Sir Alex - There is no value in the transfer market

[Devil81]

Sir Alex was covering for the Glazers who weren't willing to invest the kind of money required to compete in the transfer market at that time. The very fact we were replacing world level players with above average Premier league players had everyone concerned at the time and has resulted in the mess we are in now.

Young, Valencia, Jones and Smalling were major downgrades on the players they were expected to take over from. This was part of the reason Sir Alex was draining last few years out of the careers of Scholes & Giggs, we needed leaders and the current crop didn't have leader to guide them.

 

[dove]

Agree with this! How are our scouts and our scouting network this bad?

Why didn't we bid for KDB? Coutinho? Mane? Kante?

These are obvious stars that went for relatively peanuts that we had no part in.

Who the heck have our scouts been watching?

We used to find relatively unknowns and make them superstars. Now we find superstars and make them relatively unknowns. There are plenty of values in the market, we're just shopping at the wrong end, almost too snobby for our own good

We can't bid for everyone you know? We have a fair bit of talented players in Chong, Gomes, TFM, Tuanzebe, Perreira etc. No one knows how many of them will turn out to be good enough for the first team, maybe all, maybe none. People are always crying that we sign "old" players but when we sign a talented RB Dalot to eventually replace Valencia, everyone is crying anyway cause he is too young.

You make it sound like every player we don't bid for turns out to be KDB, Coutinho and similar while in fact we have like 1k Obertans and Bebes in between.

 

[The Bloody-Nine]

What a trainwreck.

 

[Shaun Oldman]

Sir Alex was covering for the Glazers who weren't willing to invest the kind of money required to compete in the transfer market at that time. The very fact we were replacing world level players with above average Premier league players had everyone concerned at the time and has resulted in the mess we are in now.

Young, Valencia, Jones and Smalling were major downgrades on the players they were expected to take over from. This was part of the reason Sir Alex was draining last few years out of the careers of Scholes & Giggs, we needed leaders and the current crop didn't have leader to guide them.

This.

I don't care what anyone says, we needed the Ronnie money.

 

[Miscemayl]

We can't bid for everyone you know? We have a fair bit of talented players in Chong, Gomes, TFM, Tuanzebe, Perreira etc. No one knows how many of them will turn out to be good enough for the first team, maybe all, maybe none. People are always crying that we sign "old" players but when we sign a talented RB Dalot to eventually replace Valencia, everyone is crying anyway cause he is too young.

You make it sound like every player we don't bid for turns out to be KDB, Coutinho and similar while in fact we have like 1k Obertans and Bebes in between.

No, I'm asking why we didn't try to sign KDB, Coutinho, Mane and etc when they were available. Why are we missing out on the obvious superstars making their jump into the top tier clubs? Those that are young, clearly talented AND ready to play for the first team?

I'm not saying everyone we missed will turn out like them.

Talent alone isn't sufficient. They may all have talent but if they are not ready to be in the first team, their opportunities are actually very limited. They don't get the opportunities to show their talents for us because we can't afford to experiment these days. If they stick around for the cups their development stalls, if they go on loan they basically end up going on a loan cycle before they get sold. I don't recall who was the last player we use as a regular starter that came back from loans.

 

[beingshe7don]

When was there value in the transfer market?

People have me moaning about transfer prices for decades. SAF's complaints just so happened to come at a time when we were seemingly unable to compete in said market.

We either pay the going rate for our targets or get left behind. Whether the targets are themselves good enough is a separate question. Everyone else is operating in the same market place.

It would probably have to be the time when Real sold Robben and Sneijder to Bayern and Inter on the cheap (same time Real acquired CR7 and Kaka). SAF may have won titles after CR7 but that window was bad since we lost Tevez and CR7 and having Robben and Sneijder would have elevated us.

 

[beingshe7don]

Fergie was unfortunately wrong then (see Hazard, Aguero and co being bought for just £30m).

Completely agree. Fergie was stubborn as well as he wasn't accepting of the fact that agent's need to be paid well to acquire players.

 

[beingshe7don]

Rio was an obvious superstar in the making when we've bought him. He was inconsistent and error-prone, but his peak level and ability were already evident.

Maguire is nothing like him, he is a good player with decent passing and good aerial game (nothing as dominant as Vidic though)

Maguire reminds me of more a younger Jones than perhaps Rio or Vidic. Vidic is just very intimidating...

 

[Djemba-Djemba]

We definitely paid for a lack of activity in the transfer marker in the last few years under Fergie.

To go from Ronaldo and Tevez to Valencia and Owen in one Summer sums it up. It's only because Fergie was a genius we kept competitive.

