Has an always crying expression. Do not want. Enough crybabies already with Sancho back as well
Xavi Simons
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) and Jamie (@Vault Dweller) get the depressing job of reviewing United's 3-0 loss at Old Trafford to Liverpool. They discuss what went wrong, Casemiro's day to forget, and the pressure now on Erik Ten Hag. They also take some time to give McTominay a proper farewell, and give their overall thoughts on the Summer Transfer Window.
You do realise I literally add a note hopefully is a made-up nonsense in my initial post?
I am also not whining about issues that don't exist, we are literally finishing one Holland player as we speak, we are interested in signing De Light, and then there is rumour for Simons now too. These are all obviously very valid issues.
You're hopeless, I won't even try. There's no convincing posters like you.
What's the issue? None of them are bad players? In fact they are all very highly rated around Europe.
I'm a big fan of Xavi Simons. Massive talent who offers both goals and assists. However, I do wonder if we'd be able to fit both him and Bruno in the team and get them performing. I feel like City definitely could, but I have less confidence in it working here. It would certainly lead to major competition for places, especially if we get Toney too. ETH would need to rotate far more than he did in his previous 2 seasons.
Bottom line is that a transfer is multi stage and will be over seen by many. Clubs often go through that. Look at wolves over recent times, lots of Portuguese players. We now have a massive Dutch influence with our coaches so it’s not uncommon.
I don't think the Wolves are someone we should be inspired by.
It's very uncommon at top and successful clubs that managers sign players from their home land all the time.
That's exactly the type of answer I was expected to get from you. Nothing I have said is wrong and you are obviously just one of those terrible posters that don't even understand what online forum is meant to be.
What do you mean by highly rated? Which top club is after any of them?
Do you believe Zirkzee was recommended and chosen by ten Hag, simply because he's Dutch and played for Dutch clubs at youth level?
Do you believe that top clubs from around Europe aren't aware who Joshua Zirkzee, Matthijs de Ligt and Xavi Simons are? Zirkzee was wanted by Milan, Simons is wanted by Bayern, and these are only the clubs where the general interest developed into something more concrete. Every serious big club is aware who these players are. Hell, even people who just play Football Manager will know them, so why would you assume real clubs don't? Also, we've only had a free run at de Ligt because the player currently isn't interested in moving to another club other than United.
Do you believe players who come from the Eredivisie, be it to United or other PL teams, will just generally flop?
Just in the last 24 months, so during ten Hag's United tenure, these Eredivisie players left the league to move to a top 5 league club that wasn't Manchester United:
Kudus to West Ham
Gakpo to Liverpool
Timber to Arsenal
Álvarez to West Ham
Sangaré to Nottingham Forest
Madueke to Chelsea
Haller to Dortmund
Wieffer to Brighton
Sinisterra to Leeds
Bassey to Fulham
Reijnders to AC Milan
Gravenberch to Bayern Munich
Mazraoui to Bayern Munich
Kerkez to Bournemouth
Senesi to Bournemouth
I could go on, but you get my point. There will also be a lot of Dutch and/or Eredivisie and/or ex-ETH players moving this summer to big clubs.
There is a huge misconception about our recruitment on here, and no matter who we are linked with, there's going to be some sort of outrage if they're either Dutch and/or played in the Eredivisie and/or know ten Hag. In reality, both the Netherlands the Eredivisie have a great talent pool that teams from top 5 leagues often like to pick from. It's a market that has always provided players and market opportunities to the traditional big clubs (and all PL clubs ever since it became the de facto Super League).
Also, looking at our signings under ETH where the player had some kind of connection to the manager:
-Antony was never worth 80m, but ETH knew that, the scouting department knew that, and everyone who watched the player extensively at Ajax knew that. It's a big mistake, because of the fee, there's no denying that, but I don't think you can put all the blame on ETH on this one. The Glazers originally prepared a much lower budget on transfers in the summer of 2022, and only after the opening two defeats of the season did they decide to let the club splash a nonsensical amount of money on Antony, out of panic. This info comes from the Athletic, the most reliable football source out there nowadays.
-Martínez has been great and he's good enough for any club and league in the world. You could argue his real worth is considerably higher than the fee we spent on him.
-Malacia was a cheap punt, similar to Dan James, and done well whenever he's played. Him missing a season is far from ideal, but whenever he's been on the pitch, the performances were usually decent.
-Weghorst was obviously not good enough for United, but it was an emergency loan and I hate even mentioning these irrelevant signings when assessing our transfer policy, whether they did well or not. Still, I feel like for a cheap 6-month loan, Weghorst was alright and even though he didn't score a single PL goal, he worked hard and improved the team, because we literally had no striker in the squad other than him.
