My thoughts exactly.
James Maddison | Spurs
- Thread starter Luke1995
- Start date
I am sure our Player Recruitment Department considered 804 CAMs from around the world before deciding on a British player from Leicester.
Statistically that isn't bad at all considering he rarely has the last direct pass, a lot of Leicesters goals come from the wings.
He's quite often involved in the build up play with the final key pass to unlock a defence, or a quick turn / movement to unlock space.
I've seen people saying he's overrated but then asking for Bruno Fernandes
i'm sure Maddisons highlights on youtube are just as fancy. The kid is class and a united fan, what more could we want? give me him over Lingard, Pereira, Mata any day of the week.Statistically that isn't bad at all considering he rarely has the last direct pass, a lot of Leicesters goals come from the wings.
He's quite often involved in the build up play with the final key pass to unlock a defence, or a quick turn / movement to unlock space.
I've seen people saying he's overrated but then asking for Bruno Fernandes
That rucksack though.
Footballers making silly fashion choices, who would have thought!That rucksack though.
Considering his idol is Beckham i'm just suprised hasn't been spotted out in a sarong yet
Read the story about Maddison and the young girl Sophie Taylor - then tell me he's a massive cnut.
Just like Sancho, I don't see the point in spending so much money on Maddison. Obviously he is good player but with so many gaps in the team, I don't see the point in spending 100+ million on Maddison.
Will be one more case of looking at obvious players instead of signing from different leagues where you get lot of value for money signings.
Will be one more case of looking at obvious players instead of signing from different leagues where you get lot of value for money signings.
How can you not see the point in improving our massive creativity issue? I can understand people not wanting Maddison, but turning your nose up at Sancho because we have other gaps that need filling? That's weird.
Where did I say that? Sancho is not the only player who will improve our team, we should be competent in transfer market at least once instead of throwing 100 plus million for every player and position.
Will be one more case of looking at obvious players instead of signing from different leagues where you get lot of value for money signings.
We only want overpriced overhyped English players.
Maddison & Rice for a combined £200m. Get in!
Maddison & Rice for a combined £200m. Get in!
Think how many donations he could make!
Interesting to see that so many people are still against the idea of us signing British players. In the summer the transfer forum was filled with people complaining that we were signing Wan-Bissaka instead of Meunier or Maguire instead of Koulibaly. Even if you pointed out to them how much better the British players stats were despite playing in a better league or how the foreign player would be more expensive they would still insist we sign the foreign players just like Moyes, Van Gaal and Mourinho would have done.
I would have expected to see less of this attitude given that our three British signings in the summer are currently our three highest rated players in the match day ratings. Meanwhile multiple expensive foreign signings have come to our rivals and are struggling to justify their price tag; Pepe, Ndombele, Pulisic etc. But no it appears quite a few people still think signing British players is a bad idea.
I would have expected to see less of this attitude given that our three British signings in the summer are currently our three highest rated players in the match day ratings. Meanwhile multiple expensive foreign signings have come to our rivals and are struggling to justify their price tag; Pepe, Ndombele, Pulisic etc. But no it appears quite a few people still think signing British players is a bad idea.
Agreed. I'd be delighted, ecstatic even if we manage to get McGinn and Maddison in. There was a relative lack of technical homegrown players back in the day, and getting players from abroad was the solution, but this is not the case anymore. Still, perceptions persist I guess.
Why limit that to just players who aren't doing well, go on and name players like Firmino, Salah, Fabinho, Matip, Alisson, Laporte, Ederson, KdB, SilvaX2, Sane, Auba, Son and many more players.
Because I was comparing our summer signings with the summer signings our top 4 rivals made because we spent our big bucks on British players whilst Arsenal, Tottenham and Chelsea spent theirs on foreign players.
I wasn't trying to make a case that we should never sign foreign players, that would be absurd. Equally as absurd as the posters who come into every thread discussing a British transfer target and try to argue that signing British players is a bad idea.
Judging by your profile, you are 28. Surely that's old enough to understand that life is rarely black or white?
