Too early to be getting worried?

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LeftyBlaster said:
No idea what the heck is going on. Based on media reports alone, it looks like we've gone back to a brainless spray and pray approach, kinda like Woodys first window but with more anonymity. Why are we even wasting time chasing players like Kane?

Clamping down on the panic, it also looks like we're ready to let Nani and RVP go, and I don't think we'd be so stupid to do that without first being assured of additions being made...right? :nervous:
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Nani wasn't part of our team last season and shouldn't be seen as someone who needs replacing.
We aren't going to buy another exciting striker since we are moving towards a system where we only need one, so whoever comes in will have to be content to sit on the bench. Try to sell that to Lacazette and co. We'll be keeping Hernandez and/or are counting on the young one.
 
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Pexbo said:
Why would a director of football make any sense at all when Van Gaal and his scouting team choose their targets?

As far as money goes, that's the role of the CEO. It won't just be Woodward on his own either, he'll have accountants and solicitors advising and handing contracts and negotiations with selling clubs.


It's so naive to think that if we had some sort of Director of Football he'd have some sort of magic negotiation skillset that would draw any other response than "you're rich as feck, you can afford it so pay up".


Edit- To add to this there been very little activity across Europe (Liverpool the exception with 3 free transfers, overpaying for a player no other "top" team was in for, a young english defender with a year on his contract and an 18 year old Championship player for nearly £4m).

The reason barely any transfers have been made is because players are only just returning to their clubs from holiday and selling clubs have no interest in letting them go too easily when traditionally speaking the fees only go up as buying clubs get desperate. The transfer merry-go-round hasn't kicked in yet.
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The merit in having a DoF would be the long term planning of transfer strategy. We'll be fine with the current setup over LvGs tenure (2-4 years more?) but we really ought to be plotting for our future beyond that. Otherwise we'll just be having expensive and unsustainable player requirements when we get our next manager in.

The current system worked well for us under Fergie because he was here for so long. He outlived player/team cycles and never had to totally refresh a team over short time periods.

You're right about the financial/negotiation part of it. I don't think a DoF has anything to do there.
 
LeftyBlaster said:
No idea what the heck is going on. Based on media reports alone, it looks like we've gone back to a brainless spray and pray approach, kinda like Woodys first window but with more anonymity. Why are we even wasting time chasing players like Kane?

Clamping down on the panic, it also looks like we're ready to let Nani and RVP go, and I don't think we'd be so stupid to do that without first being assured of additions being made...right? :nervous:
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I wouldn't have thought we'd be so stupid as to appoint a woefully inadequate midtable manager, or to spend an entire summer chasing after Fabregas only to sign Fellaini for £4m more than his buyout clause. We're nowhere near panic stations, but some concern is probably understandable/inevitable.
 
MDFC Manager said:
The merit in having a DoF would be the long term planning of transfer strategy. We'll be fine with the current setup over LvGs tenure (2-4 years more?) but we really ought to be plotting for our future beyond that. Otherwise we'll just be having expensive and unsustainable player requirements when we get our next manager in.

The current system worked well for us under Fergie because he was here for so long. He outlived player/team cycles and never had to totally refresh a team over short time periods.

You're right about the financial/negotiation part of it. I don't think a DoF has anything to do there.
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All fair enough but I think the board have very much thought that through by hiring Van Gaal. He's shown faith in youth already, we have a very young squad as it is, if he left in 3 years how many players will be gone (theoretically - think ages) or past it in 3 years?

Carrick, Van Persie, Rooney, Valencia, Young.

The rest will be 30 or under

Compare that to our rivals. I think we're in good shape with good thought into the medium term.
 
Pexbo said:
All fair enough but I think the board have very much thought that through by hiring Van Gaal. He's shown faith in youth already, we have a very young squad as it is, if he left in 3 years how many players will be gone (theoretically - think ages) or past it in 3 years?

Carrick, Van Persie, Rooney, Valencia, Young.