-Eriksen was a good signing for a free. Up until his injury vs Reading in the FA Cup, he was a very useful player for us.
-Mount hasn't had enough opportunities due to injury issues, but whenever he's played last season, he was decent.
-Onana had a good season IMO, the howlers cannot happen with this frequency, but with the ball, and in-possession, he provided everything he was bought for. An excellent technical goalkeeper.
-Amrabat was decent when ETH tweaked the system and he didn't have to play basically a single-pivot #6 anymore. He's a decent double pivot DM and unsurprisingly his best performances came when he played in a double pivot.
You also need to realize that a player is not either good or bad. It's not either a good signing or a flop. It's not black or white. There always has to be a lot of contextualization and to be honest, judging any player on a season like the last one is silly. Almost no one looks good in a dysfunctional setup. Even Rodri would've looked like a vastly inferior player to the Rodri that plays for Manchester City and Spain, if he had to play DM for us last season.
So overall, I think the criticism regarding our recruitment under ETH was overblown even in his first two seasons, and now he has a much better structure helping him that's finally filled with footballing people who know what they are doing. Whining about potential arrivals because they're of a certain nationality, or come from a certain league is just silly.
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Typically we'll declare it amazing now if we sign these players, and fast forward 2 years we will probably be giving pelters to Ineos for indulging Ten Hag so much with these Dutch signings. Much like many of our previous transfer windows.
What's funny is how ETH called Xavi Simons un-dutch in the way he had doggedness and other aspects to his game, as though being Dutch trained was inferior, and how he can tell he's trained abroad. But then proceeds to sign more Dutch players
So I do agree that it didnt work. But I dont agree that it wont or cant work. No idea if Xavi Simons would work but, he is playing that inside right role for his current club and was probably their best player, with lots of end product in that role. So all good indicators that it would work.
The thing that frustrated me most when we signed Sancho from Dortmund is that like 90% of his matches were played on the right, where he had lots of end product. And then he came into the team on the left, when Rashford was one of our most effective attackers. I'd be more concerned if Simons wasnt already playing the role and doing very well.
I'd also argue that its clearly his best role up till now. So its not shoe horning him in. It would be a bit different to Antony on the right and very different from Garnacho but it would be the same as he's already doing at club level himself.
Bayern are after Simons and Milan were after Zirkzee? De ligt has already played for some of the biggest clubs in Europe.
Yeah, that's fair.
Milan are nowhere near top club we should aspire to be, and they have Giroud as their leading striker, no wonder they were interested. I am not saying Zirkzee is shite and wouldn't improve some clubs.
De Light has played at big clubs and was disappointment in all of them, there is a reason why Bayern would want to get rid. Even his injury record isn't great, and he is on probably big wages too.
Are you seriously happy to sign all three of them? Are you Dutch?
Bolded part is just not true. Unless you expected him to be the best defender in the world right now, he hasnt disappointed. Starter for both Bayern and Juventus and both clubs are/were open to selling because of financial reasons.
De Ligt, Zirkzee and Xavi are all young very talented players. Why wouldnt you want to sign those? Being Dutch has nothing to do with that.
Bayern their best CB, one of the best young players in Germany/Europe and the Serie A young player of the year. If they werent Dutch but still came with that description you likely would love for them to sign for Manchester United.
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I hope the interest is true and if The loan then purchase fee is around 40-50 then no brainer.
We need creative people playing off the wing and he can do that. Although if Sancho is planning on staying which I doubt that would cause a bit of an issue. Rashford, Garnacho want to score goals, Don;t actually know what Antony is but last year there wasn’t anyone who would really look or be willing to play a pass in the final 3rd. Sancho, Amad, Xavi and Zirkzee are those type of players. Which will hopefully lead to more goals.
We need creative people playing off the wing and he can do that. Although if Sancho is planning on staying which I doubt that would cause a bit of an issue. Rashford, Garnacho want to score goals, Don;t actually know what Antony is but last year there wasn’t anyone who would really look or be willing to play a pass in the final 3rd. Sancho, Amad, Xavi and Zirkzee are those type of players. Which will hopefully lead to more goals.
De light was laughing stock for Juventus, basically like Maguire was for us for few years. Record money deal that finished in him scoring own goals every month there, have you even been watching him there?
Also he is not Bayern's best defender, all of Upamecano, Davies and Kimmich are better than him, probably Kim too. I am not sure he is even their first option when everyone is fit. And their defence isn't even spectacular either, Eric Dier plays as a defender there which says a lot, there is a reason they have finished third last season in BL. Bayern don't have financial reasons to sell unless they don't find him waste of space on his wages, because they could finance probably two better players for same wages.
