Wan-Bissaka for sale | joins West Ham

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Very disappointed we are letting him go. He has improved a lot and felt a lot safer seeing him in the team sheet than most of our players, especially in his positions

Think we'll be found out a few more times than normal without him
 
LARulz said:
Very disappointed we are letting him go. He has improved a lot and felt a lot safer seeing him in the team sheet than most of our players, especially in his positions

Think we'll be found out a few more times than normal without him
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he never improved his back post defending of crosses
 
devilish said:
I believe that playing for united as a privilege and I don't like seeing the badge being disrespected which is exactly what this side did with their constant drama, their half arsed performance and by joining England after being injured since February only to return injured once again. Ask yourself if scholes and co would act like that

And before the money talks comes up, yes I worked for 2 months during COVID for free. I could have asked to be paid but since I afforded it I took the cut.
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I think you’re taking things too personally on this one.
 
Great player for sitting deep, one on one very good. Positionally horrific if pushed up, always out of position and poor on setpieces. I think he'll be great for West Ham, not a player to be pressing or playing out from the back. Glad he's going for our progession.
 
LARulz said:
Very disappointed we are letting him go. He has improved a lot and felt a lot safer seeing him in the team sheet than most of our players, especially in his positions

Think we'll be found out a few more times than normal without him
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I honestly have no idea what you're watching. For me, he improved from a very low base and had never really been good at the basics of defending. I never felt safe with him in the team and he was so bad in possession I found him incredibly frustrating to watch.
 
Thanks Spider Wan! Your first couple of seasons were really good to watch. Shut down multiple top class wingers and the sliding tackles were the highlight of our season sometimes. He’ll do well for West Ham.
 
Was always a fan of him and enjoyed his time here. Whether you liked him or not he’ll be a player we all remember for his 1v1 defending. His ability to straight up nullify fast and tricky wingers is something extremely rare.

In an ideal world we’d have a world class RB and bring out AWB as the back up for the games he can excel in and he’s a pretty capable backup. But one year left on his deal and the chance to make a profit, I’m not mad at the sale.

I’ll definitely be rooting for him to do well at West Ham and I believe he will.
 
Have to thank Aaron for his years of service.

No doubt he’s a limited player, but he got on with it quietly and professionally and you always felt he wanted to be at United.
 
Great one vs one defender, maybe the best there is in the world along with Walker, his tackles are something even Maldini would be proud of. It's a pleasure seeing him pocket some of the greatest wingers there are, when he's on his day no one can beat him. He comes really useful when playing low block against agile/tricky wingers. He's also strikes me as a quiet professional player and always put on the work and effort. Likeable player overall.

The sad part is his main strengths only shine when we play low block, when the team is really compact like that FA cup final against City. When we leave space behind the cracks start to show, his positioning is awful and his back post defending is one of the worse I've seen. He lacks concentration to follow his man when facing back post crosses. I don't know if this is something particularly hard in professional football to deal with but it's a really notable mistake in his game he gets caught way to often and haven't improved even a little since he arrived.

Sadly those flaws combined with the fact that he's very limited going forward and his inability to comfortably play from the back mean he becomes a liability when facing high press and that will never allow him to be a top defender.

Looking back at the 50M spent on him I think he can, sadly, be rated as a failed transfer. He was an English international when we bought him and now he's not even remotely close to being considered. He end up being a rotation player rather than a starter for his late years in what's supposed to be his prime years but he never developed, he's still the same raw player we brought 5 years ago with the same positives and negatives.

He'll be a nightmare to face when playing in a low block team like west ham and he'll frustrate the hell out of us when we face him I'm sure of it. But we need to move on from that small team mentality playing low block against every top side, we need to develop a expanding and controlling style if we're aiming to win big titles.

I still think the 15M fee is low even with only one year left of his contract, I expected there would be at least 3-4 teams interested in him but it seems it's only west ham.

