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

RedSky said:
Sanchez, Rojo, Jones and Lingard. If these lads leave i'll consider that a very good Summer clear out.
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Yeah if we could get £10m for Smalling, £15m for Lingard and £5m each for Rojo & Jones that would do nicely
 
Vault Dweller said:
That's the biggest concern I have this window too. Trying to make clubs buy the likes of Sanchez, Lingard, Pereira, Rojo, Jones amongst others will be bloody difficult.
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Really? A bigger concern that getting more quality players in?
 
croadyman said:
Yeah if we could get £10m for Smalling, £15m for Lingard and £5m each for Rojo & Jones that would do nicely
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We wont settle for that little.

Feck Roma offered 13M and we told them to feck off. Seriously the misvaluation for our players is beyond logic.
 
Bojan11 said:
Maybe Bailly too if we can get a decent fee. I rather keep Smalling than Bailly if we don’t bring in another CB despite his limitations on the ball.
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Rojo+Jones+Smalling/Bailly - those are CBs to be sold this season, and all four of we bring in a new CB
 
SAFMUTD said:
We wont settle for that little.

Feck Roma offered 13M and we told them to feck off. Seriously the misvaluation for our players is beyond logic.
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Whilst I agree, it looks like we're not really in a position to negotiate higher fees. Just look at Sanchez, we had to leave him on a free.
I rather sell Smalling etc. to English clubs who pay 15m or more if possible
 
Escobar said:
Whilst I agree, it looks like we're not really in a position to negotiate higher fees. Just look at Sanchez, we had to leave him on a free.
I rather sell Smalling etc. to English clubs who pay 15m or more if possible
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Sanchez is a special case, he was the best paid player in EPL while being a flop of course we were against the wall on that one.

The other ones, while on high fees for their contributions, can easily be part any squad in the player league and their wages are not that hard to match.
 
Jones and Mata inexplicably were given new contracts only a year ago - I can't see them going.
Lingard is a good influence in the dressing room or something
 
Crustanoid said:
Jones and Mata inexplicably were given new contracts only a year ago - I can't see them going.
Lingard is a good influence in the dressing room or something
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This one is going to go down as one of those mysteries next to the Bermuda Triangle. Why? How? To me there's no clear answer.

SAFMUTD said:
Sanchez is a special case, he was the best paid player in EPL while being a flop of course we were against the wall on that one.

The other ones, while on high fees for their contributions, can easily be part any squad in the player league and their wages are not that hard to match.
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This is wildly optimistic.

Lets see where things up but there's already signs that lots of clubs are not committing big money until they understand how badly coronavirus will affect their finances.

Of the clubs that will come through coronavirus relatively unaffected, I can't think of any that will want our cast offs. So then you're looking at clubs that are less financially strong who might be open to signing them. However, they have other options too in this market. Especially from the clubs that just got relegated.

For example, on paper Mata is a better player than most. However, if you're not sure about the next time you're going to get gate receipts in you might be wary about going for him, even if you think he's the best option on the market. You might go for a cheaper, less good option who you think will do a job, just because the upside of signing Mata is not so big that it warrants spending the resources you have on him when you can get a Deulofeu etc.

That's the problem we are having and its kinda shocking that we are still trying to play this game of holding out for fees after whats happened with Darmian and Alexis etc.

Sometimes I think the club is just doing this because of the criticism it received for letting Nani and Rafael leave on the cheap. Its as if they can't see that a) those players were much better than the ones they're trying to flog now and b) times have changed, what with the global pandemic smashing economies the world over.
 
Appreciate what Jesse has done for this club but hope Ole doesn't decide to keep him and pass on signing an AM.
 
Alexis Sanchez has been sold to Inter Milan.
It will be announced tomorrow morning along with more details of his permanent switch.

One down, several more to go!
 
Red_Orchestra said:
Alexis Sanchez has been sold to Inter Milan.
It will be announced tomorrow morning along with more details of his permanent switch.

