Sanchez, I didn’t get excited at all , he’d been crap for Arsenal for months before we got him , blatantly signed for the money, had failure written all over it
Puzzling transfer dealings we have made in the past decade
- Thread starter TsuWave
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This is what I was going to say also.
One thing is to be coached by Klopp or Guardiola, antother thing by Ole or Rangnick.
It would be easier to talk about which of out transfer dealings haven't been puzzling....
I said it then, I say it now - VdB was a singing to shut fans up. We were going no where with the sancho saga and fans were getting impatient. Ajax basically handed him to us after RM pulled out and we gladly took him of their hands.
Feb 17 after a 0:0 against Hull.
If I could see it how can paid people at the club not. Baffling.
Ighalo was an odd one.
Sanchez was IMO the worst transfer in recent history. Massive wages and displaced Martial who was having a pretty good season. Yet another LW when we had a non existent RW. Just showed how idiotic and naive we were ( possibly are )
Along with the obvious ones that have been mentioned, signing Pellistri and Amad for 30-40m combined was absolutely mental when we could have signed a DM.
Funny enough we wouldn’t look worse off if we never signed anyone since LVG.
DDG
?? Blind. Jones/Smalling. Shaw
Herrera. Parreira
Rashford. Lingard. Depay
Martial
This team hasn’t improved much since then if at all.
Pulling out on deals on Thiago, then Kroos are the main ones for me. Yes different players if different set ups etc. but they’re definitely better than Fellaini and Whoever LVG decided was a better fit (all his signings sucked)
Shaw and Herrera were basically signed before LVG I think. Remove all signings after that, swap Blind for Evans, Rafael at right back, Zaha for Depay, Martial for Welbeck and you're right we'd be no worse.
All of em.
Nah that's Van der Vaart, who is not a cnut incidentally. Buttner is just from a white trash neighbourhood.
Adult Disneyland.
I thinks it's that overall from a squad building point of view it didn't make sense. Rashford and Martial were contributing well enough from the left so naturally it made sense to go for a rw as that side of the pitch was severly lacking. Instead we went for another guy who did his best work from the left and ignored the right.
As for Matic Chelsea were happy for us to have him because Conte saw it was the end of the line whilst we turned our nose at a quality player to a point where Dier was 2nd on our list. Can't fathom how Jose had Dier so high on his list. I think our scouts get stick for the choices of the managers.
Fabinho was a redcafe darling actually so it isn't a hindsight thing. As for a rw it's been discussed here for a long time since Lvg sold all the wingers. There was even a discussion on Sanchez and whether he could fill up that rw hole before we signed him. It's clear forum members were concerned about it more than the club ever was till today there is stile a hole in the right.
We did go for Mane but he rejected us and joined Liverpool instead.
The club can be blamed for not appointing a DoF, instead of signing PLAYERS THAT THE PREVIOUS MANAGERS IDENTIFIED. Like, it's funny, you want the club to get the players ETH wants, but then blame them for signing who the managers wanted previously. 
Moyes clearly wanted Fellaini. Moyes probably didn't want Thiago.
LVG wanted Rojo over Rüdiger or Alderweireld. Didn't work out too well, but the club trusted him. It's a known fact that he vetoed the Kroos deal, otherwise he would've signed for us. That was a horrible decision too, made by van Gaal, not Manchester United.
LVG also 100% identified Depay, Blind and Schweinsteiger. Only Blind was a success here. And most of you would even say he wasn't.
Bailly, Ibrahimovic, Mkhitaryian, Matic, Lukaku, Dalot and Lindelöf are very obviously José signings.
If I had to guess (obviously don't know for a fact), these are the players we signed that would've been targeted either way, no matter the manager, because it was the club itself that identified them:
Di Maria
Herrera
Shaw
Mata
Falcao
Pogba
Alexis
Maguire
Cavani
Ronaldo
Varane
maybe Bruno?
