The John Murtough Era

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Why?

We need players in for pre season in order to help the manager prepare the team for the season ahead. We’ll have played about six league games by the time the window closes.

Some deals take longer than others but are worth the wait? I’m equally frustrated but happy with Malacia and Eriksen* so far and I’m confident they were both top choices on EtHs list.

If Ten Hag gets who he has asked for and the club pick up all its top targets a week here or there won’t matter. This is a rebuild and bringing in exactly who we need is far more important in the longer term in my opinion so happy to be patient and judge it when it’s all wrapped up.
 
Some deals take longer than others but are worth the wait? I’m equally frustrated but happy with Malacia and Eriksen* so far and I’m confident they were both top choices on EtHs list.

If Ten Hag gets who he has asked for and the club pick up all its top targets a week here or there won’t matter. This is a rebuild and bringing in exactly who we need is far more important in the longer term in my opinion so happy to be patient and judge it when it’s all wrapped up.

The De Jong deal is clearly complicated; I can sympathise with the delay provided it eventually goes through.

If we’re in a similar position in terms of new faces a week or two from now then things will start to get ugly. Then we just look incompetent.
 
Why?

We need players in for pre season in order to help the manager prepare the team for the season ahead. We’ll have played about six league games by the time the window closes.

It's almost like no one takes this into consideration. It was publicised by the multiple journalist before the window opened that ETH wanted the new players ready for the pre season tour. Unless there's lightning developments that is not happening. This is already another judgement for Murtough because he will have failed to meet the managers expectation.

Confidence is low in the squad because of how slow the transfers are. People can question the individual player quality United are linked with but it's who the manager wants that counts.

If the club sign all the remainder players in the last week of August for example that is a bad window because tactically the team is unprepared for the new season. The agent for Rio also spoke about last minute deals insinuating that it's complex even more from the players perspective because they have to find the right residential area to live in, children have to find schools etc. Timing is just as much an importance as the arrival itself.
 
The De Jong deal is clearly complicated; I can sympathise with the delay provided it eventually goes through.

If we’re in a similar position a week or two from now then things will start to get ugly.

Yeah I think I’m happy to wait a little before losing my shit.

De Jong was a player we wouldn’t ordinarily be looking at so more opportunistic. Its also difficult on the part of Barca and their finances. No issue letting that run providing the club is working behind the scenes on other deals and back ups.
 
Why?

We need players in for pre season in order to help the manager prepare the team for the season ahead. We’ll have played about six league games by the time the window closes.
While I agree with this sentiment, most of the players we're being linked to are or should be pretty well versed in the way ten Hag likes to play football already.

De Jong, Lisandro Martinez and Antony have already played for him. Eriksen is an Ajax youth product and was training with them earlier this year.

If we're looking at reinforcements beyond these 3 or 4 (we should be) then I agree a full pre-season is important so they're up to speed and ready for the new season, though.
 
28 days before our first game. So far we bought backup for amc and backup for left fb. No rush John, no rush.
 
Why?

We need players in for pre season in order to help the manager prepare the team for the season ahead. We’ll have played about six league games by the time the window closes.
Because a transfer window covers a period time, of which we are nowhere near half way through. It'd be like stopping the Champions League final in 99 after half an hour and declaring Bayern the winners.
 
28 days before our first game. So far we bought backup for amc and backup for left fb. No rush John, no rush.
It's honestly pathetic. De Jong and Martinez would slightly salvage it but I'd still call it an average window for a club trying to get back to the top.
 
Confidence is low in the squad because of how slow the transfers are.
How do you know this? Everything coming out of Carrington is that the players are buying into the hard work ETH expects. Do we think for one minute that we all want random [x] player TODAY regardless of how they fit into our new managers system? Ronaldo -> 'We dont have transfers' isnt a gauge on how the squad feel. CR7 wants CL football to further buff up his stats and rightly so and he needs to move on. Look where we finished last season, who wants to join that mess? Lets let ETH build a team and regain some respect in europe and the premier league, then we can rebuild one brick at a time. I'm sure most of us were shouting a couple seasons ago under Ole that we had a great squad we just needed a decent coach to be able to push our guys on to greatness..
 
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It's honestly pathetic. De Jong and Martinez would slightly salvage it but I'd still call it an average window for a club trying to get back to the top.

Not sure what you expect for first summer of a new manager with no CL and given the budget was only 120m based on lot of good source of reports.
 
The top 4 feck up has made things all the more difficult really.
I remember some people thought us not getting top 4 might be a good thing when clearly it's not because it's making it more difficult to attract players to come here.
 
Dude isn't going to win any popularity contest when people are already defining his era by a few transfer window weeks.

