Our window isn’t the great success many claim

Plant0x84

Shame we’re aren’t more like Brighton
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Struck me watching that ‘ludicrous display’ last night that after the substitutes with the exception of Onana we were playing with last seasons team.
I have been thinking about it since and we haven’t actually improved the squad so far.
Onana will modernise our play, and our style will change and hopefully be more entertaining - but is he a better keeper than DDG?
Mount is decent but he’s a cog in the machine not a stand out player.
We’ll have to wait and see how Hojlund affects the team, but all in all we’ve spent hundreds of millions with very little improvement to show for it.
In terms of sales the only sale of note is Fred. Players like Hendo looked all but done before the window opened, and we’ve managed to stuff it up. All the others have been fringe and reserve players.
I’ve seen plenty of comments saying this has been a good window but I’m not so sure. I don’t see a great deal of progression, hopefully this can change before September, but it’s not looking hopeful at the moment.
 
The Caf reaction is somewhat reminiscent of 2018. People were full of praise for Solskjaer's great signings back then, and it gave birth to the ludicrous 'Ole for DoF' movement.

In hindsight, this window might lose some of its shine, too.
 
We’ve bought 3 players.

Onana - big upgrade on De Gea.
Mount - will need to settle in but he’s surely an improvement on McFred.
Hojlund - Is he going to be any better than Wout? Yes I think he is.

We should have a better XI than last year when everyone is fit, settled and that equates to a good window.
 
It been an ok window. Onana is a monumental upgrade but I have yet to see why Mount is rated as highly as he is and I'm not sure he's suited to the role eth wants from him. I don't have high hopes for Hojlund this season even if I do rate him and think he'll eventually come good.

Considering the circumstances it was a solid 7. Adding pavard and another midfielder would bump that grade.
 
Pexbo said:
We’ve bought 3 players.

Onana - big upgrade on De Gea.
Mount - will need to settle in but he’s surely an improvement on McFred.
Hojlund - Is he going to be any better than Wout? Yes I think he is.

We should have a better XI than last year when everyone is fit, settled and that equates to a good window.
Click to expand...

Mount is just a No. 10 inferior to Bruno Fernandes, I hardly see him being a direct replacement or upgrade on McFred.
 
The signings are good, but we've got a lot more gaps that needed filling, and a lot of question marks still hanging over plenty of the squad.
 
Midfield still horrible. Therefore it’s a failure.
 
There needs to be big question marks attached to last summer's window too.
 
Pexbo said:
We’ve bought 3 players.

Onana - big upgrade on De Gea.
Mount - will need to settle in but he’s surely an improvement on McFred.
Hojlund - Is he going to be any better than Wout? Yes I think he is.

We should have a better XI than last year when everyone is fit, settled and that equates to a good window.
Click to expand...

Is he though? Fred was inconsistent and definitely not good enough but he did have some good performances. Ultimately that's a low bar, but remains to be seen if Mount will clear it. I'm not worried at all about the other 2 but this might make or break our season
 
Siorac said:
The Caf reaction is somewhat reminiscent of 2018. People were full of praise for Solskjaer's great signings back then, and it gave birth to the ludicrous 'Ole for DoF' movement.

In hindsight, this window might lose some of its shine, too.
Click to expand...

I've wiped that season from my mind (along with basically every season since SAF retired) Who were these "great signings"?
 
We need a water ball carrier for the midfield. Everyone is so static, at least based on last night's showing.
 
Onana is going to change the way we play according to the caf. Hopefully last night wasnt the evidence of that
 
Onana and Hojlund are definitely good signings and someone who will improve us. I'm not convinced on what's the plan with Mount is. If it's something like yesterday were we play with 2 attacking 8's in him and Bruno and leave all the midfield work to Casemiro, we are going to see another repeat of 7-0. This time perhaps even more.

Fecking Wolves could have easily scored 3 and they didn't make a single signing this summer and lost most of their key players. Cunha and Nunes had all the time in the world and were just waltzing through our midfield yesterday. City and Liverpool, heck even Chelsea would have a field day with that setup.
 