One down, several more to go!
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Sanchez, Rojo, Dalot I am confident about but the others like Lingard, Andreas,Smalling & Jones still feel up in the air right now
 
SAFMUTD said:
We wont settle for that little.

Feck Roma offered 13M and we told them to feck off. Seriously the misvaluation for our players is beyond logic.
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You need to look at the total amount of what a player costs. Roma isn't looking at Smalling and saying "for this player 13m is as high as we go". Smalling has high wages. He's not going to lower them by that much. 100k a week plus bonuses plus signing on fee plus agent fees for say a 3 year contract and Smalling is going to to cost them more than 13 million for the 3 years.

Sanchez is the only player where his wages get repeatedly talked about. It's always the wages. We didn't pay a transfer fee for him, we exchanged him for Mkitaryan so his cost is essentially his current wages minus what Mkhitaryan was getting paid.
 
Snow said:
You need to look at the total amount of what a player costs. Roma isn't looking at Smalling and saying "for this player 13m is as high as we go". Smalling has high wages. He's not going to lower them by that much. 100k a week plus bonuses plus signing on fee plus agent fees for say a 3 year contract and Smalling is going to to cost them more than 13 million for the 3 years.

Sanchez is the only player where his wages get repeatedly talked about. It's always the wages. We didn't pay a transfer fee for him, we exchanged him for Mkitaryan so his cost is essentially his current wages minus what Mkhitaryan was getting paid.
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Minus the fee we paid for Mkhitaryan. £27m + £55m - £17m? ~ £67m?

People don't mind players costing. The issue is players costing but hardly ever benefiting the club. It definitely shouldn't be about profit and loss. Accountants need to look at it as: a player who hardly plays, or plays little better than a youth prospect is deadwood. Their very presence at the club prevents one getting, or promoting a player with prospects.

Unfortunately many people are burdened by a sunk cost mentality: we paid £X for player Y, so now we want £X back when we "sell" him. Many cannot stand to make a loss, on a deal and would rather the goods rot or gather dust until their value is entirely depreciated. A better mentality is about building a winning team. In that case, any player blocking the way is a burden. Burdens should be off-loaded with no expectation of breaking-even. Of course, the implication of this is we'll have a thread-bare squad with a 2nd-11 of mostly U-23s.

We should've let Roma have Smalling for £13m. That's more than we paid. He's been a loyal servant so doesn't deserve to have his career hindered. It's not as if anyone offered us more.

It'd be better if we stopped paying non-core players so much. Lingard's wages are 3 or 4 times what he'd get elsewhere. Worse: if we give him a new deal he'd expect a pay rise. This hasn't been helped by bringing Dan James in on big wages (way better than he's get elsewhere - possibly double what we should be paying him). James went from £7k/week to £67k/week just because United management are easily conned into paying that. God knows who put this wage structure in place?
 
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Mark Pawelek said:
Minus the fee we paid for Mkhitaryan. £27m + £55m - £17m? ~ £67m?

People don't mind players costing. The issue is players costing but hardly ever benefiting the club. It definitely shouldn't be about profit and loss. Accountants need to look at it as: a player who hardly plays, or plays little better than a youth prospect is deadwood. Their very presence at the club prevents one getting, or promoting a player with prospects.

Unfortunately many people are burdened by a sunk cost mentality: we paid £X for player Y, so now we want £X back when we "sell" him. Many cannot stand to make a loss, on a deal and would rather the goods rot or gather dust until their value is entirely depreciated. A better mentality is about building a winning team. In that case, any player blocking the way is a burden. Burdens should be off-loaded with no expectation of breaking-even. Of course, the implication of this is we'll have a thread-bare squad with a 2nd-11 of mostly U-23s.

We should've let Roma have Smalling for £13m. That's more than we paid. He's been a loyal servant so doesn't deserve to have his career hindered. It's not as if anyone offered us more.

It'd be better if we stopped paying non-core players so much. Lingard's wages are 3 or 4 times what he'd get elsewhere. Worse: if we give him a new deal he'd expect a pay rise. This hasn't been helped by bringing Dan James in on big wages (way better than he's get elsewhere - possibly double what we should be paying him). James went from £7k/week to £67k/week just because United management are easily conned into paying that. God knows who put this wage structure in place?
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Not the fee paid for Mkhitaryan, hist wage cost.
 