I don't think anyone said signing British players is a bad idea, it's spending close to 260-300 million on Sancho and Maddison is a bad idea.
Are you now just fabricating stuff? Maddison during his time at Leicester has switched between playing as LW and AM. He's their chief architect just like de Bruyne at City and Eriksen at Spurs, yet he's nowhere near productive for a supposed £100m footballer.
I know what kind of player he is, you don't need to tell me what are his qualities.
Genuine question? How much of Bruno Fernandes have you actually watched? Not everyone on here restricts their football to echo chamber of PL. Furthermore him being a 'United' fan should count for feck all, it's quality in correlation with landing cost we should be assessing. Also, Lingard, Pereira and Mata are garbage. Likes of Grealish, Lanzini, Gross etc would be more creative than them but that doesn't mean we should buy them.I've seen people saying he's overrated but then asking for Bruno Fernandes
Our squad needs reinforcement in several areas and we have a fixed budget where we cannot afford to drop £100m on a player like Maddison. Which was my original point.
Precisely.
Yes that would be a bad idea. However spending £50m on Wan-Bissaka and £15m on James were very good ideas and even £80m on Maguire was a much better idea than the £130m ballpark that Napoli wanted for Koulibaly who was the most often suggested alternative. Nationality has little to do with how good a signing a player will be yet all summer I read about how United were a bunch of dumb Brexit FC idiots for making good signings just because the players they were buying were British. And still now, after all three have had good starts to their United career, you get rubbish like the following which has been posted just in the last page of this thread:
"I hope we stop our obsession from buying within the PL/British players"
"Overpriced, overrated, and British"
"We only want overpriced overhyped English players."
It's lazy, borderline racist, nonsense and should be called out more than it is.
What you said is completely different argument, my argument is to avoid PL players as they are way overpriced for the quality you get. I love players like James who are signed before they make big name, should have signed Maddison from Norwich. At least we did that with James.
I agree with your general point though, bunch of idiots posting 'Brexit FC' in every thread like clowns on twitter.
Its all down hill mate, I am 38 and my nightly trip for a piss has ever increased since I was 35.
I know I'm getting old but I'm only 35
As much as I want us to become transfer geniuses there has to be a middle ground. If the next Messi popped up surely you wouldn't be saying "let's be intelligent and sign someone cheaper". So yeah, every club has to mix up intelligent signings with 'obvious' ones. If there's one obvious one I'd make, it's Sancho. He's perfect for us.
Yeah there has to be middle ground, I'm not saying sign everyone like we did with James, just that we should be more intelligent in the transfer market. We should have signed Mahrez for 60 million who would have been huge improvement on our RW instead of looking to pay 150 million for Sancho.
You never know how pressure of big fee breaks the players. I prefer City's model where instead of paying 100 million for 1 player, they sign 2 50 million players and make the overall team stronger. We don't have endless money, we need to address many positions.
It would be awesome if we can sign Sancho, I for one won't complain if we do. I'm just saying there are many ways to improve the team than just signing the obvious players for big fee.
If he can't play in a deeper role then its not really worth spending ridiculous amounts of money upon. We've got too many no 10s and the 4-2-3-1 is a system that is slowly dying out as well.
You're absolutely right. Many of us have been saying for years that you don't need to spend 400 to sign 5/6 players. You can get free signings (see Juve), players needing a fresh start (see Robben etc), or players not as well known/highly rated as they soon will be (Mane etc). And hence you need a mix - such as 2 expensive and 2 smart signings every summer.
Having said that, I still feel Sancho is pretty exceptional and as tailor made a signing for us as it gets. I suppose experience is the one drawback as you never know how a player settled to a different club. But based on what I've seen, I'd be happy for the club to spend 140 million on him than 50 million of someone like Mahrez. He looks a really special talent.
Of course I'd also have been very happy with Mahrez given our woes at RW!
Yeah he looks very talented player, the problem is if we spend 150 million on him then our window is done and we won't address other positions. Our rebuild is slower than a snail and on average we are spending around 150 million in a window.
