If we claim to be the biggest club in the world how can we give a lot of credit for signing two players who are not in even in the top 2 levels of players around. No disrespect to Shaw or Herrera. But both are players whose deals should be pretty routine for the biggest club in the world. Had we pulled off a transfer like James or even Sanchez, then we should be giving a lot of credit to Woodward.
Woodward (old thread)
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I think the lack of activity is down to Van Gal getting to know his squad. I expect some activity soon but perhaps not a superstar signing
Exactly, we signed good but not outstanding players for extremely inflated prices. Throw that money around and you will get basically anyone (except the top players we need). They will be good players for us but people went way overboard with the Woody praise.
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We need a Woodward meter with a popularity scale.
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I'm sure he needs time to assess the squad and I understand that, but every man and his dog knows where we are weakest, and where we need strengthening the most. 2 weeks until the season starts and we are desperately thin in defence and midfield. They really need to get a move on.
Yep. No doubt they are excellent signings though. But they are pretty routine transfers for a club like us.
yep. Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, Spurs, Everton, City can improve their squad even more
I wont be surprised if the deals are made and will be announced once VG is in England.
I agree, theres no doubt we are thin. But Van Gal isn't every man and his dog, he has balls the SIZE of a dog and does things his way.
This was my biggest concern with signing another manager that couldn't spend the whole summer getting the squad in shape.
We're two weeks from the start of season. While I can understand why we wouldn't buy a winger or even a midfielder yet because van Gaal obviously needs time to assess the needs, I think a central defender should have been bought by now. It has been awfully quiet lately although it was also pretty quiet before the day we confirmed both Herrera and Shaw so it might not be indicative of anything.
I don't think we will go on a spending spree some people are predicting, i.e. buy three or four £20m+ players. I don't think we're capable of closing all that within a month, you might argue it's plenty of time but we have only recently witnessed how slow we could be in closing on these deals which is my main cause for worry. To be fair though it has been going on for a while, it's just the way we are in the market not something Woodward has brought. Once in a while I'd actually like us to be a little more adventurous, especially as this is the Summer where we really need it in order to stay competitive.
As I've said, I won't be shocked if we don't buy anyone until the end of the window but expect us to get 1-2 players.
I'm willing to bet that they'll be angry United fans updating Woodward's wiki on deadline day again this year.
I know LVG needed to assess his squad first but it was fairly obvious to anyone that our midfield and wide players were shit. It is also common knowledge we needed centrebacks. Vidic announced his departure months before the season ended. Evra and Rio were past it and their contracts were running out. The remaining 3 centrebacks are injury prone. Even when fit Evans is the only one who has played to an acceptable level. Of the remaining 2 one is a headless chicken who throws himself at everything and is a danger to himself and opponents. The other one is a poor passer and has occassional brainfarts. Therefore LVG's assessment or not we should have been looking at potential new signings.
Woodward is incompetent and talks too much. Is there any other boss in football who continually promises signings yet does feckall? Everyday it's him and Harry providing quotes for the press. All other club bosses only appear before the media when they've actually signed someone. If we sign anyone late in the window we will get shafted like in the case of Berbatov and Fellaini.
I know LVG needed to assess his squad first but it was fairly obvious to anyone that our midfield and wide players were shit. It is also common knowledge we needed centrebacks. Vidic announced his departure months before the season ended. Evra and Rio were past it and their contracts were running out. The remaining 3 centrebacks are injury prone. Even when fit Evans is the only one who has played to an acceptable level. Of the remaining 2 one is a headless chicken who throws himself at everything and is a danger to himself and opponents. The other one is a poor passer and has occassional brainfarts. Therefore LVG's assessment or not we should have been looking at potential new signings.
Woodward is incompetent and talks too much. Is there any other boss in football who continually promises signings yet does feckall? Everyday it's him and Harry providing quotes for the press. All other club bosses only appear before the media when they've actually signed someone. If we sign anyone late in the window we will get shafted like in the case of Berbatov and Fellaini.
I think that's exactly what happened. Without the "you probably haven't heard of them" bit, as I'm sure Van Gaal has an encyclopaedic knowledge of talented young footballers.
The manager has said he wants to make his own mind up about the players already at the club.
The were decent under Fergie, shit under Moyes, he wants to see where the truth is with them and to judge them for himself.
He could very well decide that actually with what we have and our academy playerswhich has been woefully under used or ignored completely these past few seasons, that we will be OK.
He cant make that call in a couple of days has to how what we have got already responds to his coaching.
I am pretty sure however that there will be at least a couple more coming in and at least two or three going out.
It would be Moyes-esque to make judgement calls on players without ever having seem them play or giving them a chance on the pitch.
The were decent under Fergie, shit under Moyes, he wants to see where the truth is with them and to judge them for himself.
He could very well decide that actually with what we have and our academy playerswhich has been woefully under used or ignored completely these past few seasons, that we will be OK.
