In spite of how many on here have tried to dress it up, the way the club have handled this transfer window has been nothing short of embarrassing. Not one single problem area has been properly addressed and we are one week away from starting the new season in a worse state than we ended it. We are lighter upfront as both Greenwood and Ronaldo are pretty much gone, the midfield is even lighter than before because Pogba, Matic and Mata left and only Eriksen has come in and the defense still has all the question marks surrounding it that were there last year in spite of spending another €70m plus on it. And all this with a new manager still getting to grips with things. The last thing the club should want is for him to get off to a slow start. Utterly ridiculous and not befitting of a club of this size and stature.
Transfer Tweets - Manchester United - 2022/23 | Follow the OP rules and check the quality of your sources before posting. STAY ON TOPIC!
- Thread starter mazhar13
- Start date
- Status
10/10 post. Like.
Wouldn't call it embarrassing but incompetent. Apart from that you are spot on. However you'll soon be told that all this is part of the all brand new United and that this window has been brilliant.
I do think the result of our window dictates how seriously we could take EL. Our squad becoming more condensed but having a bit more quality makes a lot of sense unless we flog our 11 week in, week out.
One game a week and we’re fine imo
Spot on. Many saw this coming when we hadn’t made a single signing in June. But you had posters saying ‘the window only opened 3 weeks ago’.
Because that was true at the time?
There is that word again!
That’s exactly why ETH wants Antony. Too bad we left it late and are being priced out seemingly.
Chong wasn't even good enough for Werder Bremen but I'm sure people on here will tell you our options up front are great
That we shouldn’t had worried at the time because the window had only opened 3 weeks prior? Certainly hasn’t turned out to be true since the people who were worried haven’t been proven wrong with the way the window has gone.
It was perfectly reasonable to point out it was early then.
Turns out concern had some basis to it. I'd be far more worried now. But again there's still time.
As much as I hoped we’d have FDJ and RW and another ST signed and training with us by now I do think it’s possible to improve through subtraction.
Counting losing the likes of Pogba, Mata and Matic as negatives misses the point for me. Those players were all either past their best or simply not committed to the cause. Yes, it would be nice to have a superstar recruit to replace them; but I actually think a younger player pushing for minutes is more likely to positively contribute than any of those three. I’d rather have Garner, Mejbri and Eriksen than the above three because they are up and coming or chose to come here this summer.
Counting losing the likes of Pogba, Mata and Matic as negatives misses the point for me. Those players were all either past their best or simply not committed to the cause. Yes, it would be nice to have a superstar recruit to replace them; but I actually think a younger player pushing for minutes is more likely to positively contribute than any of those three. I’d rather have Garner, Mejbri and Eriksen than the above three because they are up and coming or chose to come here this summer.
Anyone who tows the line fits.
It reminds of the people who last year were saying ‘don’t worry we’re only seven games into the season’. How did the rest of the season turn out? Sometimes the warning signs are staring you in the face.
You must make a fortune at the bookies mate.
I take your point BTW, but it's never that simple..
Omg stop embarrassing me 4eva
Wow, so many tweets in here. Please slow down with the tweets, it’s overwhelming.
this is what happens when you have incompetent people at the top of an organisation. There’s nobody capable enough to facilitate the changes that need to happen. So nobody is sensible or clever enough to hire the right people or put the right structures in place to improve a situation.
Richard Arnold’s conversation video in the bar with supporters was a scary thing, because much as it was taken as some kind of “look how down to earth he is” statement, it was actually an incredibly worrying glimpse into the clueless operators at the top of this enormous organisation. The Glazers rely on these people because they don’t have a clue about football. But they in turn don’t know what they’re doing either.
And so you get a transfer policy that seems to be “try and sign who the new manager wants” with no plan b whatsoever.
The people in charge are not new people, they were there under Woodward, just in lesser roles.
And so you have the familiar scrabbling around at the end of a window in hopes of “the best deal” which results in a team being poorly prepared and with problem areas not addressed.
It’s a cliche, but until the owners change, and competent, knowledgeable owners are able to then in turn put capable operators in charge, this will happen every single summer
I would slightly disagree with this, only bc I think ETH is a better manager than Ole/Rangnick. Just by having him as manager puts the club in a better position than what they were at the end of last season.
To be fair-- that isn't saying much, bc United were pretty much a dumpster fire at the end of last season. I'm also of the opinion that it's going to take 1 full year of the players learning ETH's system before we start to see some improvement, so I am not expecting much this season to begin with. Once again, everyone on here has different expectations on what is considered a successful season for the club. Year 2 is when I fully expect to see some proper improvement in terms of the on pitch performance.
We definitely addressed our defence with buying Malacia and Martinez. We haven’t addressed anything else
We've bought a left-back (likely to be an understudy for at least the first year) when what we needed was a starting right-back, and a centre-back, arguably the area we least needed to strengthen out of all positions in the squad, who could feasibly become third or even fourth choice.
Probably ETH thought otherwise. He is not stupid, I suppose - more than likely both will be playing a lot in his system.
There is absolutely no chance that we’re paying £60m on someone who is going to be 3rd or 4th choice.
