Times: Finding buyers for the dead wood is Manchester United’s biggest challenge this window

kafta said:
Im thinking smalling will be staying as it doesn't look like we might be buying a CB this window. If we do, im sure we'd find a way to sell him.

As for the others: Jones, Lingard, Perreira, Mata, Dalot, Rojo... we might be stuck with them till their contracts start running out.

I can see Mata, Rojo and Dalot moving on for low fees, but not the other three.
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Shipping out Smalling w/o a replacement wouldnt be an issue.
- We did pretty well without Smalling last season.
- Plus Rojo doesnt seem to be going out.
- Couple of decent young center backs coming through. (Havent seen Mengi play, but Ole does seem to rate him high)

Problem remains, as with others, our valuation + high wages.
 
Blood Mage said:
Dalot isn't good enough for Wolves, he's only slightly above Championship level.
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If United had not signed him from Porto, you can bet Wolves would have. His best position is clearly not at RB, it's at RWB/RM something Ole rarely plays. It's like if Jose continues playing Doherty as a RB, his first game there he looked terrible
 
So no one's left, and Smalling who wasn't here last season is here now? That's peak asset protection right there. Protect them so well, no one else can touch them. Well done Woody et al...
 
Definitely a huge issue......

Rojo
Jones
Smalling
TFM
Pereira
Mata
Lingard

.........Should all be gone.
 
Thats the glazer way. Keep the deadwood as it works out cheaper than buying a load of new players. It then looks like a full squad and they can tell woody to spout we need to sell a few before we buy a few.
 
Can’t sell anyone if they won’t buy anyone to replace them with
 
RyRy11 said:
Can’t sell anyone if they won’t buy anyone to replace them with
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I can agree on you with Smalling, but Mengi and Tuanzebe would compete for a 3rd or 4th CB slot.

Jones cannot be moved because nobody wants to pay anything for him. There are 4 contracts that are expiring in June 2021 (not including the club option for a further year): Romero, Rojo, Lingard, and Mata.

Romero seemingly doesn't have any suitors at the moment, Rojo is a lost cause, but Lingard and Mata could play some bit part but not much. One player needs to fill the first team position of Lingard and Mata...as in who is behind van de Beek. That's way too much of a drop in quality from VDB to Lingard/Mata. Unless Pereria is taking up that position, then possibly.
 
groovyalbert said:
Probably comfortably over £1m a week there
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So we are realistically looking at needing to offload upwards of £350k+ a week in order to be able to manage Sancho or others financially - it’s the weekly wages that we are struggling with, not the actual transfer fee.

I’m assuming that our strategy for the next couple of weeks is to try and offload wages and then sign players once that’s achieved....

This is also known as a high-risk strategy as your assuming that you can offload players.....if that’s a struggle then I bet we will resort to subsidised loans.
 
I feel that other clubs is just going to play our game back to us for these deadwoods.

That is, waiting until near deadline day and lowball us for these players and hope we would relent because we're desperate
 
RyRy11 said:
Can’t sell anyone if they won’t buy anyone to replace them with
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Smalling, Rojo and Jones were loaned or barely played so not much would change

One of TFM and Dalot could go on loan or sold as they did not play much last season, mostly due to injury

Garner could and should go on a loan

At least one of Mata, Pereira and Lingard should move on and their minutes taken by Fernandes and VdB

Romero is 3rd choice now and should go.

That is at least 6 that could be sold or loaned that would not have much effect on the team.
 
My prediction:
Smalling will stay this season.
Rojo will be gone with us footing some of his salary.
Lingard will be gone. I reckon he will want to be in contention for England place
Mata will stay.
Jones contract will be terminated
 
reelworld said:
My prediction:
Smalling will stay this season.
Rojo will be gone with us footing some of his salary.
Lingard will be gone. I reckon he will want to be in contention for England place
Mata will stay.
Jones contract will be terminated
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Smalling will be the first sold as he’s the only one with suitors willing to pay something resembling a fee.
Rojo - unless he goes back home it’s looking like he’s staying. Like a new signing...
Lingard is going to stay because I reckon the penny has dropped that the current alternatives aren’t pretty if they exist at all. Free transfer next summer gives him much more choice and a chance at keeping his wages high at his next club no matter how poor he’s been here the last 2 years. Smart business from his perspective. Either that or Ed gives him another improved deal to protect the asset. Wouldn’t fecking surprise me at all.
mata will stay and see out his deal having done the square root of feck all since he signed the newest contract that he shouldn’t have even been offered.
No notion of terminating Jones contract after a year. Keep the wages high. It gives the impression that we have lots of expensive assets in the squad without having to pay a transfer fee for someone who might actually play the odd time

