Reflecting on the summer 2021 transfer window

horsechoker

The Caf's Ezza.
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Was it the worst by any club?

In: Sancho, Heaton, Varane, Ronaldo

This window still continues to set us back.

Varane: the best of the lot but injured way too much and now retired.

Sancho: has probably only turned in maybe 2 games worth over good play in all his appearances. Disrupted the dressing room, brought the club into disrepute and is like a painful tumour were having to remove.

Ronaldo: upset the clubs style of play, was washed up and wasn't the cherry on top but the straw that broke the camels back.

All 3 were vastly overpaid too, the amount spent on these has hampered us with FFP until today.

Heaton: not worth mentioning.
 
You could probably make an identical thread for every transfer window we’ve had over the past decade.

That’s how bad our recruitment has been.
 
Easy to say with hindsight.

Sancho was absolutely the right type of signing to make - this place would've had a fit if he went anywhere but United that summer. Sometimes it doesn't work out. Someone like Antony is a much, much worse signing because he never showed anything in his career to be valued at the price we paid for him. I'd make that Sancho signing 10 times over, and I'd be confident it'd pay off 7/10 times. Antony would flop 10/10 times.

The alternative to signing Ronaldo that summer was watching him go to Man City - and again, that would've made the entire start to the season toxic as feck. People need to appreciate the landscape and pressure the clubs under. Ronaldo probably goes to City, scores 20-30 goals and they win another title. That would've been framed by our own fanbase as the club not having any ambition.

In reality, the biggest feck up by far that summer was not sacking Solskjaer. His time was up. There was nowhere for him to go. He'd gotten as much as his ability allowed out of the players and squad, and at that point his trajectory was only going to go one way. The fact the club couldn't see that, was a massive feck up. It was time to get someone knew in and galvanise the squad to make a step up from the Europa League final and 2nd place finish.
 
Malone_Post said:
You could probably make an identical thread for every transfer window we’ve had over the past decade.

That’s how bad our recruitment has been.
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This one feels extra pivotal. I mean the summer 2020 one was bad but I don't think it damaged the club for years and years and salvaged it was offset by signing Bruno the previous January. We still had a decent season.
 
horsechoker said:
Was it the worst by any club?

In: Sancho, Heaton, Varane, Ronaldo

This window still continues to set us back.

Varane: the best of the lot but injured way too much and now retired.

Sancho: has probably only turned in maybe 2 games worth over good play in all his appearances. Disrupted the dressing room, brought the club into disrepute and is like a painful tumour were having to remove.

Ronaldo: upset the clubs style of play, was washed up and wasn't the cherry on top but the straw that broke the camels back.

All 3 were vastly overpaid too, the amount spent on these has hampered us with FFP until today.

Heaton: not worth mentioning.
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If I decided to exaggerate the negativity with each of these signings as you’ve done here, I could easily find a worse window.
 
El Jefe said:
If I decided to exaggerate the negativity with each of these signings as you’ve done here, I could easily find a worse window.
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We're still seeing the effects till this day. You could exaggerate others but these 3 were supposed to take United to title-winning level, they cost a fair amount in fees and wages and they, except Varane, caused a lot of disruption and negative press for the club.
 
On paper it was almost the perfect window for us to take the next step after finish second, you can’t say the same about most of our other windows despite nearly all of them being poor in hindsight.

The 2013/14 window was a complete disaster and played a huge part in our downfall.

The LvG windows were just based on sheer volume of numbers, and while there were a couple of exciting signings it was all still a complete disaster.

The Jose windows were good but 18/19 was another huge feck up by not capitalising on another second place finish.

20/21 was awful but we actually ended up doing well in the league.

I’m getting transfer window PTSD atm.

The first two ETH windows feel like almost a mirror of the LvG windows.
 
Skills said:
Easy to say with hindsight.

Sancho was absolutely the right type of signing to make - this place would've had a fit if he went anywhere but United that summer. Sometimes it doesn't work out. Someone like Antony is a much, much worse signing because he never showed anything in his career to be valued at the price we paid for him. I'd make that Sancho signing 10 times over, and I'd be confident it'd pay off 7/10 times. Antony would flop 10/10 times.

The alternative to signing Ronaldo that summer was watching him go to Man City - and again, that would've made the entire start to the season toxic as feck. People need to appreciate the landscape and pressure the clubs under. Ronaldo probably goes to City, scores 20-30 goals and they win another title. That would've been framed by our own fanbase as the club not having any ambition.