Only having one new outfield player starting by first game week is sub par.
 
Plant0x84 said:
Struck me watching that ‘ludicrous display’ last night that after the substitutes with the exception of Onana we were playing with last seasons team.
I have been thinking about it since and we haven’t actually improved the squad so far.
Onana will modernise our play, and our style will change and hopefully be more entertaining - but is he a better keeper than DDG?
Mount is decent but he’s a cog in the machine not a stand out player.
We’ll have to wait and see how Hojlund affects the team, but all in all we’ve spent hundreds of millions with very little improvement to show for it.
In terms of sales the only sale of note is Fred. Players like Hendo looked all but done before the window opened, and we’ve managed to stuff it up. All the others have been fringe and reserve players.
I’ve seen plenty of comments saying this has been a good window but I’m not so sure. I don’t see a great deal of progression, hopefully this can change before September, but it’s not looking hopeful at the moment.
Click to expand...

Should stop trying to walk it in eh.
 
Pexbo said:
We’ve bought 3 players.

Onana - big upgrade on De Gea.
Mount - will need to settle in but he’s surely an improvement on McFred.
Hojlund - Is he going to be any better than Wout? Yes I think he is.

We should have a better XI than last year when everyone is fit, settled and that equates to a good window.
Click to expand...

We'll see whether Mount will actually be an improvement on Fred
 
Pexbo said:
We’ve bought 3 players.

Onana - big upgrade on De Gea.
Mount - will need to settle in but he’s surely an improvement on McFred.
Hojlund - Is he going to be any better than Wout? Yes I think he is.

We should have a better XI than last year when everyone is fit, settled and that equates to a good window.
Click to expand...

Not necessarily, it's all relative to how the competition is improving.
 
Pexbo said:
We’ve bought 3 players.

Onana - big upgrade on De Gea.
Mount - will need to settle in but he’s surely an improvement on McFred.
Hojlund - Is he going to be any better than Wout? Yes I think he is.

We should have a better XI than last year when everyone is fit, settled and that equates to a good window.
Click to expand...

Mount is not an improvement on Fred at all.
 
A transfer window where you swap De Gea for Onana is a success, regardless of anything else that goes on.
 
At the moment it’s not great just decent for me. A quality DM that can go straight into the the starting 11 and improve us as a midfield unit is an absolute must! Mount who I like as a player cannot play next to Bruno with just one isolated DM, EtH surely does not believe that will work. At least with a Eriksen not being as mobile he stayed closer to Casemiro last season.

Yesterday and the couple of occasions in pre season, Casemiro looked lost and at his age he cannot do it alone. McTominay is just meh and should be sold and Fred is already gone. If the midfield is not strengthened it will be a huge mistake by the club and probably hinder our CL place for next season.

Hojlund I have no idea, so that’s a wait and see as he needs time at that age, but for that money, to not have a starting number 9 ready to score us goals just makes little sense to me especially when Rashford is crap as a 9 and Martial cannot be relied upon at all.

The two most important areas of winning games is where we are at our weakest. I will hold my full judgement until the end of window.
 
I forgot we’d written Mount off after 4 appearances. Apologies.
 
I love being miserable as much as the next person.

But the over reaction to last nights game is a bit much.
 
As of now, I have no doubts about Onana.

Hojlund should realistically have 1-2 seasons to be bedded in and eventually become a high G/A player, if it happens by the time he's 22 I'll be happy.

Mount is a concerning one, but I trust ETH to mould him into a competent #8 based on what we've seen from him in these past 12 months. Also, don't forget that he's been looking at the player since he was at loan on Vitesse from Chelsea, so ten Hag will surely know all about him. He has a plan, and he's earned the benefit of the doubt.

We need more signings, though.
 
Onana has replaced De Gea - huge upgrade.

Hojlund replaced Weghorst - Humongous upgrade.