I'm not in favour of buying Mazraoui but again what else could we buy with 20M? There aren't many great right backs available for that price if any and if having to choose between Wan Bissaka or Mazraoui I rather bet on the latest as we all know what were getting from Wan Bissakas is sadly not good enough.

Any way I'll miss the spider and his tackles, something so impressive that I think will be remembered and talked for years even after he's retired.
 
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Josep Dowling said:
No, I’m referring back to the other posters comments about not improving. I agree that he hasn’t improved his game. He was always a good tackler. His weaknesses are going forward, crossing and defensive positioning. He didn’t improve on these elements which is why we are now selling, and at a significant loss.

On the money side of things, if he has a contract stating he’s owed a percentage of the transfer of course he will want the money. No one is going to waiver millions they’re entitled too.
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Great well I never debated that. I actually think it is untrue to a degree but even if he didn't improve a jot I was saying that doesn't prove he's a bad character.

He clearly trains fairly well anyway considering the shape he's always in.
 
I thought he improved a lot to be fair, even on the back post. I think what ultimately pushes me to want to move him on is his focus. He can switch off sometimes, a lot less than before but too often for my liking. When questioned and pushed out of the team he's fought his way back and put good runs of form together. But i think he needs that extra bit of motivation to really be 100% switched on and focused for 90 mins. To want to get on the ball and show that he can be asset. To not be ball watching or jogging back when crosses get switched out to the back post.
That playing for pride / for his United career version of him was good enough to play for anyone, maybe not every week and in every system but to be a huge asset as a squad player. He just couldn't maintain it or show it every week. He wasn't Cafu so he needed that extra bit of mentality and consistency to really belong at this level.
I think west ham will benefit from a lot of growing up over his years at united and have got a pretty good player.
I've given him a bit of stick, more than most of our players but i genuinely wish him well and think he deserves respect for his time here.
 
caid said:
I thought he improved a lot to be fair, even on the back post. I think what ultimately pushes me to want to move him on is his focus. He can switch off sometimes, a lot less than before but too often for my liking. When questioned and pushed out of the team he's fought his way back and put good runs of form together. But i think he needs that extra bit of motivation to really be 100% switched on and focused for 90 mins. To want to get on the ball and show that he can be asset. To not be ball watching or jogging back when crosses get switched out to the back post.
That playing for pride / for his United career version of him was good enough to play for anyone, maybe not every week and in every system but to be a huge asset as a squad player. He just couldn't maintain it or show it every week. He wasn't Cafu so he needed that extra bit of mentality and consistency to really belong at this level.
I think west ham will benefit from a lot of growing up over his years at united and have got a pretty good player.
I've given him a bit of stick, more than most of our players but i genuinely wish him well and think he deserves respect for his time here.
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I reckon he will be brilliant for West Ham. Obviously not sure how the new manager will play as he has had such a wide array of clubs that I'm not sure but I imagine they will have more games where he thrives than he did at Utd.

I reckon he may be looked at as the best defender outside the top 7 or so clubs by the end of next season. Not that we should be too sad about him going I just think he has a special skillset that will garner a lot of attention for slightly smaller clubs.
 
Ultimately he was just the wrong profile of fullback for us to sign in the first place.

At a time when the tactical meta of high level football was prioritising attacking output, technical ability and ball progression from defence, we opted to spend big money on a defence-first, 1v1 specialist who had noted limitations in those aforementioned areas. And that was a mistake.

I remember articles like this highlighting the issue at the time, in what now looks pretty accurate analysis.

Beyond that fundamental profile mismatch, I don't have much negative to say about AWB. He's a good level PL fullback, provided he's in a team that suits him. Whether West Ham is that team remains to be seen, as he certainly isn't suited to the way I've seen Lopetegui use his fullbacks previously, but maybe his plan is different at West Ham.
 
Pronewbie said:
Some harsh comments on AWB regarding his lack of willingness to improve. I think he's improved on the ball and in the attacking areas under ETH. Not enough, but to suggest he hasn't put in the effort is quite unfair.
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Yep good post. Hard-working, good attitude, made clear steps forward particularly under ETH.
 
