Muller has just said he is not leaving Bayern and Ronaldo will swan off to PSG to play easy football and look beautiful.
What do we still need? Post Summer 2015 edition.
- Thread starter Yorkeontop
- Start date
Agreed. This Summer we should be looking at the final stage of playing catch up from a few years of under investment. That should take the form of a central defender and two attackers. To be honest I think we're fine in central midfield and fine at left back. We have Rojo/Shaw for left back Schneiderlin/Blind for the holding role an Schweinsteiger/Herrera for the box-to-box role. Although I wouldn't be averse to bringing in a young central midfielder to learn from and eventually displace Schweinsteiger.
If we get rid of Rooney, Valdes & Fellaini our wage bill could actually drop despite say Mane, Griezmann and Stones being brought in.
I expect that transfer fees will be 10-20% higher this summer - reflecting the trend of the last few seasons, especially with the new TV deal kicking in.
Sterling and KDB were bargains.
We need four players in attack at their level and ideally their age profile.
Stone and Kane should be chased at all costs. Realistically, it will take astronomical fees to get them.
What is your weird obsession with pointing out transfer costs to everyone? We get it. Players cost loads of money
Higuain is the top scorer in europe, he has done it against the likes of Juventus, Inter and Fiorentina, who are all good teams. He is a lethal finisher with good allround play, proven he can score alot of goals in both Spain and Italy, it would be an RvP type of signing.
Moura i think needs a place where he can play consistently, the qualitys he have is there for all to see and he is exactly what we need with his pace and dribbling ability.
Higuain is a fantastic finisher, but his overall contribution is poor, compared to the best #9. He is nothing like RvP.
Not in the same bracket technically as RvP but few are. I have watched Napoli a couple of times this season and i must say i have been impressed with Higuains link-up play, he is not only a poacher but can bring his teammates into play also.
I hope the manager does not listen to the caf transfer wise.
Schneiderlin universally thought of as a super buy on here and many people moaning that it wasn't done fast enough and fearing Arsenal would snap him up: dogshite.
Martial buy was met with scepticism and people unimpressed: one of the few who can bring us any form of excitement on the pitch this season.
Kondogbia, much coveted and one of the names mentioned on many want lists on here until we got Schweini/Sneiderlin. Named one of the flop signings of the season so far in the serie a.
The list goes on.
Schneiderlin universally thought of as a super buy on here and many people moaning that it wasn't done fast enough and fearing Arsenal would snap him up: dogshite.
Martial buy was met with scepticism and people unimpressed: one of the few who can bring us any form of excitement on the pitch this season.
Kondogbia, much coveted and one of the names mentioned on many want lists on here until we got Schweini/Sneiderlin. Named one of the flop signings of the season so far in the serie a.
The list goes on.
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This thread is awfully long considering Van Gaal gets blamed for every result.
Why do we suddenly need new players?
Why do we suddenly need new players?
After he stripped his own attacking options to minimum you would expect him fix that especially in his 2nd season here.
Playing midfielder and a winger in defense almost ever game is also not very promising from a side that supposedly should fight for the title.
As the squad he assembled is pathetic. That's if you can even say we have a squad. He chose to sell players and not replace them. That's why we need yet more players despite the huge amount we've spent during his tenure thus far.
Because our manager has left the squad short on numbers and balanced options?
Striker
Right wing
CM
CB
RB
Goalie, most likely.
Right wing
CM
CB
RB
Goalie, most likely.
Your problem is not "under investment", it's your scouting and player recruitment system. If the latter is not fixed, then you may well continue to spend even more hundreds of millions to no great effect.
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I agree the scouting is atrocious. Having a CEO like Ed Woodward means we will just go chasing the big names to sell shirts no matter if they fit the team and make us better. Sometimes it is better signing hungrier players who you can mould into a team and want to play for your team, rather the big name who is only after himself and how many endorsements he can get signing for Manchester United.
I'm not sure what players we've recruited since Van Gaal arrived that were particularly bad value in today's market.