Simons and Zirkzee aren't bad players, just not the players we need. We don't need to sign good talents just for the sake of it, we need striker who can score(Zirkzee is far from that), and Simons isn't someone we need on position he plays either, for that money he won't even improve us.
Why are you inventing stuff I never said? Even if they played in championship I am sure top clubs would be aware of them. Why wouldn't top clubs be aware of most of players, and not just these players who had respectable seasons last year?
You have created completely new point in your head and started discussing it for no reason. You startwd laughing at my post on which I said nothing has changed because by the looks of it the manager is again picking his target instead of club being driven by director of football, I was criticising our board and transfer strategy, and yet you go on and defend Ten Hag and Dutch players in general for some reason.
Yes, Xavi, Zirkzee and De Ligt are Dutch. So what? Idk much about Zirkzee but the other two would walk into our first eleven regardless of their nationality.
Milan are still a big club. Should we not sign someone like Leao or Maignan then because Milan rate them?
I disagree he's been a disappointment. There can be concerns about his wages and injury record, but not on his defensively quality.
Yeah, why would I not be happy signing 3 good quality players? I'm not Dutch, I don't care that they are, I'm not sure why you should. If they were all English or French, I doubt anyone would care.
May be a swap deal involved Rashford/Xavi going opposite directions anyone ?
Can’t believe that de Ligt nonsense from people not watching Bayern made it into this thread as well.
Can’t believe that de Ligt nonsense from people not watching Bayern made it into this thread as well.
So what is nonsense, saying De Ligt is Bayern best CB or saying rest all of them are better?
Nonsense is calling Kimmich, Upa and Davies better defenders than de Ligt after the season those players just had.
But this is the Xavi Simons thread.
They are big club, but they are not top team and nowhere near smart run club, actually they have been worse than us in many transfer related stuff in the past 10 years or so.
If you are happy with those signings, then great, we can disagree about the quality needed because I don't think those players will improve our first XI by any means. Actually, I think De Light is the best signing out of those because we miss numbers in defence, so I would be fine with that. Zirkzee and Simmons would just add numbers in attacking positions we already have, what we are missing there is real quality and goals, and they will hardly improve us in that department.
Juventus didn't want to sell De ligt, he was sold because he wasn't signing a new contract. He was a main starter there.
You do realise what you're saying makes no sense, right?
You say there is a reason Bayern want to sell as if they only make great decisions, but if he was so bad for Juventus, why did Bayern pay nearly €70m to sign him?
He is on big wages, and that is precisely why they're open to selling him. It has nothing to do with ability. They're also looking to get rid of Kimmich, Coman and Gnabry, are they also disappointments?
Why do you think Bayern fans want to keep him and can't understand this sale? Let's say our board want to get rid of Lisandro Martinez but we, the fans, really want him to stay because he is our best CB, would that make him not good enough?
OK but that doesn't mean everything they do is wrong, as I just mentioned two players who are top quality in their side. We still managed to sign good players as well.
Zirkzee improves the squad quality and I would hope facilitates for other players, as well as getting in on the action himself. Zirkzee only has to outperform Martial, to do that and I think he can. Simons outscored and out assisted all our wingers/forwards, so I'm not really sure how he wouldn't improve us?
It's fine if you prefer other players, but I don't know how you'd argue they wouldn't improve us. They obviously would considering the places in the squad they're improving.
"Nothing has changed"
If you think nothing has changed, I don't know what to tell you other than that some people will cry about anything and there's nothing more obvious about United right now than the fact that there have been huge changes. I can't believe the things I'm reading on this forum each day.
"the manager is again picking his targets"
The manager is picking his targets. Okay, like every single manager out there? It's also not ETH doing it all on his own, and he wasn't doing it all on his own pre-INEOS either. Another big misconception. The difference now is that he has more help and more knowledgeable people around him to help compared to the Glazer era. I suspect that you, like many others are just too obsessed with the idea of ETH mentioning/choosing someone as his preferred target, and then the board forcing a completely different player on him as I bet some of you believe that's how we'll become a well-run football club apparently. How the tables have turned since April 2022 when everyone was collectively celebrating that our new manager insisted on having complete control over our recruitment.
"criticising our board and transfer strategy"
Criticising them because of some random unreliable source likely just making up these Simons links anyway? Also, Simons is one of the best U21 players in the world, so what's your problem? Your "another average player from Holland" really implies you don't really follow outside of the Premier League.
I can do that too, and I will come for free! Those are some really low expectations.