Mount replaced Eriksen - Yes it’s an upgrade.

We still need more in midfield.
 
Window has 2 and a half weeks to run. If you are claiming it is a success or a failure at this point you are working off incomplete information. Clearly ETH wants and needs more signings and we will see if those happen, I assume the push towards permanet sales of some academy players like Fernandez is to raise quick funds as we are struggling to move the likes of slabhead. That sweet, sweet academy player cash is FFP gold and allows for significant signings and so we may sacrifice a promising youngster or two for a DLP, a CB or maybe a veteran striker. Regardless you cannot judge a window that is still open and realistically you cannot truly judge this window for a year or more once the players have had a chance to integrate and we can see the results.
 
I like Onana, and I'm glad he's going to be part of the bigger picture, but in the short-term we'd have been better off putting that money towards better players elsewhere, which I think would've made a bigger difference in our results this season.

The 44 million we spent on Onana could've been what got us Rice instead of Mount, and Rice in our midfield would've had a bigger impact on our overall play this season than Onana will, I think.
 
I'm quite happy with the three signings we've made

The problem is the years of damage Woodward done to the club, which means we constantly need a bigger overhaul every summer than we're realistically able to commit to
 
We had 4 crucial signings to make this window and we've only made 2 thus far.

GK - Onana
ST - Hojlund
Eriksen Successor - No
Casemiro backup/understudy - No

We didn't need Mount and have yet wasted a large chunk of our summer budget on him. I think this is on the manager and he's been very foolish to think last nights tactics will be a success in the PL.
Mount isn't an 8 and we have Bruno at 10. Sancho and Eriksen already offered backup for Bruno.

Selling Fred for 10m Euro was an abysmal piece of business. He may not have been world class but he was a damn decent squad player, worked well with Casemiro and gave 100% every game.
 
Skills said:
There needs to be big question marks attached to last summer's window too.
Click to expand...

Exactly there haven’t been enough players bought and sold over both summer windows. Also the signings of stop gaps like Casemiro and Eriksen meant midfield issues were only really papered over.

When look at this window, Onana should be upgrade over De Gea, Højlund is a project and probably doesn’t solve our striker issue in the short term. Mount potentially a very good player but not clear how he fits in and we’ve retained DVB and Mctominay over Fred who was ahead of both in pecking order.

At best we’ll tread water because it’s so competitive just to stay in the top 4.

I think another issue we have is we’re just fire fighting for the first team, we’re not signing the up and coming talent like a lot of the other top sides, was hoping we’d be addressing that this window to some extent but won’t happen.
 
Todd said:
I like Onana, and I'm glad he's going to be part of the bigger picture, but in the short-term we'd have been better off putting that money towards better players elsewhere, which I think would've made a bigger difference in our results this season.

The 44 million we spent on Onana could've been what got us Rice instead of Mount, and Rice in our midfield would've had a bigger impact on our overall play this season than Onana will, I think.
Click to expand...

Rice is a #6, though. It would've been a huge luxury to buy a 100m rival for Casemiro, when we urgently needed a new GK and #8.

Also, you gotta realize that Onana was one of the few technical goalkeepers available on the market that can come in and straight away take the starting goalkeeper position at a huge club like United. The other candidates were probably Diogo Costa, David Raya or Unai Simón. I'm probably forgetting 1-2 players but there aren't many options and Onana was pretty much the perfect fit at the perfect time. Also the least risky one.
 
The truth is it's not a great success or a great failure until it actually plays out. That's one of the things about a forum. We take a snapshot in time and make big statements about it. Which is cool, because after all they are discussion points and dealing only with reality as it unfolds would be quite tedious and boring. But really signings on paper don't matter, signings on the pitch do and there's hardly any data so far to say we have or haven't improved.

