. There's middle ground between premium players and Arnoutovic/Rabiot looking for one final payday.
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Yup. Players on the cusp basically. What we believe Martinez and Malacia to be. What Mane and Salah were for Chelsea. That's why I liked the link with Cunha. Seemed to be a gifted dribbler who was an excellent presser. I guess his end product wasn't up to the mark.

But yeah those are the signings we should look at in this stage of our development. We have to mold a new playing style as well and the younger players tend to be easier to teach / change.
 
Good recruitment would have been going after one of the many, many top midfielders that have moved over the past 2 windows, or are still available. Guimaraes, Nunes, Sangare, vitinha, Fabian Ruiz, kessie, bissouma, Gravenberch, bennacer, Bentancur, Renato Sanches, caqueret, etc etc etc. There are loads of midfielders who would walk into our team, yet we aren't trying anyone.
 
What strategy? The we will only sign the right players one or the feck it Arnautovic / xyz will do, just sign anyone, one?
 
It's fine to aim high, I have no problem with that. There are certainly enough defeatists around here.

But I think you have to consider the good of the club and not become beholden to the whims of individual targets or selling clubs. A prepared club should have half a dozen names for a position and should have the balls to back their judgment and move onto them. You have to set a precedent that you're not going to be constantly mugged off.

With FDJ, yes he's probably the only player of his type of that quality that's available. But isn't there more than one way to skin a cat? Is a midfield featuring FDJ the only possible way? The manager and the club need to be flexible and better prepared. There is just no excuse for spending all summer on one name and then scratching around at the last minute.
 
shamans said:
I see a lot of people moan about our bad recruiting and where to point the blame at. From manager to DOF to owners. The owners are cnuts and they've wrecked this club but let's face some of the facts here.

We are a club of Man United's stature finishing outside of top 4 and getting drubbed by crap teams. We want to go for players that match our standard: FDJ, Sancho etc but they need a lot of convincing and extra money to join us. People point at how City and Liverpool wrap up their deals early or how a mid table premier league club does. We don't have that situation, it's not easy for us.

I'm sure we could have wrapped up Arnoutovic and overpaid for Rabiot in the first month, but that's not what we want.

This summer, we tried getting some premium players. Some snubbed us, some decent players joined us. Now the transfer season is ending and yes we are hunting at the bargain aisle now with the likes of Pulisic, but so what? Would you rather we don't try going for big players at all and just go straight for the average players? And also, would you rather we sign no one because the A lister we wanted doesn't end up here? What's the logic in that.

Also don't get why folks complain about us being in for multiple players and the "panic". There are probably a good 10-15 players who could play at RW for us over what we have for instance. I'd rather we try all those players than fixate on one.
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Is that you Ed?
 
The players and value were there. The owners just didn't want to make it happen. Wouldn't be surprised if they sold the club soon and they don't want to waste money on signings for another owner to benefit.
 
kps88 said:
Na we should have been looking at young, hungry players. We shouldn't have even wasted our time trying to go premium considering our budget and the amount of new players we need. I'd rather we get five Malacias than one FDJ. There's middle ground between premium players and Arnoutovic/Rabiot looking for one final payday.
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Our fans won't give ETH time for that though - that's what the sensible thing would be to do, to accept we aren't winning anything major for at least three years and plan on cycling out the current senior team and building around a core of ~25 year olds and under. Try for realistic targets now who could kick on or will be good squad options long term: Broja at Chelsea, Eze or Olise at Palace, Caicedo etc... a squad full of energy, pace and aggression and get an actual foundation in place to then add quality players to once we become a more attractive proposition again.

I don't think our issue is recruitment strategy at all, it's that we vastly overrate our own players. Ragnick was obviously a bit much for the board but ETH is now seeing it, it's not that we have a few holes in the squad we need to add to, there's not a single player who is nailed down in a position. It's shocking from a squad building/planning perspective. We just need to stop swimming against the current, accept we've fecked up this team build royally and slowly start to offload senior players whilst bringing in/through younger guys.
 