So Sanchez is gone.

I read somewhere Mata is on his way to Fenerbahce, more about that?

Any rumors for other deadwoods?
 
Not surprised that it's quiet on the deadwood leaving while the Europa League campaign is on. I would expect that we will hear more on outgoings once this has finished.
 
I’d keep Mata over Pereria and Lingard and I’m doubtful we will buy a back up attacking midfielder so he may still have a role here in the future.
 
Just get rid of Lingard and Jones, then I’m happy regardless of anything else happening.
 
Sanchez was the biggest turkey to get the chop. Thank god.

Rojo, Jones, Dalot, Mata, Lingard, Bailly, Periera to follow. In that order.
 
Snow said:
Not the fee paid for Mkhitaryan, hist wage cost.
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It was whatever Miki was worth at the time, and it was around £10-15m. He was having a stinker of a season. In fact he’s had one great season
(Just before we bought him)!his entire career, his normal level is... meh.
 
Offside said:
I’d keep Mata over Pereria and Lingard and I’m doubtful we will buy a back up attacking midfielder so he may still have a role here in the future.
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Yeah I'm inclined to hold onto Mata for one more year. He's a senior player and still offers more in creativity than a lot of our fringe players. I actually think he would do really well if e were filling in for Bruno and we had most of the rest of our first XI; he'd have runners all around him and I think he'd make a lot of chances. It's a shame he's mostly had to put up with playing with our second string.
 
Mr Smith said:
Yeah I'm inclined to hold onto Mata for one more year. He's a senior player and still offers more in creativity than a lot of our fringe players. I actually think he would do really well if e were filling in for Bruno and we had most of the rest of our first XI; he'd have runners all around him and I think he'd make a lot of chances. It's a shame he's mostly had to put up with playing with our second string.
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Yeah I am happy for us to keep Mata but still need to sign someone who can offer something different creatively to both Pogba & Bruno
 
Ring up conte and see if he wants a top notch English defensive maestro by the name of Phil.

We can throw in Rojo if they need more depth. He plays well in a 3 man backline
 
suheilsworld said:
Read somewhere that some Greek / Turkish club is after Jones for €12m . Hope that turns out to be true
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It’s a wind up , the club even re tweeted and took the piss out of it

There’s no club taking Jones unless he agrees on pay as you play which he won’t. He’s a fine big feck off 3 year contract here he’s going nowhere
 
Offside said:
I’d keep Mata over Pereria and Lingard and I’m doubtful we will buy a back up attacking midfielder so he may still have a role here in the future.
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Really? I’d rank them Lingard>Andreas>Mata these days. Love Juan but think his days at the top level are done, I know it was a glorified friendly but he really annoyed me the other night with that performance.
 
Eire Red United said:
Really? I’d rank them Lingard>Andreas>Mata these days. Love Juan but think his days at the top level are done, I know it was a glorified friendly but he really annoyed me the other night with that performance.
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2 assists annoyed you?
 
Red00012 said:
It’s a wind up , the club even re tweeted and took the piss out of it

There’s no club taking Jones unless he agrees on pay as you play which he won’t. He’s a fine big feck off 3 year contract here he’s going nowhere
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His continued presence here annoys me no end (FYI I don't dislike the player).
If at any point he gets fit, we shouldnt play him till the penultimate game to the transfer window, then quickly sell him off for pack of chips or crisps.

There's definitely something he is doing or wrong with his body that has made him predisposed to injuries.

We should never have given him that stupid contract.
 
Rojo is just taking the piss now, I personally believe he should be brought back and loaned to a club even if they pay 50% of his wages in the epl or championship. It's better than paying all his wages in Argentina. The guy is already in retirement mode.


We should just also loan out Dalot if nobody is ready to pay a reasonable fee for him.

We should have collected what we where offered for Smalling except we thought we'd be useful for us in the team.