 

[Adisa]

The 'no value in the market" is one of the main reasons we are where we are.
It's easy to maintain quality from a position of strength.

 

[beingshe7don]

Stats he played in lets be honest a far weaker league then our Ashley so his stats will look brighter, but when I watch this bloke in the champions league he is found wanting. He would certainly not get into the City, Real Madrid or Barca teams. He is not going to upgrade United has much has your stats suggest.

The guy can cross with his left foot and offer width... that is enough for me to pick him over Young. For god sake, United were know for their width and we've lost our identity. All we do in cut in.... our wingers and even Young and Valencia.

 

[beingshe7don]

We definitely paid for a lack of activity in the transfer marker in the last few years under Fergie.

To go from Ronaldo and Tevez to Valencia and Owen in one Summer sums it up. It's only because Fergie was a genius we kept competitive.

More than Fergie was a genius, United got really lucky... Replacing CR7 and Tevez with a has been striker and a one footed winger would be criminal in this market. I think Fergie would struggle to win a title in this time when all the teams are pretty neck and neck. But that's not deniable that we would have played attractive football than what we are currently offering.

 

[Sir Scott McToMinay]

He was mostly right, and he would’ve still won the league with value players now, no doubt about that.
I’m completely frustrated with the amount of money we spent since on “star” players.

 

[Tarrou]

Check Sir Alex transfers he splashed when needed and splashed well.

But around the time he said this, which was summer 2009 iirc, we actually did badly need to spend big to replace Ronaldo and Tevez, but we didn't.

 

[Siorac]

Fergie was unfortunately wrong then (see Hazard, Aguero and co being bought for just £30m).

But are talents like that available now? Because spending just for the sake of it is not much better than missing out on talent because of penny pinching. Back then we missed out Hazard, Silva, Aguero, Vidal etc. - players we surely could have got with a little more agressiveness in the market. But who are we even linked with these days?

 

[Schmeichel's Cartwheel]

Even the GOAT made mistakes. Passing up on Hazard for £30m still pisses me off to this day.

David Silva & Yaya Toure were under £50m combined back when our midfield was Cleverley & Anderson, pretty sure they would have have joined us over City back then.

Ah well, hindsight 20/20 & that.

 

[Devil81]

Obertan
Bebe
Owen
Kagawa (Flopped even if he did have a good rep)
Diouf
Young
Smalling
Jones
Valencia

Pre Ronaldo, Madrid signing.

Berbatov
Tevez
Rooney
Anderson
Nani
Vidic
Evra
Carrick
Heinze

Something must have changed int he scouting system as some of these players were signed for reasonable fee's.

 

[Aloysius's Back 3]

I've been jealous of Liverpool's ability to go from a club that only ever had 1 or 2 world class players for 20+years to a club that now have about 7 or 8 with an improved squad over all within 2 seasons.

More than a change in transfer market - its the underlying understanding of how that club plays their football now & their tactics that enables them to go in to the transfer window with an understanding of which players will be of benefit to them.

We haven't had an understanding of how the club should play football properly post the Ronaldo, Rooney, Tevez era in my opinion. Whilst I take nothing away from SAF's achievements with the likes of RVP - I felt it was a short term transfer that sent SAF out on a high.

Right now under Jose we have a squad of pure individuals rather than having a pure understanding of how we as a club should play every game, day in and day out. For that reason we can try all our best to purely try for willian - a player that will benefit half the squad & won't benefit the other half.

In my opinion since United is a club which such deep history - I look forward to the day we hire an ex player with the ability to have a balance of the past and a view of the future to build an understanding of what we should be able to do on the pitch. I've been more impressed than disappointed in ex players that go on to manage their club.

 

[JPRouve]

Obertan
Bebe
Owen
Kagawa (Flopped even if he did have a good rep)
Diouf
Young
Smalling
Jones
Valencia

Pre Ronaldo, Madrid signing.

Berbatov
Tevez
Rooney
Anderson
Nani
Vidic
Evra
Carrick
Heinze

Something must have changed int he scouting system as some of these players were signed for reasonable fee's.

It's fairly obvious, Berbatov, Rooney, Nani, Tevez, Evra and Carrick were among our starters and arguably the best group of players in the league.

 

[Schmeichel's Cartwheel]

Obertan
Bebe
Owen
Kagawa (Flopped even if he did have a good rep)
Diouf
Young
Smalling
Jones
Valencia

Pre Ronaldo, Madrid signing.