Something being good or bad only really makes sense if you have one of that something.
 
shamans said:
More keeping afloat in choppy waters. Small clubs are thrashing us, we have a reputation for overpaying so every player and his agent want a go at us to get a meaty contract or a last pay day and we want good players.
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Right, but this situation that you describe here, is a situation of our own making. I feel that's where the frustration comes from. Conducting business late in the market, chasing players who seemingly don't want to come here, looking for short-term fixes...I mean, it just goes on and on. It was imperative we nail this transfer window, but we failed again. You can say it's still open, and we may buy a few players, but we're already two games in. Three, really. Because nobody is going to come in before the game on Monday. And we've lost those two games. That's six points gone.
 
I'm happy we're no longer letting teams and agents bully us for excessive wages and fees. Thats a start.

I'd also be happy if our patience enables us to get De Jong (yet to be seen)

I can also excuse the delay to signing players at the beginning of the window due to a new manager wanting to assess players, no longstanding DOF etc.

I also anticipated 4 signings maximum. Depsite 6 or 7 needed, I never really thought it was going to happen due to the margin of failure/bad transfers leaving us with more deadwood.

What is inexuable is the variety of targets we've aproached and the dates we've approached them, signals that there's been no plan. They've had since December 2021 at the very least to plan for this window and prepare potential list for Ten Hag. Let's ignore the vague links where we could be being used by agents etc. We were 100% in for Antony, Arnautavic, Rabiot, SMS and Sesko - no plan.

Just shut the window. Lets play with what we've got. No panic signins.
 
We have a squad of inconsistent players with reported attitude problems and we tried to sign Arnautovic and Rabiot, two wildly inconsistent players with reported attitude problems. I think that about sums up how stupid the people running our transfers are.

Not to mention the rest of the summer has been google dutch players and is now panic and google any player who may be available and make a bid.

Not to mention the reason we are in this mess is we have spent nearly a decade just throwing money against a wall and hoping something sticks .... and we are still doing exactly the same thing.

Where we are means we have to learn from our past mistakes not repeat them.
 
shamans said:
I see a lot of people moan about our bad recruiting and where to point the blame at. From manager to DOF to owners. The owners are cnuts and they've wrecked this club but let's face some of the facts here.

We are a club of Man United's stature finishing outside of top 4 and getting drubbed by crap teams. We want to go for players that match our standard: FDJ, Sancho etc but they need a lot of convincing and extra money to join us. People point at how City and Liverpool wrap up their deals early or how a mid table premier league club does. We don't have that situation, it's not easy for us.

I'm sure we could have wrapped up Arnoutovic and overpaid for Rabiot in the first month, but that's not what we want.

This summer, we tried getting some premium players. Some snubbed us, some decent players joined us. Now the transfer season is ending and yes we are hunting at the bargain aisle now with the likes of Pulisic, but so what? Would you rather we don't try going for big players at all and just go straight for the average players? And also, would you rather we sign no one because the A lister we wanted doesn't end up here? What's the logic in that.

Also don't get why folks complain about us being in for multiple players and the "panic". There are probably a good 10-15 players who could play at RW for us over what we have for instance. I'd rather we try all those players than fixate on one.
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Herein lies the problem, supporters who believe everything is okay.

Our problem is that we are incapable of making smart off the radar signings that could transform our fortunes. See Salah, Robertson, Wjnaldum and Mane as examples for the scouse. A lot of that has to do with a lack of cohesive policy and approach between the footballing recruitment dept and the manager. Ten Hag scrapping the recommendations from our board is alarming and a major problem.
 
There's always plenty of people who feel the need to show they understand football so much better than the majority because they hold a controversial and alternative view point.

Our recruitment strategy has been a disaster because we've failed to give the manager enough players to improve the team. 9 of our 11 for the first two games were the same chumps from last season.

The evidence for our transfer strategy being a disaster? Results on the pitch, there for all to see.
 
Giggsy13 said:
Herein lies the problem, supporters who believe everything is okay.

