Ah whoops. That was a longer post that I didn't finish writing ages ago and had been saved in my drafts on this thread. The point more generally is that I'm worried once again that a club as big as United seems entirely dependent on the manager to find and identify talent. There seems to be no scouting infrastructure whatsoever, and a huge part of why Mourinho failed is because of his tendency to return to known quantities. So whilst I'm happy that Solksjear is apparently taking into account the players personality (although why that wasn't being taken into account before I don't know) I do worry that the only players on his radar are ones that himself, Phelan, Carrick or Ferguson knew of. We're a multimillion pound football club, we should be able to find a centre back for reasons other than 'Phelan worked with him once'.
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Ah whoops. That was a longer post that I didn't finish writing ages ago and had been saved in my drafts on this thread. The point more generally is that I'm worried once again that a club as big as United seems entirely dependent on the manager to find and identify talent. There seems to be no scouting infrastructure whatsoever, and a huge part of why Mourinho failed is because of his tendency to return to known quantities. So whilst I'm happy that Solksjear is apparently taking into account the players personality (although why that wasn't being taken into account before I don't know) I do worry that the only players on his radar are ones that himself, Phelan, Carrick or Ferguson knew of. We're a multimillion pound football club, we should be able to find a centre back for reasons other than 'Phelan worked with him once'.
You'd be very surprised, that's a slice from the sharing sized pizza. I take it someone likes indulging in a Pizza Hut?
Edit: I'm only joking, there's not 1200 calories in a slice, more around 300-400.
Domino's sell several pizzas that are around 1000 calories per slice (large slice).
My worry is that if those players don't perform, a completely plausibly scenario even if Greenwood is a generational talent – he is 17 after all, that fans that have been trying to proclaim that everything is fine will roundly turn on the youngsters, rather than admit that the expectations on them were ludicrous.
We've seen that happen last season with Rashford who is still only 21. He's a baby who is still learning his game but is spoken about like a seasoned pro. Chong, Gomes, and Greenwood have played 11 senior matches between the 3 of them. James has never played in the Premier League. Yes, it's great players get chances at United, but there's a difference between giving players chances and loading the hopes and expectations of a season on three youth team players (and a raw, 21 year old winger). It's very unlikely to be a good thing in the short term, and there's a real danger that an utterly catastrophic season for them this year – which is hardly out of the question – will do serious damage to their longterm prospects, too.
No.That’s why I think that notion is nonsense & just makes no sense.
We have lost 2 first team midfielders in 6 months & haven’t replaced them because we suddenly only buy british
All this in a market where on Longstaff & Rice are the only possibilities; looks like another convenient excuse to me.
“The reason we didn’t sign a midfielders is cause we added so many filters the FM search engine returned 0 matches.”
United will buy anyone who's good enough and fits the profile.
AWB, James and Maguire ultimately said ''yes' to our offers. Dybala, Eriksen and Mandzukic ultimately said 'no' to our offers. If the responses had been the other way around - and there's no reason why they couldn't have been - would United's strategy suddenly be about buying old foreigners?
Yeah, it really isn't far short of sabotage on Ole tbh."Woodward and the Glazers have bought into Solskjaer's vision of the future and his desire to rebuild the club around a squad largely made up of young, hungry, domestic talent. #mufc [Standard]"
What's worrying about this is that these quotes seem to me like the top brass are laying the groundwork for the blame to be laid squarely at the feet of Ole and his vision. I mean, had Ole not been in charge, Woody would obviously have gone and gotten another midfielder and striker, but he's just so invested in Ole's plan.
So there's only 3 players in the entire world who would improve us and wanted to join?
Do you really believe what you're posting?
Your logic is awful here.
We made contract offers to 6 players. They weren't all British as you claimed.
In fact, you could add Mejbri to the list.
7 contract offers, of which the majority were foreigners. Our strategy this season has been to look for non-Brits more than it has been to look for Brits.
I mean, that's not the only reason we signed Maguire, obviously. It was just an additional aspect to his signing. Phelan could give insight to his personality which is hugely important. Look at loner Alexis.
You might want to check who you're replying to buddy. Certainly, wasn't my claim. Nor was it actually the poster's who you think you are replying to, you completely misread his post and misread mine to boot.
In fact, the issue seems to be with reading what other people have posted properly. The claim came from James Robson (presumably) at the Standard who claimed our lack of business was because we wanted predominately young, British, and hungry players. The poster you replied to said that was an excuse, you preceded to tell him that he was wrong and that, obviously, 'we will buy anyone who's good enough and fits the profile'.
We signed 3 players and have glaring squad gaps, we couldn't find more than three people who would improve us and wanted to join. Telling me that we made contract offers to four players (and Mejbri is 16), three of whom didn't want to join is irrelevant, that was already addressed in the first sentence. That's not even to mention why the club claims to have pulled out of those deals; it was not because they did not want to join, but because they did not want to join for the right reasons.
So what is this profile, and how do so few players fit into it? Is it, as the poster whose post you responded to said, a convenient excuse to cover up a lack of business and to downplay the fact that players rejected us, or is it to favour building a squad of predominately homegrown, hungry, young players which our pursuits of Maguire, AWB, James and Longstaff would suggest (along with Solskjaer's own claims that there will be more opportunities for Greenwood, Gomes, Chong, Tuanzebe, McTominay and Pereira) because it's one of the two. Either the policy is a backwards construction to explain what on earth we have been doing, or it is a policy. Your apparent insinuation that we've been traipsing across Europe in search of talent but can only find 3 players who fit the profile and wanted to join us stretches the realms of credibility to the extreme.
