Mail ~ JAAP STAM: Man United need to look at their recruitment after forking out £80m on Harry Maguire - Wes Brown was FAR quicker and better

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Santos J

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Regardless of the first comment, Wes Brown being better is hardly a stick to beat someone with, he was very good.
 

#07

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Wes Brown was so underrated.
Massively.

Regardless of the first comment, Wes Brown being better is hardly a stick to beat someone with, he was very good.
It kinda is when you're spending £80m on a centre back.

If Maguire had come for £18m you could forgive it. However, you add it alongside the £50m we paid for Wan Bissaka. £50m for Fred. You have to start looking at the recruitment team at Man Utd and asking serious questions.

What was the idea behind signing these guys? What type of football do we want to play? A centre back who's hamstrung in 1v1s from the halfway line. A right back who is about as far away from Cafu or Dani Alves as you could imagine.

What's the plan here? Who's the person deciding that these players will take us forward and do so, to such an extent, that we need to pay over the odds for them?
 

Danish Wizard

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Well, no surprise there. Everyone can see this, and laughed at this when the transfer happened.
It's crazy, what are the United scouts doing?
I'm working as a scout in women's football myself, and it's brilliant to work and uncover the players ready for the next step etc. United scouts seems to just find the obvious players all the time.
They watched 800 right backs, and ended up with Wan-Bissaka. Hmm.
Maguire for 80 min pounds. Wow, what a great bit of work..
Something is just not right in scouting and in general in this club..
 

Zoo

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Maguire is a very good player having a bad season. Controversial I know.
 

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I'll never wrap my head around it. Same with Andy Carroll.
 

Ixion

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I'm pretty sure our scouts just watch Match of the Day and listen to whoever Shearer and Wrighty are raving about
 

UNITED ACADEMY

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I have to listen to Stam if it's about CB. To be fair, Rio rarely hype Maguire as well. Been disappointment for Maguire and I thought this season could be his season especially after great Euro. I still hope he can turn it around but it could be my false hope.
 

devilish

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Wes Brown was so underrated.
Wes pre injury was probably the most promising CB in the world. Post injury he became a top CB but nowhere near to WC.

Regardless of the first comment, Wes Brown being better is hardly a stick to beat someone with, he was very good.
It sort of does because Maguire is the most expensive CB in the world and yet Wes was better then him. We're not talking here about Maldini, Baresi or even a Stam or a Rio CB level here. We're talking about Wes level
 

Moby

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Regardless of the first comment, Wes Brown being better is hardly a stick to beat someone with, he was very good.
The point hes making that Brown being someone who was considered a squad player or a backup to our first choice CBs/RBs being better than the current first choice CB and captain who was bought for a fortune.
 

#07

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I'm pretty sure our scouts just watch Match of the Day and listen to whoever Shearer and Wrighty are raving about
It looks like it doesn't it?

Our latest rumoured 'targets' are Bellingham, Rice, McGinn. Do we need one of the largest scouting departments in England to identify these guys as potential signings?

What happened to unearthing a Cristiano Ronaldo? Bringing in an Evra or a Vidic? When was the last time we signed someone relatively obscure, for decent money, who went on to become really, really good?

Wes pre injury was probably the most promising CB in the world. Post injury he became a top CB but nowhere near to WC.



It sort of does because Maguire is the most expensive CB in the world and yet Wes was better then him. We're not talking here about Maldini, Baresi or even a Stam or a Rio CB level here. We're talking about Wes level
The point hes making that Brown being someone who was considered a squad player or a backup to our first choice CBs/RBs being better than the current first choice CB and captain who was bought for a fortune.
Exactly.
 

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Was it our scouts though, or Ole's supposed obsession with creating a British core of players. Hence the Maguire and AWB signings.
 

roonster09

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Wes Brown was very good player, if not for injuries he would have been awesome CB.
 