Martial is worth the fee we paid. Herrera is worth the fee we paid. Blind is worth the fee we paid. Schweinsteiger is worth the fee we paid. Schneiderlin is worth the fee we paid. Rojo is worth the fee we paid. Darmian is worth the fee we paid. Shaw is worth the fee we paid. Romero/Valdes were free transfers. That leaves Di Maria and Falcao who we lost maybe £20m on, which is an insignificant amount of money and Depay who in my view is a £25m flop, but again he still has time on his side and as Spurs has found out since Bale left - every transfer has a chance to fail. There is nothing wrong with our purchasing or scouting departments since Van Gaal arrived.
The problem we had is that we needed to build a completely new squad of players from almost scratch. The only top quality players left from the Fergie era in our squad are Smalling and De Gea, with Valencia/Jones/Rooney/Carrick/Young arguably adequate backup players. That means we needed 9 first team quality players and probably 4-5 squad options between 2013 - 2015. That's at least 13 new players required in three Summer transfer windows, one window of which was completely wasted by Moyes.
So yes, our squad did have years of under-investment. We're competing with Man City who had a better squad to start with and have spent £260m net since Fergie retired. Fergie spent a fraction of this in his last 4-5 years. Since then we've started to redress the balance but obviously this was always going to be costly. Replacing nine first team players at £30m each would be £270m, along with 4-5 squad options you're looking at very little change from £350m, Of which Van Gaal has spent around £240m and another 2-3 players at £110m should have our squad where we need to be.
As an example lets look at City's squad as a benchmark of the cost of a title winning squad: De Bruyne £56m, Sterling £49m, Otamendi £32m, Mangala £44m, Bony £28m, Fernando £12m, Delph £8m, Navas £23m, Fernandinho £30m, Clichy £7m, Aguero £38m, Nasri £22m, Toure £24m, Kolarov £17m, Silva £24m, Kompany £7m, Zabaleta £7m, De Michellis £4m. A total spend of around £430m.
Lets compare this to the squad Fergie left, omitting players within 3 years of retirement or blatantly not good enough (and I'll stretch this to include a declining Rooney, a poor Kagawa, an aging RVP and a "never going to make it" Zaha). Jones £16m, Smalling £10m, Rooney £27m, Nani £18m, Rafael £2.5m, Valencia £16m, Hernandez £6m, Young £17m, De Gea £19m, RVP £24m, Kagawa £12m, Zaha £12m. A total cost of around £180m.
In the modern game you can't compete (certainly not in the medium-long term) with a team where they have a squad worth two and a half time times the amount. Unless you have a chief scout with a crystal ball who can predict the best players in the world in 10 years time, or you're prepared to gamble on youngsters and pray that as high a % as possible become top class, whilst they are causing you to drop points week in, week out because they're inexperienced and raw; then you're never going to assemble a great team for less than a few hundred million.
Naturally our other problem is we've employed two managers who've both proven to be poor selections. That's what we really need to get right third time around.
I don't mind these type of signings, most of them are of an age where they want to better themselves and win things. BFS I am not sure about, but for the fee he adds valuable experience. It is Woodward I have a serious problem with. The amount of time we will waste going after big names who are just using us, e.g. Ramos, prevented us negotiating elsewhere. We need leaders to help these players along, not necessarily big name, but experienced big characters. The ADM transfer should be a warnin, yes talented, but a weak character. A leader in that defence and one in the midfield will improve this team tenfold. The problem with Woodward is he cannot forget he doesn't still deal with just the commercial side and his priority is not the welfare of the team, but the brand.
A decent manager. 
If we miss out on top 4 we are still going to need 5 players in, problem is the pool of talent will get shallower.
This post is spot on.
£250m - or rather £150m net - isn't nearly enough to completely rebuild an awful squad to top 4/CL level.
It's not even half what it takes.
Both Barca and Real have a pair of players that cost that.
We have spent fairly well. We just need a LOT more.
Only Depay has been a complete waste. We got a good chunk of our money back for Di Maria and Falcao was a loan.
So will the budget, most likely.
We are a business not a charity like City/Barca/Real/Chelsea.
Eventually we are going to have to start posting healthy dividends l.
