I find it odd that people are so against the Longstaff signing, but want Tielemans. Tielemans only has a handful more Premier League appearances than Longstaff after a fairly unsuccessful couple of years at Monaco where he wasn't very good. If I'm not wrong, he wasn't great in his last season at Anderlecht after being hyped to the moon before that. Don't get me wrong, I'd like us to sign him, but the difference in reaction to the two is pretty telling.
Our new approach to signings - for or against?
- Thread starter sideshow_bob
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
Being linked and actually wanting the player are two different things.
De Ligt is linked with almost everyone.
And we have actually been linked with almost every high profile player that is on the transfer market.
It definitely looks like we are after British young players, which for me is bizzare. James, AWB, Longstaff, and bid for MAguire when there are cheaper alternatives.
I agree with this.
Mentality has been ignored these past few years.
I would also suggest it’s not just a ‘British core’ that we are after, but players who have grown up in the British system or have experience of the PL (any bloody nationality) - this is more likely to ease their transition to Utd. Players need time to develop, but we can’t have players who are in their mid twenties taking a year to get to grips with the pace of the league like Fred.
For: signing promising young players
Against: only signing promising young players
Boils my piss: only negotiating one signing at a time.
Against: only signing promising young players
Boils my piss: only negotiating one signing at a time.
But it is still conveniently leaving out the Fernandes and Ben Yedder deals which are looking to be almost complete, or at least our interest has been solid.
If we get them over the line it would be 2 English 2 foreign.
Yes, we have been linked with Bruno, but saying they are almost complete? what evidence have you to that? medical booked? fee agreed? personal terms agreed?
With AWB and James, they have signed and Maguire a bid has gone in.
And it is reported that the approach is to favour signings that are British that doesn't mean any other will be disregarded. If there was a British alternative, they would be looking at that player.
Fernandes. We have spoken to players agent with terms agreed, but nothing with sporting as yet.
Ben Yedder. No fee agreed yet.
Our new approach is still SLOW.
RE BrunoTweet
— Twitter API (@user) date
RE Ben YedderTweet
— Twitter API (@user) date
Granted it’s not website official and Bruno is definitely less sure than Yedder (saying they were almost complete was bad wording on my part- My bad for that) But surely that is beside the point, when our interest in them is undeniably concrete ?
I don’t mean to offend, but I feel the bolded part of your post is absolute nonsense. If we were so heavily biased towards British options, surely we would be looking at the Callum Wilsons, Tammy Abrahams of the world when looking for a Lukaku replacement, rather than the heavy links to Ben Yedder ?
Also, Players with profiles such as De Ligt, Fernandes , Koulibaly will not be as keen to
Join us as this would involve having to completely uproot and move country, to a team that doesn’t have CL football. It’s less a result of us having some “Brexit Agenda” and more targets turning us down. I believe we probably had as concrete interest in De Ligt as we have in Maguire, but believe it or not, he didn’t want to come here.
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I like to deal with actual facts.
The 2 signings we have made are both English. We have not signed any non-British players, this Summer.
Well so far then - you are right.
There is still 2 months to go of the window, however.
I’ll be sure to quote this post if we sign some foreigners
Haha, that last one really winds me up as well!
I can’t believe it’s true. Surely not??
I agree with you in terms of Fernandes, but there are contrasting reports to that as well. I hope we sign him.
Yedder.. I cannot believe we are after him..
Anyway, lets hope the signings made are more to do with the quality and not nationality.
Hard to tell what our strategy actually is as I'm wary of taking press rumours at face value. Obviously the idea of buying British is laughable, but focusing on young players could make a lot of sense for this window in particular.
We haven't had lots of success with established players in recent times, but I think that right now in particular we are going to be hard pressed to make top quality additions among established players; lack of Champions League football and growing perception of us as premier league also-rans means that we are going to be out of contention for top end players. Any we did manage to sign would probably have to be tempted with colossal wages, with all the attendant risks.
In a way our weakness can work in our favour with young players - the yawning chasm in our midfield means that we can credibly offer first team minutes to young players - they can be confident they wouldn't just be stuck playing second fiddle to established players.
The clear caveat is that we have to bring in the right up-and-coming players, which requires placing quite a lot of faith in our scouting department.