He wouldn't have been a high priority to sell for me, but maybe that's the key to being able to sell him for an ok fee. Our players we'd be most happy to sell, don't attract any serious interest.
 
Ekeke said:
As did his crossing which is why he had 4 assists in 2 seperate seasons for us. Dalot's most is 2 and Shaw had 5 once and 4 another time.

And he doesn't make as many tackles as he did in his first season or two, now he makes loads of interceptions and clears the ball out as the main thing he offers the defence.

For any other player that posters didnt already make their mind up on those things would be recognized and appreciated as people complained before that 'hes only diving into sliding tackles because he's out of position and desperate!'

Now he's a player who takes up good positions and wins the ball more than almost any other fullback with positioning and interceptions instead. Nah cant be reality, AWB only makes tackles :rolleyes:

ba60172ef54572f7fec374a6ad0666c6.png


Thing is he did well in his first seasons and if he was still tackling wingers in every one vs one and got 4 league assists a season for us, and had wanted to sign a new contract he'd probably still be here next season.

Change for the wrong people and they wont even see it.
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On the bolded, I thought this was oddly low as I remember Dalot had quite a few last season. I think you should specify that you're looking at PL only.

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/diogo-dalot/leistungsdatendetails/spieler/357147

According to this, he had 5 assists with 2 in the PL and 3 in the FA Cup, which matches AWB's best overall season too. Now considering how much superior Dalot is on the ball and is no slouch himself defensively, it's easy to see why people tend to say AWB hasn't improved when you have such a contrast. Of course he has in some aspects but his overall game intelligence and style is more or less the same. I will say that the coaching over the years haven't helped e.g bad team tactics, personnel and individual development.

As for the interceptions and clearances, whilst these are fantastic stats on their own AWB does have a tendency to clear/get rid of the ball more than he should really. Not it that it's unique to him (i.e Dalot also suffers from this at times but has improved a lot), there's some issues with what happens with the second ball or once he has regained or got position/possession of the ball. There's a difference to getting the ball away and 'winning' the ball. Quite often I feel AWB's priority is to stop the ball when he has opportunity to 'play it' e.g get the ball back to a teammate and reverse the momentum.
 
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The fact that everyone here is praising him only for his defending is the answer why he is being moved on.

I just don't understand how he never had the will the learn something new while at United. Crossing is something you train.

Anyhow, I admire him for his defending and for the fact that there was never a bad story about him in the newspapers, no drama when sat on the bench, and he even played himself back into the team when he was dropped. Wish him all the best.
 
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Vidooq said:
The fact that everyone here is praising him only for his defending is the answer why he is being moved on.

I just don't understand how he never had the will the learn something new while at United. Crossing is something you train.

Anyhow, I admire him for his defending and for the fact that there was never a bad story about him in the newspapers, no drama when sat on the bench, and he even played himself back into the team when he was dropped. Wish him all the best.
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My sentiments exactly, well put.
 
sullydnl said:
Ultimately he was just the wrong profile of fullback for us to sign in the first place.

At a time when the tactical meta of high level football was prioritising attacking output, technical ability and ball progression from defence, we opted to spend big money on a defence-first, 1v1 specialist who had noted limitations in those aforementioned areas. And that was a mistake.

I remember articles like this highlighting the issue at the time, in what now looks pretty accurate analysis.

Beyond that fundamental profile mismatch, I don't have much negative to say about AWB. He's a good level PL fullback, provided he's in a team that suits him. Whether West Ham is that team remains to be seen, as he certainly isn't suited to the way I've seen Lopetegui use his fullbacks previously, but maybe his plan is different at West Ham.
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Agree with all of this.

We never should have got him in the first place, he's just not the sort of fullback Manchester Utd should be aiming to have.

However despite the obvious flaws in his game there are also some truly outstanding parts too. His tackling is generally incredible and in 1v1 battles with wingers with them trying to dribble past him he was fantastic.