Probably van de Beek (since Ole clearly didn't ask for him)
Telles (no way Ole signed that bum, he could identify talent very well)
Now, these players could've been vetoed if the managers really didn't want them, like the Thiago and Kroos deals.
So who's really to blame? I think LVG and José left us in such a mess with their idiotic transfer dealings that it clouds everyone's judgement in these dark times. The club can be heavily criticized for not backing José properly in 2018 and Ole in 2020. Other than that the club identified good and talented players (however that worked out doesn't matter because none of you are fecking Nostradamus and were excited as hell for most of these guys when they arrived).
Hindsight is 20/20
Rojo was in 2014. van Dijk was an unknown playing for Celtic back then. He joined Liverpool 4 years later from Soton. This is a wrong, illogical example. That's like saying why didn't we get Rio in 1998, how could we be so stupid.
Letting all those players go for nothing was LvG's idea which I heavily disagreed with at the time too. Later even José said he wouldn't have sold them. Kagawa, Welbeck, Evans, Rafael and Chicharito etc. shouldn't have been sold so early in my opinion.
Moyes clearly wanted Fellaini. Moyes probably didn't want Thiago.
LVG wanted Rojo over Rüdiger or Alderweireld. Didn't work out too well, but the club trusted him. It's a known fact that he vetoed the Kroos deal, otherwise he would've signed for us. That was a horrible decision too, made by van Gaal, not Manchester United.
LVG also 100% identified Depay, Blind and Schweinsteiger. Only Blind was a success here. And most of you would even say he wasn't.
Bailly, Ibrahimovic, Mkhitaryian, Matic, Lukaku, Dalot and Lindelöf are very obviously José signings.
If I had to guess (obviously don't know for a fact), these are the players we signed that would've been targeted either way, no matter the manager, because it was the club itself that identified them:
Di Maria
Herrera
Shaw
Mata
Falcao
Pogba
Alexis
Maguire
Cavani
Ronaldo
Varane
maybe Bruno?
Probably van de Beek (since Ole clearly didn't ask for him)
Telles (no way Ole signed that bum, he could identify talent very well)
Now, these players could've been vetoed if the managers really didn't want them, like the Thiago and Kroos deals.
So who's really to blame? I think LVG and José left us in such a mess with their idiotic transfer dealings that it clouds everyone's judgement in these dark times. The club can be heavily criticized for not backing José properly in 2018 and Ole in 2020. Other than that the club identified good and talented players (however that worked out doesn't matter because none of you are fecking Nostradamus and were excited as hell for most of these guys when they arrived).
Hindsight is 20/20
Rojo was in 2014. van Dijk was an unknown playing for Celtic back then. He joined Liverpool 4 years later from Soton. This is a wrong, illogical example. That's like saying why didn't we get Rio in 1998, how could we be so stupid.
Letting all those players go for nothing was LvG's idea which I heavily disagreed with at the time too. Later even José said he wouldn't have sold them. Kagawa, Welbeck, Evans, Rafael and Chicharito etc. shouldn't have been sold so early in my opinion.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/manchester-united-news-transfers-louis-4314219
An article from September 2014 so hardly unknown, especially so for the Dutch manager. We paid £18m for Rojo (+Nani another who should never have been sold at the time) because LVG liked the look of him in one game.
Oh I just remembered... Mourinho had Van Dijk and Maguire on his buy list. Leicester wanted £65m for Maguire, the club didn't sanction it, instead the former goes to Liverpool and we sign the later with an extra £15m delay tax for a mere £80m world record fee.
Sanchez made some sense if we were going to play him on the right or as a striker (both positions where he'd had some success for Arsenal). The fact Mourinho bought him in and instantly just played him on the left instead of Martial (who had been our form attacker for the previous couple of months) was an absolute joke and was where I really started giving up on Mourinho.
In hindsight it appears Sanchez was physically finished by that stage so he wouldn't have succeeded anywhere, but by playing him on the left we basically screwed up two things for the price of one.
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I think buying a player that doesn’t really want to come here for a manager who can’t really use him qualifies as a major mistake.