We haven't had lots of success with established players in recent times, but I think that right now in particular we are going to be hard pressed to make top quality additions among established players; lack of Champions League football and growing perception of us as premier league also-rans means that we are going to be out of contention for top end players. Any we did manage to sign would probably have to be tempted with colossal wages, with all the attendant risks.
In a way our weakness can work in our favour with young players - the yawning chasm in our midfield means that we can credibly offer first team minutes to young players - they can be confident they wouldn't just be stuck playing second fiddle to established players.
The clear caveat is that we have to bring in the right up-and-coming players, which requires placing quite a lot of faith in our scouting department.
Do you mean in the sense that he is not good enough , or whether our interest is real ? If the latter, lots of Spanish press have said it’s pretty much a done deal if Lukaku is to leave.
Re your quality and nationality point, I agree with you but don’t think you have to worry. Daniel James and AWB have been completed first probably because they are the easiest deals to do (both from clubs with no European football, players looking to step up.) hence all the hysteria we are only after brits.
Deals with people like Fernandes are bound to take longer , especially given his clubs stature.
I think the whole Thing is less to do with our approach, and more to do with our unfortunate position of 5th and the way negotiations are panning out. I believe our board is also incompetent, but not biased towards any nationality so to speak.
All this said , I do think the 70m bid for maguire is madness and I hope we walk away, if only to prove my point
I mean like yeah they are buying British right now and it seems to be a trend for younger players with something to prove. I don't see anything shocking about that. We're trying to shift thr culture of the squad to one that has something to prove and people who want to learn. The fact they are British is probably because those are seen as more likely to stay long term which I'd agree with. British players don't tend to move abroad (with the exceptions of a few younger players to Germany, there's very few) and we won't sell to our domestic rivals.
Once we have an established core to move forward I'm sure we'll look further beyond the British Isles. This may even happen this summer. Clearly there was interest in De Ligt. Fernandes? Hard to say if that's legit or not. But it seems that there's some real interest in that young Spanish player at Dinamo as well. So I don't buy this xenophobic argument.
Once we have an established core to move forward I'm sure we'll look further beyond the British Isles. This may even happen this summer. Clearly there was interest in De Ligt. Fernandes? Hard to say if that's legit or not. But it seems that there's some real interest in that young Spanish player at Dinamo as well. So I don't buy this xenophobic argument.
Not fully sure what it is yet, so will probably have more of an opinion at the end of the window. I'm all for signing young promising players but we also need to keep adding experienced quality. If we add James, AWB, Longstaff, Maguire, Bruno and Ben Yedder (with Lukaku leaving) I would see that as a good window.
Next summer then and summers moving forward I would like to keep signing up an coming players when there are obvious ones about (say 1 or 2 a summer) but ultimately signing quality to upgrade the starting 11 being the priority.
I think this summer is going to be different to any other summer with an influx of young talent. In the future we'll continue to add to it but not so concentrated as it is right now.
After this summer and foundations are set ultimately I'd like to see 1 youth signing and 2-3 'first team' signings per summer (on average) being the norm.
Next summer then and summers moving forward I would like to keep signing up an coming players when there are obvious ones about (say 1 or 2 a summer) but ultimately signing quality to upgrade the starting 11 being the priority.
I think this summer is going to be different to any other summer with an influx of young talent. In the future we'll continue to add to it but not so concentrated as it is right now.
After this summer and foundations are set ultimately I'd like to see 1 youth signing and 2-3 'first team' signings per summer (on average) being the norm.
The evidence points towards it being true! Probably not having a DoF, Woody being pretty focused on commercial deals and Judge focused on negotiating renewals of deadwood player contracts, it doesn't leave a huge amount of time for this stuff.
I don't buy into this xenophobic argument either, whether you agree with the 'British core' argument or not, the arguments as to why people think it is a good idea have been stated many times on this forum and replying that people have some hidden xenophobic agenda is just people who disagree trying to discredit the arguments put forward because they don't like them.
In addition to the arguments put forward, for those of us who are from Manchester/Salford it does not make us xenophobic to have a sense of pride when local talent breaks through and succeeds and yes do they get a little more leeway because of that.
I love the policy of going after younger players. We aren't going to win the league next year or the year after our squad is a mess. So signing experienced players just doesn't make sense at this time as by the time we are ready to compete again it's likely they will be coming towards the end of their prime. Bringing in players that can grow together and develop as a team is exactly the direction we should go.