I wish we could sell them all and get some fresh talent in. Players on the up. All the above have peaked a long time ago. Mata- Was always the wrong player for us for RW :confused: lingard- decent player who’s peaked and majorly dropped off, Jones crocked, Smalling has peaked and doesn’t suit our style of play anymore.The deadest of the deadwood. That’s before other players in the squad that won’t be sold but probably have a question mark over their places. Dalot, Pereira, Ighalo, Williams (for LB anyway) Henderson//DDG is a clusterfeck waiting to happen. Matic -how long more has he left? Bailly, James... These are really important squad players that all have doubts about them. our roster is a mess currently
 
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Ali Dia said:
Smalling will be the first sold as he’s the only one with suitors willing to pay something resembling a fee.
Rojo - unless he goes back home it’s looking like he’s staying. Like a new signing...
Lingard is going to stay because I reckon the penny has dropped that the current alternatives aren’t pretty if they exist at all. Free transfer next summer gives him much more choice and a chance at keeping his wages high at his next club no matter how poor he’s been here the last 2 years. Smart business from his perspective. Either that or Ed gives him another improved deal to protect the asset. Wouldn’t fecking surprise me at all.
mata will stay and see out his deal having done the square root of feck all since he signed the newest contract that he shouldn’t have even been offered.
No notion of terminating Jones contract after a year. Keep the wages high. It gives the impression that we have lots of expensive assets in the squad without having to pay a transfer fee for someone who might actually play the odd time

I wish we could sell them all and get some fresh talent in. Players on the up. All the above have peaked a long time ago. Mata- Was always the wrong player for us for RW :confused: lingard- decent player who’s peaked and majorly dropped off, Jones crocked, Smalling has peaked and doesn’t suit our style of play anymore.The deadest of the deadwood. That’s before other players in the squad that won’t be sold but probably have a question mark over their places. Dalot, Pereira, Ighalo, Williams (for LB anyway) Henderson//DDG is a clusterfeck waiting to happen. Matic -how long more has he left? Bailly, James... These are really important squad players that all have doubts about them. our roster is a mess currently
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Last I heard on Smalling is that his transfer depends on Federico Fazio transfer out of Roma as they are similar players. But Fazio transfer has stalled and if that's not a go then I reckon they wont come for him.
Rojo has been freeze out for as long as Ole here. I can't imagine he ever get a game under Ole. I think an agreement with a South American club will be the way to go. Either Rojo accept a paycut or United compensate him somehow.
Lingard is a tricky one. There's signs that he's trying to get back into Ole good book, but I don't know if Ole will buy that. But, he could be useful as a 3rd/4th choice across midfield/winger position. I think if an offer come he'll be gone.
Jones I think the biggest feck up of them all. Injured all the time and get a fecking new contract??? Who the feck in the right mind do that?
 
God it’s depressing that we haven’t managed to shift any of the deadwood yet. I’m just hoping that as it’s common knowledge that we need to get rid of these players other clubs are waiting until the last minute to make a move for them as they feel they will get them at lower price or better loan conditions. Fingers crossed it a busy last week or two
 
Think we'll only get movement on some of these players in the last week of the window when clubs are desperate after a few games.
 
Cman said:
God it’s depressing that we haven’t managed to shift any of the deadwood yet. I’m just hoping that as it’s common knowledge that we need to get rid of these players other clubs are waiting until the last minute to make a move for them as they feel they will get them at lower price or better loan conditions. Fingers crossed it a busy last week or two
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Yesh, the only way teams would go for any of our deadwood early is if there was competition for them. That's certainly not the case with Jones, Rojo, Lingard, or Perreira. There may be a few clubs wanting Smalling but he appears to only want Roma so we should just sell him and get it over with so it's not tying up precious time during the last two weeks of the window. Can you imagine floundering a deal for other players because we're haggling over €5m for Smalling?
 
reelworld said:
true, but deadline day was back to the wall stuff if we haven't removed them.
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We have to sign at least a RW even if it isn't Sancho before the deadline, ideally get Telles as well because Shaw needs some backup at LB because we know how prone he is to picking up knocks
 
croadyman said:
We have to sign at least a RW even if it isn't Sancho before the deadline, ideally get Telles as well because Shaw needs some backup at LB because we know how prone he is to picking up knocks
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Most importantly we have to buy the right player or players. I'm fine with our approach.
 
