What do we still need? Post Summer 2017 edition

I see a lot of people mentioning Fabinho here, I thought his performances had dropped quite a bit this season?
 
Right winger, Leon Bailey looked very good in very few Leverkusen highlights I have watched.

We also need one more midfielder who can contribute both defensively and in attack to play alongside Matic and Pogba.
 
Seven Seas Sardines said:
Fabinho(£40m), SMS(£60m), Bailey(£40m) and Sessegnon(£40m) would constitute a perfect Summer for me. We could probably get £65m from Blind, Darmian, Herrera and Mata, which brings us to a net spend of £115m.

IN/OUT
Fabinho (Herrera)
SMS (Carrick)
Sessegnon (Blind)
Bailey (Ibrahimovic)
TFM (Darmian)
Pereira (Fellaini)
Gomes (Mata)

OUT Fabinho (Herrera) SMS (Carrick) Sessegnon (Blind) Bailey (Mata) TFM (Darmian) Pereira (Fellaini) Gomes (Ibrahimovic)
lineup_summer.png


That backup X11 has frightening pace and agility. Tuanzebe to come in for the 4th choice CB in 2019.
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The issue is that those prices are wholly unrealistic. I realise a contract is just a contract but SMS only signed an extension like 10 months ago? and he's contracted for another 4 years, Lazio have the power, not to mention they will be tough negotiators, couple this in with the fact he's one of the most exciting young midfield prospects in the world and you're gonna be talking 100mill minimum, most likely higher.

If Fabinho is 40mill then he's had a poor season, which infact he kind of has compared to last season.

There is no way Leverkusen lets one of the Bundesliga's exciting prospects in Leon Bailey go for 40mill, see Dembele for the kind of price we'll probably have to end up paying.

The only one i can see being even remotely correct is Sessegnon, and that could go either side of 40mill.
 
L1nk said:
The issue is that those prices are wholly unrealistic. I realise a contract is just a contract but SMS only signed an extension like 10 months ago? and he's contracted for another 4 years, Lazio have the power, not to mention they will be tough negotiators, couple this in with the fact he's one of the most exciting young midfield prospects in the world and you're gonna be talking 100mill minimum, most likely higher.

If Fabinho is 40mill then he's had a poor season, which infact he kind of has compared to last season.

There is no way Leverkusen lets one of the Bundesliga's exciting prospects in Leon Bailey go for 40mill, see Dembele for the kind of price we'll probably have to end up paying.

The only one i can see being even remotely correct is Sessegnon, and that could go either side of 40mill.
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SMS could probably be gotten for £70-80m. Sessegnon and Fabinho will be around £40m. Heard they turned down €40m for Bailey, but £45-50m should get it done at least.
 
We need a massive relooking (as City did this summer), to be a serious contender for the title. City will get stronger, so does Spurs, Pool and Chelski.

Play 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 against small clubs. Sell a lot of player and strengthen a lot too.

In : 260M euros (and keeping wages balance fine)

Fabinho ==> 50M from Monaco (Young's wages)
Alderweireld ==> 30M from Spurs + Smalling (Smalling wages)
Alex Sandro ==> 40M from Juve + Darmian (Mata's wages)
Jorginho ==> 50M from Napoli (Fellaini's wages)
Bale ==> 90M from Madrid (Ibra's wages)

Out : 70/80M euros

Mata : 30M to Leicester
Ibra free
Smalling : In Alderweireld deal or 40M to Arsenal
Pereira : 15M to Valencia
Carrick free
Blind : 15M to Roma
Young : 15M to Crystal Palace
Fosu-Mensah : Loaned again
Fellaini free
Darmian : In Alex Sandro or Jorginho deal
Tuanzebe : Loaned back at Villa
CBJ : 3M to Bolton


4 - 3 - 3 (with subs)

De Gea ( Romero/Johnstone)

Fabinho (Valencia)
Alderweireld (Jones)
Bailly (Lindelof/Rojo)
Sandro (Shaw/Rojo)

Jorginho (Mc Tominay)
Matic (Herrera)
Pogba (New one)

Bale (Lingard)
Lukaku (Rashford)
Sanchez (Martial)
 
---------De Gea
RB---Bailly---CB--Shaw
----------Matic
-------CM----Pogba
-Alexis--Lukaku-Martial

------------Romero
Valencia-Jones-Rojo-Young
-----------McTominay
------Herrera----Pereirra
Mata------Rashford--Lingard
 
So after us all crying for a winger/striker in the summer it appears as though a midfielder and a full back or 2 was what we really could have done with. Although I think Mourinho wanted Perisic to play in a wing back role.
 
feck knows. Genuinely don’t have a clue.

I’d like Toni Kroos. But genuinely don’t know if he can fix us. Maybe we need a new manager. I don’t know.
 
