Agree, that's why it's important not to compare managers at different Era's ( or at least when they started). Different times different policies etc. Anyways this is the 'tweets only' section, I guess if we take it any further these might be deleted.
Transfer Tweets - 2017/18
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Agree, that's why it's important not to compare managers at different Era's ( or at least when they started). Different times different policies etc. Anyways this is the 'tweets only' section, I guess if we take it any further these might be deleted.
I do not get the «that’s why»-part. That is why, what? Because it makes Mourinho look less good? This is often the argument people turn to when they are reminded that what they suggest/support are in stark contrast to they way Busby/Ferguson built this club. But although football has improved and moved forward, this dynamic has not changed and the most succesfull clubs and managers invest in the same manner Ferguson did in terms of age and experience.
The biggest difference is perhaps that they look more abroad (something Ferguson also adapted to in his recent years).
But you are right that this is the «tweets only-section». I got carried away, and forgot. Sorry.
Vidal to United you say... brings back good memories! 
Just go with it, it’s much easier or you’ll be accused of not allowing people their erroneous opinions
He is probably their best homegrown product in a long time but I get what you are saying.
Prime example? Lukaku, Bailly, Pogba, Lindeloff, Martial, Memphis, Shaw etc says otherwise. Also, Matic seems to be doing okay wouldn't you say? Not ever player is Wayne Rooney in terms of longevity.
The three players you mention that cost a fortune came in for a combined 6m. Yeah the wages would have been high but that is offset by the fact they cost next to nothin.
Oh Vidal, anyone remember this ?
29? Just passing his peak? Injury prone?
Welcome to Manchester, Toby.
Welcome to Manchester, Toby.
Players pass their peak at 29 now?
He’s one of the best CB’s in the league and could offer 3/4 good years.
On the contrary, I think defenders would rather play for Jose and I would always back us even if we are going against the elites.
If we are in for Tobi and if we can agree a fee with spurs, I am pretty sure he will join us ahead of Barca/PSG
If we are in for Tobi and if we can agree a fee with spurs, I am pretty sure he will join us ahead of Barca/PSG
Because buying young defenders has worked out super well for us the past 5 years right?
He’d comfortably become our best CB if that move happens.
Spurs finally going to start paying their players and manager over the minimum wage.
This place and 29 year old players.. it's hilarious..
Experience matters but its not a good thing to stock them up.This place and 29 year old players.. it's hilarious..
Lets say we sign Toby, Vidal and Bale (muppet's pipe dream) then we would have sanchez, matic, these 3, young, mata and valencia in our first xi in this age group.
We will have to dive deep again in every transfer market window.
Young, Valencia and more than likely Mata won't be starting next season. Fullbacks will be overhauled this summer.
Having an experienced core isn't a terrible thing either. We're actually short if you look at other top clubs in Europe.
Players aged 28+ with 1000+ minutes this season so far:
Juventus - 12 players from 18
Real Madrid - 10 players from 19
Barcelona - 10 players from 16
Bayern Munich - 11 players from 18
Manchester United - 8 players from 19
Players aged 28+ with 1000+ minutes this season so far:
Juventus - 12 players from 18
Real Madrid - 10 players from 19
Barcelona - 10 players from 16
Bayern Munich - 11 players from 18
Manchester United - 8 players from 19
I don't think 29 is too old for a CB,and he turned 29 last month
I fully expect us to get 3-4 years from him.
Same with Vidal
More importantly those two are exactly what we need, a calm experienced ball playing CB and an all action combative CM.Toby is probably the best CB we can buy
Furthermore those two wouldn't cost more than say 80 million, which leaves 100 million plus after sales for us to buy FBs and maybe even a RW
I hope we don't sign Bale because without pace Bale is nothing special.
Our squad especially the starters are in a good age bracket in my opinion.
DDG - 26
Bailly - 23
Pogba - 24
Matic - 29
Martial / Rashford - 22/20
Sanchez - 29
Lukaku - 24
Our core has a mean age just above 25
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Toby would be a wonderful signing.
Im not sold on Bale and Vidal. Both are crocks. Vidal is probably past it and thats why Bayern are willing to cash in.
@IrishRedDevil fair enough mate
Agree about Bale, not about Vidal though.
This is Vidal's injury history from transfermarket
17/18 Season
17/18 Thigh problems Mar 29, 2018 - 5 days 2 games missed
17/18 Infection Feb 1, 2018 Feb 5, 2018 4 days 1 games missed
17/18 Calf muscle strain Oct 9, 2017 Oct 16, 2017 7 days 1 games missed
17/18 Muscular problems Sep 28, 2017 Oct 2, 2017 4 days 1 games missed
16/17 Season
16/17 Rib bruise Jan 23, 2017 Feb 2, 2017 10 days 1 game missed
16/17 Minor wound Nov 17, 2016 Nov 24, 2016 7 days 2 games missed
16/17 Thigh problems Nov 10, 2016 Nov 14, 2016 4 days 0 games missed
16/17 Influenza Oct 13, 2016 Oct 17, 2016 4 days 1 games missed
15/16 Season
15/16 Minor wound Jun 9, 2016 Jun 9, 2016 0 days 0 games missed
15/16 Fever May 5, 2016 May 12, 2016 7 days 1 games missed
15/16 Minor wound Feb 15, 2016 Feb 18, 2016 3 days 0 games missed
15/16 Calf muscle strain Dec 21, 2015 Jan 4, 2016 14 days 0 games misses
Link - https://www.transfermarkt.com/arturo-vidal/verletzungen/spieler/37666
So in his three years at Bayern, Vidal has missed 10 games.And 6 out of those 10 were missed due to minor injuries like minor wounds or fevers.
