I think the window is becoming a typical glazer window but with a difference United have offloaded a few fringe and trimmed the squad down. I don’t think we have enough players moving forward .now on to Chelsea what I can’t understand is why are they spending money on a weekly basis like a lottery winner and we are being spun that united have to meet ffp. Oh to spend like chelsea would be brilliant and more alarming I think our spending is done Because the sale of Maguire that money would have been reinvested.
Our window isn’t the great success many claim
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The whole Mount thing obviously lives or dies on whether he really can play in midfield. I have my doubts but ETH knows a lot more than me about football so must think he can mold him into a proper midfielder. So how about withholding judgement just a little longer than a stupidly chaotic preseason and one league fixture?
I'm actually more worried about Hojlund. Yes, he's an upgrade on Wout but we were woefully short of goals last season and the only way I see us having a sniff of a title challenge is if we somehow signed one of the best/most prolific number 9s in the league. And that's crazily high expectations for such a young league debutant. If we'd signed an established top number 9 and Hojlund that would have been great. Him on his own seems like setting us up to fail.
Well we definitely needed another top central midfielder. With Fred gone that need became even more urgent. Just remains to be seen whether Mount is that player.
Then we should have signed another top central midfielder instead of signing an average No.10 and trying to play him in midfield. Which won't work, and will most likely cause Bruno to play wide so we can shoehorn Mount in his preferred position. In other words, instead of fixing a problem, creating a new problem. Which is poor managing.
Like in last season, when for whatever reasons ten Hag started playing Wout as No. 10. But to do so, he had to shift our two best attacking players positions, playing Bruno in the left and Rashford up top, getting in process our worst humiliation in a century.
Sky Sports love to point out how much money United have spent. But City and Arsenal have spent big this summer from a higher position, meaning United needed to spend just to remain still.
Chelsea's spending has been insane but nobody is really putting pressure on them to even get top 4.
The window has been steady, and long term I think all 3 players will help and contribute to United. But the Glazers haven't done anything out of this world (as per usual) so all things considered I would just give the window a Grade C
Chelsea's spending has been insane but nobody is really putting pressure on them to even get top 4.
The window has been steady, and long term I think all 3 players will help and contribute to United. But the Glazers haven't done anything out of this world (as per usual) so all things considered I would just give the window a Grade C
I don't think realistically anybody at the Club is expecting a title challenge this season nor Should our fan base if it happens great but as long We play good football and comfortably make CL next season along with good CL run and win a Trophy the season should be considered success .
As I said to noodles. It remains to be seen whether Mount can play in midfield. Some of you are absolutely desperate to claim it won't ever work after he's played in that position for us for less than an hour or two of football. I'm going to try to be a little more patient than that. Which is a very low bar for patience.
I have no idea how anybody can pretend to have a measured discussion about this. One signing was arguably out MOTM v Wolves and another is yet to even make his debut.
Our fanbase have lost their bottle
Our fanbase have lost their bottle
Mostly cause we have spent, in recent years, more than any other team.
Net spent in the last 5 years:
1) Manchester United: £-614.92m
2) Arsenal: £-582.91m
3) Chelsea: £-567.95m
4) Newcastle: £-418.28m
5) Tottenham: £-402.16m
6) Aston Villa: £-334.96m
7) Manchester City: £-275.25m
10) Liverpool: £-167.51m
I don't buy this idea that you need to wait for long times to realize that some things are wrong. It was clear last season that Wout is bad, we didn't need to see him starting 20+ matches to realize that. Same here.
Mount is not an unknown quantity. He has been playing in EPL for years. We know what he is (a No.10) and what he isn't (a No.8). So now we will be playing again players out of positions (be it Bruno on the left, or one of Bruno/Mount as 8) which usually is not a good idea. Or bench him and then complain why we didn't sign a midfielder.
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A nice to have option that isn't an exact fit but also too good/expensive to be backup. Judging Mount to be a luxury signing is obviously my interpretation and ETH probably disagrees. I do think that's what he'll end up being for us though.
You could produce a very long list of such players signed for our midfield over the last 20 years.
It's tough we're never going to nail every signing as no club does. Yet we don't really have the space to feck up key needs.