In reality, the biggest feck up by far that summer was not sacking Solskjaer. His time was up. There was nowhere for him to go. He'd gotten as much as his ability allowed out of the players and squad, and at that point his trajectory was only going to go one way. The fact the club couldn't see that, was a massive feck up. It was time to get someone knew in and galvanise the squad to make a step up from the Europa League final and 2nd place finish.
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100% agree
 
Skills said:
Easy to say with hindsight.

Sancho was absolutely the right type of signing to make - this place would've had a fit if he went anywhere but United that summer. Sometimes it doesn't work out. Someone like Antony is a much, much worse signing because he never showed anything in his career to be valued at the price we paid for him. I'd make that Sancho signing 10 times over, and I'd be confident it'd pay off 7/10 times. Antony would flop 10/10 times.

The alternative to signing Ronaldo that summer was watching him go to Man City - and again, that would've made the entire start to the season toxic as feck. People need to appreciate the landscape and pressure the clubs under. Ronaldo probably goes to City, scores 20-30 goals and they win another title. That would've been framed by our own fanbase as the club not having any ambition.

In reality, the biggest feck up by far that summer was not sacking Solskjaer. His time was up. There was nowhere for him to go. He'd gotten as much as his ability allowed out of the players and squad, and at that point his trajectory was only going to go one way. The fact the club couldn't see that, was a massive feck up. It was time to get someone knew in and galvanise the squad to make a step up from the Europa League final and 2nd place finish.
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I think the "not sacking Solskjaer in the Summer" thing is possibly a better example of being easy to say with hindsight then any of the transfers.

Agree there was a ceiling on where he was ever going to get us to, but also reasonable not to expect the wheels to completely come off the way they did. It really felt like the Ronaldo signing was a big part of that. What seemed like the most sensible move at the time was not to extend his contract and to let him see it out that year (without trying to shoehorn in Ronaldo).
 
13/14 was the worst window I can recall in my lifetime.

Joses second window post Europa League was dreadful as well.

And whatever way it turned out in the end Ronaldo going to City at the time would have been an epic disaster of all time levels. The important thing here is the at the time bit.

Sancho was the right kind of transfer to make except it turned out to be a disaster from both us and him going back to Ole not knowing what to do with him.

We all knew how Varane would turn out.
 
JimiboyX said:
I think the "not sacking Solskjaer in the Summer" thing is possibly a better example of being easy to say with hindsight then any of the transfers.
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There was plenty on here who saw it coming and wanted him sacked.

The Ronaldo, Sancho and Varane signings were universally popular on here and everywhere else.
 
Quite a few of us, actually the majority I would say, called for Ole’s sacking that summer. The signs that we were already sinking were there for anyone willing to be honest.

Speculation only, but with a better equipped manager we probably would would have gotten a lot more out of those players than Ole and ETH did rather than the chaos football we got under under Ole. And of course there never would have been ETH, who I’m afraid is living on borrowed time now.
 
Skills said:
Easy to say with hindsight.

Sancho was absolutely the right type of signing to make - this place would've had a fit if he went anywhere but United that summer. Sometimes it doesn't work out. Someone like Antony is a much, much worse signing because he never showed anything in his career to be valued at the price we paid for him. I'd make that Sancho signing 10 times over, and I'd be confident it'd pay off 7/10 times. Antony would flop 10/10 times.

The alternative to signing Ronaldo that summer was watching him go to Man City - and again, that would've made the entire start to the season toxic as feck. People need to appreciate the landscape and pressure the clubs under. Ronaldo probably goes to City, scores 20-30 goals and they win another title. That would've been framed by our own fanbase as the club not having any ambition.

In reality, the biggest feck up by far that summer was not sacking Solskjaer. His time was up. There was nowhere for him to go. He'd gotten as much as his ability allowed out of the players and squad, and at that point his trajectory was only going to go one way. The fact the club couldn't see that, was a massive feck up. It was time to get someone knew in and galvanise the squad to make a step up from the Europa League final and 2nd place finish.
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The fact Ronaldo was prepared to go to City should have been a red flag about his character.
 
Robertd0803 said:
13/14 was the worst window I can recall in my lifetime.

Joses second window post Europa League was dreadful as well.

And whatever way it turned out in the end Ronaldo going to City at the time would have been an epic disaster of all time levels. The important thing here is the at the time bit.

Sancho was the right kind of transfer to make except it turned out to be a disaster from both us and him going back to Ole not knowing what to do with him.

