Patrick Dorgu | United in talks

DannyCAFC said:
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.
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He fits the profile of what we need. Still young, attacking, quick, solid defensively, and has a great eye for a cross.

20mil would be a bargain, I'd take that all day long.

(More proven in this league than the Leece LB we're after).
 
RuudTom83 said:
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.
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Likely the sell on clause would explicitly exclude United, and only apply to 3rd parties.
 
I've only seen clips, but rewatching the Brighton game, we actually pressed well on the right hand side. We need that on the left hand side.
 
TheRedDevil2019 said:
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.
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Nobody has offered anything decent for any of these players.

We're in a bad spot right now. 12+ years of slow downward spiral and it's getting desperate.
We're gonna have to take punts on relative unknowns again and promote youth.
 
Rojofiam said:
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.
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Great post and very much agreed.
 
Maurice Setters Training said:
Much more athletic than Alvaro Fernandez. He has some qualities that we are short of at the moment.
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Yet nowhere near as technically gifted. I know which quality I'd rather us have in the team.

Carreras has CL experience, whilst being a member of a possession-dominant team near the top of the table, whilst Dorgu is battling it out for relegation. Carreras' experience and skillset is much more compatible, Dorgu won't know what's hit him.
 
DannyCAFC said:
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.
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hellhunter said:
Read that as well, not sure if both clauses apply at the same time though
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Yeah it seems to good to be true!

But then I'm reminded of a different story about Greenwood and how Getafe received a % of the fee from his sale. So you never know with small print.
 
Rojofiam said:
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.
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Brilliant post and far too sensible for this forum.
 
TheRedDevil2019 said:
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.
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At this moment in time, getting rid of those players would cost money and make it even harder to bring in players.

We are going to have to sign quite a few prospects, we have very few players we can sell for a profit, lots will go not leave when their contracts expire and we have to resolve issues in lots of positions.

I’m sure we will sign more established players but I think people are going to have to get used to seeing younger players with a lower profile being signed.
 
TheRedDevil2019 said:
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.
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Agree - Leif Davies and Liam Delap would be the players I would spend the Garnacho money on. Not some unknown quantity relegation fodder from serie A.
 
A rough diamond with bags of potential and should improve our team. Is he the sort of player to get us back to the top? No. Hopefully he progresses quickly and the other guy we bought Leon can push each other
 
red_de_pologne said:
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
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That is generally sensible, but our fanbase has neither the patience nor the consistency of thinking needed for that.

Yoro, Hojlund, Garnacho, Mainoo are all young players who big parts of our fanbase would want gone based on their performances today. For many, future promise is not guaranteed and the team is terrible today.

I think we’re being very unrealistic as a fanbase about what we are as a club:
  • Smaller clubs buy young players before their peak, tolerate their inconsistencies as they develop, and sell them for a profit at their peak.
  • Bigger clubs with ambition buy younger players to add to a stable and successful team so they can be integrated slowly, developing at the right pace while not harming the immediate ambitions of the club.

We seem to want to have our cake and to eat it too. We want a team stacked with young promising players who can deliver today and in the future, while they’re being integrated to a team suffering bad results and huge expectations.

If it was that easy, every big team would do it. Buy players young and for cheap, have an average age in the early 20s, and win trophies / be a CL club.
 
bitcoin said:
Agree - Leif Davies and Liam Delap would be the players I would spend the Garnacho money on. Not some unknown quantity relegation fodder from serie A.
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Davis and Delap literally play for PL relegation fodder. Make it make sense...
 
croadyman said:
Jeez that's an enormous red flag
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I read the stats wrong, he is in the 40th percentile for Serie A players in his position when it comes to passing success rate at 76.7%. Given that his team has an average passing success rate of 77.7% suggests that they are playing very direct and low passing success numbers should be viewed in this context. Of course it's still important to factor this in, especially if we want to go for a more possession oriented playstyle ourselves. It's no use to have a team full of players who prefer to play direct and risky at every opportunity if your aim is to keep controlling the ball.
 
In the context of us being broke, this feels like a lot of money on a player like this. When you put into context the price though, this is pretty type of player you are going to get for £30m.

The provides at minimum a short term solution to our issue at LWB but also provides an option that may be really useful in the long term, given his ability to play different positions.

I don't know whether he will be good enough but there is sound logic in doing this deal over paying a higher fee and much higher wages to a more experienced signing. I'm personally not all that convinced by Nuno Mendes and while Davies would be a better option, it seems unrealistic anyway.
 
Looks like one of those signings we would be shaking our head at wondering why we spent so much.

That said if he does come in I pray to God he is good.
 
UnitedSofa said:
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This is such a bad reply. The experience of Dorgu is comparable with Hojlund.

There's unproven and then there's raw. We shouldn't be hitting these nutty figures for such low experience unless they look extremely polished, which Dorgu does not.
 
VP89 said:
This is such a bad reply. The experience of Dorgu is comparable with Hojlund.

There's unproven and then there's raw. We shouldn't be hitting these nutty figures for such low experience unless they look extremely polished, which Dorgu does not.
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Caicedo was incredibly raw when he came to the PL - it’s quite a good comparison in my opinion
 
Found another match vid, I find these better than highlights because theyl show all his involvement and it gives a better understanding on what type of player he is :

 
VP89 said:
He looked a polished player straight away in a Brighton shirt, and his fee was 4m, not 40m.
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Do you mean to say that Caicedo looked a polished player straight away on his August debut having signed in February, or do you mean Caicedo looked polished after the 6-month loan he had following on from his first time in a Brighton shirt?
 
UnitedSofa said:
He also came from a much lower ranked team and league
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I feel that's less material when the fee is 10x cheaper. He was a player of more polished quality and that was pretty evident.

I dont want to completely rule out Dorgu but if you're punting on a kid with hardly any experience you shouldn't be spending 40m on it unless 1) they look the real deal and/or 2) the clubs in a position to take these punts because they are quite well developed in the squad construction already.
 
didz said:
Do you mean to say that Caicedo looked a polished player straight away on his August debut having signed in February, or do you mean Caicedo looked polished after the 6-month loan he had following on from his first time in a Brighton shirt?
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I meant from even before but even still he was 4m which is in line with punting for a kid with hardly any experience.
 
would be really underwhelming if this is the plan for our starting Lwb. Think it makes more sense that he’s a makeshift option till the summer when better options are available.

Unless he cements the position for himself, I can see him being a solid back up for LWB and RWB. Asides Amad, we actually don’t have any quality wingbacks in the team so we need more than just Dorgu
 
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