He overhauled the academy, which won the FA Youth Cup. Hired EtH. Is now playing hardball when it comes to signing players, which majority of all people wanted to begin with.

The transfer window might as well just close at the end of the month, but for obvious reasons, it doesn't. Short-term pain for long-term gain. 1 September is when the transfer deadlines closes. If United have to move on from a player like Antony (for now), so be it. Antony won't be ready for a while anyways because he's been injured.

He's doing the hard yards and it is appreciated. No club gets their transfer selections all at once or whom they want all the time, just part of it. Should be more focused and excited on the players who are there and see how they perform under EtH and coaching staff.
 
Dude isn't going to win any popularity contest when people are already defining his era by a few transfer window weeks.

He overhauled the academy, which won the FA Youth Cup. Hired EtH. Is now playing hardball when it comes to signing players, which majority of all people wanted to begin with.

The transfer window might as well just close at the end of the month, but for obvious reasons, it doesn't. Short-term pain for long-term gain. 1 September is when the transfer deadlines closes. If United have to move on from a player like Antony (for now), so be it. Antony won't be ready for a while anyways because he's been injured.

He's doing the hard yards and it is appreciated. No club gets their transfer selections all at once or whom they want all the time, just part of it. Should be more focused and excited on the players who are there and see how they perform under EtH and coaching staff.
A sensible post on the caf, whatever next?
 
Dude isn't going to win any popularity contest when people are already defining his era by a few transfer window weeks.

He overhauled the academy, which won the FA Youth Cup. Hired EtH. Is now playing hardball when it comes to signing players, which majority of all people wanted to begin with.

The transfer window might as well just close at the end of the month, but for obvious reasons, it doesn't. Short-term pain for long-term gain. 1 September is when the transfer deadlines closes. If United have to move on from a player like Antony (for now), so be it. Antony won't be ready for a while anyways because he's been injured.

He's doing the hard yards and it is appreciated. No club gets their transfer selections all at once or whom they want all the time, just part of it. Should be more focused and excited on the players who are there and see how they perform under EtH and coaching staff.

This. New management, new structure. They need some time to grow into the roles and then kick on.
 
A sensible post on the caf, whatever next?

Mature approach -- rather than the cretins who have already pronounced everything as useless or same as the last time just because the previous regime fecked things up -- and despite a new organisational structure and people.
 
There is no sensible reason whatsoever for John Murtough to go on this tour. His primary responsibility now is to get players signed. And if he goes to Thailand, that will naturally all stall.

Guarantee he'll go
 
Mature approach -- rather than the cretins who have already pronounced everything as useless or same as the last time just because the previous regime fecked things up -- and despite a new organisational structure and people.
No better praise than from someone who calls others cretins. Paragon of reasonableness.
 
FdJ, Eriksen, Martinez doing their medicals within 48 to 72 hours and on the flight to Asia for pre-season training. And 20% sell on fees just like Pereria got from Fulham!
Maybe adding an attacking player whilst getting rid of diva Ronaldo
 
28 days before our first game. So far we bought backup for amc and backup for left fb. No rush John, no rush.

This is how we write-off entire seasons.
When we fail this season, "ETH needs a full pre-season with players". Next season there'll be another excuse for writing off the season.

Rather than making excuses, why can't things simply get done right?
For some reason, every single player we go in for, is a complicated transfer. But when LFC or MCFC go for a high-profile player, that transfer is simple and quick.
Put simply, the people who negotiate our deals are bad at their job. This has been an ongoing problem for over a decade.

MCFC bought Haaland quickly. If we were buying him, I'd guarantee that it would take all Summer. Not only that, but we'd pay double the price.
 
So, ETH is going on pre-tour with two new signings and couple of players who will not maybe be in club when season starts.
Great job so far, John.
 
So many football club administrative experts here. Time to write to the Glazers and apply for the DOF role lads!
The job seems simple enough.
 
Of course it is not simple at all but he is not doing it well, isn't he?


Yeah I think he is, unless you got some other way of sorting out Barca to make them play ball and stop arsing about, and for Ronaldo to not be a twat and fire another spanner in the works before the season has started.

If your answer is just aye pay up whatever they want, then we back to where we started, or if it's not enough money to spend then that's not Murtough fault either, he hasn't a magic wand to all of a sudden make clubs buy our shite.


I've no doubts you be first to moan about players transfer fees when we massively over pay, and that be Murtough or whoever fault as well
 
There is no sensible reason whatsoever for John Murtough to go on this tour. His primary responsibility now is to get players signed. And if he goes to Thailand, that will naturally all stall.

Guarantee he'll go
Why wouldn’t the director of football operations be involved in such a major footballing operation as a tour?