We need someone who can control the game in midfield, it's so obvious. Everyone panics on the ball, much of it is down to how the team is drilled, but the lack of a Carrick is also a reason.
 
Fullbacks who can cross
CBs who can both head and pass the ball
Central midfielder who can dictate tempo
Right-sided attacker
Target man
 
I'd start looking at an upgrade on Matic asap. Poor guy is being run into the ground.

Pereira to play the RCM position, can he be a Pjanic type calming influence?
 
While the dinobot is still in charge I'm not sure it matters who we buy, I mean he went and added another player in the January window to simply play in the position of our best forward while leaving the RW as dead space, and while we keep crying out for fullbacks the fact he uses them as a purely defensive tool most of the time it hardly seems urgent.
 
Murder on Zidane's Floor said:
I'd start looking at an upgrade on Matic asap. Poor guy is being run into the ground.

Pereira to play the RCM position, can he be a Pjanic type calming influence?
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Starting to look like a debatable decision to go on loan now it's looking like he would've got as many minutes here.
 
I don't care if we need to spend £150 million on new players and go to tie with a top club the likes of Barca, Madrid, Bayern, PSG etc and play them off the park cos it will never happen but Mourinho needs to change his vision and approach, I'd be happy with 0-0 if we created a lot of chances but we didn't and that's a problem. It's mad that how we spent 600 million on players and haven't reached the level of Bayern, Madrid and PSG yet we look like Everton side with many great talents individually at our disposal, it's unacceptable for a club like Manchester United who happens to be one of biggest and wealthiest club in the world.


No Transfer window for Mourinho please, he needs to change his approach because I believe he's not improving and very stubborn and we'd be keeping for more money for a new player because our player is not up to it. This is very worrying for me.
 
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We don't need more players. We need more cover in CM and we could improve, but we need this manager to get this group of players playing to the level they're capable of. then maybe we can get have 400 threads about spending 250m to get an extra 3-4%
 
A new manager. Being blunt here, tough day, come home to watch that garbage, i'm done.
 
There's no point singing players for a team without chemistry.
Just going to be a more expensive mess.
 
Right back, centre back (possibly 2 if Bailly is going to be as injury prone as the rest), box to box CM and right sided forward, oh and a world class striker.
 
Centreback is a huge issue. Bailly and Jones is probably our bset partnership, but we can't rely on either of them staying fit. We need a first choice option to be signed there, then we can rotate Bailly and Jones as their partner (ideally Bailly, in the main). Rojo and Lindelof can stay as back-up, with the aim of getting Tuanzebe out on loan to a PL team. Smalling and Blind can go.

Rightback is another issue. Valencia is solid, but in the formation that we're probably looking to play, I think the fullbacks have to contribute a lot more going forward. He always seems to chicken out of taking on the opposition players, favouring the simple sideways pass to the closest midfielder. Last night he actually knocked the ball past a player, and tried to get the cross in, and I was a bit taken aback because it's so rare that he does that. I'm pretty ignorant to football outside of England, so I don't know who the best options out there would be. We could always steal Liverpool's idea - they've got the two youngsters, Gomez and TAA, battling it out for the position. We could do that with Fosu-Mensah and Tuanzebe - the latter had a fantastic game against Alexis Sanchez there for us, and then we never let him play there again. Although I'm not sure either of them would offer the attacking side of the game that I mentioned.

We should keep faith in Shaw at leftback, and definitely stop dropping him for Young all the time. Young can stay as a back-up though.

In midfield, I think is where we're going to spend most of our money. At the moment we've got Pogba, Matic, Herrera, Carrick, McTominay and Fellaini as our first team options there. Carrick's obviously retiring, and I can see Fellaini going too (possibly Herrera, but he might get a bit more of a chance, because he was so good last season - see if he can re-find that form). If we're playing the 4-3-3, we need somebody that's going to offer tackles, pressing, and basically do the donkey work that allows Matic and Pogba to do what they need to do. Kante is basically who we need. Then probably somebody else because that's still quite light. I don't think Peirera's going to be a United player next season, either.

Our attacking options should be good enough.
 
YouOnlyLiveTwice said:
We need someone who can control the game in midfield, it's so obvious. Everyone panics on the ball, much of it is down to how the team is drilled, but the lack of a Carrick is also a reason.
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After yesterdays match, Ever Banega could perhaps be a good solution? Good on the ball, can control a game, pretty decent tackling and work rate if I may say.
I know he been linked with us before.
 
Seven Seas Sardines said:
SMS could probably be gotten for £70-80m. Sessegnon and Fabinho will be around £40m. Heard they turned down €40m for Bailey, but £45-50m should get it done at least.
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Fabinho is really under-valued on this forum it seems.

Monaco got £40m for Bakayoko - the market has gone up since then and Fabinho is not only a much better player overall, he was more impressive during Monaco's 16/17 season, has put together another good season and is more versatile.