The rest will be 30 or under

Compare that to our rivals. I think we're in good shape with good thought into the medium term.
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Yup I'm not overly concerned. There's also suggestions that LvG is also revamping the youth education, etc. Let's see
 
LVG made it pretty clear he wanted most of our business done by pre-season, so we effectively have a week to get everything done, or we know somethings gone wrong.

How can you not be worried?
 
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Yeah, going by his comments before he jetted off to his villa in Portugal, you would think LVG definitely expected one or two new signings to have been done by the first day of training.
 
Like everyone, I expected all of our major business to be done long before now. We had heard so much about getting our business done early, about having everyone together for the tour, about having learned our lessons from the summer of Moyes and the partial-repeat of that mistake with last summer's late business.

But here we are - no new player other than the one that was announced before the season even ended, with at least four positions needing attention.

I do however have an inkling that we will announce Otamendi in the coming week. My thinking is: i. we were very heavily linked earlier in the season, but then things went very quiet, ii. his being at the Copa would provide an explanation why we not have announced it yet (though other players at the tournament have signed elsewhere and been announced, but we might have chosen to leave the announcement until later - well it's not impossible?), and iii. I hope to Cantona that our management aren't naive enough to think this Ramos thing is going anywhere for us, especially after Woodward himself being at the heart of the Fabregas mess a couple of years ago, so having already completed a more plausible signing in that position would be reassuring.

Schneiderlin maybe as well before the tour departure?

No idea what we're going to do about any other position though :lol: :nervous:
 
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Sam said:
LVG made it pretty clear he wanted most of our business done by pre-season, so we effectively have a week to get everything done, or we know somethings gone wrong.

How can you not be worried?
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He said it is better and hoped it worked out that way. Doubt he is as worked up about it as posters here are. He hardly issued a "do it by such and such a date or all is lost" statement.
 
Going by the perfectionist that he is, I'm sure Van Gaal is far from content with how we've gone about our transfer business do far! He wanted everyone set for pre-season, including the new signings.. Give them time to settle in and get adjusted to his tactics and coaching.

So far we've just signed Memphis, and that was just because PSG made us make a move early or god knows if we'd have signed him yet!

Going by how long its taking us to get the Schneiderlin deal done, I'm starting to think that nonsense about unveiling players in the adidas kit might have a grain of truth in it.

I'm not jumping the gun, or having knee jerk reaction but Van Gaal and Woody were publicly claiming all transfer deals would be done before pre-season began and we seem to be at square one with pre-season starting tomorrow
 
Not worried yet. It's important to make the right signings. That's at the end of the day what matters. We need to improve by more than our rivals will.
 
JustAFan said:
He said it is better and hoped it worked out that way. Doubt he is as worked up about it as posters here are. He hardly issued a "do it by such and such a date or all is lost" statement.
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Managers generally don't offer up ultimatums like that publicly,, wouldn't be a great strategy.
 
JustAFan said:
He said it is better and hoped it worked out that way. Doubt he is as worked up about it as posters here are. He hardly issued a "do it by such and such a date or all is lost" statement.
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I'm sure that privately he will have put it to Woodward in a slightly more forceful manner. This is a big season for both Utd and Van Gaal personally. He will want to hit the ground running when the season starts, not be hanging around still waiting to see what his squad is going to be. I'm positive he will have wanted nearly all of the new recruits to be in place by the time the tour starts. This is a big week. It's 05:21 on Monday and we haven't announced any signings yet! Get your arse in gear Woody!! :boring:
 
Somewhere between concerned and worried, now. Nothing by the 15th and it's panic mode. I'm not that worried about Ramos, I was thinking it's just to push Real back on DDG, and I can buy the Otamendi-Copa America delay, but only for another week. And I'm worried about panic mode overspending with each passing day.
 
I have stayed calm regarding incoming transfers recently but if we still haven't done anything by Friday then I will be concerned after the club was saying that deals would be done as quickly as possible. I've a good feeling for today but saying that I had that same feeling last Monday.
 
