Well, Thiago Silva & Pepe are examples of aging players still able to do it on the highest level.
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Yes people are very quick to dismiss him.
He’s only 30, and last season played a gruesome amount of games between the WC and the season with United. After the WC, he retired from international football and I think his body and his mind needed some rest. The same as when you are the end of a very intense period at work and your body just collapses for a few days on your first day off.
I think we’re going to see a more solid player In the second half of the season
Todibo is a decent CB, but he's not going to be an elite one. It's another case of our fan base building up a player before signing him then getting underwhelmed once we get him.
I've not seen a huge amount of him other than various clip reels. However there is a lot of buzz about him right now and a lot of respected journos and analysts rate him very highly.
He suits the style of play we want and being at Nice should be a really easy deal to make happen. He has a good fitness record and is better than the majority of what we have.
Whilst I'd love to sign generational talents in every position that is not where we are as a club. We need to be improving the quality of our starting 11 and squad without paying over the top in transfer fees and wages. Considering that the majority of the EPL have better players than us in all positions that shouldn't be hard to achieve.
Once we get rid of the bad pennies we have a better chance of getting the amazing talents who have their pick of every club in europe to buy into what we're doing.
If you haven't seen him play much, then how do you know he suits our style of play? More pertinently, what exactly is our style of play? And again without seeing him how do you know he's better than what we have?
It's odds on that ETH won't be our manager come next season, so this style of play thing is moot. We hardly have one right now and even if it's hidden somewhere, it'll likely change with a new manager/DOF.
Varane is a proven class act. I can understand the concern about handing him a big contract at his age. If we don't want to do that and he leaves, fair enough. But Tobido is not in any way a better CB than Varane.
Just heard on talkshite the club won't be extending his contract by another year.
Hardly a surprise given his wage and injury record.
Hardly a surprise given his wage and injury record.
If he thinks he is going to be fit more often than not going forward then we offer him a pay as you play contract with bonuses.
If he does not then we show him the door......simples!
If he does not then we show him the door......simples!
He won't sign a pay as you play deal, the Saudis will offer him silly money to go over. He won't need to worry about pay as you play in Saudi.
Personally think if this is true its a sign of common sense, 300 to 400k a week for a player injuries constantly.
If it comes down to him not wanting to play football in the most competitive league in the world anymore then he is better off elsewhere.
Aging, injury prone player on one of the biggest wages in the league. Gee, I wonder why his contract isn't extended.
He’s not old for a CB, injury prone yes though.
Real shame we are in position of extending Lindelof and not Varane.
Real shame we are in position of extending Lindelof and not Varane.
We actually have royally fecked this past summer by not signing a CB and getting rid of one of Maguire or Lindelof or Varane. Instead we signed Evans and brought in another player we need to get rid next summer. Had we signed Kim this summer, we would have been in a much better position.
The problem was not selling him in the summer IMO. Lack of foresight as usual thinking the Saudi spending craze would go forever . Should take what we can get for him now.
Who was buying him in the summer? There wasn't offers for our players beside the McTominay lowball one. Lots of paper nonsense talk but nothing concrete.
Not old but aging and when you're a 30 year old footballer who frequently gets injured that means you're never starting 30 league games a season due to fitness. That's not good enough for a starter at any level in the league.
Saudi was buying up anybody who was available. There was some brief rumors but if the club tells others a player isn't for sale, they tend to not go for them. Up to the club to make him available and encourage offers. Given that Koulibaly went for 20m or so... We probably could've gotten 15m more for Varane.
Agreed his injuries are a real issue , if we can reduce his salary that’d be perfect as he’s easily our best CB.
They weren't buying up anybody. That was overblown. You also can't force a player to go somewhere. There's nothing that tells us that there was an offer from Saudi and there's nothing that tells us that Varane wanted to leave for Saudi.
We barely know what happens with transfers, media barely has any clue and just throw wet paper towels at every wall they see and hope it sticks. We can guess that the high wages that our players are on are a deterrent for clubs. We've dug our own hole to big and now we just have to wait until the contracts run out so we can get rid because no one is buying.
Ridiculous decision. He is our best CB. Also it makes sense to keep an experienced player like him, even if with age / injury his playing time will reduce. Then we sign a future replacement who can slowly be eased into the first team. Like City do, like RM do very often under the radar, like we used to do when we were a team winning things.
The players to get rid of are the Maguire’s, McTominay’s, Martial’s,
The players to get rid of are the Maguire’s, McTominay’s, Martial’s,
We're supposedly paying him up to £340k per week for being available about half the time (and half the time that he's been available, he's been in horrible form). If you think that not wanting to pay £340k/w for a good performance a quarter of the time is a ridiculous decision then I wouldn't want you near any company's money ever.