We don't need players to improve on Martial, we need striker who will score 20 goals in PL alone, who will perform both Hojlund and Rashford, and not Martial. We are not midtable club who have two forwards who will score 10-15 goal each(at best). But I don't want even to keep this discussion about Zirkzee, as it's all very much still hypotethical, no one knows if and how much he will improve the squad. I guess we can only bet on it.
How do you see our best lineup next year if we sign Simons? Where does he fit?
Where did you find that they want to sell all those players, that is really difficult to believe, and your entire post is based on that as a fact?
Personally, I find it ridiculous that Bayern would sell someone who is apparently their best defender, top clubs don't to that.
I am pretty sure De Light wasn't your first choice in defence this year? Do you think he is your best defender?
When he was fully fit he was a guaranteed starter, especially in the final third of the season.
He was our best defender in the last 2 seasons.
I think Kimmich is being mentioned because he plays as RB now and as an overall player he's better than De Ligt, which isn't far fetched, rather than saying he's better at defending, which ofcourse is nonsense.
But yea overall to say De Ligt is crap because Bayern want to sell him is stupid. There are a variety of reasons why Bayern would want him now, primary of which is that he's probably the central defender they can get the best value out of given Kim and Upa had disappointing seasons. De Ligt isn't in any way a poor defender, I'm delighted we are going for him at that value.
People need to remember Bayern sold Kroos just as he was entering the peak of his ability as well so Bayern aren't always smart when it comes to selling players.
What do you know about Bayern players? Let the specialists on here have their say, enough with your logical and data-backed input.
obvious sarcasm
A loan with an obligation to buy would suit us and PSG would probably accept that.
You're the one who said he wouldn't improve us, that's all he has to do to improve us. I think he suits us to bring the best out of Rashford, Garnacho and Hojlund.
It would require marauding full backs and a midfield + defence that can defend large spaces, but he would play on either wing and do his best work in the half spaces.
https://www.reddit.com/r/BayernMunich/s/wNvzawOk4j in the same way Bayern would use him as detailed out here.
You get a Dutch player, and you get a Dutch player, and you fet a Dutch player!
There are a lot of sources where you can find that information. Just google it yourself, and you'll see. Why is that difficult to believe? Kimmich' contract expires next summer and he doesn't want to renew, and Bayern have Sané, Olise, Musiala and Müller that can play on the wings, and are looking to buy Doué and/or Xavi Simons too. Coman and Gnabry are also among some of the highest earners in the team, with Coman having a £270k a week contract, and Gnabry with slightly over £300k. Kimmich is on £320k. Coman is also ridiculously injury prone, so I don't understand what is so difficult to believe they're looking to get rid of those players. It would simply be good business.
You still didn't answer my question. If De Ligt was a disappointment in Juventus (he wasn't, he was very good), then why did Bayern buy him for €70m?
As for your second paragraph, what you find ridiculous or hard to believe isn't relevant here, because it is happening and has happened before. You have several Bayern fans on this forum, in this thread, telling you he is their best defender, fans who watch every single Bayern game, but you find it hard to believe? Do you think the Bayern board always make decisions based on a player's ability, or do you agree that perhaps there is a business side to it as well? Remind me of the last time there was a petition signed by 70k fans of a club to stop a sale of a player.
Real Madrid sold Varane, Bayern sold Hummels and are likely about to sell Davies to Real Madrid, City sold Laporte, Chelsea sold Ricardo Carvalho, Juventus sold Bonucci, Cancelo and De Ligt etc. These are just defenders. Top clubs sell many of their best players quite frequently, actually. You know, Ronaldo, Beckham, van Nistelrooy are some examples for us.
Both Hojlund and Rashford are more than capable of 20 PL goals. Possibly Bruno as well. We need to improve collectively as a team for our attackers to reach the numbers they're capable of. I'm not sure Haaland would've score 20 in last season's United side. But I do agree we need attackers. However, Zirkzee is a facilitator currently, maybe he can grow into a lethal scorer but he isn't that currently. However, we know that and he was brought in for other reasons.
People are making a huge mistake when judging our players based on 23/24. Everyone in our squad is better than what they showed last season.
Please stop talking, if you have no idea what you are saying. And move this to the de Ligt thread.
You're probably joking but this type of comment is how a lot of people feel about players. If they look a certain way they'll get treated a certain way. This is just how his face sits. Appearance is everything, I see some people coming out with shitty comments based on his appearance alone.
But Xavi is a good player who can play across the front line, we're not in a position to reject players like him. He's Dutch so ETH's discriminatory recruiting process is probably already kicking in.
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