That is a luxury we literally cannot afford. Lindelof is awful and Varane is injury prone. Martinez will start.
I think the lack of quality has been overstated by Rangnick, and performances in preseason by a manager top of his game shows how vital getting the right man in the dug out is. EtH has shown he can elevate players who had been written off under previous managers, and now with a proper system and method of playing we look a much more potent outfit. That’s why signings (although vitally important) are not a barometer of how the season will pan out.
In Martinez we have a left footed CB who is capable of playing out from the back and is a great exemplar of EtH’s methods (and he’s also capable of playing DM).
In Malacia we have a left full back who is adept at getting back and forth on the left side and tucking in and playing the half back role that EtH likes.
In Eriksen we have a masterful player. Someone who is class at set pieces, chance creation, press resistant and a very intelligent player. He is capable of playing as an advanced 8, a position we lack quality in.
This is turning out to be a disaster window. Yeah malacia, martinez and erikson are good but we STILL need an actual proper dm and a right winger. 2 positions we have non existing players to play in.
Almost like you can't buy the best players in the world without UCL football, especially in a World Cup year. Shocking. It doesn't help that Barcelona are apparently the most financially stable club in the world based on net spend.
I wonder what this will look like in hindsight 12 month from now. Klopp was widely praised for waiting with a weak defence until he could bring in Van Dijk, who he considered the best possible addition. Maybe we'll feel the same about FDJ and our midfield. On the other hand, the Liverpool pair had an agreement that they wanted to work with each other, while all we hear coming out of Barca is that FDJ doesn't want to come to us. So maybe it is a massive screw-up. On the other other hand, the rebuild was never going to happen in one window. We've got three players who might improve us on the pitch.
Fred the Brazilian or Fred the Red?
I felt good about this window when July started. If we end up without another MF and striker, this will have been a failure. I'm more confident in ten Hag than any manager post-Fergie, but without proper backing and scouting, he is overseeing a hopeless mission.
I can't remember the last window we actually properly addressed the areas that were needed .
This window is shaping up the same way.
There's still time, but very underwhelming thus far.
I can't even fully commit to saying any of the three signings will be a success, I can only hope.
This window is shaping up the same way.
There's still time, but very underwhelming thus far.
I can't even fully commit to saying any of the three signings will be a success, I can only hope.
Have finally woke up to Erik wants a different sort of DM, in terms of RW been totally priced out for Antony.
Was never gonna happen with such big change of recruitment and management behind the scenes
Excellent post. Another summer which showed the lack of planning for the window.
We literally have 4 forwards with one wanting out and others who perform when they are arsed(I will give you a hint, they aren't most of the times). Yeah, no problem there.
There are no guarantees for FDJ to come as he is willing to stay on the streets of Barcelona to play for the club. The midfield is horrendous and we have done feck all to address it.
Will be fun to see McFred getting dominated yet again for the first few games
Last edited:
Embarrassing is harsh, we were rightfully focused on the right players instead of filling out positions with forced transfers like the Van Gaal years, just buying random players.
We’re significantly better than we were last year, we actually have a coach, that could well be the most important transfer we’ve made in decades.
Oh and how will we cope without the tremendous impact from the mighty trio of Pogba, Mata and Matic.
One spent most last the season in Dubai, one was way past it and a defensive liability and one was basically a club mascot for at least 2-3 years, good thing football isn’t played on paper.
Garner, Zidane, Savage, Hannibal, Eriksen should have zero and I mean zero problems doing better than these three.
I don’t disagree the transfer window hasn’t been great, but its still open. We’ve made plenty of late signings under SAF as well and they turned out alright (Yorke, Rooney and RvP spring to mind).
We need an attacker though, can’t go into the season only with Sancho, Rashford and Martial.
Last edited:
Folks that think they know more than they do.
The real prescient ones were the extremely small group of posters that were much maligned for noting that a new CEO, plus letting go of Rangnick after months of prep work on transfers in favor of giving ETH full reign on the transfer list would cause problems.
No matter if it was the right decision from the football standpoint but the fact that change at that stage would make for a difficult summer.
So actually the majority of whiny posters now did NOT have the foresight much like how the majority didn't blink an eye at Woodward's incompetence as a major factor until Ole was in trouble.
Sure the transfer window hasn't been great and the club has done an objectively meh job but let's stop patting each other on the back and pretend like fans are Nostradamus
Just wondering if being so negative, gloomy, pessimistic etc makes some of y’all sleep better? Not even the start of the season and it’s already apocalypse now.
I’m more of an apocalypse half time kinda guy, myself.
Hardly apocalypse now but its not all sun and roses either. Just pointing out the truth. This was a summer where everyone agreed that we needed quite a lot of reinforcements and change in the squad but one week away from game one and we've barely improved after probably our worst PL season ever all things considered. I expect us to be better purely because of the new manager but he has not been backed at all in the window and that is not a good thing. A poor window doesn't always mean a poor season (and in our case the hope is that we can buck the trend) but it is more likely than not to lead to a poor season.
So Varane is now a bench player? Or the club captain?
- Status