To me it looks like Rangnink at least has preferred to have Sancho on the left when both him and Rashford has started.
To be fair, I doubt that Mahrez or Fabinho would have done nearly as well here under the managers we've had. They're doing so well now because they have been very well managed and I don't doubt that Sanchez and Matic would have done great under them too as they're very good players. The issue is the management and culture at United. I'm fairly certain that the likes of Sancho and Varane for example, would be causing us to lose our collective shiz by now if they played under Pep or Klopp and we would be asking how we missed out on two stellar talents like these!
Hardly a reliable source, though. At least we can agree that Rojo shouldn't have been signed. And all those players LVG sold...
Selling Rafael for £2m and signing Darmian for £16m who wasn't even half the player.
Selling Evans for £2-3m and singing Rojo for £16m (plus loaning Nani and paying his wages to seal the deal)
Loaning Hernandez and getting a finished Falcao in on loan to replace him for 3 times the wages.
Basically all Van Gaal's transfer decisions, as much as people think we ned a complete rebuild. Be careful what you wish for as the last time we attempted it is largely what caused the mess of a squad Mourinho and Solskjaer inherted.
Selling Evans for £2-3m and singing Rojo for £16m (plus loaning Nani and paying his wages to seal the deal)
Loaning Hernandez and getting a finished Falcao in on loan to replace him for 3 times the wages.
Basically all Van Gaal's transfer decisions, as much as people think we ned a complete rebuild. Be careful what you wish for as the last time we attempted it is largely what caused the mess of a squad Mourinho and Solskjaer inherted.
Cristiano Ronaldo. We had just begged Cavani to stay another season and really needed a dm.
Not hating on Ronaldo as him and De Gea have been our best players however he did not feature in any of our plans going into the season and I doubt he is in ETH's plans either. The new manager will have a big call to make
Not hating on Ronaldo as him and De Gea have been our best players however he did not feature in any of our plans going into the season and I doubt he is in ETH's plans either. The new manager will have a big call to make
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There are lots of transfers which AT THAT moment were perfectly logical and we (fans) were over the moon back then. It is easy to be smart in hindsight
1) Sanchez. City wanted him, one of the best players in league, rw
2) Falcao. World class striker
3) Di Maria. Well, before and after us, he showed how good he is.
4) Varane. World class
5) Sancho. Future world class
6) Shaw. Top prospect back then
7) Telles. Attacking full back for low price
8) Martial. Top prospect
9) Blind. Versatile player who did good for us
10) Bailly. Strong and quick cb. In his first season we all rated him very high
11) Mikhi. Best Dortmund player
12) Zlatan. Well, he is Zlatan
13) Depay. Top prospect
14) Donny. Creative midfielder who was highly rated
15) Bruno. His stats were amazing
16) Pogba. World class midfielder
17) Matic. We needed dmc and he was good buy which he proved in his first season. Of course that we needed to buy Fabinho instead but....
18) Lindelof. We wanted modern cb and he was very good in Benfica.
19) Romero. Free backup gk.
20) Rojo. He was solid buy
21) Fred. Ok, i don't know what to say about him. He is not bad signing at least
For all of these player, there was joy and delight among fans when we signed them and they WERE logical and good signings at that moment.
Maguire, AWB, James, Ronaldo, Scweinie, Darmian and Schneiderlin were bad transfers from the start and we all knew that it is mistake.
1) Sanchez. City wanted him, one of the best players in league, rw
2) Falcao. World class striker
3) Di Maria. Well, before and after us, he showed how good he is.
4) Varane. World class
5) Sancho. Future world class
6) Shaw. Top prospect back then
7) Telles. Attacking full back for low price
8) Martial. Top prospect
9) Blind. Versatile player who did good for us
10) Bailly. Strong and quick cb. In his first season we all rated him very high
11) Mikhi. Best Dortmund player
12) Zlatan. Well, he is Zlatan
13) Depay. Top prospect
14) Donny. Creative midfielder who was highly rated
15) Bruno. His stats were amazing
16) Pogba. World class midfielder
17) Matic. We needed dmc and he was good buy which he proved in his first season. Of course that we needed to buy Fabinho instead but....