That is pretty good if you ask me, I think Pogba has missed more matches that Vidal has.
And about Vidal being past it, he is in the Bundesliga team of the season with an average rating of 7.5
He has 6 goals and two assists this season.
Now I don't know how well he is playing because I don't watch Bundesliga but he seems to be doing pretty well.
But of course there are risks involved in this transfer.He depends on his energy and aggression so things could go downhill pretty fast.
But just like Matic transfer, we will have to trust Jose on this one.
But how many of these 28+ players were bought after they were 28 or more in each team? Your stats only shows that top teams tend to buy players of 27 or less years and let them gel for few years.
No harm in buying 1 or 2 28+ players, but Its obviously not a good idea to buy more than 2. 29 year old for a CB is not so old, but you will still have problem in moving him or you wont be able to recoup anything later when letting him go/selling.
Its concerning if we go for Vidal, Bale and Toby all in same window. If we do so, we might be back to square one in 2-3 seasons and will need to rebuild the team once again.
Harry Kane getting a rise to £11.25 per hour, but only being payed for in match match hours. Likely to be bumped up to almost £18 a game if he scores. On a good week Levy will pay him £36.
These rumours about Vidal and Bale make me really miss the “no value in the market” days.
Don't forget he also has to provide his own lunch.
I don't know why we should be worrying about selling our players if they are top class. We are not a selling club and the only thing we should care about is the value the player will be adding to the squad, not his resale value.
I don't think we bought DDG or Martial for millions thinking hey we can sell these guys for twice this in the future.
If Toby provides us 3-4 top quality years and helps us win a PL or two and maybe a CL, I would say he that more than make up for the lack of resale value.
Also RVP, one of our best signings ever, was signed at the age of 29
So if we had decided not to sign him because he had no resale value, we wouldn't have won our 20th.
Toby would be an absolutely wonderful signing.
Bale and Vidal could go either way, especially Bale
If there's a hole in your squad you address it. That's the point of having money.
You could argue that we lack players with experience, leaders on the pitch. Those players you can't conjure up from the youth system we'd need to buy. It's not really an issue if we have replace one or two players in a 3/4 seasons time because the young players in our squad should have aged by then and replaced them. People make out that signing players in their prime is a bad thing, it's bizarre. Too much FIFA/FM. I wouldn't worry about funds either, we tend to waste a crazy amount of money anyway given how cheap we sell our players on in the past. Thats the benefit of being United I guess, we can afford it.
I agree with you that we are not a selling club and we do not care about resale value while making a signing. BUt you cannot overlook the fact that signing an old player means in 3-4 years, you have to go again and buy a new player again, all the chemistry the old guy has with his teammates just goes off and we are back to same process of fitting in new player in starting XI.
You mentioned RVP - but for every one example of RVP - I can give you 5 examples of top signings under age of 25/26 - for e.g., Rooney, Ronnie, Rio. RVP's contribution on our 20th is unquestionable but had we signed some younger striker, maybe we would not struggle as much in front of goal after 12/13 season and maybe we wouldnot have needed to buy Falcao/Zlatan and then Lukaku to sort it out.
Toby comes with fair amount of risk (he has not been given much playing time after his injury, maybe because of his contract situation ) For all we know, his injury might recurr in 1 or 2 matches. Will he play at the same level prior to his injury is another question.
You dint answer - how many of these 28+ players were bought after they were 28 or more in each team?
It is one thing to buy one off old player to fill the gap in the team and totally different thing to add 2-3 old players playing top dollars right after already signing 2 old players.
I am not saying promote youth to fill the needs in our team, thats too much of an ask. Signing a player in their prime is never bad, So I wouldnot mind 26 year old Vidal or Bale. But at 29, where you already have few question marks, when you are already on and off your current team, it is not a bright idea.
IN our case , we signed Matic which is fair enough. Jose trusts him and he knows exactly what to get from Matic. Then we added Sanchez. NOw, if we spend top dollars to add 2-3 new players who are 28+ in our starting XI, it will be 4-5 players that we just invested and needed to be moved on again after 3-4 years. That is a big rebuilding process right there.
Bouhafsi reporting we're trying to sign Ghoulam...
Advancing on Ghoulam
Not necessarily. If we can either promote from our Academy or buy very good youngsters and slowly integrate them into the squad, we would not have that transition period.
The same can be said about RVP. Buying RVP was not the problem, it was not having a proper backup lined up. Maybe Fergie expected Welbeck / Chicha to step up.
Also there is a problem with availability. We should always buy the best available.
Midfield and CB have been a problem for us for years.
We have spend millions on CMs and CBs, many of them young with huge promise.
Cleverly, Anderson, Herrera, Schneiderlin were all young or youngish CMs with potential.
Same can be said about Jones, Smalling, Rojo, Blind, Darmian, Shaw, Bailly, Lindelof or our entire defense.
Out of all those signings, only Bailly is the one I rate highly, all others have been meh.
We have had much more success buying young forwards.
So we have tried and failed buying youngsters with promise. And the same is the reason why our CM, CB & FB departments have been so poor for so long. We kept taking chances on youngsters, hoping they would step up, but they never did.
So I feel this time we should look for someone experienced, someone who is more if a sure shot, at least to just steady the ship, deliver top quality in areas we have been lacking. Once the situation is more under control, maybe we can think about buying young and slowly integrating them to the squad.
Alderweireld makes sense, neither of Vidal or Bale do.
We won't sign all 3 of them and as poster below your post said we surely won't have the same FBs next season.
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