That's too sensible.
We are a shambles and refuse to make sensible decisions.
I think Ralf has his hands tied. He identified cheap midfield signings, but the board said "no". Probably because they weren't big names.
Where are the United incomings?
- Thread starter Ranchero
- Start date
That's too sensible.
We are a shambles and refuse to make sensible decisions.
I think Ralf has his hands tied. He identified cheap midfield signings, but the board said "no". Probably because they weren't big names.
If you’re a big name player, you’re not joining United during the January transfer window. There was never a credible link with a player of the caliber lf Declan Rice or Erling Haaland. Clearly, if the possibility of either existed it should have been explored but there’s no reason to think players of that caliber were available in January.
What about squad players? We’ve already got plenty of squad players. Too many in fact. I would like to have seen Donny given a proper chance, but for whatever reason that wasn’t going to happen under Ralf. Others had to go out on loan.
The last thing we’d want to do is to spend big money now on a squad player. We’ve got U23 players who have earned a proper chance with the first team. We’ve begun to see that with Elanga. Maybe with Hannibal. The big money spend can happen in the summer, when the market will be such that players who can make a big impact will be available.
Let’s dive into one example: Anthony Martial. What if he rips up trees with Sevilla? Maybe we bring him back rather than spend a huge sum on a new CF. What if Donny rips up trees with Everton? Maybe we think twice about Rice. Different midfielders, you might say. Fine, what if McTominay turns into the destroyer Ralf dreams of?
We’ve got a lot of problems within the squad, made worse with the news of this weekend. Urgent action was reasonable, but the kind of players we would to bring in weren’t available.
I’ll try to be optimistic about it and just say I can’t wait to hopefully see Shoretire and Mejbri get some chances.
Maybe Ralf can coach McTominay and Fred into becoming better players in their positions, because the coaching in the previous regime seemed pretty lacking, if McKenna had the best background in coaching for all our previous staff with his youth level credentials.
Maybe Ralf can coach McTominay and Fred into becoming better players in their positions, because the coaching in the previous regime seemed pretty lacking, if McKenna had the best background in coaching for all our previous staff with his youth level credentials.
Utd are just increasing the transfer kitty that Poch will have to spend when he arrives in the summer.
Not too worried yet, intrigued to see how it plays out if anything. I'll be glad to see the back of nearly every player listed.Anyone else more than worried about the summer? I think we did wrong by not signing player/s this window. Zakaria for one was a steal at 5mil. So, in summer of 2022 (a year with World cup in December where every player wants game time and get into national squad):
Sure exits -> Mata, Lingard, Cavani, Bailly, Jones, Grant, Pogba, Greenwood
Almost exits -> Martial, Matic, Henderson, Ronaldo (if no top 4)
Up in the air exits -> Donny (will leave if its not Ten Hag)
Loan watch almost exits-> Chong, Pereira,
Loan watch in doubts -> Pellistri, Garner, Tuanzebe, Williams,
That leaves us with:
Sure -> DDG, Heaton, AWB, Dallot, Maguire, Varane, Lindelof, Shaw, Telles, Fred, Mctom, Bruno, Rashford, Elanga, Sancho, Amad.
Doubts -> Donny, Pellistri, Garner, Williams, Tuanzebe
Youth: Laird, Mengi, DiShon, Levitt, Hannibal, Shoretire
Even with the wage offload, for a new manager to get 4-5 signings will be difficult in one summer window. We will need a world class DM, almost 2 number 9s, a B2B CM, one CB. This is bare minimum need.
In reality, the Board and media will feed the fans with news of Rice and Halland all summer till deadline day only for Rice to pick Chelsea and Haaland for City. We will end up with Dembele with high wage bills to get more social media clicks. Will eventually lose Bruno in a season or two for free cause of our incompetent board. Our board will go with Poch as he can work with youth and not demand high transfer moves and keep Glazzers happy with their dividends.
If we don’t make it to top 4 this season forget all that I wrote above and be ready to inject more pain or feel numb
The concern would be that they don't act early in the summer with getting both the manager and then new players in place. It's the first time in a while we'll get a proper pre season.
I don't think a lot of players can walk straight into this Midfield when you look at Fred/McT/Matic in the Midfield..
We need to keep the energetic when the team play that pressing like vs West Ham.
I think it’s cute that you have this irrational optimism that Martial and DvB may have great loans and triumphantly return to United where they will form a new core of a title winning side. If I were you, I wouldn’t hold my breath. Both have had multiple chances to establish themselves and both have failed. Spare me the Martial argument. Yes, he’s a ridiculously talented footballer. He has 269 appearances for us and 79 goals over 7 seasons. That’s just not good enough to be a starting striker on a side that has title aspirations.
On another note, there is serious doubt as to whether we can finish 4th. This is an 80m gamble in CL revenues. The smart move is to buy a player (DM) that could potentially help you to achieve CL qualification as a hedge. By all accounts, both Koumara and Zakaria were available for less than 10m. Fred McT and Matic just aren’t good enough. Pogba coming back doesn’t solve our DM issues. If you want to stump up for Touchemeni, that would be big money, sure, but you might get you DM of the present and future.
It’s naive of both you and I to think that all of this was not thought through — clearly, they did. My issue is that once you veer off course from your mission as a club, it makes it difficult to get back on course. We’ve seen that since SAF retired. Too many decisions for the wrong reasons — we can’t lose the asset so we should re-sign Martial on stupid wages, let’s keep Mata, let’s keep Phil Jones, let’s sign DvB because he is cheap, wow, can’t let Ronaldo play for someone else in the PL, etc.
At it’s core, these are organizational leadership issues. When SAF was here, well, he was the leader, so we were fine. Now, the Glazers, Woodward, Arnold are too weak to chart a course to get back to winning. And no, waiting for a “savior” new manager will most likely not fix our current issues, because those reside at a level above.