18) Lindelof. We wanted modern cb and he was very good in Benfica.
19) Romero. Free backup gk.
20) Rojo. He was solid buy
21) Fred. Ok, i don't know what to say about him. He is not bad signing at least
For all of these player, there was joy and delight among fans when we signed them and they WERE logical and good signings at that moment.
Maguire, AWB, James, Ronaldo, Scweinie, Darmian and Schneiderlin were bad transfers from the start and we all knew that it is mistake.
Worst of all since last 4,5 years we always have delayed signing a key player we needed by at least one transfer window.
Mourinho wanted Maguire in 2018, after we finished second, we delayed it, Mourinho got sacked, the whole season crumbled.
We had to sign Bruno at start of 2019/20 season, we delayed it for 6 months and signed him in Jan 2020.
We had to sign Sancho in 2020, we delayed it for a year, signed him 2021.
We should have signed a DM like Rice in 2021, we delayed it for a year, arguably it has cost us our season, now we will buy one in 2022.
I just wonder how different it would have been had we signed all these players at the right time.
Mourinho wanted Maguire in 2018, after we finished second, we delayed it, Mourinho got sacked, the whole season crumbled.
We had to sign Bruno at start of 2019/20 season, we delayed it for 6 months and signed him in Jan 2020.
We had to sign Sancho in 2020, we delayed it for a year, signed him 2021.
We should have signed a DM like Rice in 2021, we delayed it for a year, arguably it has cost us our season, now we will buy one in 2022.
I just wonder how different it would have been had we signed all these players at the right time.
To be fair, Fergie was always buying these 8-9m type punts like Dong, Diouf, Manucho (?), and others.
It was like we identified players with extreme pace, and tried to forge them into footballers.
This was around the "No value" in market BS, when we'd all have taken a star player for 30m rather than 3 or 4 of these types.
Hence the premise of the thread being to see which transfers people were apprehensive about at the time, and also why I mentioned the ones I didn't really understand. The thread isn't an attempt at being smart in hindsight - quite the contrary
one also has to account that people are different/will have different views - thus saying "fans were over the moon about x transfer back then" really doesn't mean much to this thread as I was asking for individual opinions.
the reasoning for some of your views on transfers is also "???" to me. i.e; "Sanchez. City wanted him. RW". Sanchez was not a RW and City wanting a player doesn't mean United should be in for them - Yes, he was still generally seen as one of the best in the league but he had been in poor form for awhile
there are other instances of reasoning/supposed justification in your list that's just baffling to me, and I just don't have the energy to engage with. Respectfully
And not signing Kroos and Bale
It might have been a different scenario had Rashford showed anything close to good form on either flank though.
