The same price was being quoted when Liverpool were interested.
Patrick Dorgu | United in talks
- Thread starter bosskeano
- Start date
-
In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) and Imran (@Annihilate Now!) are here to discuss Amad saving our blushes in a win against Southampton as well as our now annual loss at home to Brighton. They discuss Amorim's post-match comments, revisit how mid-table we may or may not be, and discuss some transfer news.
Reality is if he comes here for 30m and he’s mid, the entire discourse will be “we are such mugs why did we spent 30m on a complete punt” it won’t have been viewed as a reasonable transfer.
Edit: do we have a buyback clause for alvaro Fernandez at benfica?
Edit: do we have a buyback clause for alvaro Fernandez at benfica?
I actually dont have issue with it. He's one of the top young left back prospects in Europe, and we are desperate for someone.
Supposedly yes.
16m allegedly
How so?
Elanga was being sold to an (at the time) relegation battling club from a top club, it's going to be a low fee,
Whereas this deal is a player from a mid to lower half club in Italy going to one of the biggest clubs in Europe, ie, taking a massive step up (present position in the league aside),
The two deals are completely non comparable...
Also in January with bidding competition.
Google what we’ve sold Elanga and the rest since 2019 perhaps ….now check what Napoli will be paying v what they expect from Utd .
What are you basing this on?
He's played more games as a right winger than at left back this season.
Based on we arnt the only big club that has been following him. Spurs have been interested in buying him for past 2 years.
We dont need a young prospect though we need an expirienced LWB that can go straight in to the starting line-up
Young, inexperienced Dane from Serie A who costs a lot of money even though he has yet to show any evidence of functioning at a high level? United would never do that.
Sounds like he's heard of how the negotiations went for Anthony.
I worry that being desperate for someone is how we've ended up with a squad that each year costs more but achieves less.
It's not like our fanbase will write him off and decry the waste of money if he's not an instant success, right?
For the loan to Betis?
These sorts of posts are some of the worst, no offence. For one, it’s not confirmed, and if you want to move on…just don’t post in the thread?
Another "prospect"....we don't need prospects. We need proven players at the top level who can help take the club to a better place.
INEOS should be targeting prem-proven players imo.
INEOS should be targeting prem-proven players imo.
With what money?
Prem proven is going to cost £50mil at the very lowest end.
Really? Can you please post the source that’s says the deals been confirmed and he’s off to Napoli? I must have missed that one.
Again as I've already said in the thread, Elanga is not a yardstick. United's inability to sell players does not dictate the price on the open market for other teams' players.
You are talking about a bunch of players that are on high wages, that have underperformed and that United actively were trying to sell... here we are talking about a young prospect with high potential who is a key player on a team who do not.
I understand if you or others prefer different options but let's not pretend he's a £10m player here. £30-35m would be about right especially given his contract situation. I don't know who these 'proven' LB/LWB options are that you expect to get for £30m. The only alternative at that price that United have is Carreras purely because of the buy-back clause, but I wouldn't call him 'proven' either at this stage.
It’s a thread to discuss… I’m saying we need to move on. If we wanted him we’d have paid the money. Instead Napoli are closing inThese sorts of posts are some of the worst, no offence. For one, it’s not confirmed, and if you want to move on…just don’t post in the thread?
1. You can't completely profile a player after one game or just one action, but it's often enough to determine whether they have specific traits or not. Just one game or action can say a lot, even if it doesn't tell you the whole story.
2. Yoro was considered a generational talent by every single detailed scouting report you could find on him when he was still at Lille. Liverpool also viewed him as the best long-term replacement they could possibly find for van Dijk. Madrid's chief scout Juni Calafat viewed him as the Mbappé of CBs. He was also PSG's and United's primary CB target out of everyone on the market. You can probably presume that every other top club that kept tabs on him had a similar opinion on the player, even if their interest never really materialized into anything serious, which could've been down to many things (financial issues, not needing a CB, or thinking they didn't have a chance to snatch him away from Madrid).
The reason Madrid didn't pay up for him was because:
-They spent a lot of money already on Mbappé's sign-on bonus, Bellingham, and Endrick, all within 12 months' time, which was probably a ~€250m or bigger financial outlay combined for those three
-They probably didn't think that a project CB was worth that much already at 18, because when you buy raw talents with incredibly high ceilings like Yoro, you take responsibility of their development, and you need to make sure that they have the right coaching, right team environment, right role in the tactical system, right amount of responsibility on their shoulders, and that their mental development as human beings also goes well. United decided to not only overpay for the player, but to take on all these risks as well, which is admittedly a risky move, but it's also highly ambitious, and it doesn't discredit the player's talent. In fact, it does the opposite.
It's like Arsenal paying 50m for an 18 year old Saliba when he was at Saint-Etienne. Yes, even that fee would've been a bargain in hindsight, because today he would be by far the most expensive centre-back in the world in an open market, but they didn't pay that much for him, because of all these responsibilites and risks I mentioned.
Sadly, Yoro's development can easily deteriorate at United, the same way as that happened to many wonderkids and world class talents we had at the club in the last 12 years. However, that doesn't change the fact that he was viewed as the next generational CB talent based off of less than 12 months at senior level.