First, we need to finish in the top 4 and be able to play Champions League next season.
Second, a new manager. We have a good team that could play more attractive football with a better coach.
We need 4 new players (maybe 5 if Rooney/Mata are sold).
If we don't have a manager that attracts world class players and without champions league football we would sign players like: Dragovic, Saul, Felipe Anderson Ighalo (great players, not the best ones available). But with a world class manager and champions League we could talk about players like Griezmann, Gotze, Isco, Gundogan, etc.
Second, a new manager. We have a good team that could play more attractive football with a better coach.
We need 4 new players (maybe 5 if Rooney/Mata are sold).
If we don't have a manager that attracts world class players and without champions league football we would sign players like: Dragovic, Saul, Felipe Anderson Ighalo (great players, not the best ones available). But with a world class manager and champions League we could talk about players like Griezmann, Gotze, Isco, Gundogan, etc.
What the hell is wrong with Woodward? It's now January 14th and still no new players in! It's not like they didn't know that a January window was coming, they could have lined up signings to go through at the beginning of the window.
What are peoples thoughts on Cavani?
Looks like he is available at the moment.
Looks like he is available at the moment.
Even though he has had really bad games missing sitters. He is a top striker, he has scored around 30 goals per season in the last 5 years. He has similar stats like Lewandowski or Benzema.
Also, he has played a lot of games out of position because Ibrahimovic is their main striker. The problem is that he will be 29 in some days, and Rooney is not getting any younger. So, we should look for a player like Kane or Lukaku to partner Martial for the coming seasons.
Brilliant post, mate. It's easy to look at our results and conclude we've bought poorly if one allows themselves to ignore how badly that Moyes/Woodward transfer window from hell really set us back. That window was an opportunity for us to finally address issues in midfield and the ones that were cropping up in defense but Moyes went and made shit worse by signing that good for nothing mope haired beanpole, if we had signed a proper midfielder, an upcoming CB and an attacker then we would be healthier squad wise. Enter Van Gaal who spent the whole summer at the WC then came in with the gullotine that hacked down players left, right and center leaving us with a few options in case of injuries but the truth is that the players he has signed all look like they will play roles of differing importance towards shaping our future so we only need to add to to them.
We need to sign players that will complete this team namely a wing forward, a central defender, a versatile fullback (or a starting right back that will relegate Darmian to cover), a young midfielder and striker or a No. 10. People could say five players is too much for a team that's spent £250m on players but we should remember that that figure was spent replacing players that had come to the end of their usefulness with us but that the idiot we have as manager's decision to indiscriminately gut the squad of player like Evans, Nani, Hernandez and Rafael has brought us to this point.
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Do you have interest in football aside from transfers? Honest question.
Of course I do. It's extremely frustrating to watch such piss poor players at United. Only way to fix that is by buying much better players.
To be honest I don't even think we need that many players. We have versatile enough defenders that once we sign another CB we'll have 5 players who can play CB, 3 players who can play LB and 2 players who can play RB. It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking Rojo isn't a good enough backup or Blind is useless as a defender; but the truth is that they're better than our rivals have as backup defenders. Arsenal rely on Gabriel/Monreal/Chambers, City rely on Sagna/Mangala/Demichelis; none of which are top class, but all play a role.
I agree with a central defender and I agree with two forward players. A young midfielder wouldn't be an problem provided it was the right player, although I personally wouldn't have an issue going into next season with Schneiderlin, Schweinsteiger, Herrera & Pereira as our 4 players to fill 2 positions (especially as Blind can deputise in a crises).
Yeah but we have to get rid of this man first because I don't see him trusting Herrera/Perreira in a deeper role any time soon. I agree the priority is a CB and with players coming back from injury then our defensive assets might well be enough. Then there are kids like CBJ who can and should be built up into credible squad options like McNair did last term before regressing massively.