In the League Cup final in 2023 and the FA Cup final in 2024 he was brought on to help us see the game out and win the trophy and both times he did it flawlessly. I think he'll probably be good at West Ham.
 
GlazersHater said:
Great one vs one defender, maybe the best there is in the world along with Walker, his tackles are something even Maldini would be proud of. It's a pleasure seeing him pocket some of the greatest wingers there are, when he's on his day no one can beat him. He comes really useful when playing low block against agile/tricky wingers. He's also strikes me as a quiet professional player and always put on the work and effort. Likeable player overall.

The sad part is his main strengths only shine when we play low block, when the team is really compact like that FA cup final against City. When we leave space behind the cracks start to show, his positioning is awful and his back post defending is one of the worse I've seen. He lacks concentration to follow his man when facing back post crosses. I don't know if this is something particularly hard in professional football to deal with but it's a really notable mistake in his game he gets caught way to often and haven't improved even a little since he arrived.

Sadly those flaws combined with the fact that he's very limited going forward and his inability to comfortably play from the back mean he becomes a liability when facing high press and that will never allow him to be a top defender.

Looking back at the 50M spent on him I think he can, sadly, be rated as a failed transfer. He was an English international when we bought him and now he's not even remotely close to being considered. He end up being a rotation player rather than a starter for his late years in what's supposed to be his prime years but he never developed, he's still the same raw player we brought 5 years ago with the same positives and negatives.

He'll be a nightmare to face when playing in a low block team like west ham and he'll frustrate the hell out of us when we face him I'm sure of it. But we need to move on from that small team mentality playing low block against every top side, we need to develop a expanding and controlling style if we're aiming to win big titles.

I still think the 15M fee is low even with only one year left of his contract, I expected there would be at least 3-4 teams interested in him but it seems it's only west ham.

I'm not in favour of buying Mazraoui but again what else could we buy with 20M? There aren't many great right backs available for that price if any and if having to choose between Wan Bissaka or Mazraoui I rather bet on the latest as we all know what were getting from Wan Bissakas is sadly not good enough.

Any way I'll miss the spider and his tackles, something so impressive that I think will be remembered and talked for years even after he's retired.
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Great post.
 
I mean, look, for slightly less than 20m no one else is in for him. At that price?

Some fans are sentimentally impacted in their estimations of him.
Clearly the lack of takers for him at such a relatively achievable price for clubs throughout PL, La Liga, Bundesliga, Ligue 1 and Serie A is itself a testimony to how other clubs scouting departments don't view him as an ideal recruit for an ever increasingly progressive game.

There's no getting round that. No marginal season on season improvements with us has done anything to make him attractive to anyone but West Ham.
 
sullydnl said:
Ultimately he was just the wrong profile of fullback for us to sign in the first place.

At a time when the tactical meta of high level football was prioritising attacking output, technical ability and ball progression from defence, we opted to spend big money on a defence-first, 1v1 specialist who had noted limitations in those aforementioned areas. And that was a mistake.

I remember articles like this highlighting the issue at the time, in what now looks pretty accurate analysis.

Beyond that fundamental profile mismatch, I don't have much negative to say about AWB. He's a good level PL fullback, provided he's in a team that suits him. Whether West Ham is that team remains to be seen, as he certainly isn't suited to the way I've seen Lopetegui use his fullbacks previously, but maybe his plan is different at West Ham.
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Found this on his wiki:

"Upon signing for Manchester United, Wan-Bissaka became the sixth-most expensive defender of all time and the most expensive English player who was uncapped by the national side at the time of transfer."

That doesn't sound right, but just insane if true..
 
GlazersHater said:
Great one vs one defender, maybe the best there is in the world along with Walker, his tackles are something even Maldini would be proud of. It's a pleasure seeing him pocket some of the greatest wingers there are, when he's on his day no one can beat him. He comes really useful when playing low block against agile/tricky wingers. He's also strikes me as a quiet professional player and always put on the work and effort. Likeable player overall.

