You clearly disagree, so I won't continue on. All I'll say is this. The player obviously needs to be good enough. You can't just stick any young player in the team and expect them to become a Kane or a Haaland. Iheanacho had 6 years at Leicester to prove he's the best striker in the league and instead at the age of 26 when he should be entering his prime, he's being relegated. The reality is he just wasn't good enough to reach that level, despite actually following the path you suggested and leaving to try to get gametime when he was 20. Phil Foden has stayed at City and despite having a bit of an off season he's still won the Young Player of the Year award 2 seasons in a row. This was all while needing to impress enough coming through the Academy, he didn't even get the chance to show it at a higher level like Atalanta. He broke into the team because he was a good enough player to do so. Whether the young player is developed internally or bought externally when they're young to be a squad player, they can absolutely develop if they are actually good enough. If Hojlund isn't good enough then it would be a poor signing regardless of whether the intention was to be a backup or a starter.
Rasmus Højlund | Signed for United
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Defeatist mentality. Liverpool won the title with Guardiola in England.
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He's 23, he should be playing more than 16-19 90 mins in a season if he is going to turn into "one of the best strikers in the world". He just won't do that behind Haaland. Real question - will he get significantly more starts next year? I don't see it and that's not going to be conducive to developing.
My point on not just training and being on the bench is we don't have the luxury of being one of the best teams in the world either, so I'm not really sure how this Alvarez example is at all a good example. If we sign Kane, he's playing pretty much every game he's fit - which was pretty much the full 38 90s this season.
OK it's highly unlikely then.
Care to guess how many goals their centre-forward scored in the league when they won it?
Bring me a wing forward like Mohamed Salah who bangs 20 goals a league every season, and I can forgive having a striker with 9 goals in 33 games.
I thought he meant EtH at first
. Hopefully he’s referring to Pep.Salah scored 16 non-penalty goals in the league in 19/20. One fewer than Rashford this season.
Him and kane in a single window sounds too good to be true.
We've got to get one of these kids however whether it's him, Ferguson or some other fella.
We've got to get one of these kids however whether it's him, Ferguson or some other fella.
I liked that you subtracted pens for basically no reason.
19 vs 17 then.
But yeah, when you talk about goal threat, subtracting penalties is the sensible thing to do. Denis Irwin was a reliable penalty taker but no one considered him a goal threat.
Me tooI thought he meant EtH at first
It's not imaginary potential FFS. It's one of the best young strikers around who before long will be getting 30 goals a season. Everyone bitches and complains about not getting these guys before they cost 120m, well here we are, a player who is going to double in price within the next 2 years. He'll improve us next season, and will step up even more the next year... Given that he's 20.
Also there is no collection of signings that make us seriously challenge for the title next year. It's gonna take another year, best case. And given our ownership situation is what it is, we aren't living best case. So we should be planning all our strategies on what will be the best (and realistic) mixture to have us challenge in 24/25. Ten Hags 3rd season. Goalkeeper needs addressing, CF needs addressing, needs addressing, and our depth needs to be addressed. And then suitability for Ten Hag. Spunking your whole budget on someone who is 30 in a month when you can get him for free in a year is just a dumb thing to do. Spunking your whole budget for a player who plays in the same position as our best player is an even dumber thing to do.
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So did Conte !
It's actually not when we're talking about forwards who get into the box and help in getting many of these pens themselves.
Anyway, while Rashford has been great this year, that's only his 2nd season in which he scored more than 15 goals in the league. If we're going to do without a reliable striker like Kane or Haaland, we need wing forwards who are consistently banging 20 goals a league every season at least. Rashford hasn't shown such level of consistency yet.
One way or another United needs a reliable goal scorer be it a striker or wing forward. We have struggled for goals this year and we have the worst attack among top 6 when it comes to goals scored because we had no one to score goals when Rashford was off form.
Signing a 20 years old striker who's just about starting his career and his numbers are still average or below average simply doesn't help solve the problem.
It is.
And the striker is our most important priority this year. We need reliable goal scorers. We have only scored 58 goals in the league, For God's sake. Brighton scored 14 more goals than us. Signing someone who scored 9 goals in 33 games will definitely help I guess.
Think this gonna take 50million Euros + addons, the most they've sold a player was for 50 million so they'll want to at least replicate that much.
Maybe you should start looking at minutes played, instead of games. But I guess that doesn't fit with the point you're trying to make.
Also, who is the reliable goal scorer for Brighton?
Haaland will probably move on to Real within 3 years. Alvarez will be 26 then, coming into his prime and then he can get his 30+ games a season (if he hasn't already broken into the xi, since he's already moved into midfield to play alongside Haaland for some games).
On the point about us not being one of the best teams in the world, fair enough. That being said I think this Utd team with Kane and a top midfielder would be among the best personally even if they might still be behind a couple teams like City and Real. Bruno, Casemiro, Shaw, Martinez, Varane, Rashford and Kane are all among the best in their positions. Even looking at the CL semi finals, I'd take these United players over quite a few of Inter, AC Milan, Real and City's players in specific positions (varies depending on each team, City's squad is the best but I'd still take Shaw over any of City's left backs, I'd take Bruno over Valverde, Casemiro over any of Real's dms, and any of the 7 over any of AC Milan or Inter's players tbh). There are some other areas that need to be improved like rb, gk, rw but the team is stronger than many give it credit for.
