would Tevez qualify? Zaha progressed a lot more after leaving United, although he was Fergies last signing and didnt have time to mentor and nuture his talent he excelled after leaving.
The poor post-United careers of recent departures
- Thread starter horsechoker
- Start date
Many of the players United have let go over the last 10 years haven't exactly gone on to bigger and better things.
Maybe it's too early to write Donny off but his start at Frankfurt isn't exactly promising.
Is Daley Blind still playing or retired?
Dan James has 10 goals and 6 assists in the Championship this season.
played out of position. We played him as the furthest forward player, as soon as he left us, the clubs he played for, played him behind the striker, that was his best position.
He’s first choice CB for Girona who are first in Spain right now. Did a stint at Bayern too
I think it's a combination of signing players with poor attitudes and not developing their character correctly. So Pogba and Lingard would be an example of each.
While I'm not a fan of Ten Hag, one thing I would say is that he's gotten rid of some bad eggs and Hojlund and Mainoo seems to have good characters. Our player's attitude/ lack of form/injuries have contributed to poor careers here and elsewhere
Let's hope that's changed, there are good signs
While I'm not a fan of Ten Hag, one thing I would say is that he's gotten rid of some bad eggs and Hojlund and Mainoo seems to have good characters. Our player's attitude/ lack of form/injuries have contributed to poor careers here and elsewhere
Let's hope that's changed, there are good signs
You can add Elanga and Mengi to that list. Both having very good debut PL seasons.
Darmian and Memphis have done well post United, Bebe too.
Romeo and Rojo both won a trophy with Boca Jrs.
Has Schneiderlin retired now?
Donald Love, Blackett, Borthwick-Jackson, Januzaj and Macheda have had poor careers.
Romeo and Rojo both won a trophy with Boca Jrs.
Has Schneiderlin retired now?
Donald Love, Blackett, Borthwick-Jackson, Januzaj and Macheda have had poor careers.
Guiseppe Rossi did the same
I said many times last year I believed he was the worst, or amongst the worst goalkeepers in the Premier League. People called that an exaggeration. I am sure you're currently sat now reading this thinking "that's outrageous, stupid, insane"
The fact is, he's been a free agent since June 23 and it's Feb 24. People can suggest his standards or his demands are too high...but I'd suggest Occum's Razor applies here.
Nobody of any note wants him because he's a goalkeeper who doesn't leave his line, doesn't command his area, is weak under high balls, actively avoids collisions/makes himself smaller, is frightened of the ball, is frightened of opponents, is frightened of his goalposts, is terrible with the ball at his feet and the one single saving grace, his shot-stopping, has largely fallen off a cliff since about 2020.
Sorry if that's unpalatable to some...but I firmly believe it
Where is Ben Pearson now. I recall when he was being touted as the next Scholes.
Stoke!
Isn’t Darren Gibson getting arrested on a DUI the most exciting thing to happen to him post United? God bless Ferguson, he was taking the piss against Schalke playing him and Anderson in midfield in a champions league semifinal.
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Honestly it's not that shocking for me, just further shows how as a club we give players FAR too long before finally cutting them loose (also why we never get decent fees).
Most frustrating one on that list is Lingard, was so obvious we should have sold him to West Ham after his excellent loan spell there and we would have gotten a tidy fee in that 20-25m region. But nope, we brought him back to just rot on the bench and go back to his terrible self before leaving for good.
Not at all. A lot of people hate him and i wasn't fond of his brand of football but Jose said it best when he was asked about the players United had let go in the past- he said 'look where they are now'. Of course he added to that dross with some of his own buys but it was a good point and it's one that's remained relevant. I'm not saying they're bad players or anything but the likes of McTominay, AWB and Maguire won't be heading to Real Madrid or Barca when they leave that's for sure (although Eric Dier now plays for Bayern so you can never say it won't happen i suppose)
The squad players from that last title winning team also ended up dropping to much lower clubs or in the case of Welbeck not really having great success at Arsenal and I think it does reflect badly on the quality of the players we've had considering the size of United. Even some of the players people have mentioned in this thread that have done well- Smalling, Blind, Evans at Leicester- it's not the top level of football where a huge club should be. The only players i can think of that did well in playing at the very best level were
Herrera- League title and CL final
Lukaku- same
Di Maria- same
Evra- multiple title winner with Juve (i presume they still count as legal wins, you can never be sure with Juve
)Genuinely struggling here for others- Darmian- maybe? Ashley Young at Inter?
Not at all. A lot of people hate him and i wasn't fond of his brand of football but Jose said it best when he was asked about the players United had let go in the past- he said 'look where they are now'. Of course he added to that dross with some of his own buys but it was a good point and it's one that's remained relevant. I'm not saying they're bad players or anything but the likes of McTominay, AWB and Maguire won't be heading to Real Madrid or Barca when they leave that's for sure (although Eric Dier now plays for Bayern so you can never say never i suppose)
The squad players from that last title winning team also ended up dropping to much lower clubs or in the case of Welbeck not really having great success at Arsenal and I think it does reflect badly on the quality of the players we've had considering the size of United. Even some of the players people have mentioned in this thread that have done well- Smalling, Blind, Evans at Leicester- it's not the top level of football where a huge club should be. The only players i can think of that did well in playing at the very best level were
Herrera- League title and CL final
Lukaku- same
Di Maria- same
Evra- multiple title winner with Juve (i presume they still count as legal wins, you can never be sure with Juve
Genuinely struggling here for others- Darmian- maybe? Ashley Young at Inter?
Ashley Young had solid years post departure. Darmian is vital for Inter now. Lukaku really only had one with Inter before turning to complete crap upon the Chelsea transfer.