You can look at Onana, Mount and Hojlund and say we played appallingly yesterday, and pretty average in preseason as a whole and make a claim we have not really improved. But 1/3 of those signings wasn't even on the pitch and a striker completely changes the way a team looks. Another of those signings (Onana) didn't have much movement ahead of him to actually use his main strength, the reason he was bought for. So that's a matter of working on the training pitch and getting used to the new skills that are within the team. So how can there be a big judgement on whether either of those players can or will improve us?

Mount I have to admit I was never a fan of the signing because I couldn't quite place what the rationale was and when you see the positions he is taking up so far I still don't really "get" it. But that's still based on a small amount of data and he may even tweak things if this first idea doesn't work. That's the thing about management, you are allowed to change ideas and react. It's better if your proactive ideas work, but you can also respond if it gets a tune out of players.
 
Plant0x84 said:
Struck me watching that ‘ludicrous display’ last night that after the substitutes with the exception of Onana we were playing with last seasons team.
I have been thinking about it since and we haven’t actually improved the squad so far.
Onana will modernise our play, and our style will change and hopefully be more entertaining - but is he a better keeper than DDG?
Mount is decent but he’s a cog in the machine not a stand out player.
We’ll have to wait and see how Hojlund affects the team, but all in all we’ve spent hundreds of millions with very little improvement to show for it.
In terms of sales the only sale of note is Fred. Players like Hendo looked all but done before the window opened, and we’ve managed to stuff it up. All the others have been fringe and reserve players.
I’ve seen plenty of comments saying this has been a good window but I’m not so sure. I don’t see a great deal of progression, hopefully this can change before September, but it’s not looking hopeful at the moment.
Click to expand...

Onana is quite a bit better, I don't think it should even be a question. Mount and Hojlund are fair game, although I'm pretty sure Rasmus will be an improvement on our strikers last year.

We should hold back and wait till the end of the window before calling it a success or a failure. Sometimes one player can transform a team.
 
Pexbo said:
We’ve bought 3 players.

Onana - big upgrade on De Gea.
Mount - will need to settle in but he’s surely an improvement on McFred.
Hojlund - Is he going to be any better than Wout? Yes I think he is.

We should have a better XI than last year when everyone is fit, settled and that equates to a good window.
Click to expand...
It is almost impossible to not improve when you spent 200m. The question is did we improve that much after spending that money. We will see, but I think the answer will turn out to be no.

I agree that Onana is an upgrade in De Gea. Not in the most important thing (saves) where I think De Gea was around the same (after his significant decline), but definitely in passing and crosses. However, he was a very expensive signing, and IMO not a 50m+ upgrade.

Mount is a totally pointless signing, and a very expensive one at that. As a midfielder, he won't even be an upgrade in what we have. Essentially, the only way for this signing to pay off is if Bruno gets injured, but even then, he is not as good.

Hojlund we will see. I think it is insane to spend that amount of money in a player that has only shown some promise, but hasn't had a defining season or tournament yet.

I hope I am wrong but I think it is quite reminiscent of the summer when we signed Maguire and co. Much money spent, but just a bit of improvement made.
 
Rojofiam said:
Rice is a #6, though. It would've been a huge luxury to buy a 100m rival for Casemiro, when we urgently needed a new GK and #8.

Also, you gotta realize that Onana was one of the few technical goalkeepers available on the market that can come in and straight away take the starting goalkeeper position at a huge club like United. The other candidates were probably Diogo Costa, David Raya or Unai Simón. I'm probably forgetting 1-2 players but there aren't many options and Onana was pretty much the perfect fit at the perfect time. Also the least risky one.
Click to expand...
ten Hag disagrees, and while I do not think he has shown anything extraordinary in 14 months here, he knows far more than us for football.

At the same time, having the same team Casemiro and Bruno really screams for a double pivot. Casemiro and Rice would have made a very strong defensive midfield, and give enough space to Bruno to unleash our attackers. I know that the idea is for a single DMF and two 8/10 hybrids for that, but I do not think we have neither the team nor the coach to implement that style.
 
Mount is the signing that just doesn't make any sense when you think about it.
 
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