Right now we have 31 first team players (including Mengi). That is way too much especially because a significant part of them is not good enough to play for a top four contender. If it’s so difficult to sell players then we should really proactively try to loan out some players as done with Smalling last season and hope they impress wherever they go and improve our chances of selling them next season. Players we should be able to loan out: Dalot, Pereira, Jones. All players with more than 1 year of contract, we won’t miss them if they are sent and we could even pay half their wages for 1 season as long as a potential club pay a small fee for the loan as we saw with Smalling
 
Onerealunited said:
Right now we have 31 first team players (including Mengi). That is way too much especially because a significant part of them is not good enough to play for a top four contender. If it’s so difficult to sell players then we should really proactively try to loan out some players as done with Smalling last season and hope they impress wherever they go and improve our chances of selling them next season. Players we should be able to loan out: Dalot, Pereira, Jones. All players with more than 1 year of contract, we won’t miss them if they are sent and we could even pay half their wages for 1 season as long as a potential club pay a small fee for the loan as we saw with Smalling
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Yeah that is our only hope right now
 
croadyman said:
They are the right players
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Sancho has a limit to what we can pay. And if we want to drag it out to try and drive the price down then so be it. Its a pandemic environment and we aren't going to splash 120m EUR with weeks left of the window just because the selling club asked us to.

Telles has never played in a big league before, is nearing 28 and will still be a risk of some sort. The question becomes, is it worth spunking 30m on him when you have Williams for Shaw already. It might not be amazing but it's not terrible and we aren't desperate for the position.
 
edcunited1878 said:
Jones cannot be moved because nobody wants to pay anything for him. There are 4 contracts that are expiring in June 2021 (not including the club option for a further year): Romero, Rojo, Lingard, and Mata.

Romero seemingly doesn't have any suitors at the moment, Rojo is a lost cause, but Lingard and Mata could play some bit part but not much. One player needs to fill the first team position of Lingard and Mata...as in who is behind van de Beek. That's way too much of a drop in quality from VDB to Lingard/Mata. Unless Pereria is taking up that position, then possibly.
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Why can’t we sell Jones, Rojo and Mata for free? I am sure for free somebody would have taken them.

It’s hard to believe nobody is willing to pay A few million for Romero, whereas Pereira being on low salary is also sellable (as is Dalot)
 
VP89 said:
Sancho has a limit to what we can pay. And if we want to drag it out to try and drive the price down then so be it. Its a pandemic environment and we aren't going to splash 120m EUR with weeks left of the window just because the selling club asked us to.

Telles has never played in a big league before, is nearing 28 and will still be a risk of some sort. The question becomes, is it worth spunking 30m on him when you have Williams for Shaw already. It might not be amazing but it's not terrible and we aren't desperate for the position.
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He would be available for around £18m according to reports which is a bargain in this market, there is no point in dragging this Sancho deal out anymore because the price is not going to come down, so now it's time to either walk away and look at alternatives or we pay up what they want (over 2/3 instalments not addons)
 
croadyman said:
He would be available for around £18m according to reports which is a bargain in this market, there is no point in dragging this Sancho deal out anymore because the price is not going to come down, so now it's time to either walk away and look at alternatives or we pay up what they want (over 2/3 instalments not addons)
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You're talking with a lot of presumptuous BS here. In a market where you can pick up Lewis or Doherty for that amount or less, who have at least a season or more of proven Premier League experience with years ahead of them, you think a punt on Telles is fine. And you think it's fine for this environment on top.

The sancho point is obviously BS. You don't know how strong or weak Dortmund's position is, how the latest covid surge affects their revenue forecasts (noting they depend massively on matchday income), or whether Sancho plans to request in due course as pressure mounts to get the move done.