Pexbo said:
All fair enough but I think the board have very much thought that through by hiring Van Gaal. He's shown faith in youth already, we have a very young squad as it is, if he left in 3 years how many players will be gone (theoretically - think ages) or past it in 3 years?

Carrick, Van Persie, Rooney, Valencia, Young.

The rest will be 30 or under

Compare that to our rivals. I think we're in good shape with good thought into the medium term.
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Actually that is/was half your first team, add in De Gea (likely) being replaced by a 33 yr old Valdes and that's certainly half. Compare that to Spurs/Liverpool for example whose 1st teams average around 24 yrs old. I'd certainly not be panicking as a phase out over 2-3 seasons is easily possible, more than likely in fact, but I wouldn't be calling United's current 1st team 'very young'. However you will notice that most title winning teams have average ages closer to 27/28 so youth isn't everything.
 
We should have a right-back and CM sorted by the end of July. It should have been a CB too, but the Ramos thing will take time to get sorted either way.
I will start worrying of we don't have a new CM and RB by the end of July.
If we can get those two positioned sorted, then will have a month to wrap up the signing of a Striker and a CB. That won't be too bad.
 
If we hadn't spent the last week or two dicking around, trying to help Sergio Ramos get a better wage rate at Real Madrid and trying to secure an injury prone, if not a very good player in Schweinsteiger, and just paid what was needed for Otamendi and Schneiderlin, we would be settling our new signings in now and making a few final additions.

We would be in the process of integrating the new faces in training and building much needed team cohesion for the start of the season.

Don't know why we're so surpirsed, this is the sort of thing we're reknowned for. The transfer season is the most important part to get right, in the sense that the success of the rest of the season follows on from it, but again and again we don't get it right, and end up paying for it.

The way things stand, finishing outside the top 3 is a very real possibility, and even qualifying for the group stages of the CL can't be taken for granted.
 
I think Woodward needs to be replaced when it comes to transfer dealings. Pissed around when Moyes was here, been made to pay top bucks for two players clubs wanted rid of (Mata + Di Maria), paid £16 million for a season of Falcao. Looks like he's pissing around now, the only signing we've made came after LVG intervened and we have nobody else in ahead of the pre season tour when it was widely believed we would be completing business early.
 
When you look at it on dates, we have about a month until the first game of the season. However, most of the squad are away for a large part of that month.

Yes it is beginning to get worrying. Memphis alone isn't enough.
 
Rafateria said:
Actually that is/was half your first team, add in De Gea (likely) being replaced by a 33 yr old Valdes and that's certainly half. Compare that to Spurs/Liverpool for example whose 1st teams average around 24 yrs old. I'd certainly not be panicking as a phase out over 2-3 seasons is easily possible, more than likely in fact, but I wouldn't be calling United's current 1st team 'very young'. However you will notice that most title winning teams have average ages closer to 27/28 so youth isn't everything.
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Was half the first team. Only Rooney and Carrick are difficult to replace off that list, the quality of our players that will still be a good age in 3 or so years far surpasses what you and Spurs have.

Shaw (23) Jones (26) Smalling (28) McNair (22) Rojo (27) Blind (28) Herrera (28) Mata (30) Fellaini (30) Depay (24) Januzaj (23) Wilson (22) Di Maria (30)

That's just our first team and signings from this year. We've got plenty of youth that can add to that.
 
Bwuk said:
When you look at it on dates, we have about a month until the first game of the season. However, most of the squad are away for a large part of that month.

Yes it is beginning to get worrying. Memphis alone isn't enough.
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Pre-season is what matters, he wants them in so they know exactly how they have to play and understand his training methods. It's no good going into a season with players who haven't a clue what is required. Last season shows that. At least last seasons signing will have settled.
 