Pereira, Lingard and Mata we cannot move as finding someone to pay their wages for what they'd be worth is difficult to find. Let Lingard run down his contract if need be and let him go, same applies to Mata. Do not by any means renew that contract. they aren't any viable asset to protect.

The biggest problem with the club is knowing when to move players on, it's all too obvious that in the next year, Fred might be considered another deadwood, why not sell him now when his stock is high and replace him with another player you'd prefer playing that role.


We need to be smarter with recruitment and Contracts.
 
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Mr Smith said:
Yeah I'm inclined to hold onto Mata for one more year. He's a senior player and still offers more in creativity than a lot of our fringe players. I actually think he would do really well if e were filling in for Bruno and we had most of the rest of our first XI; he'd have runners all around him and I think he'd make a lot of chances. It's a shame he's mostly had to put up with playing with our second string.
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Mata - while technically good and a model pro is absolutely done at any kind of serious competitive level.

His legs have gone. Looks like he's running through tar.

Senior player - yes but he really offers nothing.

If he stays - he knows he wont play in any serious games so he's not high on the list to be sold but we cannot count on Mata being the sub for Bruno cos he is nowhere near good enough.

We need to sell:
Lingard/Mata/Jones/Rojo/Smalling/Sanchez permanently this summer.
 
Craig Ward said:
Mata - while technically good and a model pro is absolutely done at any kind of serious competitive level.

His legs have gone. Looks like he's running through tar.

Senior player - yes but he really offers nothing.

If he stays - he knows he wont play in any serious games so he's not high on the list to be sold but we cannot count on Mata being the sub for Bruno cos he is nowhere near good enough.

We need to sell:
Lingard/Mata/Jones/Rojo/Smalling/Sanchez permanently this summer.
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Agree with this.

We've shown more determination to hang on to these players than we did Robin Van Persie. Its bizarre. They're just clogging up the wage bill.

As I've said before, even if someone offers even a couple of million for any of these we should take it. Just so the club can stop burning its resources on players who Ole will never use in a serious game unless he is forced to by a mass injury crisis.
 
I'd rather us shift Lingard, Rojo, Jones, Dalot and Smalling in this window and be light in areas next season than have them at the club on big wages. I'd rather see youth players get given game time over some of these jokers consistently being average at best.
 
There’s no chance of so many departures, outside of central defence. Even if we can get Sancho, we’re not just suddenly going to get rid of the three players who can cover those positions. Chong seems to be going on loan too. My prediction is one of Lingard, Andreas and Mata leaves.
 
Dan_F said:
There’s no chance of so many departures, outside of central defence. Even if we can get Sancho, we’re not just suddenly going to get rid of the three players who can cover those positions. Chong seems to be going on loan too. My prediction is one of Lingard, Andreas and Mata leaves.
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Laird and Mengi seem to be looking at a first-team breakthrough next season. Garner and Levitt are possibly going out on loan so I doubt we'll let that many midfielders go in one window.
 
Dan_F said:
There’s no chance of so many departures, outside of central defence. Even if we can get Sancho, we’re not just suddenly going to get rid of the three players who can cover those positions. Chong seems to be going on loan too. My prediction is one of Lingard, Andreas and Mata leaves.
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We can easily get rid of 2 CBs. Smalling was on loan all season, Rojo for the last 6 months and Jones has made only a handful of appearance.

I think 2 of Lingard, Andreas and Mata goes. Think it will be Andreas that stays.

I see Dalot going as well, at the very least on
Loan.
 
I have always thought we are crazy to be holding out for fees for a lot of the players We consider deadwood. I looked through contracts and wages over the remaining duration and i think we make some good money just from saving wages on a lot of them.

Phil jones has a 3 year contract left, wages 11.7m.

Rojo has 1 year left, 4.16m wages

Smalling has 2 years left, 13.25m wages

Lingard Has 1 year, 4.68m

Pereira has 3 years, 4.68m

Mata has 1 year, 8.32M

Romero(Not deadwood but likely to leave) has 1 year, 3.64M
 
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