I don’t object to reducing his wages. But to get rid of the only, along with Casemiro, player in the team who has won multiple titles and CL is ridiculous. I won’t insult you for your opinion. But I think it’s very clear how much we miss him on a footballing level when he is not playing. And on a footballing level he is also our best CB, and forms our best CB pairing with Martinez.
If he goes and we sign whatever CB people think should replace him. If it’s not an established world class CB, the likelihood of him seamlessly filling in is very unlikely. The pressure on a young CB will be immense. Look at City, they signed Akanje, then one year later got rid of Laporte. They still have Dias.
Look at Real Madrid. They signed the replacements for Modric, Kroos, Casemiro and kept all 3, since then they have only sold Casemiro.
There are over high earning less productive players that we can get rid of to cut the wage bill. Do you want a young CB and CDM (Mainoo) training with, watching and playing besides / the likes of Varane and Casemiro or Maguire and Mctominay?
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United and Varane did not reach an agreement for the extension, but of course they can still reach another agreement. There were rumours just after Casemiro arrived, that United will not pay 300+ salaries anymore and if that is true, there is nothing strange that a request for £340 000/w was turned down. I personally believe money was one reason he signed the contract with United, and then it makes sense to at least test his value on the market before he signs a new contract with reduced salary.
So there are talks about extension?
The argument sort of went out the window with Rashford’s new contract
I don’t know, think it’s still a policy and they won’t go outside that as often as they did in the recent past.
It makes no sense to tie even more players to the club by offering so high salaries it is impossible to get rid of them. It gives no room for a new manager to make his own transfers, and considering the situation we are at, a new manager must be factored in as highly likely.
He's replaceable but you just know we won't replace him until the summer and that could see us slump further down the table. So hopefully we can sort something out.
He's not old for a CB but he has a lot of mileage on his body because he started to play at the highest level very young. He retired from international football because he was feeling it.
His injuries are a real issue and he's clearly lost a yard of pace, which is what made him one of the best in the world in his position. I think he would benefit from playing in a less physical league than the PL.
His injuries are a real issue and he's clearly lost a yard of pace, which is what made him one of the best in the world in his position. I think he would benefit from playing in a less physical league than the PL.
I agree with you conceptually, but I disagree on how things work in the football world.
- Players will compare their productivity + salary vs other players' productivity + salary. If a player is consistently producing more but earnings less than Rashford (or any other player), the comparison (and frustration) is natural
- Agents of new players or players negotiating new contracts will use existing player salary benchmarks for negotiation
- Other teams will need to budget competitive wages in order to attract our existing players if they want to buy them (which will flow into reduced transfer fees)
The list can go on. My point is, your philosophy is great, but that's where it stops - it's a philosophy that can't be executed because there are many different participants in the market who won't simply go along with what we want.
To undo what has been done will be extremely painful, and I am fairly certain that half-measures will only prolong the pain. Unfortunately, prolonged half-measures over 4 or 5 years may be the only viable path because I doubt the club's financials can support a true, one-time clear-out.
Didn’t actually realise he was on that much 
Weird one with Varane. Usually I'm very black or white on which players to move on or to give a new contract to. It's much harder with Varane as he's a top class player, not at a bad age but his injury record is terrible.
I feel like this is a decision that should be made my the club medical staff more than anybody else.
I feel like this is a decision that should be made my the club medical staff more than anybody else.
Wigan 0:2 Man Utd
Didn't have much to do and was ok on the ball. An easy enough nights work.
Punched the clock and got the fukk out of Wigan, which is fine.
Quietly brilliant once again. Notice how often he is able to get a foot in ahead of a player? Maguire always fouls them in the same situation. He should dominate against Wigan, as he did, but it's just so controlled. His passing was very good yesterday - I like that he puts som speed into his passes - may not be the most creative, but his passing is very crisp.
His distribution was poor I thought, maybe I was watching a different game
Yes you were
Gave it away 4/5 times actually for no reason only poor executed passes .
Newport County 2:4 Man Utd
Might be being harsh, but thought it was a bit shit of him for the goal. Otherwise, decent.
He is very poor technically on the ball which surprised me. I remember his first match for us and thinking....he looked as awkard as smalling.... I'd say the only difference technically between the two is Varane can use his left foot. Its another limitation for us playing out from the back. He's just not comfortable being adventurous with his passing or receiving the ball in tight spaces.
I’m not convinced by him , he’s as good as we’ve got but his competition is fairly shit . If he’s wiling to go to Saudi in the summer I’d be moving him on with the money we receive we can replace him.
Feels like we're having to say this so often these days, the squad needs some serious life injected into it.
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