And even if we did pay 120m at the close of the window, I'd still want us to go for similar targets in the same way. feck paying whatever a club asks straight off the bat. Try and bring them down best you can, and if you REALLY want him then succumb. If not, walk. I have no problem with this at all.
 
VP89 said:
You're talking with a lot of presumptuous BS here. In a market where you can pick up Lewis or Doherty for that amount or less, who have at least a season or more of proven Premier League experience with years ahead of them, you think a punt on Telles is fine. And you think it's fine for this environment on top.

The sancho point is obviously BS. You don't know how strong or weak Dortmund's position is, how the latest covid surge affects their revenue forecasts (noting they depend massively on matchday income), or whether Sancho plans to request in due course as pressure mounts to get the move done.

And even if we did pay 120m at the close of the window, I'd still want us to go for similar targets in the same way. feck paying whatever a club asks straight off the bat. Try and bring them down best you can, and if you REALLY want him then succumb. If not, walk. I have no problem with this at all.
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Don't you think we would have heard by now if Dortmund's position is that weak which confirms that it's strong in my eyes, in regards to Telles we could afford it if we were actually able to sell a few players like Smalling, Dalot, Romero & Andreas.

Surely even you can realise that there is going to come a point where they will say sorry we haven't enough time to sign a replacement so he is staying, therefore if we haven't got something lined up as an alternative then we will be forced to play Mason there and eventually he will get burnt out due to playing too much.
 
Romero
Dalot(if we get a LB)
Smalling
Jones
Rojo
Mata
Pereira
Lingard(if we get Sancho)

Should all be sold.
 
croadyman said:
Don't you think we would have heard by now if Dortmund's position is that weak which confirms that it's strong in my eyes, in regards to Telles we could afford it if we were actually able to sell a few players like Smalling, Dalot, Romero & Andreas.
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Contrary to belief, not every transfer is drip fed with information. They are not going to disclose their appetite for bids openly and feck up their negotiating position.

What you do know is the deal is still on, despite Dortmund claiming there was a deadline. So they are open to selling, because they know they need the money.

As for the others, it's not about affording but more about value. Does Ole see value in taking a punt on a player whose never proven himself in a big league, is 28 and costs £18m? He might pass on that. Regulon at least was voted la ligas best left back. As you say if we sell a few players then maybe. But we aren't desperate for Telles.
croadyman said:
Surely even you can realise that there is going to come a point where they will say sorry we haven't enough time to sign a replacement so he is staying and if we haven't got something lined up as an alternative then we will be forced to play Mason there and eventually he will get burnt out due to playing too much.
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No, I firmly believe we have the back ups already sounded out and have asked clubs to keep us updated on their situation (as we did with VDB). If Sancho becomes untenable we will get the back up (could be Sarr, coman, dembele, whoever but there is a shortlist we keep tabs on). I still think we will get sancho though. Itl just happen v v close to the end. No 100m+ transfers get done early on, so it was naieve to think you'd get progress shortly after 10th August.
 
Can't stand to see this kind of nonsense by our club. We're absolutely stuck with zombiewood while out there Barça, Real, Juve get rid of theirs for free: James apparently arrived to Everton without a transfer fee being paid (according to Banfield, former club, they did not received any compensation money because there was no transfer fee), Vidal mutual consent terminated contract, sames as Higuain, ffs even Suarez is touted to be free to go, and we are actually paying over 1m a week of wages to players no one even want inside the club, that provide absolutely nothing football wise or otherwise. Damn... what a load of bull manure
 
eltigreFalcao said:
Can't stand to see this kind of nonsense by our club. We're absolutely stuck with zombiewood while out there Barça, Real, Juve get rid of theirs for free: James apparently arrived to Everton without a transfer fee being paid (according to Banfield, former club, they did not received any compensation money because there was no transfer fee), Vidal mutual consent terminated contract, sames as Higuain, ffs even Suarez is touted to be free to go, and we are actually paying over 1m a week of wages to players no one even want inside the club, that provide absolutely nothing football wise or otherwise. Damn... what a load of bull manure
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Utter crap isn't it
 
It's crazy how little progress has been made on this front. There are at least 4 or 5 players in the squad who just have no business being here next season.

I imagine Smalling's transfer will probably go through eventually, but it sort of sums up our position with outgoings atm. He wants to go to Roma, doesn't feature in our long-term plans and Roma want him yet he's still here because...?
 
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