Regarding your examples. Yeah, those were huge mistakes. Jose wanted proven dmc with who he worked. Mahrez was on Ed maybe. He didn't want to pay 70 mil i believe
Sad but true. It wasn’t the players it was the system (or lack of) and the negativity around the place
No midfielders signed between Anderson in 07 and Fellaini in 2013, not so much a dealing as a lack of dealing
Pogba - Why would you resign a player who left the club at 19 instead of staying and fight for your place. I don't get it. It shows a lack of fight and he's leaving again.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic (free) JM
Alexis Sanchez (swap) JM
Andy Kellett (loan)
Victor Valdes (free) LVG
Tom Heaton (free) Ole
Sergio Romero (free) LVG
Edinson Cavani (free) Ole
Tahith Chong (free) LVG
Timothy Fosu-Mensah (£342k) LVG
Lee Grant (£1.5m) Ole
Guillermo Varela (£2m) Moyes
Radamel Falcao (£6.8m loan fee) LVG
Facundo Pellistri (£7.6m) Ole
Bastian Schweinsteiger (£8m) LVG
Hannibal Mejbri (£9m) JM
Odion Ighalo (£10.8m loan fee) Ole
Alex Telles (£13.5m) Ole
Cristiano Ronaldo (£13.5m) Ole
Daley Blind (£15.7m) LVG
Dan James (£16m) Ole
Matteo Darmian (£16m) LVG
Marcos Rojo (£18m) LVG
Amad Diallo (£19m) Ole
Diogo Dalot (£19.8m) JM
Marouane Fellaini (£29m) Moyes
Memphis Depay (£30.6m) LVG
Victor Lindelof (£31.5m) JM
Morgan Schneiderlin (£31.5m) LVG
Ander Herrera (£32m) LVG
Luke Shaw (£33.7m) Moyes
Eric Bailly (£34m) JM
Donny van de Beek (£35m) Ole
Raphael Varane (£36m) Ole
Henrikh Mkhitaryan (£37.8m) JM
Juan Mata (£40m) Moyes
Nemanja Matic (£40m) JM
Aaron Wan-Bissaka (£49.5m) Ole
Fred (£53m) JM
Anthony Martial (£54m) LVG
Bruno Fernandes (£56.7m) Ole
Angel Di Maria (£67.5m) LVG
Romelu Lukaku (£76m) JM
Jadon Sancho (£76.5m) Ole
Harry Maguire (£78.3m) Ole
Paul Pogba (£94.5m) JM
Total: 1.194.642 thanks..
JM 11 players : 395,6m
Ole 15 players : 427,4m
Read it and fecking weep, jesus christ.
Alexis Sanchez (swap) JM
Andy Kellett (loan)
Victor Valdes (free) LVG
Tom Heaton (free) Ole
Sergio Romero (free) LVG
Edinson Cavani (free) Ole
Tahith Chong (free) LVG
Timothy Fosu-Mensah (£342k) LVG
Lee Grant (£1.5m) Ole
Guillermo Varela (£2m) Moyes
Radamel Falcao (£6.8m loan fee) LVG
Facundo Pellistri (£7.6m) Ole
Bastian Schweinsteiger (£8m) LVG
Hannibal Mejbri (£9m) JM
Odion Ighalo (£10.8m loan fee) Ole
Alex Telles (£13.5m) Ole
Cristiano Ronaldo (£13.5m) Ole
Daley Blind (£15.7m) LVG
Dan James (£16m) Ole
Matteo Darmian (£16m) LVG
Marcos Rojo (£18m) LVG
Amad Diallo (£19m) Ole
Diogo Dalot (£19.8m) JM
Marouane Fellaini (£29m) Moyes
Memphis Depay (£30.6m) LVG
Victor Lindelof (£31.5m) JM
Morgan Schneiderlin (£31.5m) LVG
Ander Herrera (£32m) LVG
Luke Shaw (£33.7m) Moyes
Eric Bailly (£34m) JM
Donny van de Beek (£35m) Ole
Raphael Varane (£36m) Ole
Henrikh Mkhitaryan (£37.8m) JM
Juan Mata (£40m) Moyes
Nemanja Matic (£40m) JM
Aaron Wan-Bissaka (£49.5m) Ole
Fred (£53m) JM
Anthony Martial (£54m) LVG
Bruno Fernandes (£56.7m) Ole
Angel Di Maria (£67.5m) LVG
Romelu Lukaku (£76m) JM
Jadon Sancho (£76.5m) Ole
Harry Maguire (£78.3m) Ole
Paul Pogba (£94.5m) JM
Total: 1.194.642 thanks..
JM 11 players : 395,6m
Ole 15 players : 427,4m
Read it and fecking weep, jesus christ.
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IDK about that one. I know City were after Sanchez but considering his form the last year or so with Arsenal and how bad he looked with us I think Sanchez was well and truly past it, IIRC wasn't Matic shit the last season with Chelsea as well?
The more I see those Maguire and WB fees, the more I just don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Staggering incompetence from so called business men.