Castles: Man Utd draw up Zlatan Ibrahimovic succession plan amidst approaches from China and MLS

#07

makes new threads with tweets in the OP
Joined
Oct 25, 2010
Messages
23,258
 

el3mel

Full Member
Joined
Oct 23, 2016
Messages
43,735
Location
Egypt
Signing Belotti will be a daft choice. He'll want a main role here and with Lukaku present we can't afford that. We'll spend a lot of money on a player for rotation with Lukaku it doesn't make any sense.

I prefer the option of depending on Martial as a striker option when needed and focus our money on other transfers, otherwise bring a young and cheap striker as a sub.
 

RedTillI'mDead

A Key Tool
Joined
Apr 16, 2010
Messages
5,475
Location
London
Pointless article. The succession of a player who has played only a few games this season, has mostly been off the pace and is now injured. He is a squad player and makes little difference to our squad at current. Lukaku is already his succession.

Taking that aside we still need some creative spark, but that doesn’t change regardless of what happens with Zlatan.
 

Kapardin

New Member
Joined
Jul 6, 2017
Messages
9,917
Location
Chennai, India
No shame for Zlatan. He's had his glory days, even in England. Time to move on.

Article seems like it is covering all bases. We may get another striker, we may use Martial as back-up striker or promote some youth and focus on other positions, the board may or may not provide funds for either of these options. A few names like Belotti and Moura thrown in for good measure.

Castles is certainly a Mendes shill, but it doesn't mean they are feeding him all the time.
 

BennyBlanco

fixated with Shaw's bum
Joined
Jul 21, 2011
Messages
5,802
Do we need another out and out striker? Surely Martial and/or Rashford should deputise for Lukaku instead of splitting bench time & fighting for a single left side birth.
 

aditya826

New Member
Newbie
Joined
May 15, 2016
Messages
134
Location
India
Iago Aspas would be great replacement, economic as well not Europe tied.
 

SqualorVictoria

Full Member
Joined
Dec 25, 2013
Messages
715
Supports
City
Iago Aspas would be great replacement, economic as well not Europe tied.
Yeah that is a shit article even by Castles' standards. Only remark I loved was how the felt the need to reassure everyone that Zlatan will indeed be in top, top condition, should a team from China or USA enquire...
 

VeevaVee

The worst "V"
Scout
Joined
Jan 3, 2009
Messages
46,248
Location
Manchester
Wait for Griezmann in summer. He can play another position then move into main striker if Rom's out.
 

Bastian

Full Member
Joined
Jul 16, 2015
Messages
18,444
Supports
Mejbri
Wish him well wherever he goes. Don't think we should sign another striker unless he's absolutely world class or with serious potential. Addressing the attacking third bar the striker position may allow Rashford and Martial to stake a claim instead of rotating for the left wing position.
 

Acole9

Outstanding
Joined
Feb 17, 2013
Messages
12,503
So our succession plan is only one striker? This article is a right load of tosh.
 

davidmichael

Full Member
Joined
Feb 16, 2015
Messages
3,373
I’d much rather Rashford be the one rotated with Lukaku as central striker with Martial also being used there. If we’re bringing Ozil and a world class right sided forward in then added to Lukaku, Rashford, Martial, Lingard and Mata (I expect Mkhitaryan to leave as well as Zlatan) is enough from up top in my mind.
 

Maradona10

Woodward’s biggest fan
Joined
Apr 29, 2015
Messages
5,697
Have been following castles since mou became our manager and he has been shit for united, he is probably paid by agents to link us to their players and get them good moves.
  • I remember he linked us to lemar and continues to do so(excuse being we dont have enough money to sign him in jan), in hope his price goes up for liverpool
  • Then he linked us to fred, who city are in talks with as per MEN
  • He barely mentioned Ivan perisic and yet he was winger we went for in summer.
  • He is now linking us with poor old lucas moura, i think that is to help his agent clear out a buyer for us
  • He linked us to Mendy but then pointed out he was too expensive of a fullback for us.
  • Dint mention Lukaku once in the summer and we signed him
  • Has linked us with malcom, while 2 prem clubs(Arse and tottenham) have made moves for him while united havent contacted bordeux yet.
 