Whether he goes or not is a different question, but there’s definitely reason for him to be there to ensure things run smoothly.
 
Yeah I think he is, unless you got some other way of sorting out Barca to make them play ball and stop arsing about, and for Ronaldo to not be a twat and fire another spanner in the works before the season has started.

If your answer is just aye pay up whatever they want, then we back to where we started, or if it's not enough money to spend then that's not Murtough fault either, he hasn't a magic wand to all of a sudden make clubs buy our shite.


I've no doubts you be first to moan about players transfer fees when we massively over pay, and that be Murtough or whoever fault as well

This.

99.999% of the 'experts' here have never been involved in any player transfers before nevermind even managing a couple of vending machines by the bus station.... So lot of the posts here are basically whinging without knowledge.
 
This is how we write-off entire seasons.
When we fail this season, "ETH needs a full pre-season with players". Next season there'll be another excuse for writing off the season.

Rather than making excuses, why can't things simply get done right?
For some reason, every single player we go in for, is a complicated transfer. But when LFC or MCFC go for a high-profile player, that transfer is simple and quick.
Put simply, the people who negotiate our deals are bad at their job. This has been an ongoing problem for over a decade.

MCFC bought Haaland quickly. If we were buying him, I'd guarantee that it would take all Summer. Not only that, but we'd pay double the price.
Which top 6 PL club(bar Spurs I think)has signed more than 4 players at this point? We're about to have 3 signings in time for early pre season, one in the works(FDJ) and potentially two more(Antony who's out injured till August so we have time with him and a ST to replace #7 which was impromptu)
Using Haaland as an example was very poor because he had a cheap release clause that was expiring before the window officially opened. Only hard part City had to do was convince the player but the rest was more straightforward compared to dealing with a basket case of a club in Barcelona trying to sign FDJ who needed convincing first.
We've had FAR FAR worse windows than this and for the new regime they've been off to a decent start considering our Recruitment and Scouting Department is being revamped. A little bit of patience won't kill you.
 
Why wouldn’t the director of football operations be involved in such a major footballing operation as a tour?

Whether he goes or not is a different question, but there’s definitely reason for him to be there to ensure things run smoothly.
Disagree. The CEO going to the tour is sufficient. As it's been for years.

United are lagging and falling behind on the pitch and in their latest rebuild of a failed team. They guy needs to have that as his key priority, which it won't be if he's on the tour.
 
It makes zero difference if he goes or not
Disagree

If he goes, he can't be hands on. And can't devote the same time to transfer activity as he could in Europe with it as his primary focus.

BTW, you're one day down on the Eriksen bet, prepare for defeat.
 
Disagree

If he goes, he can't be hands on. And can't devote the same time to transfer activity as he could in Europe with it as his primary focus.

BTW, you're one day down on the Eriksen bet, prepare for defeat.

Why can’t he be involved? He won’t be personally going to oversee each deal and modern technology allows connectivity from anywhere these days. I see it as a non issue.

when’s the cut off for the bet again?
 
It's honestly pathetic. De Jong and Martinez would slightly salvage it but I'd still call it an average window for a club trying to get back to the top.
This is a key point. We were supposed to be getting back to the top, but Murtough has already shown that he can’t help us in that regard. We had to have a substantial overhaul of the playing staff well in advance of the season and we haven’t. The blame falls squarely on Murtough for that.

We can say that he’s learning still or that the structure is still resetting, but put simply that is not good enough. He’s not the right guy, at the right time, and the proof is in the nature of the transfer activity.
 
So far we've only been able to conclude deals where we raised an offer that was already accepted and another deal where the player was a free agent (assuming Eriksen is in the bag)...

I understand we can't just bend over and accept any fee the selling club demands, that's not how any of this works, but come on... we're almost halfway into july now

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Disagree

If he goes, he can't be hands on. And can't devote the same time to transfer activity as he could in Europe with it as his primary focus.

BTW, you're one day down on the Eriksen bet, prepare for defeat.


Honestly do you even know what you are talking about here? :lol:

What you mean hands on??


You are literally talking about procedures and transfer activity you have zero clue or knowledge of how they are done, but he must be there to be hands on.


I'm sure if that was the case he wouldn't be going anywhere, but I suspect there is more to the job than sitting in his office being hands on for perspective deals so he can ping a few buttons or whatever it is he needs to be doing
 
Disagree

If he goes, he can't be hands on. And can't devote the same time to transfer activity as he could in Europe with it as his primary focus.

BTW, you're one day down on the Eriksen bet, prepare for defeat.
I presume work from home isn't a concept you are overly fond of then.
 
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