Berbatov
Tevez
Rooney
Anderson
Nani
Vidic
Evra
Carrick
Heinze

Something must have changed int he scouting system as some of these players were signed for reasonable fee's.

Why have you omitted RVP, DDG & Hernandez though?

 

[BlueHaze]

Even the GOAT made mistakes. Passing up on Hazard for £30m still pisses me off to this day.

David Silva & Yaya Toure were under £50m combined back when our midfield was Cleverley & Anderson, pretty sure they would have have joined us over City back then.

Ah well, hindsight 20/20 & that.

When it comes to transfers not signing Hazard was the biggest mistake Sir Alex and the club ever made because here we are 10 years later still searching for someone to fill the gap that Ronaldo left when the answer was right before our eyes for 30m.

 

[iKeano]

What the feck this has to do with anything?

World cup final during José's 6th transfer window and Man Utd Chief Executive is at Centre Court when ever man and his dog in sport is in Russia. José openly admitted he has "no idea" about any transfers upcoming and we're announcing sleeve sponsors.
It has a lot to do with the state of the club and it's transfer policy, which is seemingly as sporadic as our bearable performances.

 

[dove]

World cup final during José's 6th transfer window and Man Utd Chief Executive is at Centre Court when ever man and his dog in sport is in Russia. José openly admitted he has "no idea" about any transfers upcoming and we're announcing sleeve sponsors.
It has a lot to do with the state of the club and it's transfer policy, which is seemingly as sporadic as our bearable performances.

You realise CEOs have days off as well right? It's up to him how he spends it and it has nothing to do with our transfer policy, he doesn't scout players, we have people for it. Jose said he has "no idea" how many signings will we make, not "about any transfers upcoming". We have our targets and we are working on it but it doesn't mean Woodward should be locked inside his office 24/7.

 

[Kush]

Alex Sandro the Brazilian Ashley Young has to be by far the funniest thing I've read on CAF this week

People have watched mediocrity in Young for so long that any good game is magnified tenth fold in their memory, when in reality he's an extremely average full back who has no business playing for us. The fact he is in his eight season at the club probably sums our state up.

Alex Sandro is a world-class fullback who to no ones surprise performs the actual role of a fullback at the highest level. If he were to play for us this coming season people will get to see why so many folks rave about him. He had an average season last year mainly due to the fact he wanted to leave last summer and Juve didn't upgrade his contract. A season before that he was amongst the world's best.

 

[spiriticon]

We have been spending a lot of money in the last 5 of 6 years. It's just that most of it is on shite Liverpool quality players and that's down to Moyes, LvG and Mourinho.

It's a bit harsh to blame Fergie 5 years after he retired. Our squad now is imo, worse than the one he left behind.

 

[ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg]

World cup final during José's 6th transfer window and Man Utd Chief Executive is at Centre Court when ever man and his dog in sport is in Russia. José openly admitted he has "no idea" about any transfers upcoming and we're announcing sleeve sponsors.
It has a lot to do with the state of the club and it's transfer policy, which is seemingly as sporadic as our bearable performances.

Your right, he should have flown to Russia, spent the day there and then flown back rather than spend a couple of hours at Wimbledon - which is in the city where he lives and works!

If only he’d gone to the final, the club might have signed Mbappe by now...

This is a joke of a post. You realise sponsors pay for players wages, and Jose is not going to come out and tell the world what’s happening behind the scenes. That’s the sort of thing Spurs did when they allowed Willian to get away from them.

 

[GazTheLegend]

He had a point and it applies even more so today.

At what stage does it become more profitable to spend 50k per head training every single youngster in Manchester on the off chance that one of them turns out to be randomly world class?

 

[Renegade]

Why have you omitted RVP, DDG & Hernandez though?

Haha. Silly isn’t it how people twist things to suit their argument.

 

[Seveneric]

Unfortunately for Mourinho, that excuse won't fly for him as he's incapable of doing anything near what Fergie did with that team while trotting out "no value".

 

[Jezpeza]

this forums becoming a farce. half the people moaning about there being no transfers, the other half saying lets sign no one because you can't buy world class players for 3 million pounds. same people will probably moan if we don't have a good season as well and blame it on lack of transfers or the manager.

 

[Who gives a...]

Why have you omitted RVP, DDG & Hernandez though?

Probably for the same reasons as they omitted Kleberson, Djemba-Djemba ect. Although I do agree with the point to a certain extent, there was certainly a drop off in the standard of player lined up for key positions in the last 5 years of SAF reign.