SqualorVictoria

Full Member
Joined
Dec 25, 2013
Messages
715
Supports
City
Have been following castles since mou became our manager and he has been shit for united, he is probably paid by agents to link us to their players and get them good moves.
  • I remember he linked us to lemar and continues to do so(excuse being we dont have enough money to sign him in jan), in hope his price goes up for liverpool
  • Then he linked us to fred, who city are in talks with as per MEN
  • He barely mentioned Ivan perisic and yet he was winger we went for in summer.
  • He is now linking us with poor old lucas moura, i think that is to help his agent clear out a buyer for us
  • He linked us to Mendy but then pointed out he was too expensive of a fullback for us.
  • Dint mention Lukaku once in the summer and we signed him
  • Has linked us with malcom, while 2 prem clubs(Arse and tottenham) have made moves for him while united havent contacted bordeux yet.
He was even criticizing Lukaku quite relentlessly before his big move. So I think you might be right; even if he's as pro Mourinho as it can get, his transfer stories have clearly different incentives... But of course he did get things right in Dani Alves, Neymar IIRC.
 

Maradona10

Woodward’s biggest fan
Joined
Apr 29, 2015
Messages
5,697
He was even criticizing Lukaku quite relentlessly before his big move. So I think you might be right; even if he's as pro Mourinho as it can get, his transfer stories have clearly different incentives... But of course he did get things right in Dani Alves, Neymar IIRC.
He also writes for arab times(owned by house of sad) and has been very complimentary of PSG on his podcasts, so makes me think maybe he is getting a lil incentive from there too. He obviously got both Neymar and Specially Alves(all thought he was going to city) right. I think he is being used by mendes more than mourinho, although even MEN reported united's interest in malcom, clearly it has sussed out real buyers from pretenders. Think whatever he says specially for united has in terms of names of players have to be taken witha pinch of salt from now on.
 

Devil may care

New Member
Joined
Jan 7, 2010
Messages
35,976
The first would be to sign a starting centre forward in his mid-twenties. Italy international Andrea Belotti is understood to remain at the top of a list drawn up by United’s scouting department despite the 24-year-old’s goal return at Torino dropping off this season.
If Jose doesn't fancy Martial or Rashford as #9's then we should have competition for Lukaku, I'd go for Timo Werner.

Another option would be to more frequently deploy one or both of Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford as centre forwards. While neither possess the aerial ability or physical strength of Lukaku, and Rashford is most effective against a high defensive line, this approach would allow transfer funds to be redeployed on other areas of the team.
This seems the most likely option and if Jose starts to trust Martial in the role I'd be optimistic, with Rashford I'm less sure, especially as we play with a lone striker and I think he's better in a combination.

A third approach under consideration by United’s recruitment team is to sign a younger striker comfortable working as an understudy to Lukaku while developing his game through being coached by Mourinho on a daily basis.
This is not really Mourinho's forte, he's got enough to do with Rashford and will have Gomes and Chong on the horizon.
 

Adam-Utd

Part of first caf team to complete Destiny raid
Joined
Sep 10, 2010
Messages
39,954
He also writes for arab times(owned by house of sad) and has been very complimentary of PSG on his podcasts, so makes me think maybe he is getting a lil incentive from there too. He obviously got both Neymar and Specially Alves(all thought he was going to city) right. I think he is being used by mendes more than mourinho, although even MEN reported united's interest in malcom, clearly it has sussed out real buyers from pretenders. Think whatever he says specially for united has in terms of names of players have to be taken witha pinch of salt from now on.
Yep it’s pretty well known he’s paid by Mendes, so although he seems favourable to Jose he runs Mendes clients a lot more. Hense all the Fabinho links too.
 

DWelbz19

Correctly predicted Portugal to win Euro 2016
Joined
Oct 31, 2012
Messages
33,745
Yep yep to those above. He's a Mendes man first and foremost.
 

jderbyshire

Has anybody seen my fleshlight?
Joined
May 2, 2007
Messages
4,175
Castles is shite. Jamie Jackon called the Lukaku interest AGES before anyone.
 

bosnian_red

Worst scout to ever exist
Joined
Aug 13, 2011
Messages
57,587
Location
Canada
Belotti would be weird and pretty dumb. If we were looking at someone like that, Icardi was definitely the guy we should have gone big on. Think we missed out on that though. Also Ibra succession plan? He played less then a full season here, he was a stop gap for whatever our future plan was, which in the summer turned out to be Lukaku since we spent 75m on him and he's 24. Hopefully he develops enough, but the only other type of striker we can get as back up to him that'll be worth it is someone like Martial where they start out wide, but can cover up top if needed. Same with Rashford. It's the problem Spurs have had for a while, hard to bring in a back up to Harry Kane when you know you'll barely play and the formation is pretty rigid in not playing with 2 strikers because you want a back up that can play the same style but you'll never play both together.
 