#07

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Was it our scouts though, or Ole's supposed obsession with creating a British core of players. Hence the Maguire and AWB signings.
Well this isn't something we can be sure of. However, when we signed Wan Bissaka I remember reading stuff (that looked like it'd been briefed) that the club had gone through 800 right backs to decide on Wan-Bissaka. So it certainly looks like it was more than Ole's decision.

We know the Maguire interest predates Ole cos it was talked about under Jose.

Now we're reading that the club is only interested in going for 'club targets' like Bellingham and Rice, rather than Rangnick suggestions. So I think, even if the coach has an input, its not as clear cut as the manager saying give me X and X comes in.

PS) That's not me saying that Ole didn't want these players. I'm sure that he was pretty enthusiastic about them cos he played them lots. However, did he identify them himself? Dunno. We know Ole brought in a personal scout. I'm guessing to double check on the options being presented to him by the club?
 

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A lot of people said so at the time, it’s not like we all had the wool pulled over our eyes. Ole for whatever reason really liked him though, despite many knowing he wasn’t even the best centre back in Leicester never mind the league.
 

golden_blunder

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Sensationalist headline

the article is actually not as bad. He was asked to compare to Wes brown (not sure why).

'I do think it is important to have good players around him [Maguire]. When he has good players around him to support him that helps. When I had good players around me, I could perform a little bit better too.
 

iHicksy

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It looks like it doesn't it?

Our latest rumoured 'targets' are Bellingham, Rice, McGinn. Do we need one of the largest scouting departments in England to identify these guys as potential signings?

What happened to unearthing a Cristiano Ronaldo? Bringing in an Evra or a Vidic? When was the last time we signed someone relatively obscure, for decent money, who went on to become really, really good?

Exactly.
So from my POV we were trying to get an "english core" at united for some reason. Which no other club tries to do. After overpaying for the likes of Maguire and AWB (I think Sancho will come good). We've ditched that. We then went out and did what you said and got the likes of Diallo (who was massively rated) and i think has been extremely impressive for his age and looks a better prospect than Elanga for me. We also went and signed Pellistri.

Now instead of integrating those players we've barely give Diallo a chance and he's now being loaned out, Pellistri hasn't been near the first team and is on a constant series of loans and i fully expect him to be sold. It's really rather odd, we don't seem to know what we want, who we want or even why we want, who we want.
 

DomesticTadpole

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Was it our scouts though, or Ole's supposed obsession with creating a British core of players. Hence the Maguire and AWB signings.
Think it was a snub to Jose who wanted him the previous season. Hahaaah! We bought him for Ole. Feck you Jose. No thought or scouting gone into it at all.
 

Adam-Utd

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Mourinho must have cried so much about getting Maguire the season before, that Woodward thought he was the best defender on the planet.
 

Amir

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Sensationalist headline

the article is actually not as bad. He was asked to compare to Wes brown (not sure why).
Yeah, He also didn't say that we should look at our recruitement (which would suggest he's really saying it was a bad signing) but rather that we should do it IF we're not happy with Maguire.
 

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Wes was so good he couldn’t get a game in his natural position. Was injury prone and sure as heck had an error in him. But was a tank of a defender and someone you’d go into battle with, something I can’t say of any of our current defenders.
 

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Yeah but how many last minute own goals did Wes Brown score?
 

Classical Mechanic

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The point hes making that Brown being someone who was considered a squad player or a backup to our first choice CBs/RBs being better than the current first choice CB and captain who was bought for a fortune.
No he isn't. He was asked to compare Maguire and Brown and said that Brown was better at defending 1v1's because he was faster and stronger. There's not even a quote from Stam in the article saying that Brown was better.
 

#07

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So from my POV we were trying to get an "english core" at united for some reason. Which no other club tries to do. After overpaying for the likes of Maguire and AWB (I think Sancho will come good). We've ditched that. We then went out and did what you said and got the likes of Diallo (who was massively rated) and i think has been extremely impressive for his age and looks a better prospect than Elanga for me. We also went and signed Pellistri.

