Muller, Bale and Neymar, think Woody has been playing too much FUT.
Neymar
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Indeed.
Or maybe he's doing his job?
Because we're a bit shite at the moment. With major doubts over the ability of our manager to make us a force, domestically or in Europe.
Mind you, Barca are having a bit of a shite season with similar doubts about their manager. Not that this would have been predicted in the summer.
Maybe also the reason we are stuck with Rooney and 2 rookie strikers.
Sort of this is how I see it as well.
Unless Neymar is willing to play second fiddle to Messi for another 5 years or so (injuries permitting etc.), I see that as our only chance of getting him. The chemistry and morale at Barca does seem great though, especially amongst that front 3. But if ever Neymar is able to realistically compete for the Balon d'Or, he'd need to be theeeee leading man at a club probably winning the UCL. Even though that isn't us at the moment, with a signing like Neymar plus 1 or 2 others, it easily could be. Plus, the money doesn't hurt
This.
Elite players want to be playing at an elite level. Neymar has just come off wining a treble and scoring a winner in the CL final. We can't offer that right now, we have just got back into Europe and still rebuilding, not playing particularly good football either, it will still be a few years until we can realistically challenge for the CL again.
I don't subscribe to this Ed is embarrassing himself crap but I can't envisage a situation where we can buy him next year.
At the moment yes, but given the way we are going that's not going to last forever.
The club can't do right for doing wrong at the moment, buy a decent player the club has no ambition, but an exciting prospect - the club need experienced players not prospects. Buy experienced players then suddenly the club aren't investing in youth. Get turned down by a club for one of their star players results in the club being embarrassing. Football fans eh.
Shit, Sorry, I didn't realise he scouted and picked the players for the team.
We are aiming for the best it seems and they are not so easily obtainable. Many transfers of big players took several years to complete. I think wanted specific top players and was prepared to play with what he has until the next transfer window. He said it himself several times that we only want the players that will improve the team.
Is it futile to chase such targets... It would appear so to us fans, but we can never know what the clubs and players think. We are never going to sing a big name if we do not attempt to.
Nobody believed we would sing Di Maria or RvP or Falcao... Even though they did not perform (except RvP) they are big names in the world of football.
Can't speak for everyone but I just think this "galactico quest" is completely wrong-headed. Even the sugar daddy clubs seem to accept the pointlessness of such an approach. Hence we see City paying a lot of money to sign players a tier below the very top from clubs that can't afford to keep them (Silva, De Bruyne) in the hope they will become a future BPITW rather than trying to buy established megastars from the biggest clubs in Europe. I'd be much happier with that kind of approach rather than sending dozens of emails to Madrid/Barca/Bayern asking them if there's any chance they would sell us their best players (when it's fairly fecking obvious what the response will be).
2 years left on his deal.
Meanwhile Barcelona made a net operating profit of €15m last year. That's after winning the Treble and getting nearly €40m a pop for Fabregas and Sanchez. Their debt still rose €41m to €328m and they're talking about a €600m Nou Camp renovation.
Their wages/turnover ratio is at an eye watering 73%.
With all that in mind, is it possible that they might prefer to receive a €150m fee for Neymar than commit another €100m to a new contract? I don't think it's impossible.
Oh Pexy you know all the right things to say.
We should just keep bidding for them and maybe one of them will say yes sooner or later
The Ed Woodward way!I bet it would've been seen at the time as naive to be in for Schweinsteiger and Di Maria as well though, I much prefer Woody to be ambitious than defeatist.
Nothing wrong aiming for neymar.
The problem is when you try (and fail) to get neymar and allow a player like greizmann to go to another club, to get left with nothing.
The problem is when you try (and fail) to get neymar and allow a player like greizmann to go to another club, to get left with nothing.
I don't think we are going down the galactico route at all. Signing players like Martial, Memphis, Darmian, Shaw, Schneiderlin and Herrera, let alone promoting youth team players like McNair and Pereira as well as investing heavily in our youth system would back that thought up.
However I feel we are missing that one player who can win you a game when things aren't going well, and there aren't to many of players out there.
I would put Memphis and Martial in different categories.