Easily worth more than £40m in today's market.

And unless he really forces a move, which seems unlikely given he seems happy there, has a long contract and the president is a stubborn asshole, than I'm pretty sure Lazio would laugh at £70m for Savic. Probably talking more a Pogba-like fee.
 
Players in bold either need to be sold or will leave the club.
De Gea, Romero

Valencia, Darmian
Bailly, Smalling
Lindelof, Jones, Rojo
Shaw, Young, Blind

Matic, Carrick
Pogba, Herrera
Sanchez, Mata
Lingard, Rashford
Martial

Lukaku, Ibrahimovic
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So, four new defenders, two new midfielders and a new forward. £200m spend there.
 
We need to have the best of our current players, that's what we need. Then, we can see the areas to improve our team.
In the first eleven, we need a world class CM (if we play 433), or a right winger (if we continue playing 4231 with Alexis on the left/center).
 
We should give Alexis a shot as striker. Did the job for Arsenal on many occasions.

Or buy another striker as much as I hate to say it.

I was Lukaku’s biggest supporter when we signed him. He’s done f all in big matches, bacially invisible. It’s great to score against Huddersfield but at United you need to bag them against the best in Europe. No top teams fear this man.
 
I was interested to see that apparently what we were using against Chelsea was a midfield square, and that the diamond we started out with was because the players didn't understand how to execute it in the first half, which seems odd if they've been practising it but ok. So essentially a 4-2-2-2.

Who knows if we intend to actually keep with it but I can see some benefits. Mourinho talked of a midfield square but for him it's the defensive square I think he favours, it's why he loves 4-2-3-1, he has that double pivot in front of the CB's forming a square of protection for the keeper. Now with this team I get it, it allows him to put some legs next to Matic and then play 2 AM's that if we get the buy right, will be able to pull out wide as well if one of the strikers doesn't, we know Pogba can do that on the left so the RAM becomes crucial for balance, yesterday we used Alexis there and it didn't work. It also suits the attack as we don't have a single player that wants to play from the right, so a front 2 with two dynamic AM's makes more sense than a front 3 as we don't have the balance for it.

We'd need 4 buys instead of 2 in the summer though as proper attacking fullbacks are needed in this system..


 
2 fullbacks and a midfielder is enough imo. Better to not make drastic changes if we want to form a coherent team.
 
el3mel said:
2 fullbacks and a midfielder is enough imo. Better to not make drastic changes if we want to form a coherent team.
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I don't think adding 2 CM's is drastic, especially with Carrick retiring and Fellaini hopefully leaving. Our midfield lacks a playmaker and it needs another high energy box to box to complete the unit, especially if we are going to play a 3 man midfield as our formation, you need strong depth.
 
Devil may care said:
I don't think adding 2 CM's is drastic, especially with Carrick retiring and Fellaini hopefully leaving. Our midfield lacks a playmaker and it needs another high energy box to box to complete the unit, especially if we are going to play a 3 man midfield as our formation, you need strong depth.
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If we add a second midfielder it'll be to boost the bench. I'm talking about players we need for starting positions.
 
el3mel said:
If we add a second midfielder it'll be to boost the bench. I'm talking about players we need for starting positions.
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Not really though, look at the formation we used on Sunday, it needed 2 CM's added, one deeper and one to comibine with Pogba in the attack.
 
When is the right time to let go of some of the veterans who have served you well over the years?
Everyone knows that Valencia, Young, Carrick, Zlatan and maybe Smalling need to be eased out to allow the next generation in. Such as Blind and Rojo are not key players so could be kept or released depending on circumstances.
Is this the window to let go of them or should there be a lap over season where a younger player splits time with them but any sell on value will be reduced as a consequence?
You have the lads AT and TFM who may be ready to make the step up but if they prove to be too green then it could cost you dearly. Should you cut the current incumbents adrift and get a new top signing for each spot as well as the lads in the squad for each position and risk blocking the path of the lads and disillusioning them?

Tough call.
 
Pnajic Weigl and Maguire would be a magnificent window. I’d like Dier but chances are slim as with Pnajic.
 
Devil may care said:
Not really though, look at the formation we used on Sunday, it needed 2 CM's added, one deeper and one to comibine with Pogba in the attack.
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A better midfielder than Scott and 2 proper fullbacks are pretty much the only things I would buy for to change in the formation we played on Sunday. The rest are Matic, Pogba, Sanchez, Martial and Lukaku. All of them are good enough.

If we're willing to play 4-3-3 we need another midfielder beside Pogba and Matic and 2 fullbacks. Is there anything else that really needs to change ? I don't think so. The rest of signings will be to boost the bench.

The more we keep the same core playing together the more they'll become more coherent and each player will memorize his teammates movement.
 
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