shamans

Thinks you can get an STD from flirting.
Joined
Oct 25, 2010
Messages
18,226
Location
Constantly at the STD clinic.
Have been following castles since mou became our manager and he has been shit for united, he is probably paid by agents to link us to their players and get them good moves.
  • I remember he linked us to lemar and continues to do so(excuse being we dont have enough money to sign him in jan), in hope his price goes up for liverpool
  • Then he linked us to fred, who city are in talks with as per MEN
  • He barely mentioned Ivan perisic and yet he was winger we went for in summer.
  • He is now linking us with poor old lucas moura, i think that is to help his agent clear out a buyer for us
  • He linked us to Mendy but then pointed out he was too expensive of a fullback for us.
  • Dint mention Lukaku once in the summer and we signed him
  • Has linked us with malcom, while 2 prem clubs(Arse and tottenham) have made moves for him while united havent contacted bordeux yet.
Casties was the first to break the pogba story and zlatan one. All journos get it wrong sometimes but castles is highly reputable
 

haram

New Member
Joined
May 28, 2017
Messages
12,921
Casties was the first to break the pogba story and zlatan one. All journos get it wrong sometimes but castles is highly reputable
I think the argument is that he has genuine contacts, but that he also helps his agent friends out in exchange for something.
 

Saad138

New Member
Newbie
Joined
Aug 5, 2017
Messages
43
Lol I thought Utd already planned that when Zlatan got injured and bought Lukaku to replace him.
 

golden_blunder

Site admin. Manchester United fan
Staff
Joined
Jun 1, 2000
Messages
119,446
Location
Dublin, Ireland
Didn’t do any succession planning when Fergie and gill left. Then there’s a thread on here revently talking about succession planning.

Now magically they’re going to succession plan the shit out of everything!
 

Social Madworks

New Member
Newbie
Joined
Dec 12, 2017
Messages
214
Allow Martial and Rashford more chances to play in CF role.

Then invest the money to buy a good, proper winger.
 

anant

Correctly predicted Italy to win Euro 2020
Joined
Feb 28, 2015
Messages
8,258
or "PL Proven" as some would say!
What are you even on about? Doubt Aspas even scored a goal in PL.

I'd much rather see us sign a LW and shift Rashford to Rom's understudy else go for a young striker (Kluivert, Dolberg if he's still performing well , or try and get Werner, although that'd be very expensive and he may not want to play second fiddle to Lukaku)
 

settembrini

Full Member
Joined
Jan 29, 2015
Messages
3,283
Casties was the first to break the pogba story and zlatan one. All journos get it wrong sometimes but castles is highly reputable
He has never broken any story and said nothing about either Pogba or Ibrahimovic until more reliable journalists had been talking about it for weeks.

The United reddit page has put together a good ranking for transfer sources and Castles is "Tier 5 (Known Shitposters and Banned sources)" which is reasonable given his inaccurate covering of our transfers.

https://www.reddit.com/r/reddevils/wiki/transfer-reliability-guide

The only interesting thing about Castles is that despite regularly proving himself to be a terrible source people still post all his articles and tweets on this forum and will resort to lies and insults to defend him.
 

shamans

Thinks you can get an STD from flirting.
Joined
Oct 25, 2010
Messages
18,226
Location
Constantly at the STD clinic.
He has never broken any story and said nothing about either Pogba or Ibrahimovic until more reliable journalists had been talking about it for weeks.

The United reddit page has put together a good ranking for transfer sources and Castles is "Tier 5 (Known Shitposters and Banned sources)" which is reasonable given his inaccurate covering of our transfers.

https://www.reddit.com/r/reddevils/wiki/transfer-reliability-guide

The only interesting thing about Castles is that despite regularly proving himself to be a terrible source people still post all his articles and tweets on this forum and will resort to lies and insults to defend him.
Okay, you know nothing about him then. Find the pogba transfer thread on here. Castles was the first. People love to hate on him but he's one of the most reliable journalists out there.
 

Zlatattack

New Member
Joined
Feb 9, 2017
Messages
7,374
I don't think 1 full time striker is enough. The manager needs to make a decision on Rashford and Martial. If one of them is destined to be a striker, we need to making sure the majority of his playing time is up front and he's regularly rotating with Lukaku. If that is the case we then need someone to rotate on the left (I think we should have 2 top players for each position).

If they're both expected to be left sided attackers/wingers, than we need to bring in someone to compete with Lukaku for a first team place upfront.

If he's not ready to commit right now the alternative might be to bring in an older striker who we keep for a few years until either of Martial/Rashford mature into left sided attackers or strikers.
 

settembrini

Full Member
Joined
Jan 29, 2015
Messages
3,283
Okay, you know nothing about him then. Find the pogba transfer thread on here. Castles was the first. People love to hate on him but he's one of the most reliable journalists out there.
Here is the Pogba thread with Castle's story:
https://www.redcafe.net/threads/paul-pogba-undergoing-medical-helping-out-the-laundry-ladies.417567/

That was the first time he mentioned the chance of us signing Pogba, on May 19th.

