United trying to sign players who aren't eager to join

Completely understandable.
I mean, when was the last time United signed someone, who was then improved as a player.
I can honestly not name one. They have all gone backwards.
So, apart from the money, why would any serious player want to join United.
 
The players that are desperate to come tend to multiply their wages when they do. They are not desperate just because it's Manchester United and that applies to all wealthy clubs.
 
Nobody should be genuinely eager to join considering the state we're in. It's only natural to have hesitations. I would be more worried if a player was eager, that would be naive or unambitious.

I agree with this for decent players who are already at decent clubs, most must look at us and not fancy it, we have ruined/tarnised too many top players, managers, and footballing people people for this not to be a reality now.

Some people seem to be personally hurt that a player we are interested in might not fancy it, but what we need to do is bring someone like FDJ here kicking and screaming and actually make a success of it, it'll do wonders for us in future transfer windows.
 
I agree with this for decent players who are already at decent clubs, most must look at us and not fancy it, we have ruined/tarnised too many top players, managers, and footballing people people for this not to be a reality now.

Some people seem to be personally hurt that a player we are interested in might not fancy it, but what we need to do is bring someone like FDJ here kicking and screaming and actually make a success of it, it'll do wonders for us in future transfer windows.

I do think that we need to make these type of players feel appreciated and comfortable. I haven't really thought about it deeply but on the surface I believe that there is a weakness in the market, if you build a strong, disciplined and welcoming culture on top of have the very best trainers and medical staff in sport, you will have much more cheap or undervalued opportunities.

I would go back to Cantona, he didn't want to move to England, he was ready to retire instead. It took some convincing from Houiller and other members of the FFF but it also required clubs to make him feel comfortable which is what United provided.
 
That has more to do with the fit in the squad and manager's preference on how to play football. They were obviously quality players before joining United.

Di Maria was class but didn't want to leave Madrid and didn't like Manchester from the very first minute.

Falcao was always a risky one because he had some pretty nasty injuries before signing if my memory serves me well.

Schweinsteiger and Matic were way past it when they came.

Alexis was also on the way down and didn't want the transfer like Di Maria.

Lukaku and Pogba are fecking frauds, tearing it up vs easier opposition / weaker leagues but they're shite and lazy. :lol: Pogba can't wait to go to Serie A or Ligue 1 to pretend he's an elite player.

So your "sign big name player" logic is very bad and the last 9 years provide plenty of evidence for that. I'm not saying we should never buy a van Persie, or that we shouldn't get de Jong now. But City and Pool don't really buy established superstars and they've built great teams. Especially Liverpool's rebuild is outstanding.
 
Amen.

I honestly have no faith that we are going to sign the right players this Sumner until I see how we are playing next march & challenging for something meaningful.

We've been bitten to many times on the ass.
I'd be worried if they were eager to join! "Cause all we can realistically offer a top footballer is $$$$
I doubt anyone would be eager to join in our current if any other half decent team is available to them.

Let's be honest it's still a job so unless there are some hardcore fans we won't be on the top of the list for anyone considering how unattractive Manchester as a city seems to be for players.
That's the spirit
 
Rumors are that we've turned away from at least 4 players already because their background checks showed red flags - this is promising (if you were to believe it of course) and a sign that maybe things in our recruitment strategy are changing.
Knowing United those 4 players;
Dias
Konate
Tomiyasu
Kulusevski
 
We have the history, we are one of the biggest and best known on the planet and we have a new manager.

New manager, new era, it is up to the manager and the club to sell 'the project' and get the buy in of players to persuade them to sign

Fifteen years ago the hardest part was probably convincing players from warmer climates but until we seriously start challenging for the league again we have to convince them that we are a better choice than one or two other clubs in the EPL.

shhhhh you can’t be this rational on here.
 
Quite depressing when you think about it. Because its true
It’s funny because I said it in jest. But thinking about it for certain Dias was rejected in Dec/Jan after being recommended by RR and Konate I heard was on our CB “list” last summer but again rejected.

The other two I’m not sure, most likely our scouts had never heard of them.
 
I think the strategy needs to be a mix of young players who might be elite in the future, with 1 or 2 who are close to that bracket right now. Otherwise we're in danger of falling further behind.

Unfortunately those 1 or 2 who are near elite are not going to naturally want to come vs a UCL club, so will need a bit of convincing along with a good contract.

.
 
It's okay when players need a bit of convincing, but not when they need begging.
 
Man, our fan base has been in one long funereal circlejerk since Sir Alex left.

Why did Klopp join Liverpool around 2015, considering their state at that time? Did he not have any ambition? If players and managers only joined clubs that were on the top, might as well shut down most clubs.

That's where persuading them about the project comes into it. We're at the start of an overhaul and that's a risk. We don't have CL, the club has made a lot of stupid decisions and players with promise who have come in the past 10 years have mainly regressed or flopped. There is barely a player that has come who has got better. Players will need persuading that they won't end up on that list if they work hard.
 
Regarding De Jong, I haven't seen much of him for Barca to be honest - how good is he that we should be persuading him to join us against his own instincts?
 
Regarding De Jong, I haven't seen much of him for Barca to be honest - how good is he that we should be persuading him to join us against his own instincts?