Now instead of integrating those players we've barely give Diallo a chance and he's now being loaned out, Pellistri hasn't been near the first team and is on a constant series of loans and i fully expect him to be sold. It's really rather odd, we don't seem to know what we want, who we want or even why we want, who we want.
I can see the logic in trying to get a British core to our team. British players don't tend to travel well. They rarely go to foreign leagues. So if you were able to assemble a really good core of British players you could build around that for the long term. In a similar way Bayern makes sure to hoover up all the best German players and they can integrate them into a long term project, knowing that they're unlikely to want to leave for Spain etc.

However, we just signed the wrong players. We say we want to be an attacking team. Well most attacking teams play a high line and compress the pitch. How can we expect our £80m centre back to do that with his pace in 1v1s? Any team playing a long ball over the top is going to be able to get at us when we commit because of his lack of recovery speed. We say we want to play the United way. Yet we buy a right back who's as dangerous offensively as Gary Neville at the Hawthorns in 2011.

Where was the thinking?

We just seem to pick up random 'good' players. There never seems to be any real plan about how to fit them all together.

Even the lads you mentioned that we picked up: Amad and Pellistri. Why did we buy both? You could make a case for picking up one of them. However, we ended up buying three right wingers in two summers only to play Greenwood there ahead of all of them. What was the thinking there? It felt like the club just reacted to criticism of not buying a right sided midfielder and just went on a splurge. There's no real sign that there was or is a plan that we're working towards to assemble a team that plays a certain style.
 

devilish

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Well this isn't something we can be sure of. However, when we signed Wan Bissaka I remember reading stuff (that looked like it'd been briefed) that the club had gone through 800 right backs to decide on Wan-Bissaka. So it certainly looks like it was more than Ole's decision.

We know the Maguire interest predates Ole cos it was talked about under Jose.

Now we're reading that the club is only interested in going for 'club targets' like Bellingham and Rice, rather than Rangnick suggestions. So I think, even if the coach has an input, its not as clear cut as the manager saying give me X and X comes in.

PS) That's not me saying that Ole didn't want these players. I'm sure that he was pretty enthusiastic about them cos he played them lots. However, did he identify them himself? Dunno. We know Ole brought in a personal scout. I'm guessing to double check on the options being presented to him by the club?
Some say he's a Mourinho signing which is quite ironic considering that Mou left because he wasn't backed in the market. It seems that everyone has a finger in the pie these days (the CEO, Judge, Murtough, Fletcher, the manager and in the future Rangnick as well) which makes you wonder whether that's true or is it more of an attempt to distribute blame on as many people as possible thus keeping no one accountable for it. Whatever it is, United's transfer strategy is a mess. We usually go for obvious signings or players the manager can't be bothered playing, we tend to overspend and we're so damn slow (it might have taken us 2 summer transfer windows to sign Sancho and Maguire). Its baffling that we keep promoting people from within considering that they were either involved in this mess in the first place or are too inexperienced for the job.
 

NinjaZombie

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Wes was so good he couldn’t get a game in his natural position. Was injury prone and sure as heck had an error in him. But was a tank of a defender and someone you’d go into battle with, something I can’t say of any of our current defenders.
He was the Phil Jones of his time. Very good defender, too injury prone.

Hell of an assist for Ronaldo in the 07 CL final though. Weak foot straight to Cristiano's head.
 

Moby

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No he isn't. He was asked to compare Maguire and Brown and said that Brown was better at defending 1v1's because he was faster and stronger. There's not even a quote from Stam in the article saying that Brown was better.
1v1 defending is one of the most critical jobs of a CB, so even if he just compared to the two based on that it's pretty damning that our current primary CB is incapable of performing one of the most basic things in defending. It's been highlighted the whole time and is a pretty huge limitation to have, similar to a striker like Lukaku having shite first touch and technique. You can't hide a weakness like that in today's game.
 

The Corinthian

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If Wes didn’t have such an injury heavy career, he’d be talked about in the same company as Ferdinand, Vidic, Terry.