DomesticTadpole said:
Pre-season is what matters, he wants them in so they know exactly how they have to play and understand his training methods. It's no good going into a season with players who haven't a clue what is required. Last season shows that. At least last seasons signing will have settled.
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My biggest worry is Carrick if he gets injurred before the start of the new season we are fecked. Having a replacement for him would take away alot of the worries.

------------DDG/Valdes---------
Valencia--Smalling--Rojo---Shaw
--------------Carrick--------------
------Herrera----Fellaini---------
Mata--------Rooney-----Depay

Jones, Blind, Pereira, Januzaj, Young and RVP/Wilson

Should see us through most of the games we are facing, add Di Maria to that if he gets back from his injurry

But take Carrick out of that team and we have a problem

Obviously having the new players would give us invaluable time to bed them in and could have a positive effect on the start of the season but appart from a DM I think we can manage with the players that we have atm.
 
DomesticTadpole said:
Pre-season is what matters, he wants them in so they know exactly how they have to play and understand his training methods. It's no good going into a season with players who haven't a clue what is required. Last season shows that. At least last seasons signing will have settled.
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Of course it would also help if half the team was not out injured the first few months of the season. Okay it was not half, but that hurt our start as much as anything else. As did having to wait for the WC to end before LvG joined us.
 
What's bothering me at the moment is that the De Gea contract issue and now van Persie (although it may be a lot over nothing) seem to be the only activity going on right now. That, and Nani being cleared out for peanuts.

I don't know how realistic it will be to get the players we need in for pre-season because with the agents there will be holdouts until the last moment of the transfer window. All I know is that we can't have the same situation as last season because the first few games when new players weren't settled cost us dearly.
 
How long until the anxiety turns to anger and how long until anger turns into rioting ?
 
NoArroJusBeta said:
How long until the anxiety turns to anger and how long until anger turns into rioting ?
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Stop shit stirring and trying to gather followers into your mad vortex of panic, doom and debauchery.

You can 'riot' by having a protest wank.
 
JustAFan said:
Ah I see the old take what was actually said and assume that it is not what he really meant.


Okay I am going to join the little kids and start stomping my feet to!
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We'll agree to disagree but... They don't generally air grievances in public.
 
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marlowe78 said:
What's bothering me at the moment is that the De Gea contract issue and now van Persie (although it may be a lot over nothing) seem to be the only activity going on right now. That, and Nani being cleared out for peanuts.

I don't know how realistic it will be to get the players we need in for pre-season because with the agents there will be holdouts until the last moment of the transfer window. All I know is that we can't have the same situation as last season because the first few games when new players weren't settled cost us dearly.
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Judging by the way we bid for Schneiderlin 2 weeks and not been back suggests that we are carrying on our trend of being extremely blasé, When is Woodward going to learn :rolleyes:
 
There's no chance the Glazers are planning another share flotation some time soon is there? They did that last year during the tour and the theory was that this is what held up the later transfer business, ie buying players for big bucks reduces the value of the share price.

Or even more far fetched waiting to see what happens with Greece and the chance they will come out of the Euro, this could cause the Euro to be devalued further so the pound will go a lot further, a load of old trash probably that.

Sad fact could be that we're just not getting our targets, or are playing a dangerous waiting game with Ramos and Schweinsteiger.
 
The trend is always the same:
Difficoult to operate in the market+Overpaying players+Sell the players for cheap
 
So what's the synopsis at this point?

In:
Depay - confirmed
Schneiderlin - rumors
Ramos - rumors
Anything else - unlikely

Out:
Falcao - confirmed
Nani - confirmed
Chicharito - probable
RvP - probable
DDG - probable

Worst transfer window ever??
 
Darwin09 said:
So what's the synopsis at this point?

In:
Depay - confirmed
Schneiderlin - rumors
Ramos - rumors
Anything else - unlikely

Out:
Falcao - confirmed
Nani - confirmed
Chicharito - probable
RvP - probable
DDG - probable

Worst transfer window ever??
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I seem to recall something about selling Ronaldo and buying Valencia and Owen.
 
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