Fonseca mentioned Smalling in his press conference this afternoon and said they're still working to get him back. Hopefully this is true
Times: Finding buyers for the dead wood is Manchester United’s biggest challenge this window
- Thread starter #07
- Start date
Same, not just because some regard him as “deadwood” (a phrase I really hate) but because surely he deserves his move.
He’s not in Oles plans and whatever you think of his ability he’s been a loyal servant to the club for 9-10 years, yes we want a fair price but I hope we can help facilitate his move.
There isn't really anything the club can do about it if clubs don't want to sign these players or if the players don't want to leave. I just hope that the club learns from the mess they have made of contracts and don't offer contracts that mean a player can't be sold. But considering what we have seen with the De Gea and Matic contracts they clearly haven't learnt that lesson.
In terms of Roma, from what I understand they are in the midst of a takeover mid, which always makes transfers complicated, who pays for the deal and so forth... so they always want him on loan, I guess united are hoping for a few as he is pretty much the only player we want to get rid of who we stand a chance of getting any money for
Matic and de Gea are not in the same class as Jones, Rojo, Lingard, Pereira, etc.
And there is plenty the club can do to shift the players. They can be told they won't feature at all. Their contracts can be subsidised by the club, making signing them more realistic.
We've not shifted players fast enough, because they're counted as assets and the club hierarchy refuses to take a hit on their terrible mistakes. Sanchez being the only case to the contrary (which was an excellent piece of business).
No Matic and de Gea arn't but going forward there contracts are going to be an issue. They were not good contracts to give out.
Yes we could subsidise wages, we did with Rojo last year by all accounts, and we obviously did it with Sanchez and have done it with Anderson in the past. but basically saying we will pay what would likely be in the 10's of millions in wages to get players out of the club just sop we can spend 10 of millions more to buy replacements is gonna be hard sell to any company executive.
That's not what I'd advocate. I'd be in favour of getting rid of 6-7-8 players, signing 2-3 more and promoting those who are ready. In reality we don't need Rojo or Jones, Bailly is always one match away from an injury anyway. That's three right there. We sign a right-sided attacker and there is absolutely no need for all three of Mata, Pereira and Lingard (I'd ship out the latter two, at least). Dalot doesn't have a future at the club under Ole, Williams will likely be moved over to RB, with a new left back coming in to compete with Shaw. Hendo back, so Romero can be sold.
We'd probably have to take a financial hit on Rojo and Jones. Smalling, Bailly, Pereira, Dalot and Romero could all go cleanly, in that regard. Mata is unlikely to be sold, but he's on a big contract. Lingard, not sure, a year left, if I recall with a year option. Should be able to get 15m for the guy. Dalot can definitely be sold, but unlikely that anyone wants to match what we laid out for him.
How to be a soft touch in the transfer market - pay the asking price for players you want to buy, and let your own players go cheaply. This has been Uniteds way for far too long and it had to change. It is changing.
Lingard to Tottenham?
https://www.foxsports.com.au/footba...o/news-story/940a34735198d21bcd7e3af8b34e5c96
https://www.foxsports.com.au/footba...o/news-story/940a34735198d21bcd7e3af8b34e5c96
Jones -
Rojo
Pereira
Mata
James
Smalling
All need shipping out. I’d drive James to Leeds.
Dalot hasn’t really had a run of games due to injury.... should we cash in or give him a chance?
Williams, raw and naive at times, let’s hope he grows physically
Lingard, wouldn’t call him deadwood but 15 million or more I’d accept.
Romero brilliant understudy ,harsh I know, but if no longer our number 2 he needs to go.
Rojo
Pereira
Mata
James
Smalling
All need shipping out. I’d drive James to Leeds.
Dalot hasn’t really had a run of games due to injury.... should we cash in or give him a chance?
Williams, raw and naive at times, let’s hope he grows physically
Lingard, wouldn’t call him deadwood but 15 million or more I’d accept.
Romero brilliant understudy ,harsh I know, but if no longer our number 2 he needs to go.