We all knew how Varane would turn out.
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Nah. They wouldn’t have got Haaland. Maybe. Would have been incredible.
 
Amazing the club thought bringing back a 36 year old Ronaldo was a good idea
 
For a club that had been doing nearly everything incorrectly for the past five years, it was the (or a) tipping point. And if we don't get our act together, seasons like the one that followed will become the norm and will bring only apathy and a shrug of the shoulders. Because it wasn't just one transfer window that went wrong. It was a specific line of thinking and planning that led to it. It was also the period when almost everyone within and around the club was drinking the Kool-Aid, while the rest of the football world was either perplexed or laughing at us and begging us to keep it up.
 
Skills said:
Easy to say with hindsight.

Sancho was absolutely the right type of signing to make - this place would've had a fit if he went anywhere but United that summer. Sometimes it doesn't work out. Someone like Antony is a much, much worse signing because he never showed anything in his career to be valued at the price we paid for him. I'd make that Sancho signing 10 times over, and I'd be confident it'd pay off 7/10 times. Antony would flop 10/10 times.

The alternative to signing Ronaldo that summer was watching him go to Man City - and again, that would've made the entire start to the season toxic as feck. People need to appreciate the landscape and pressure the clubs under. Ronaldo probably goes to City, scores 20-30 goals and they win another title. That would've been framed by our own fanbase as the club not having any ambition.

In reality, the biggest feck up by far that summer was not sacking Solskjaer. His time was up. There was nowhere for him to go. He'd gotten as much as his ability allowed out of the players and squad, and at that point his trajectory was only going to go one way. The fact the club couldn't see that, was a massive feck up. It was time to get someone knew in and galvanise the squad to make a step up from the Europa League final and 2nd place finish.
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Certainly for me you can call it hindsight on Sancho, but am pretty sure a few people on here weren't convinced at the time.

But it was obvious that we shouldn't have gone for Varane or Ron at the time. This was typical United at the time.
 
Isn't that the one which ended up with Arnold pleading to a bunch of fans at a local pub about not signing any more dickheads. Only to sign Antony the following year.
 
Looking back we should of signed Kane and Rice. Varane when fit was a good player so wont be overly critical on that signing . Never saw the need to spend big on Sancho. We had a confident Rashford and Greenwood at the time obviously the Greenwood situation nobody saw coming. I remember thinking a central midfielder was the priority that summer. Pogba injuries kept stacking up and the Mcfred partnership lasted way too long. Van de Beek was clearly never wanted by Ole also.
 
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Hard to split that and 2022. £400m+ between them taking wages into account and very little in return.
 
I just realised how brilliant my thread title is.

I mention reflecting and then it's about a window, it has a metaphorical meaning that we have to look at ourselves.
 
it's up there, but I think these were all as bad:

VDB, Pellistri, Telles, Amad in 2020.

Lukaku, Matic, Lindelof, Sanchez (well, he was in the winter technically) in 2017.

Martial, Schweinstiger, Schneiderlin, Darmian in 2015.

Fellaini in 2013.

2020 and 2013 probably take the biscuit as it's very clear we weren't strengthened properly at all by the end of them.

Also, you could easily argue last summer to the top of list, too. Spending nearly 200m on Antony, Mount, Malacia, and Casemiro. Martinez kinda saves it a bit.

EDIT: Honestly maybe last summer is the worst one of all looking back :lol:
 
Looking back on this still causes pain to me. The time from 2020 (restart after covid break) to summer 2021 was probably the most entertaining time for any Utd supporter despite not winning any title. This window somehow ruined everything. But I definitely can't deny how hyped I was the day Ronaldo came back. Really thought we would return to top after this.
 
Massive Spanner said:
it's up there, but I think these were all as bad:

VDB, Pellistri, Telles, Amad in 2020.

Lukaku, Matic, Lindelof, Sanchez (well, he was in the winter technically) in 2017.

Martial, Schweinstiger, Schneiderlin, Darmian in 2015.

Fellaini in 2013.

2020 and 2013 probably take the biscuit as it's very clear we weren't strengthened properly at all by the end of them.

Also, you could easily argue last summer to the top of list, too. Spending nearly 200m on Antony, Mount, Malacia, and Casemiro. Martinez kinda saves it a bit.

EDIT: Honestly maybe last summer is the worst one of all looking back :lol:
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Last summer? You’ve merged two different windows together.
 
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