Our problem is that we are incapable of making smart off the radar signings that could transform our fortunes. See Salah, Robertson, Wjnaldum and Mane as examples for the scouse. A lot of that has to do with a lack of cohesive policy and approach between the footballing recruitment dept and the manager. Ten Hag scrapping the recommendations from our board is alarming and a major problem.
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It's not that everything is okay, it's that we are in a very difficult situation and trying to do what we can. ETH did make smart(ish) signings in Malacia and Erickson. It's not magic. Those signings you made were some of the best finds and Klopp is a master at that. If it were that easy everyone would be doing it.

We've had years of terrible transfers and managers. We can't expect to fix it all in a few months.
 
Lynty said:
I'm happy we're no longer letting teams and agents bully us for excessive wages and fees. Thats a start.

I'd also be happy if our patience enables us to get De Jong (yet to be seen)

I can also excuse the delay to signing players at the beginning of the window due to a new manager wanting to assess players, no longstanding DOF etc.

I also anticipated 4 signings maximum. Depsite 6 or 7 needed, I never really thought it was going to happen due to the margin of failure/bad transfers leaving us with more deadwood.

What is inexuable is the variety of targets we've aproached and the dates we've approached them, signals that there's been no plan. They've had since December 2021 at the very least to plan for this window and prepare potential list for Ten Hag. Let's ignore the vague links where we could be being used by agents etc. We were 100% in for Antony, Arnautavic, Rabiot, SMS and Sesko - no plan.

Just shut the window. Lets play with what we've got. No panic signins.
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What if the plan was go for X targets and if not then all of these are our backup options which they are looking into right now?
 
shamans said:
What if the plan was go for X targets and if not then all of these are our backup options which they are looking into right now?
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Nytram Shakes said:
If any plan involved Arnautavic & Rabiot we need to be very affaird!
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He's already summed it up.

We also need to get ontop of the excessive links. If they aren't true, distance ourselves from it. We did it with Arnautavic once we decided against it. The fact that these links are circulating either means there is some truth in them (however unlikely us signing Felix is) or our PR/commerical departments value the engagement. Both reasons are embarassing at this point after an utter shambles start to the season.
 
Lynty said:
He's already summed it up.

We also need to get ontop of the excessive links. If they aren't true, distance ourselves from it. We did it with Arnautavic once we decided against it. The fact that these links are circulating either means there is some truth in them (however unlikely us signing Felix is) or our PR/commerical departments value the engagement. Both reasons are embarassing at this point after an utter shambles start to the season.
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The point is, anyone considering signing Arnautavic & Rabiot planned or unplanned should not be in charge of a recruitment strategy.
 
It's not a good strategy because we have shopping at Harrods, while we were struggling to put food on the table.

This summer, we should've signed 5-6 players in the sub £40m range. We needed some numbers.
 
It's been a shit summer window there's no sugar coating that.
 
Nytram Shakes said:
The point is, anyone considering signing Arnautavic & Rabiot planned or unplanned should not be in charge of a recruitment strategy.
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The Arnoutavic link depressed me but it got crushed pretty soon so who knows if it's true and if it was then it's not happening. Rabiot was not a bad deal to be made, he's a decent player but he wanted more money and we backed off. I see nothing wrong with that.
 
The strategy of buying attacking mids to fill the defensive mid void.
And the strategy of buying right footed left wingers to fill the left footed right winger void.
And the strategy of paying 57m to find a new partner for Maguire instead of replacing Maguire?
 
shamans said:
The Arnoutavic link depressed me but it got crushed pretty soon so who knows if it's true and if it was then it's not happening. Rabiot was not a bad deal to be made, he's a decent player but he wanted more money and we backed off. I see nothing wrong with that.
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Both were terrible deals to be made, they squad is full of inconsistent players with reported attitude problems, we should not be trying to sign more players that are exactly the same.
 
shamans said:
Who is a player we missed out on that we wouldn't have had we not looked at premium players?

I also don't think 5 Malacias are worth 1 FDJ. Maybe financially, but you need one or two proper high quality players in your team and we have none, barring Ronaldo who is 38 this season.
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5 Malacias = 1 FJD? Are we talking feet and inches here?
 
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