You'll also note the word 'largely' in the initial tweet, too.
No, it probably wasn't. Maguire is a very good player, and I hope will be a good signing for us. But there's lots of other very good centre backs out there, and we signed the one a member of our staff had worked with in the past. I'm not saying that Phelan's opinion shouldn't carry weight, but we've seen the follies of a complete reliance on the manager before. That doesn't make that isolated signing a bad thing (nor the signing of AWB or James) but it does suggest that the net isn't being cast that widely and we could end up missing out on perfectly good players (or even better players than the ones we've signed) because they don't come from part of Ole's network.
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I think everyone knows who Harry Maguire is to be honest. Mainstay England Cb, key part of World Cup sem li final run. Not exactly a rough diamond from the Russian league is he.
Wan-Bissaka and Maguire are both really obvious signings to everyone. Only Dan James has been signed based on recommendations.
Not according to people much better placed than you and I, but yes, the unbolded is sort of the point. We've routinely failed to unearth talent, especially from overseas, and there's little to suggest (not that this should be a surprise) that Solskjaer has the contacts to address that. The players who are on our radar are, therefore, exclusively players who are really well known (Maguire and Wan-Bissaka both being a good example, but also the apparent interest in Sancho, Dybala and Eriksen) and players that Solskjaer does know through his contacts (also Maguire and Wan-Bissaka, but also James and Longstaff). I don't expect the club to be punting on the likes of Mahrez or Kante when they joined Leicester, but there's a pool of really decent talent available around the continent that we seem to be constantly unaware of, and that our rivals have had great success with hoovering up. That doesn't mean any of the players we have signed won't work out (or that the alternative strategy would work perfectly: Mkhitaryan and Fred both fit this category and both were/have been poor) just that I am worried that our entire transfer approach is a one man band and the manager could be better supported by the infrastructure at the club.
Even on this forum I doubt you'd find many people who think Dybala is old. He's 25.
"Woodward and the Glazers have bought into Solskjaer's vision of the future and his desire to rebuild the club around a squad largely made up of young, hungry, domestic talent. #mufc [Standard]"
What's worrying about this is that these quotes seem to me like the top brass are laying the groundwork for the blame to be laid squarely at the feet of Ole and his vision. I mean, had Ole not been in charge, Woody would obviously have gone and gotten another midfielder and striker, but he's just so invested in Ole's plan.
Yep, I mean I loathe Mourinho but he did the same thing last year, as soon as the window closed he briefed that Maguire was no better than what we had which is why Mourinho didn't get him and his other targets for CB were too old, but we'd have paid £100M for Varane if he'd wanted him. Ole will be the fall guy by the time Santa is heading down the chimney.
Chutney is transfer bot. When the window closes they'll put him in cryostasis like Simon Phoenix until next summer.
Yeah, I mean it seems people always want to make out our recruitment is one-dimensional when it isn’t true. Mourinho bought an aging striker (Ibra) and a striker coming into his prime (Lukaku). He bought two inexperience young Cb’s who were meant to be the ‘rough’ diamonds we were trying to unearth. Lindelof has come on and maybe Bailly still can if he stays fit.
Similarly, we are now hearing ‘young, hungry, British’. Yet Maguire is 26 not 18.
At first team level few top teams sign unknown players. Which of Liverpool’s signings have been this huge surprise name? Salah has been way more a success than expected but he wasn’t unknown.
Werent Bayern after a chelsea forward also and he got injured too?
Why domestic, is there something wrong with foreigners. Is Trump running our recruiting policy. MUGA. Manchester United have fans all over the world not just domestic fans. This has to be bullshit.
Hudson-Odoi
"Woodward and the Glazers have bought into Solskjaer's vision of the future and his desire to rebuild the club around a squad largely made up of young, hungry, domestic talent. #mufc [Standard]"
What's worrying about this is that these quotes seem to me like the top brass are laying the groundwork for the blame to be laid squarely at the feet of Ole and his vision. I mean, had Ole not been in charge, Woody would obviously have gone and gotten another midfielder and striker, but he's just so invested in Ole's plan.
Does it? I don't understand this paranoid version of events where Woodward and the Glazers actively do not want the club to succeed. That would suit no party, at all.
That's the brief you would expect us to make when we failed to sign other players. We pretend our transfer window went exactly like planned.
Philipp moving to Dynamo Moscow
This is the line I responded to and bolded:
We tried to buy 7 players players this Summer. 4 were foreign. 3 were British.We have lost 2 first team midfielders in 6 months & haven’t replaced them because we suddenly only buy british
I was responding to the bolded line. That's why I bolded it.
I was disagreeing with the idea that "we suddenly only buy british". No, we don't.
And in your hurry to bold it and reply you didn't read the entire post that followed it which showed you what that poster thought about that argument.
Kagawa to Zaragoza
If I'm agreeing with him, what's your problem?
behind a paywall, but seems like the deal is close. From Sane to Perisic
Loan + option to buy for 30m Euros.Schöne to Cfc Genoa
For all we know they might reintroduce a limited foreign player rule after Brexit. I'm sure all it would take would be a poor England showing at the Euros next summer for there to be calls for it (again).
Losing 2 first team attackers without replacementWe still have a lot of deadwood here. Sooner we get rid the better.
Sanchez was hardly contributing to be honest, James can replace him
A sack of spuds can replace Sanchez's "contribution" of last season.
It’s not, why do you think we only bought British players, and tried to bring Longstaff? Also, why should our transfer strategy be based on where we have fans?
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