If Mount had any of the attributes at all to play in midfield I would be willing to be less skeptical, but he doesn't, and against Wolves and in pre-season he hasn't even been positioning himself in remotely the right place to play in midfield, he has been a second no10 alongside Fernandes...so its a two fold problem a) Mount isn't a midfielder, and b) ETH isn't using him as one. He's using Mount to play a system that simply isn't going to work. So we have to go through the process of both learning the system doesn't work, and then learning we need to sign another midfielder to play a system that does.
Its not based on one league fixture and a pre-season is it? We've all been watching football long enough to know playing with one midfielder in the PL is a very bad idea. Maybe ETH has a master plan to eventually make it work, but I wouldn't say its at all knee jerk or ill judged to be extremely skeptical of that, because there is literally nothing to base any idea it will work on, and a mountain of evidence to show that it wont.
Mount has been playing for Chelsea and for England for quite a while. He hasn't cropped up over night as this unknown player with unknown qualities. He's a no10/inverted wide player who covers a lot of ground and can be dangerous around the edge of the box. You know this, I know this. If we needed a midfielder what would make sense would be to sign a midfielder who's good at midfield stuff, not sign someone who isn't and just hope he'll learn ho to play there. He's been signed as a second no10 to play the system we used against Wolves. ETH could realise the system doesn't work tomorrow, but then he needs to sign a midfielder.
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I don't think anyone is claiming United haven't spent.
But there is many ways to look at it. Personally I think with each manager you should draw a line, what United spent/wasted 5 years ago has nothing to do with EtH.
Also United have to pay a tax with nobody else seem to do...Kieran Trippier was a great example.
Mount made no sense when we were after him and played exactly how I thought he would play against wolves. Its frustrating because that 60 million could have got a player like Tonali who Newcastle secured and he would add some steel to our midfield.
Onana and Hojlund were the correct signings as we needed reinforcements in those positions.
And how we still have a number of deadwood still at the club shows that our upper management haven't a clue how to get rid of underperforming players. Other clubs would not put up with bailly, Williams, mctominay, maguire and several others.
Right now this has been a very up and down window, but the squad still looks weak when we compare it to our rivals and that will make it another difficult season.
Onana and Hojlund were the correct signings as we needed reinforcements in those positions.
And how we still have a number of deadwood still at the club shows that our upper management haven't a clue how to get rid of underperforming players. Other clubs would not put up with bailly, Williams, mctominay, maguire and several others.
Right now this has been a very up and down window, but the squad still looks weak when we compare it to our rivals and that will make it another difficult season.
The greatest crime of our window has been departures. Why the hell are Williams and Bailly still here 
One major reason why our numbers are so bad is because we simply can't get rid of players... and when we do, it's for peanuts. Just look at this summer when every other team, especially Chelsea sell all their unwanted players for massive amounts while were sat here with all unwanted players still in our books.
It shouldn't. For most clubs, signings are not that much dependent on the manager.
There is no such thing as a United tax. It is just poor scouting from our side, not having enough options and usually just bringing what the manager wants. Which means that other clubs know that we won't walk away. If you want to call a tax on stupidity, sure, but it is not like the other clubs became together and decided to charge us more than what they would have done for other clubs.
He will help change the way we play. Anyone using one match to conclude on that either way is missing a few marbles.
One major reason why this is the case is cause we do not want to sell our players where there is interest for them (see McTominay this year or Henderson two years ago), and put them in double/triple (or in case of Williams 10 times) the salary they would get somewhere else.
Again, this is just a poor way of running a club. A very costly and ineffective way of running the club.
So when Sky and co talk about how much we have spent, it is because we actually have spent more than any other club in the league in these last 5 years and have a Mickey Mouse Cup to show for that.
I'm a little annoyed at the lack of sales now. Last week all looked rosey, Maguire, vdb, Bailly, Fred, mctominay all were rumoured to be leaving. Now after some deals fell apart it looks like we will be stuck with the majority of these, I'd guess because of the ridiculous wages we put these guys on
He will be an upgrade on De Gea (and a downgrade on peak De Gea), but he won't change how we play that much. The goalkeeper is the least involved player in the build up, be it Onana or De Gea. It won't compensate for us not having a midfield, for example.