We need to go hard ball on Smalling & James, both have value. James can be our 4th choice winger and we have zero reason to sell our only winger in the squad with less than 20m to Leeds too, we can squish the initial fee between 25m-30m. After Lindelof terrible performance, we have zero reason to sell Smalling one of the top Serie A CB for less than 18m. Leeds & Roma can feck off if they don't want pay, these two have place and asset to help us. The other deadwood are different story.
- Joined
- Sep 1, 2015
- Messages
- 19,057
- Supports
️
Completely agree.
Whilst James isn’t a starter he offers enough as a great defensive winger (pressing and countering) personally think it’s madness to sell him and write him off after one season!
As for Smalling he had a comparable season to Kouilibaly and yet we’re being low balled? £20m+ and we should entertain offers but any less and I don’t see how we benefit.
I'd sell Smalling for as little as £10m just for the fee and to get his wages off the books. This is a depressed market and we should take what we can get. Especially for players we clearly feel we don't have a use for.
This change is working fabulously isn’t it? We really showed them when we wouldn’t let Rojo go to Everton on loan last season. We wanted a sale and said no. So instead we kept paying him for a few more months before we sent him on loan in January. We can’t currently afford to price our players accordingly because we pay them too much. Until that changes, nothing else will.
Just get them gone. We can’t buy replacements because we’ve got shite on the books that are on big salaries.
Just do what Barcelona and Juventus are doing. Jettison the rubbish for next to nothing and get those wages reinvested in quality players.
Playing hard ball over £2m when the buying club is going to have to pay a semi decent player around £100k a week is just silly.
I mentioned in another thread that just releasing Jones, Pereria, Mata and Rojo would save us £24m a year in salaries.
Selling Lingard, Bailly, Smalling, Fred and James for £10m each would make us a further £30m in salaries and £50m in transfer fees.
That’s £104m recouped over night. If we stop being fecking stupid. These players have no value to us so let’s stop pretending that have any value to anyone else.
I'd be amazed if we actually get rid of the likes of Rojo and Lingard, never mind Jones. Absolutely shambolic management and now the club pays the price. Players like that, would have been released years ago at any other properly run club, not at Manchester United.
There are two different type of deadwoods, ones with value and ones without value. Players like Lingard, Jones, Rojo, Mata have no value. Players like James & Smalling have some value. Beside, you don't wanna let Leeds getting our player for cheap. How can you expect us to sell the ones with value for cheap 10m when Liverpool sold Solanke for 20m and Arsenal sold Iwobi for 28m plus adds on to 34m.
I agree with you to an extent. However, we can’t cull that many players, and therefore can’t make that amount of saving. That’s 9 players you’ve identified - the money saved would bring in 1 maybe 2 decent players. I would be happy to get rid of half of them for peanuts this summer, and the other half next year.
Centre back is an obvious place where we need to get rid of players, and I would be happy to get rid of Rojo, Jones, Bailly and belatedly Smalling. Smalling is the only one we could get a fee for.
Completely agree.
What we're doing is close to the definition of madness. Renewing contracts in hope of getting fees only to p-s away money on huge salaries for practically unsellable players. Holding out for a few million more for Darmian for two or three transfer windows on the trot, only to sell him for a couple million quid to Parma out of desperation. Now doing the same with Chris Smalling etc
The big clubs, the clubs we used to compare ourselves to, when they want to refresh their squads they do it. If they can't find buyers no problem: Thanks for everything lad here's your free transfer, good luck for the future.
To think people on the CAF were laughing at how Barcelona is run six weeks ago. As bad as Bartomeu's administration is, you have to think he wouldn't let the likes of Rojo, Jones and Andreas Pereira get new contracts when their deals were running down.
I said this on Page 1 on July 28th.
One player out of those I mentioned has been sold.
It has been proven to be more than bloody difficult, practically impossible.
No one will pay their wages.
It’s not even that. Even if we paid half the wages of the likes of Jones and Rojo who would want them? Would anyone want those two on a free transfer and minimal wages? No.
We do need to cut them loose.
Hard to sell Jones when he is INJURED again mate
Agreed. So fecking frustrating and as I said at the start of the window, it was going to be bloody difficult to get rid.