As for them being Britsh, well i guess everyone likes to see players from their own country do well, and I do think it important that a club in a particular country has a good percentage of players from that country, whether that club be in the Uk, Spain, Brazil China or anywhere. so I don't have an issue with United wanting a British core and certainly don't think it classes as Xenophobic, we aren't saying we don't want players from other countries, a huge amount of our squad isn't British and we have a Norwegian manager for god sake.
We also have to remember that the premier league (like most leagues) has homegrown rules so you are only allowed 17 none nome grown players in the squad. So ensuring you have 8 homegrown players going forward is important.
However, I don't want to see us signing English players for the sake of it, they have to be the right players with the right attitude. So far this summer that seems to be the case. Though I have to admit I've hardly seen Longstaff play and would rather us go after McGinn as he was amazing for Villa last year. But in general, I'm very positive about our incoming transfer policy this summer, its the handling of the players who are already here that concerns me.
As for them being Britsh, well i guess everyone likes to see players from their own country do well, and I do think it important that a club in a particular country has a good percentage of players from that country, whether that club be in the Uk, Spain, Brazil China or anywhere. so I don't have an issue with United wanting a British core and certainly don't think it classes as Xenophobic, we aren't saying we don't want players from other countries, a huge amount of our squad isn't British and we have a Norwegian manager for god sake.
We also have to remember that the premier league (like most leagues) has homegrown rules so you are only allowed 17 none nome grown players in the squad. So ensuring you have 8 homegrown players going forward is important.
However, I don't want to see us signing English players for the sake of it, they have to be the right players with the right attitude. So far this summer that seems to be the case. Though I have to admit I've hardly seen Longstaff play and would rather us go after McGinn as he was amazing for Villa last year. But in general, I'm very positive about our incoming transfer policy this summer, its the handling of the players who are already here that concerns me.
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We should be signing the best players regardless of nationality. How many of the best players in the PL have been british in the last 10 years? Not all that much.
We havn't really gone all that galactico since Fergie retired. Di Maria was one, but he was a Real Madrid reject who wanted to go to PSG. And then we have Pogba. That's pretty much it. Ibra, Falcao and sweini where all old or injured. Sanchez I guess too, but he is passed it too. We should be buying the best players in their young or prime years like Rio, Rooney and Ronaldo.
We havn't really gone all that galactico since Fergie retired. Di Maria was one, but he was a Real Madrid reject who wanted to go to PSG. And then we have Pogba. That's pretty much it. Ibra, Falcao and sweini where all old or injured. Sanchez I guess too, but he is passed it too. We should be buying the best players in their young or prime years like Rio, Rooney and Ronaldo.
I think the fact we're trying to sign British players and lower tier European players tells you that the stories of issues in the camp are most likely true.
There was speculation that we'd grown tired of the egos, players trying to distance themselves from performances (both mostly Pogba) and that we'd go young and add a British core to try to regain some identity and pride. The fact that we're going down that route tells me that it was all true and it speaks volumes about the shit that's probably gone on behind the scenes.
There was speculation that we'd grown tired of the egos, players trying to distance themselves from performances (both mostly Pogba) and that we'd go young and add a British core to try to regain some identity and pride. The fact that we're going down that route tells me that it was all true and it speaks volumes about the shit that's probably gone on behind the scenes.
Do we have the time for Ole philosophy ? If we can't give him a good 3 or 4 years regardless of results, then we can't talk about his philosophy. Unless Ole hit the ground running, does the board/fans has the patience before the sack come calling?
Thats a good question. Liverpool didnt do that all well under Klopp at first but what happened out on the pitch in terms of style and performance gave them confidence to give him time because they bought into it.
All the more reason to sign promising young players - whether this is Ole's philosophy or not, it Ole does end up being replaced then I would rather an incoming manager had a group of young players who have played and developed together for a while to work with than what we have now
The most telling thing that continues ad infinitum, is not who we are signing, but the sloth like movement to actually complete getting a target over the line. Woody and Judge have been looking and negotiating deals for far too long, do they really have to sell the likes of Lukakau, Pogba and others before being allowed by the Glazers to spend more than what has been committed .
That's the frustration of Man Utd fans, sitting in a bubble waiting for the so called rebuild to gain momentum and move towards completion. The dross that remains on the books is an anchor that should have been pulled up over the past 3/4 years, not allowed to add more weight by extensions.