The sad part is his main strengths only shine when we play low block, when the team is really compact like that FA cup final against City. When we leave space behind the cracks start to show, his positioning is awful and his back post defending is one of the worse I've seen. He lacks concentration to follow his man when facing back post crosses. I don't know if this is something particularly hard in professional football to deal with but it's a really notable mistake in his game he gets caught way to often and haven't improved even a little since he arrived.

Sadly those flaws combined with the fact that he's very limited going forward and his inability to comfortably play from the back mean he becomes a liability when facing high press and that will never allow him to be a top defender.

Looking back at the 50M spent on him I think he can, sadly, be rated as a failed transfer. He was an English international when we bought him and now he's not even remotely close to being considered. He end up being a rotation player rather than a starter for his late years in what's supposed to be his prime years but he never developed, he's still the same raw player we brought 5 years ago with the same positives and negatives.

He'll be a nightmare to face when playing in a low block team like west ham and he'll frustrate the hell out of us when we face him I'm sure of it. But we need to move on from that small team mentality playing low block against every top side, we need to develop a expanding and controlling style if we're aiming to win big titles.

I still think the 15M fee is low even with only one year left of his contract, I expected there would be at least 3-4 teams interested in him but it seems it's only west ham.

I'm not in favour of buying Mazraoui but again what else could we buy with 20M? There aren't many great right backs available for that price if any and if having to choose between Wan Bissaka or Mazraoui I rather bet on the latest as we all know what were getting from Wan Bissakas is sadly not good enough.

Any way I'll miss the spider and his tackles, something so impressive that I think will be remembered and talked for years even after he's retired.
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Great post, summed it up very well.

Although he's not a great fit if we want to get back to challenging for top honors, I do appreciate his time here and he was a model professional by every account on and off the pitch.

He also regularly rose to the occasion whenever he was in competion for a starting spot rather than shy away from it.

I'll miss him pocketing the best wingers onna regular basis.

He's a throwback RB who'd have thrived in the previous eras but nowadays your FB's are supposed to be almost winger like moving forward so his skillset is much less valued nowadays.

That being said, I think he'll prove to be a quality signing for West Ham relative to his fee and he gets to back home.
 
While long term it was likely the right call to let him go, I also would have been happy to keep him, as there are plenty of games where his skills would have been useful. He was very good at stopping those attacking wingers down his side, to the point you never really expected them to be able to get past him. It was more his attacking side of the game that let him down. Really a player you want in your team if your expecting to be defending for most of the game, not if you are planning to hold the ball for long periods of time
 
Dargonk said:
While long term it was likely the right call to let him go, I also would have been happy to keep him, as there are plenty of games where his skills would have been useful. He was very good at stopping those attacking wingers down his side, to the point you never really expected them to be able to get past him. It was more his attacking side of the game that let him down. Really a player you want in your team if your expecting to be defending for most of the game, not if you are planning to hold the ball for long periods of time
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Yes. Such a pity that we need to sell in order to buy. ANd for such a pittance 15m only. Otherwise RB would be secured with him and Dalot.
 
Pronewbie said:
Some harsh comments on AWB regarding his lack of willingness to improve. I think he's improved on the ball and in the attacking areas under ETH. Not enough, but to suggest he hasn't put in the effort is quite unfair.
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On that I agree.
 
LARulz said:
Very disappointed we are letting him go. He has improved a lot and felt a lot safer seeing him in the team sheet than most of our players, especially in his positions

Think we'll be found out a few more times than normal without him
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Do you know how many chances we’ve conceded at the back post cause of this guy?
 
Glad we've got rid, although it's a shame we couldn't have signed a more reliable replacement.

Seems completely uninterested in defending unless he's getting to show off his slide tackle skills. Fortunately he's one of those players who looks great in a Youtube compilation so we've somehow managed to get rid of for a semi-reasonable price.

Next up McTominay hopefully.
 
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