Totally agree. A lot of these players have been loyal and are just everyday joes who are trying their best for their club. Many players deserve more respect than they're shown on social media, but I digress.
If we're gonna blame anyone, it should be the poor squad management by Woodward, et al, in lieu of a still missing director of football. But I'm sick to death of whining about that, so I'd settle for just hoping that we manage the squad better and trim it a little bit more. The end of last season showed, quite clearly beyond any doubt, how much Ole trusts players outside of the first 11.
I know, that’s why he should just be released. Although he’s probably a year into a recent contract, so that’s not realistic.
It doesn’t matter what anyone sold anything for. They are costing us money on a weekly basis, not Liverpool or Arsenal. We’re holding on to a financial liability because we perceive it to be worth something to someone else. It doesn’t matter if James is worth £100m to Leeds, he’s costing us money and returning nothing, therefore he is a liability and we should drop him for what someone is willing to pay.
Never be afraid to walk away from a bet where you’ve lost. Not knowing when to get out is what really causes the damage, not getting out early when it’s clear you’re losing.
I think we’d be fine to be honest.
9 players out and 7 reserve players to fill the gaps and 2 new signings.
Squad players are expected to play anywhere between 15 to 25 games a season. Let’s say Max 10 starts and another max 15 appearances.
Mjebri, Menghi, Greenwood, Williams, Laird, McTomminay, Tuanzebe can all fill that void between them. Will they do worse than the players we’ve currently got doing that job on £100k a week? Probably not, maybe on occasion they’ll get exposed but that’s the risk you take.
Our deadwood have great lives, not much is expected from them and they earn lots of money.
Phil Jones and Marcos Rojo have the best job in football. Rojo played a total of 28 competitive games in the last three seasons!
No other team is even interested in those deadwood players for a low fee. Some of them aren´t even good enough for mid/low table teams ( I know high wages are also a reason).
Last edited:
Yeah absolutely spot on and quite frankly you can't blame teams for that either
Defo our biggest issue, the wages are such a deterrent to any buying side so we have to sell low market value. Just have to be aggressive with it and move them out at all costs. It will save us in the long run. Even if we can't bring anyone in the squad needs trimming, I'd even give some academy lads some extra bench time over the same old ineffective players stealing a living .
It's close to a 2nd keeper in terms of numbers, if not less.
Ship them to the MLS. We love overpaid underachieving players living off their name. Nycfc had Lampard who played 3 games, at most and was paid a King’s ransom.
Romero's on 33 in the same time period, for comparison. Jones is somewhat better with his 57.
As a player, who isn't too old either, I would think there is a desire to play a little more than that. He must be feeling incredibly lucky to earn those wages and is well aware of he wouldn't get them elsewhere.
If Beckham wants to become one of our biggest ever legends he'll need to take all our deadwood to Inter Miami.
I don't get why people like yourself don't realise that we're not a selling club. Most players we sell are players we want to be rid of. Playing hard ball only results in them being on the bench or not in the team at all while we pay their wages.
I think it is possible. It is just like the Bale/Coutinho deal but in different scale. It is hard to move on players when they are branded as "deadwood". Lots of teams have the problem about can't moving on their "unwanted" players especially during pandemic, and there is not much you can do about it except respect the contract. Arsenal has Guendouzi, Ozil, Mustafi, Kolasinac, Sokratis and Torreira, Everton has Walcott, Ramirez, Bolasie and Besic. I personally do not want my support club Arsenal behave similar to Barcelona which show zero respect to the players and also the contract. You need to treat people with respect and it will reflect on the image of the club. As a player I will think twice joining Barcelona with the current board.
Last edited:
The problem with just "cutting the contracts", is thats really not how it works. For example Rojo, if we want rid we have to find another club willing to take him, willing to pay wages for him and he is willing to go to! This is why its a problem, Rojo can stay here, earn money, not play, and not be bothered too much. We can't just release him as he will still be paid his contract money.
The problem has always been how much we pay players, and not getting rid early enough.
The problem has always been how much we pay players, and not getting rid early enough.