He's been patchy at Barca, but its been hard to separate his personal form with that of the team, which has been up and down in recent years. His ceiling is very high though. Looking online, it seems common for Barca fans not to want him to go and think the 80M odd euros isn't enough, but clearly the club wouldn't let the most important player go.

From our perspective, I think its a good bet. He's a good player, he's the right style of player to let new manager to play his way, we have no competition from other clubs and Barca are willing to sell. There aren't a boatload of players who fit all those criteria knocking around.
 
Feels like we'll keep getting tempted by players who are on the fence about coming and repeat the mess we're in. Step 1 on the whole cultural reset should be signing players who want to be here.
 
The truth is any top player will need convincing to joing us and rightly so.

If you where a player would you want to joing current United? Wouldn't you want to know why anyone who goes their regresses?

It's common sense really
 
Im worried about signing De Jong, the only way he can be convinced is to give him loads of money, we have got nothing to offer in footballing terms apart from working with ETH. The fact that his heart is not in it is another concern for me.

I agree that right now we are not an enticing option to any talented footballer but the reports from the news feels like De Jong is completely against moving to us.
 
Feels like we'll keep getting tempted by players who are on the fence about coming and repeat the mess we're in. Step 1 on the whole cultural reset should be signing players who want to be here.
Exactly this, even under Moyes we made a similar blunder with Barcelona and after wasting loads of time we ended up with Fellaini.
 
Don't criticise this, gets in the way of the fevered excitement about the next big name and they all get upset.

"Well if he doesn't want to be here he won't sign" they will cry as if that has never happened before.
 
Don't get the need to attack the club by some. This happened under Fergie too. Every summer we were pursuing or linked to many players, some came, some didn't. In the 90's we didn't have the reputation we do today, so many players turned us down and we did have situations where we took our second choice. Kluivert legitimately said Arsenal were the team he'd prefer to join prior to our treble season. It's always happened. Yet these days our fans seem to look at everything as an embarrassment or signs of the clubs failure.
 
1. You cant guarantee they'll be good enough in 3 years time - All the other top clubs do it consistently. Every time they sign a player from these level of clubs you know they'll be successes and they are 90% of the time.

2. The fans wont accept good players on bargain. Cue glazer cnut penny pinching - Simply not true. Most fans are eager for United to move away from marquee signings and sign players with more hunger. You're acting like i mean players from Celtic.

3. Our aim is 4th or above. Buying good players that are good but not good enough for 4th is moot. - The players would be good enough. Just like when United signed players from Mexico, Uruguay and Russia for peanuts and won the league with them, because the scouting then was much better. These players get identified regularly enough by the clubs above us. We are rich and appealing enough to find them ourselves. Diaz cost Liverpool in January for under £40m. That should be the range, 30-40m. Can easily sign a title winning squad with players in that range, let alone 4th.

4. They might want and we can get them quick. But if our top priority said yes we'd be left with surplus players bought out of panic - Silly point. Again, United when they were successful and top clubs now don't necessarily sign the best players from other top clubs. They sign the best players to fill their system. Plenty of these around. Ten Hag did it with Ajax and turned them into one of the best CL teams.

5. They'd want upgrade and not sideways contract. - No problem with that. Better than paying Pogba 300k to fly to dubai every 2 months.

6. Actual good players with talent wont want to join us at this rate and rightly so if they value their career. We're career killers at the moment. - Another ridiculous point. We're a career killer mainly because we're signing players who don't want to join. Liverpool and Chelsea especially have had slumps and 6th and lower finishes in the last 10 years and it hasn't stopped them attracting players. United are very attractive. If they went for Diaz last summer for example, they'd have got him. But we don't identify these talents.
Are you sure about all that? Possibly the truth is somewhere in the middle.

At the moment we need players who will walk into the team and be minimum Top 4 quality. At the same time, we could do with getting some genuine stars of the future for sensible fees. What’s the betting we’ll get neither?
 
Some people seem to be personally hurt that a player we are interested in might not fancy it, but what we need to do is bring someone like FDJ here kicking and screaming and actually make a success of it, it'll do wonders for us in future transfer windows.

Be honest, do you really believe the De Jong will be a success here?

The last player who really did not want to join us, but was almost forced to join was Di Maria. He wanted PSG, but they were not ready for him, so he joined us. It didn't work out well for us. I can see the same happening with De Jong. If the kid doesn't want to join, leave him be. Our scouting network will have to work for their money and unearth a hidden gem.
 
There's a reason why Ten Hag and the board have been talking a lot about this team finishing 2nd the other season. It's a hard sell after this season just gone, no one wants to join a sinking ship.
 
Be honest, do you really believe the De Jong will be a success here?

The last player who really did not want to join us, but was almost forced to join was Di Maria. He wanted PSG, but they were not ready for him, so he joined us. It didn't work out well for us. I can see the same happening with De Jong. If the kid doesn't want to join, leave him be. Our scouting network will have to work for their money and unearth a hidden gem.

Yes, he's not going to come here an intentionally play badly just because he didn't really want to leave Barca, he'll soon get over it if we are playing well, he is starting every game, and ETH has us on the up.

We're not in a position to be too precious about these things now imo, if De Jong can be made to come here then I say do it.