 

[SAred]

And that's where the "there is no value in the market" ends. The problem is that some clubs aren't willing to properly scout players and identify the tools in less hyped players, they instead focus on flashy names. Reading you post I can see where you are coming from but you really need to fix that OP and the catch phrase. There is a difference between saying that there is limited value in Maguire and Sandro from United's POV and there is no value in the market.

Thats my very point when the value in the market is for players of the calibre of Sandro and Maguire to splash out upwards of 120 million on when we already have players that are similar quality on our books. There hardly going to improve our first 11 so hence no value.

 

[SAred]

Cringing so hard at OP writing "GOD" in all caps when referring to Sir Alex and consistently calling Sandro the Brazilian Young

I'm pretty confident Maguire and Sandro would be huge improvements to our starting 11. If our scouts can't identify some amazing lesser known players to do the job then we need to invest in guys like this, no point in harping about value like we're fecking shareholders, Jose needs to be allowed to sign his men and get them all playing or he can get out. Next 3 weeks are so crucial for us, if it means overspending a bit to fix some of the holes in the team then we better do it.

Sir Alex is GOD to alot of United fans and from what I have seen of Sandro and Harry there are hardly going to take United to the next level.

 

[Theonas]

The market and what it offers did not change greatly. What changed is the competition. The best players are simply more spread around nowadays and they have more options as more teams are capable of offering what we potentially can. What this means is that the difference and impact that can be made through individual quality alone is so much less. 15 years ago, we could buy a Rio and instantly, we'd improve a level up because the competition did not have other Rios. Nowadays, City, Liverpool, Chelsea and potentially Spurs and Arsenal are capable of signing players of close enough caliber rendering our investment less influential.

I think fans are simply frustrated that there are less and less players who are capable of making a difference independent of the team, tactics, structure, etc ... around them. This is not because players are of lesser quality however, it is because they are matched by more and more teams.

 

[SAred]

So you see Young being one of the best left backs in the world? I like Young but come on, Sandro was probably the 2nd best left back in the world behind Marcelo for a few years. Young has never reached that level and Sandro is nothing like Young as a player. Silly comparison.

Sandro the 2rd best LB in the world which world certainly not this one. Ashley Young was without a doubt one of the best left backs in the Premier league last year. Who was better?

 

[Sir Scott McToMinay]

Which LB was better than Young in the league last year?

Robertson, Kolasinac, Marcos Alonso, Ben Davies for a start.
Ashley Young was nothing special last season, he was nothing special since his Villa days.

 

[SAred]

Robertson, Kolasinac, Marcos Alonso, Ben Davies for a start.
Ashley Young was nothing special last season, he was nothing special since his Villa days.

2 out of 4 maybe I give you Robertson and Alonso but the other 2 no chance. So we had close to the 3rd best LB in the country is Sandro going to take that position to the next level. I doubt it.

 

[Bastian]

How do you know what he will turn out like? I’m sure even SAF didn’t know what level Rio would get to

I remember that expectations were pretty huge with Rio from early on. Before he went to Leeds for a record fee he was linked with a big money move to Roma in the then bigger league. No surprise that he became a colossus.

1. Sir Alex said it many times, not just once. And it was as infuriating then as the notion that we shouldn't sign anyone now is today. If he and/or the board didn't have that mentality back then we'd have Hazard and other top players for the years when we were running around with sub-par players, all for a few million extra in agent-fees.

Agreed. And then we got destroyed by Barca twice and he said they were the new benchmark but we did nothing to get to that level. I love him, he was the greatest ever, but that particular thing was crap and no revisionist romanticism can alleviate that.

 

[bucky]

Thought that notion was nonsense then as it is now. The fees being paid for players have been ridiculous for a while. Obviously it's taken to another level the last few years, but when Ferguson said it, we were as guilty as everyone else. That being said, relative to what the market is now, you can still find good players for comparably decent amounts of money.

Rodri went from Villareal to Atletico for 18m. Sevilla bought Lenglet for just under 5m. Monaco bought Fabinho for a bit more than 5m the same summer we signed Darmian. Leverkusen bought Bailey for 12m, we had a few posters on here, who were saying we should be in for him, considering his performances in the Belgian league. Various free transfers like de Vrij, Naldo or Marcano. It's definitely possible to make good signings, whilst not spening as much.

Obviously clubs like Roma, Monaco, Lyon, Lazio, Valencia, Leipzig, Schalke, Leverkusen, Sevilla, etc. have less pressure than us to constantly win things and therefore have more time to develop those players, but a good mix of high-profile signings and a bit better scouting could go a long way.

 

[Offside]

Obertan was certainly worth every single penny.