Category A: Big fish in small pond. Player excelling in a weak league. Slight risk over transition to PL/CL football (e.g. Memphis to United)
Category B: A signing for the future. Super-talented kid, about to make it big. May or may not be excelling wherever he is playing but potentially on the verge of greatness (e.g. United signing Martial, Juve signing Pogba)
Category C: A signing to make immediate impact. Great player, at not great club. Someone who is excelling in a strong league while playing for a club from which he can realistically be tempted away (e.g. Silva to City, Cazorla to Arsenal. Schneiderlin/Shaw/Hererra to United)
This galactico pursuit is a different thing entirely. It seems doomed to failure and leaves us with holes in our squad when our enquiries are inevitably rebuffed. If we really needed a prolific, top class attacker this summer then why didn't we work on more realistic targets as an alternative to Neymar/Muller etc?
He would have a big say in who is attainable when LVG brings a list of targets to him, so yes he does have a big influence on signing these players.
You can add Falcao to that list.
I'm not sure it's an either/or choice between ambitious and defeatist. I think there's room to be ambitious, while being thoughtful and pragmatic. That way we wouldn't have ended up paying stupid money for players who were never suited to our team/league (at least one of whom didn't even really want to play for United) just to prove we can sign big name players.
The only influence he will have is if it's possible to sign them or not, he will have no choice on who we bring in.
Di Maria - was unsettled and Madrid wanted to give him the boot.
RVP - had one year left on his deal and wanted out.
Falcao - Just came back from a serious injury and Monaco needed to offload as they couldn't afford him anymore.
Neither Muller, Bale or Neymar are in these sorts of situations. It seems we are just bidding for players and hoping for the best, we should be going for targets that are realistically attainable. What makes it worse is we chase these guys and end up signing no one, our striker situation is a good example of that.
Great ambition there.
I know he's got three years on his contract but I'm sure I read somewhere that Barcelona wants to renew his contract. It wouldn't surprise me if Neymar's representatives had encouraged interest from us. It puts them in a better position when they come to negotiate his new deal as there is competition from another big club who would offer him a good deal. If I'm not mistaken a lot of the leaks about this have been from Neymar's side.
We have been saying for as long as Rooney has been shite, or perhaps ever since Ronaldo left - that we need a special player in the attack.
We have a great crop of U21 forwards right now. Rooney should be the more experienced man leading them on, but instead he is actually hiding behind their endeavours. A player like Neymar next summer, with Martial, Memphis, Januzaj, Wilson and Pereira growing around him would be excellent.
We have a great crop of U21 forwards right now. Rooney should be the more experienced man leading them on, but instead he is actually hiding behind their endeavours. A player like Neymar next summer, with Martial, Memphis, Januzaj, Wilson and Pereira growing around him would be excellent.
PR
Not really, if Muller was unsettled and wanted to leave i would have absolutely no problem with us going for him. But these players are not available, it's got nothing to do with ambition.
Sending an offer for Muller and being rejected then constantly going back and sending more offers and still being rejected is not ambition, it's stupidity and a waste of time.
Ah the Wenger approach, Martial says hi.
Martial was available so we bought him. Bayern, Barca and Madrid don't need to sell their players Monaco do.
Also Wenger didn't want to pay the cash for Martial, that was the crux of the issue, i see no correlation between trying to sign Martial and an elite player at an elite club.
Martial was not available. They'd rejected a number of bids and enquirys over the summer and rejected all our bids.
Until we bid enough and they could no longer say no.
Every player has a price, you just have to find it.
No, everyone was told repeatedly he wasn't available, hence why Wenger, you know, said he was told he wasn't available?
FFS.
Let's just wait for players to approach us shall we.
Thomas Muller clearly didn't.
Martial is not comparable to Muller, Bale or Neymar.
1) He's an unknown young player, most of these players would jump at that chance to sign for one of big European clubs.
2) Monaco need the money
You're right, it comes across as naïve.
I do have a very very hard time believing the 'e-mail spam' and 'scattergun offers to players' stuff that gets thrown about. Woodward wasn't picked off from the streets to be the EVC of United. He's a seasoned pro who has years of experience in absolute cut throat business environments. The whole idea of him spamming mailboxes with offers is quite laughable to even imagine it actually happening.
You can't? Then then I'll help you.
Monaco didn't want to sell, therefore by your logic we shouldn't have approached him
No we approach players that are willing to leave their clubs and clubs that are willing to sell.
It worked with Martial, Memphis, Bastian, Shaw, Darmain, Di Maria, Mata etc....
Except if United try to do it, its embarrassing.
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