This is over a month after other sections of the British press had run similar stories. Here is one from Luckhurst in the MEN from March 10th:
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co...fer-news/gotze-man-utd-transfer-news-11017768

Italian journalists on Twitter like Di Marzio were talking about the transfer as early as February. They were the ones who consistently broke all the news regarding Pogba, with the British media trailing behind, and Castles right at the back of the pack.

And that at least was a story he got right, even if it was way after the more informed journalists. He has regularly written stories that were laughably wrong even at the time of publication. For example in our first summer under Mourinho anyone who watched our press conferences knew we were signing four players. Castles repeatedly claimed we wanted more, especially an 'experienced centre back', he was proven wrong as United ending the window with exactly the number of players Mourinho said we would buy and no experienced cb to be seen. In January of that season he made the same mistake, when Mourinho talked about transfers he said we were unlikely to buy and the focus was on selling people who weren't playing. Castles instead claimed we wanted a new CB and a new CM. We sold Depay and Schneiderlin, and signed nobody. Again Mourinho was right and Castles was proven wrong. It was the same last summer when he claimed a new lb was a priority when the four players Mourinho actually wanted were a CB, DM, striker and winger. Even at the end of the window when the whole world knew we had one more target, and it was Perisic, Castles kept writing articles insisting we were after a left back. The window ended, no new left back, Castles had called it wrong again.

These are not isolated errors, go back and read his old articles if you want, then do some googling. He is wrong far more often than not, and when he is right it is only after many other people have already broken the news. This is why he has such a low reliability rating on reddit, his track record for United news is terrible.
 

shamans

Thinks you can get an STD from flirting.
Joined
Oct 25, 2010
Messages
18,226
Location
Constantly at the STD clinic.
Here is the Pogba thread with Castle's story:
https://www.redcafe.net/threads/paul-pogba-undergoing-medical-helping-out-the-laundry-ladies.417567/

That was the first time he mentioned the chance of us signing Pogba, on May 19th.

This is over a month after other sections of the British press had run similar stories. Here is one from Luckhurst in the MEN from March 10th:
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co...fer-news/gotze-man-utd-transfer-news-11017768

Italian journalists on Twitter like Di Marzio were talking about the transfer as early as February. They were the ones who consistently broke all the news regarding Pogba, with the British media trailing behind, and Castles right at the back of the pack.

And that at least was a story he got right, even if it was way after the more informed journalists. He has regularly written stories that were laughably wrong even at the time of publication. For example in our first summer under Mourinho anyone who watched our press conferences knew we were signing four players. Castles repeatedly claimed we wanted more, especially an 'experienced centre back', he was proven wrong as United ending the window with exactly the number of players Mourinho said we would buy and no experienced cb to be seen. In January of that season he made the same mistake, when Mourinho talked about transfers he said we were unlikely to buy and the focus was on selling people who weren't playing. Castles instead claimed we wanted a new CB and a new CM. We sold Depay and Schneiderlin, and signed nobody. Again Mourinho was right and Castles was proven wrong. It was the same last summer when he claimed a new lb was a priority when the four players Mourinho actually wanted were a CB, DM, striker and winger. Even at the end of the window when the whole world knew we had one more target and it was Perisic Castles kept writing articles insisting we were after a left back. The window ended, no new left back, Castles had called it wrong again.

These are not isolated errors, go back and read his old articles if you want, then do some googling. He is wrong far more often than not, and when he is right it is only after many other people have already broken the news. This is why he has such a low reliability rating on reddit, his track record for United news is terrible.
Castles had the first serious stab it.

Think what you want, Castles has time and time again proven to be the most reliable journalist out there. There is a reason a lot of us trust in his stories.
 

ROFLUTION

Full Member
Joined
Jan 22, 2009
Messages
7,547
Location
Denmark
Wait for Griezmann in summer. He can play another position then move into main striker if Rom's out.
I think this is the most viable option as well. As long as he gets back to last season's level. I don't believe it would be a huge problem fitting him in with Lukaku neither. Plays well for France with Giroud in front of him.

The downside: It might force Pogba into a midfield-two though.
 

JustAFan

The Adebayo Akinfenwa of football photoshoppers
Joined
Sep 15, 2010
Messages
32,377
Location
An evil little city in the NE United States
Casties was the first to break the pogba story and zlatan one. All journos get it wrong sometimes but castles is highly reputable
Or even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then.

Do you have absolute proof he was the first to break the Pogba story? Or is it that one of his stories was the first that you chose to believe.

This "was the first to break" line is often BS since there always seem to be multiple claims and often you can find earlier links.