He cant make that call in a couple of days has to how what we have got already responds to his coaching.
I am pretty sure however that there will be at least a couple more coming in and at least two or three going out.
It would be Moyes-esque to make judgement calls on players without ever having seem them play or giving them a chance on the pitch.
Yeah, agreed. Although I think it's incredibly optimistic to think we have academy/U-21 players already at the club who can close the gap with any of our rivals, I like the idea that Van Gaal would at least consider this a possibility.
The blueprint for United that Busby introduced in the 60's, and which still makes sense now, is to fill the couple of first team holes with established imported stars and promote younger players already at the club to fill out the squad.
Haven't signed one of those in ages though. Fellaini and Berbatov would be the closest to that description. Say no more...
Mata and RVP?
I thought Pogue was being sarcastic there.
You could add Kagawa to that list too.
Not sarcastic, just retarded. For some reason Mata and RvP completely slipped my mind! Note to self, take a moment to think before posting...
If we fail to qualify for the champions league for successive seasons our addidas deal will be cut by 30% apparently. That's £225m so I doubt it's a financial issue, Woodward will do what Louis van Gaal tells him as we need champions league football.
You can be forgiven, as one of the most carefully spoken posters on here. By far probably.
Not sure about that one. He was a hot property young player at the time, but hardly what I'd call an elite signing. Hazard at that time was the main man to get.
Yes we've signed established stars-but Kagawa aside they typically are from an English club. In general our signings from non-EPL teams have been younger players with an upside. Seems that Vidal would be a break from that pattern.
God I hate transfer season. Too many people on here with selective memories. I'm adding this thread to the 'Vidal and Twitter Discussion' as another one to avoid for a while.
My only concern is that LVG's ego doesn't get the better of him and think that a midfield of Carrick-Clev-Herrera can compete with a midfield of Toure, Fernandinho and Fernando.
That should be our biggest concern because apparently Robben had to be forced on him and Neuer too.
That said it would be a midfield trio of Carrick, Herrera and Mata.
They better get that checkbook out, or its money gone.
United could become the playground bully's, we won a few titles going down that road. If united beat allot of the sides that are not in the top 4, 3 points is 3 points
I'm sorry we missed the boat on Hazard. Wonder what he's worth now?
Look at how much we've spent in the past year.
In todays market, at his age and what he's shown at Chelsea so far. 65-70m.
And all because we wouldn't pay an agent's fee, or so it's said. I'm not sure if there's any truth in that. If I remember rightly, Hazard was playing everyone back then to get the best deal.
Well its waisted money on fellaini, if Moyes had a brain he would have bought herrera in the first place, who was available all summer long last year. Yea we have spent money, we still short in the engine room, or do we need to go over the options beyond an injured carrick, and herrera. We also have wages saved from the departures of ferdinand vidic evra and butner
I find it hard to believe that van gaal still needs time to make a decision on signings, it's obvious where we're short on quality, maybe we're waiting for players to be sold first, whatever the reason is, i really hope we avoid the last week desperation of last season.
Neuer joined Bayern in 2011.
If i wasn't confident in LvG being a top manager id be starting to get extremely worried.
A lot of inactivity, our defense is thin as its ever been, midfield isn't solved and Ashley fecking young playing wing back.
Another awful summer and it's beyond doubt Woodward should still be replaced. I live in hope
A lot of inactivity, our defense is thin as its ever been, midfield isn't solved and Ashley fecking young playing wing back.
Another awful summer and it's beyond doubt Woodward should still be replaced. I live in hope
'Unprecedented levels of spending' though this Summer remember lads 
Personally I almost feel sorry for the bloke. He's got a manager that, for the second season in a row and for different reasons, won't commit to any new signings until late, and as a consequence he's been left trying to do deals towards the end of the window. Think that United should have got a DoF in really and there he could be faulted, but he's now faced with a pretty much unwinable situation. There aren't going to be the marquee players available that he so desperately wants to sign and the ones that are maybe, such as Cavani, are in a position that we don't want to strengthen. He'll be left with signing the truly underwhelming at best players such as Vermaelen, or De Jong, that are the squad players we possibly need, taking buckets loads of flak from fans, and its all because Van Gaal wasn't available until mid-July.
If a DoF had been in place in June, not only would we have signed Shaw and Herrera, we may well have had a much better chance at the likes of Hummels as you have to feel that going in big early on in the window would have given Dortmund a chance to replace him. Going in now and there's no one for Dortmund to get.
If a DoF had been in place in June, not only would we have signed Shaw and Herrera, we may well have had a much better chance at the likes of Hummels as you have to feel that going in big early on in the window would have given Dortmund a chance to replace him. Going in now and there's no one for Dortmund to get.
Good post. Unfortunately for him, everyone won't be so objective (as you've already said). The criticism etc won't bother him I think, though. If we fail on the pitch again, the fall out guy will be the manager again, not the money spinner Woody.
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