Oh well, only 2 more months of indecision as this great global club moves into next season with little indication that the intent spoken about by Woody and others actually means anything.
That's the frustration of Man Utd fans, sitting in a bubble waiting for the so called rebuild to gain momentum and move towards completion. The dross that remains on the books is an anchor that should have been pulled up over the past 3/4 years, not allowed to add more weight by extensions.
Oh well, only 2 more months of indecision as this great global club moves into next season with little indication that the intent spoken about by Woody and others actually means anything.
I thought the season started in one month?
I agree that the transfers over recent years have been woeful but to be honest I don't think it is easy to get transfers over the line until later in the window, it's not like going to the sweetie shop, there are two parties negotiating and the selling party will play brinkmanship and hold out to see if they can start a bidding war. So unless you are prepared to pay well over the odds and price everyone else out of the market early on in the window you have to be patient and play the game.
I'm all for having more young british players in our team, but they have to be of the right quality. Fill the team with Jesse Lingard level players and we'll finish about 12th. Fergie liked to have a british core and often bought domestic, but he'd go into the foreign market too. Quite a few of our best players from his last truly great team (06-09) came from other leagues (Ronaldo, Vidic, Evra, Park etc) with a lot of them bought from domestic rivals too (Rio, Carrick, Rooney, Tevez, Berba etc) I think finding the right balance is key. Just buying British or domestic for the sake of it is not a good policy.
If this approach has been decided for purely footballing reasons then I'd be fully behind it. I suspect it's been decided on as it's a cheaper option with more potential profit to be made in terms of selling on values though.
First of all I disagree with the term nationalistic. There are only English players and the non-English players you called British, who play under other national flags and proud to beat England every single time. What is the difference between James and Pogba BTW? And what about those Irish players? Until Brexit of course.
I can see Ole is emphasising on young and hungry, so no more Sanchez, Matic mistake. I still consider Lukaku being young and hungry, in fact more professional than some of the other so called British players. I would be sad to see him go unless we get a decent replacement. So the theme of the club would be to instill competition within the team, taking nothing for granted. Ole would put effort over skill every time, we will be a glorified Watford instead of a sulking City/Arsenal. Base on what we went through last April-May, I am 100% supportive to such theme. There were too many lazy players who thought season was over in March.
I can see Ole is emphasising on young and hungry, so no more Sanchez, Matic mistake. I still consider Lukaku being young and hungry, in fact more professional than some of the other so called British players. I would be sad to see him go unless we get a decent replacement. So the theme of the club would be to instill competition within the team, taking nothing for granted. Ole would put effort over skill every time, we will be a glorified Watford instead of a sulking City/Arsenal. Base on what we went through last April-May, I am 100% supportive to such theme. There were too many lazy players who thought season was over in March.
Buying young and British is actually a very expensive policy. You could get a right-back of similar age and quality to Wan-Bissaka from other leagues for around half the price.
I'm thinking more about the James signing and the potential signing of Longstaff. Plus, Wan-Bissaka was the best performing fullback in the Premier League last season - I can't imagine that it would have cost a huge amount less to sign the most highly rated young fullback from the Spanish or Italian Leagues.
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Manager like Guardiola most probably won't need them if they are not good enough to save Ole the sack. He would have his own players in his mind to succeed. And then we are back to square one.
Different scenario across the road - if you have an unlimited source of cash and can just pick who you want and get them then you can succeed. I am sure if you played football manager in 'unlimited cash cheat mode' you would find it easy to win the league with over 100 points. This is why anything City have achieved is pretty meaningless.........
But we do have the money to compete with them. Look at what happened with Liverpool when they appointed the right guy and loosened the purse strings?
Since finishing 2nd the season before last we have signed Fred (who seems like the least Mourinho type player ever so I assume wasn't the manager's choice), a 3rd choice keeper, a young undeveloped full-back, a young undeveloped winger, another inexperienced full-back (albeit one that is seemingly ready to go straight into the team and play at a high level), and appointed a manager with a mixed record at best. On top of that our only world class players are looking to leave - largely (one would imagine) because of our failure to challenge for major trophies.
Yes City have unlimited funds - but we are the most profitable club in the world (or thereabouts), we shouldn't just not even bother trying to match them.
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I'd like to see a better version of Burnley FC competing at the top. Go MU.
Far too slow. One at a time no good to us. If he can't manage it give the job to someone who know about football and transfers.