In attack I don't think we are that light we are unbalanced and badly managed. How can a manager play Rooney, Herrera and Mata in the same attack and expect to unlock defenses? Mata and Rooney should have been made to fight for one position and Herrera made to compete with Bastien for the role alongside Morgan. If Van Gaal had planned along those lines in the summer then the need for a right winger would have been highlighted and a player like Mane signed. Then there is brilliant idea of sending Januzaj out on loan when we had the space to give him games due to Mempis' and Rooney's struggles. Frankly I have lost trust in Van Gaal and fear what he will do to our players' mentality.
LvG doesn't trust Herrera in a 2 man midfield and I don't think Pereira is suited to it either, both are more suited to being the AM in a 3 man midfield. If we get a CB in then Blind could become one of the option in the double pivot, but we definitely need another with Carrick likely retiring.
You never post about anything other than big transfers.
As you mentioned, Herrera and Pereira would be better in a midfielder of 3. But if we continue playing 4231 a new midfielder is needed. I think Gundogan could be a good option because he finishes contract in 2017. So he won't be to expensive. Also, there are young players like Tielemans, Neves or Bazoer that can replace Carrick in the near future.
Agree with all of that.
Gundogan would be the ideal choice IMO, he knows the role very well and has excelled in it for Dortmund. I'd personally buy him and one of younger ones like Neves, but I guess it may depend on how highly the club rate Goss's chances and if they seem Mensah as a CM rather than a CB.
I agree he is not the perfect age, but would make a big difference to our side over the next 2-3 years and take the pressure of Martial and co.
I think Rooney is number 10,so not letting him enter the discussion.
I would love Kane or Lukaku as well, but I don't see them joining us very easily, while Cavani appears to be available.
If United play CL next season and Barcelona don't want him, Gündogan is a realistic option - if this time United pay the requested price. If the rumors are true that Pep goes to City and that he wants Gündogan, I'd assume he cannot resist the temptation to play under Pep.
Edit: Dortmund's CEO ruled out that they will let three of their key players whose contracts expire summer '17, including Gündogan and Hummels, leave at the same time next summer. If all three key players refuse a contract extension, at least one of them will stay put until his contract runs down. Hard to say if this would be Gündogan but not unlikely.
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1. A fit first team center half
2. A flying wingback to cover/compete with Shaw
3. A creative Carrick replacement with pace and size
4. 1 consisent winger/ 10 hybrids in the mould of a Grizemann/Reus/Mane/Mahrez who always beats their fullback
5. A new lead the line forward prefferebly with size and pace to burn (i.e Lukaku or just keep Martial there and add an Embolo as cover)
2. A flying wingback to cover/compete with Shaw
3. A creative Carrick replacement with pace and size
4. 1 consisent winger/ 10 hybrids in the mould of a Grizemann/Reus/Mane/Mahrez who always beats their fullback
5. A new lead the line forward prefferebly with size and pace to burn (i.e Lukaku or just keep Martial there and add an Embolo as cover)
With the exception of De Gea and Martial, no one on the squad is beyond a hard look for an upgrade. But I do agree with finneh's post that most of our recent guys have been solid buys at good value and that we have a pretty strong squad.
The most pressing needs are obvious:
A reliable finisher to partner with Martial.
A center back.
Sure, Darmian has been somewhat disappointing but he's done well enough to stick it out with him. Memphis has been poor but it's too early to give up on him. We'll also need to replace Carrick for depth in midfield. We'll see whether we need to backfill De Gea. But the gaping holes in the squad are a second lethal finisher and a lock down CB.
We need an upgrade at manager too, but there's no longer any question about that.
The most pressing needs are obvious:
A reliable finisher to partner with Martial.
A center back.
Sure, Darmian has been somewhat disappointing but he's done well enough to stick it out with him. Memphis has been poor but it's too early to give up on him. We'll also need to replace Carrick for depth in midfield. We'll see whether we need to backfill De Gea. But the gaping holes in the squad are a second lethal finisher and a lock down CB.
We need an upgrade at manager too, but there's no longer any question about that.
For me, to get top 4, the club needs a very good striker enabling Rooney to drop deeper (he spends most of the match deep, so may as well deploy him there) and a very good winger. We already know this but these alone would get us where we need. I can guarantee we won't buy anyone though.