Already mentioned I think Hojlund and Kane could play together
I'm not saying your concerns aren't valid but hoping that we can snatch a young striker who can produce the goods right away (even of it's "only" 15 league goals) is still our best option by a mile. All the established, experienced goalscorers are either unattainable or underwhelming. This way at least there would be a significant potential upside.
If we do sign him though it is possible that he might score more than 9 goals for us with better players surrounding him. Not saying its guaranteed of course but it’s not impossible that signing a player with more goals this season scores less for us next season as well
It's quite impressive how the goals are spread around the team - I always favoured that over having one goalscorer who gets 40% of a team's goals.
We just don't have enough goals from midfield and defence either.
Agreed. Mount is more of a goal scorer than Eriksen as well, so I think we'll get some more goals from our midfielders next season. Casemiro, on the other hand, surprised me. I believe he also had like 3 of 4 goals ruled out after a VAR check as well. He's very fond of getting into dangerous positions, despite being a holding midfielder.
Not that we'll necessarily sign them all but I don't think our 1st xi is missing many players (depth is a bit more of an issue). With some of the players we've been linked with for example, there aren't many weaknesses in this team imo:
Raya
Frimpong Kim Martinez Shaw
Casemiro Rice
Bruno Mount Rashford
Kane
Being more realistic, we probably won't get all of them, but even just removing Frimpong, Kim, and Raya for AWB, Varane and DDG the team is still very strong. Caicedo wouldn't make it much weaker either if Rice wasn't an option. I think it is strong enough to challenge even if it doesn't win the league. I'd take that XI over any other PL team that isn't City.Frimpong Kim Martinez Shaw
Casemiro Rice
Bruno Mount Rashford
Kane
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Sesko is going to be a top player and he would be my preferred choice tbh.
So a 20 year old who has had an excellent season in Serie A with a 1 in 2 full game record, and excellent all round play, is imaginary to assume they'll improve? You wouldn't want the next Lewa/Benzema/Kane? He'd still help us cement top 4 for next year and we can still get Kane next year and save the 100m
Ok, so he needs to stay playing second fiddle for 3 years? Seems unlikely. If he's moving into midfield, he won't become one of the best strikers in the world, because that's not where he's getting minutes.
I think you might be missing my overarching point with Kane, is yes they definitely can play together, but realistically will they? Rashford, Bruno and Kane would be pretty much automatic starters, so he's aiming for minutes off the bench from those attacking positions or displacing Antony. We can't just rest our best players or rotate, because our first team isn't quite there yet.
A good hypothetical would be with Amad, should he realistically come back and be back up to Bruno and Antony or would he be better off getting minutes in the premier league on loan? I'd guess it will be the latter as he's flourished under a regular spell of games and huge positive for his development.
Hjolund should be bought with the view to be given a real go in the side, not to just sit behind Kane and other first team players.
I respect your opinion but I disagree
Crazy market for strikers
I thought he meant EtH at first
I am
Nobody is gonna pay that upfront. It'll be a structured deal with achievement related add-ons anyway. Same as we did with Amad from them.
I like him but he’s nothing more than a backup with potential atm. 60M for him would be waaaaay to much.
We've kind of entered it at the wrong ass time really
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First time I proper watched Hojlund was against Finland when he scored a hat-trick. I've been convinced since then, that he is going to be the real deal. Scored some proper poachers goals and showed so much beyond that. He has everything you could ask for in a modern #9. I would love for us to sign him.
However, with that said, the timing of this isn't great at all. The manager has said De Gea isn't guaranteed to be #1 next season, so unless he has changed his mind on Henderson, we will need to spend. We are also being strongly linked with a central defender (Kim Min-jae) and midfielder (Mount). Even if you count on some departures (Henderson, Maguire, DvB/Fred/McTominay) that's still going to cost us the best part of £100m.
We need two strikers for next season. I don't see a world where we can afford two new strikers so Martial is likely going to be one of them. That means the other must be as close to a sure-fire success as we can get. I don't think it's fair to expect a 20 year old to come in and be the main man for us in the Premier and Champions league with an injury prone, out of form player as back-up.
However, with that said, the timing of this isn't great at all. The manager has said De Gea isn't guaranteed to be #1 next season, so unless he has changed his mind on Henderson, we will need to spend. We are also being strongly linked with a central defender (Kim Min-jae) and midfielder (Mount). Even if you count on some departures (Henderson, Maguire, DvB/Fred/McTominay) that's still going to cost us the best part of £100m.
We need two strikers for next season. I don't see a world where we can afford two new strikers so Martial is likely going to be one of them. That means the other must be as close to a sure-fire success as we can get. I don't think it's fair to expect a 20 year old to come in and be the main man for us in the Premier and Champions league with an injury prone, out of form player as back-up.
A backup for who?
He's probably in our strongest current lineup by default. I don't think Weghorst would have outcompeted him and look at the game time he got.
We need a RCB if we sell Harry as Varane is only good for every other game as his record shows in his two seasons at the club.
That could be a ready made player that Erik likes or a very promising up and comer but either way they would get a lot of games in a season
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