3. Dorgu has played over 50 Serie A games already. That's more than enough for a top club's scouting department to profile a player in detail, and also make an educated guess about what their ceiling could be and what kind of player they can grow into.
Dorgu looks like a really promising player who can become a similar full-back / wing-back to Alphonso Davies and Nuno Mendes, mostly because he's has a similarly exceptional athletic/physical profile to them. But if we buy him, it will be United's responsibility to make sure he gets there within 2-3 years' time.
So whilst I think the player's potential is clear, he would be a project signing, which is my only gripe with this signing. The fans won't be patient with him, and will expect immediate impact from a young player that's still raw and will make mistakes. All because of his price tag. I also don't have a lot of faith in the club handling his development well, based on the last 12 years.
However, if we manage to build up all these project players with immense potential, like Yoro, Dorgu, Hojlund, Amass, and to an extent, Mainoo, Amad, Collyer, etc. and many prospects still in the academy, then we will be one of the best club sides in world football within 3 years, because the raw talent is there, we just need to not mess it up...
...but it's admittedly a very questionable approach. And it's a bit similar to what Chelsea have done by stockpiling dozens of young talents for big money under the new ownership. How can a top biggest 3 club in the world (United, not Chelsea, obviously), with sky high expectations all the time, give these young players multiple years of patience, reduced responsibility to make an immediate impact, and the required development in all aspects, when they're already the first choice players in their positions?
I'm willing to be patient because I'm aware of the situation, and know that these signings like Hojlund, Yoro, or Dorgu massively raise the ceiling of United's football project, but maybe not the flooring immediately.
Also, many fans are impatient and don't realize the situation I've just described. Hojlund has already been labelled as a flop despite being one of the most exciting U23 striker prospects in the world, Mainoo can have 1 bad game after 9 great ones, and he's questioned too, Yoro had 1 bad game vs Southampton, and idiots on Twitter are already saying he's not as talented as he was made out to be, etc. We don't even have a stable, well-drilled team that can compete for top 4, which would be the minimum requirement for these young players to grow into the players they can become.
A better approach would be to find older, more experienced and more established players for cheap, like Mazraoui, who can come in and make an immediate impact, "raise the floor" of the team, whilst the talents we pay a premium for because of their potential, would be rotational players, and could focus on their development at least in their first two seasons, with reduced external pressure to perform to a consistent and high level from day 1 straightaway.
Last edited:
No. When it got to the end of the window and Ajax had already sold a number of their players and "challenged" us to make them an offer they couldn't refuse for Anthony.
https://onefootball.com/es/noticias...y-at-25m-when-they-first-scouted-him-38766910
"Transfer negotiations between both parties saw United initially flat out refuse to pay more than the £60 million mark as they cut off talks with his previous employers – purely on the basis that other positions had already been ironed out earlier in the window. But Ten Hag still felt the need to add another attacker to his roster and a glimpse of desperation saw them fork out £20 million more for his name in the dying embers of the summer. Edwin van der Sar, Ajax’s chief executive, later told The Athletic that while Antony could flourish under Ten Hag, they had ‘challenged’ United to go ‘as far as possible’ with their willingness to spend big."
Any club sees our desperation. I can only hope what Laurie Whitwell said is true about the work going on right now (that we're working multiple deals behind the scenes) and actually go for the deal that fleeces us the least for someone valuable to us.
Agreements are close. That’s basically saying it’s done unless we miraculously put in the money they want.
So let people discuss rather than trying to put an end to it?
But it was different people in charge at that time? It is nok like «Man Utd» is a person.
It's as if some people fail to register the situation we are in.. I wouldn't count on many transfers from premier league in the near future unless it's an opportunity where for some reason a club wants to sell. Other than that it's clear we're trying to go the route of building a squad capable of growing together to be competitive within 2-3 years
You mean yesterday's DiMarizo tweets? I think at the moment it's again more likely we're in negotiations as we speak
When we were first linked with Tyrell Malacia he was talked about the same way Dorgu is being talked about now but then we signed him and despite being a young kid that had no expiriance of playing in a top league he only got a few appearances before people started turning on him.
Wasn’t trying to end anything. Was discussing the fact we should be looking at alternatives incase we don’t sign him
Plus Benfica need to give United 50% of any transfer fee (which I read recently) so the outlay for United to bring Alvaro Fernandez back would would be 8M.
If I understood the clauses correctly.
Read that as well, not sure if both clauses apply at the same time though
Where is this magic prem proven money coming from when we are skint and badly need a LWB?
Dorgu will probably end up being less that £30M with partial payment and performance extras.
You find the money, offset Casemiro, Eriksen, Anthony, and Rashford to free up funds....
The point is we won't improve by much, signing prospects who could or could not work out. Thrusting them into a massive pressure cooker we find ourselves in at the moment could actually have a detrimental impact on their development.
Leif Davies of Ipswich will probably be had for a right steal in just a few months, but yeah, let's go blow 30mil on some Serie A talent.
I think he'd already be back if it was only £8m. The only place I could see anything about the sell-on clause was Manchester Evening News (Tier 5 source). Some suggestion from other places lately that the buy-back is closer to £25m than the £17m / €20m originally mooted.
Because he's so PL proven of course.
What's a 'steal'? They'll probably still want £20m for him even if they go down.
Much more athletic than Alvaro Fernandez. He has some qualities that we are short of at the moment.