Of recent departures, Mengi/Chong/Elanga are all having solid seasons in the PL.
I wouldn't really comment on those as they're youth players but in terms of players leaving and playing at the very highest level (league and champions league challenging teams) there haven't been many that we've bought and who have left the club where you can say they did really really well after leaving United, other than the ones I've listed. Mkhitaryan is maybe another although his career at Arsenal was dreadful too from what I recall.
Yeah Mkhi was awful there. Yeah I think we named all of the good to decent post United careers in recent history then. Could see Sancho being the next one if we just sell him for a cut rate to Dortmund this summer and he goes back to stat padding the Bundes.
Imagine we stayed a counter attacking side with James and Elanga on the wings. We'd be not much better but have saved over 160 million - enough for Mbappe.
Damn. He is so cool.
And he'll likely go down as the greatest player of all time.
In all seriousness though, Lingard is the perfect example of the type of player we hang on to.
We don't want to let these types of players go and they are absolutely shite!!!
These types of players, when on the pitch, is like playing with a man down.
When Lingard played for us, it was like we were playing with 10 men.
Players like Lingard and currently Martial, should be told that they will never play for MUFC again.
They either accept a transfer or their contract will run out and they needn't turn up to training.
We had another player who was of the same ilk - Sancho - who was absolutely useless. We should've written him off after 18 months and attempted to re-coup as much transfer money as we could. Having him on the pitch was like wearing a condom with a big fat hole in it. And the best part: he is one of the most expensive purchases in our club's history!
We have the likes of Eriksen who is no longer capable of playing 90 minutes against a top side. He was once a very good player, but for us, he is past his best. Get rid of the guy. Put him out of his misery.
I'd also add players like Antony to that list - not good enough. If he left us today for another club, he would disappear into nothingness.
The problem is we incorrectly spent so much on these useless players that it would be humiliating to sell a player for a fraction of what he cost, a year or 2 later. This would truly highlight how incompetent the people responsible for these decisions, are.
We are so incompetent that for the most average players, we:
1, pay the highest wage
2, pay a very high transfer fee
...and after these players arrive at our club, we can't get rid of them because they are so crap!
From top to bottom, the club needs to replace its staff. Even the board members are next to useless and have turned the club into a 4th place trophy hunting club. Even the fans seem to get excited about the prospect of winning the imaginary 4th place trophy.
If possible, I'd replace most of the board members (whoever they are).
If a manager finishes in 4th place AND does not win a trophy that season, he should be fired. There shouldn't be any debate. It should be a straightforward sacking.
Similarly, if a player cannot make impact within 1 year, we should get him out of the club fast. We did this with Memphis Depay, which was the right move to make. We did this with Di Maria. No hard feelings - they just didn't suit us or the EPL.
Anyway, rant over.
It's worth noting that most of the players OP mentioned are on the way down in their careers anyway. There have been examples of the reverse with younger players, eg Garner, Andreas Pereira, Elanga, and I expect the sane will be true of the likes of Pellustri, Hannibal, and any other players under 25 that we sell in the summer, while the likes of Martial is almost guarenteed to struggle wherever he goes next.
Michael Keane has probably had the best post United career out of players we've let go in the last decade.
He is still better than 80% of keepers worldwide, but his ego wouldnt allow low salaries. He will see it as a a step down. I think he rather just be.
Di Maria
I think this is the crux of this thread. The reason it seems like so many of our players flop after leaving us is that we’ve held on to them too long and by which point they are on the decline naturally. There’s also been a big cultural issue at the club with standards being at an all time low over the past few years so I think that combined with holding on to players has had a detrimental effect on some players decline...
Conversely, those that we haven’t held on to for too long / are let go at a younger age, have largely done well for themselves. Hopefully that trend gets better and it might make selling players in the future easier for us.
Januzaj’s career has been streets ahead of those other names in that sentence. Which to be fair says a lot
Yeah I agree. Hindsight is 20/20, but on reflection you kind of feel like there were crucial moments where players like Pogba, Martial, Lingard etc could have been sold for quite decent money, but unfortunately we had executives that lacked foresight and had the wrong priorities. Our recent financial issues in relation to FFP also show how damaging these mistakes can be too; 60-70 mil for Pogba and 30-40 mil for Martial (both flagged as issues by previous managers btw), while losses technically, would have gone some way to alleviating some of our FFP-related imbalances.
With the obvious exception of CR7 - haven't most former United players underachieved at their next clubs ? Presumably because we had most of them during their prime playing years.
Young and Darnian won the league at Inter
Chicharito did well at Leverkusen.
Jonny Evans deserves a shout.
For what? Becoming a quality premier league center back?
LVG got many of those departures wrong IMO when they were arguably better than whoever he bought to replace them. You can add Welbeck to the list too as he would have been a more useful player than Depay. It's a list that includes Fabio, Rafael, Chicharito and Evans. He had some weird fixation over Paddy McNair who would never be good enough but can be credited for Rashford's breakout season when other academy products were more fancied than him.
I would throw in Daley blind name as well, he was and still is a class centre back, I would have taken him over lindelof, bailly and Maguire
Yeah true. Not sure good enough to get us right back to the top but at least as good as his replacements.
No you are spot on. This is why we have struggled for a decade. The shocking state of players bought and brought in on high transfer fees and the obscene wages they were on, so we couldnt move them on until most were out of contract.
I see this mentioned from time to time but you only have to look at where they ended up to see LvG was right getting rid of them, the problem was, as you said, the players he bought were sometimes even worse.
Sir Alex was working miracles with some of his squad management in those final years.