True. You can also raise standards by moving consistent underperformers on.
I don't think it's been a bad window, but then you look at the teams we are competing with and it does feel like they are moving quicker. Perhaps it's to be expected given the ownership change that is or isn't taking place atm?
I would say that it’s too soon to jump to any conclusions
That's another reason, I agree fully... new contracts on players like Bailly, Henderson, Jones, Williams with massive salaries which makes them unsellable. But all these saudi clubs buying all leftovers from the european leagues for silly amounts and massive salaries. Even the salaries for our overpaid players shouldn't scare them away, yet the only one they bought was Telles and I'm not even sure we got a bag of peanuts for him?
That isn’t true anymore. The goalkeeper is hugely important in the buildup phase for teams who dominate games consistently. What is that much? It’s about incrementally improving the team - there is no prime Scholes available right now. We do have a midfield - it’s just a little suited to transition football. We can still add to it and signings like Martinez, Onana and Hojlund should help us keep the ball better. And maybe developing a youngster or two like Mainoo.
This is why I and others said we'd rather sign Caicedo and keep De Gea than sign both Onana and Mount. Think we would look better with DDG still in net and Caicedo next to Casemiro.
I mentioned Kieran Trippier as good example, United bid for him but were rejected as Atletico wanted close to 30 million. United walked away and Newcastle got him for 12 million haha.
So I would disagree with your take.
Exactly, the Weghorst argument is daft because he was never our player, he was only on loan because Martial is a crock. Hojlund is actually replacing Ronaldo, who despite being a narcissistic cockwomble knew where the back of the net was!
I agree with that. I hope we still get Amrabat in and play him alongside Casemiro. This current set up with one CM just seems suicidal.
But those players are either legends (Ronaldo, Benzema etc) or players who usually have something still to offer (Ruben Neves etc).
Why would anyone sign Bailly, or Jones, or Williams? The first two are always injured, and the third one is a League One calibre of player at best. Saudis have money but they are not stupid.
You think our window has improved the squad?
Part of it is because we need to get sign off by the glazers apparently. This is where hold ups happen because they dither over money
btw have Liverpool really fared any better this summer? They got lucky with some of their sales to Saudi.
A thought just hit me, do glazers have a bad relationship with Saudis and therefore no deals for our players?
Chelsea - exception to the rule but it shouldn’t be forgotten that the owners committed to spending a huge amount of money for transfers in a specified time period, when they were purchasing the club. Hence all these crazy deals they are making.
arsenal have done well, Newcastle too.
spurs? Probably not so well considering they probably knew Kane was leaving
After a promising start, the last 2 weeks have been very underwhelming.
How the feck have we only been able to offload Telles to Saudi?
Shows a poor ability to sell, and evidence of the shite we've been buying in recent years.
Donny, Maguire, McT, Bailly, Henderson, Williams and Martial all need fecking off. We also need to bolster the squad with quality too.
Shows a poor ability to sell, and evidence of the shite we've been buying in recent years.
Donny, Maguire, McT, Bailly, Henderson, Williams and Martial all need fecking off. We also need to bolster the squad with quality too.
Yes.
We've only played one game. It wasn't great, but picked up 3 points that we didn't have at this stage last season.
The "promising start" of last 2 weeks was just people drooling over Onana's interviews, as if that was going to translate to him heading the winner every match or something.
The revisionism in de gea is mind boggling. De gea literally handed man City the treble with a disaster class in goalkeeping, he needed to go. Look how many clubs are in for him! He still hasn't a club and the season has started.
The jury is out on Caicedo he could be a massive flop for that fee. Didn't spurs sign bissouma from Brighton and he was awful for them. Some players play well in systems that work for them. Chelsea also bought cucurella and he doesn't even look like a footballer.
But we do have a midfield?
It was not in the same window right? For example, we might be willing to sell McTominay/Maguire for cheaper than what West Ham offered in January or next summer. That wouldn't make it a West Ham tax.
However, I think that there might be a perception that we always make at least 3 offers, and that clubs can get more money from us. That is because we always do that, and don't walk away. Example: we did three offers (including a final one) for Mount to only come back the next day with as much money as they wanted.