Anyways I think the chances of signing him is very low.
Yet, Shitty keeps winning titles despite not having any British core or players that understand what playing for City means. Meanwhile we who have all that and we're lingering at what? 12th place?
Some might say that we're poorly managed and in some ways we are. However you'll expect that a nation who keeps producing 70m rated players like candy would have actually won a WC in the past half a century or so. Instead it gets beaten by the likes of Belgium and Croatia instead. Oh well
I don't care about player's nationality however you can't deny that British players are often hyped and expensive. There's nothing wrong paying over the odds for someone like Rooney or Kane. However we can't just rely on the EPL to get out of this mess.
A- there's not enough available talent to do so
B- Most players in the EPL are outrageously expensive. We can't afford that especially since we need a major rebuild.
In the same way as we can't expect to dig ourselves out of this mess by blowing our entire budget on a foreign superstar.
So under such circumstances we need to be smart, we buy players (irrespective of nationality) that provides value. That include players that are at the cusp of greatness (ex James at Swansea), free agents, players who are on the transfer market for the wrong reasons and players heading towards the end of their contracts. Then if a Kane, a Rooney or a prime Ronaldo suddenly becomes available......
PS if you list our best players 2 out of 3 are foreign aka Pogba and DDG. That despite all the talks of British core, players who get what playing for Manchester United means etc.
Last edited:
Fernandes is overrated here.
We will do a wait and watch. He is definitely not going for 70 or below.
The biggest issue is not signing the players when they’re potentially very good, rather than already proving to be - Maguire went for less than Lindelof in 2017, Robertson was £8m, Maddison’s form at Norwich surely would have been on the radar of every top club.
Signing them early enough, then loaning them to the likes of Leicester to develop, rather that waiting for them to become top performers and have to compensate the ‘transitional’ clubs would make far more sense - but that kind of logic seems lost on most big clubs, not just United.
Spurs getting Jack Clarke will prove to be a smart move for them medium to long term, while David Brooks was available for relative pennies, and it’s going to take 5x what Bournemouth paid for a big club to get hold of him.
Regarding Maddison, he’s clearly very good, and would improve United and Liverpool; it’s jusf hard to say whether he can improve his direct goals/assists output, or whether it’s best for him to take the step back like most traditional #10s have done in recent years and become a metronomic midfield player ala Modric.
Signing them early enough, then loaning them to the likes of Leicester to develop, rather that waiting for them to become top performers and have to compensate the ‘transitional’ clubs would make far more sense - but that kind of logic seems lost on most big clubs, not just United.
Spurs getting Jack Clarke will prove to be a smart move for them medium to long term, while David Brooks was available for relative pennies, and it’s going to take 5x what Bournemouth paid for a big club to get hold of him.
Regarding Maddison, he’s clearly very good, and would improve United and Liverpool; it’s jusf hard to say whether he can improve his direct goals/assists output, or whether it’s best for him to take the step back like most traditional #10s have done in recent years and become a metronomic midfield player ala Modric.
Last edited:
Agreed, such a strange mentality. Unfortunately, with the current state of the club, it’s going to be easier to acquire and retain British players who are still highly affected by the lore and tradition of United. These two (especially Sancho) are two of the best creative talents available. You have to aggressively go after players like this in order to win. We are likely going to have to overpay for anyone that we sign, regardless of what country they come from, just is what it is.
Well spoken. Comes across well.
He’s doing a great job atm.
Not sure he can sustain it, or even improve, but right now he’s fun to watch.
Not sure he can sustain it, or even improve, but right now he’s fun to watch.
Maddison and Mount this season.
Two young English midfielders with excellent technical ability, great set piece delivery, and integral to their sides being level on points in the top 4.
Maddison is the more flashy of the two, Mount the more tenacious hard worker. Both have the same number of goals in the PL and both look like they could score every game.
Should be some great competition between them for an England place going forward.
Two young English midfielders with excellent technical ability, great set piece delivery, and integral to their sides being level on points in the top 4.
Maddison is the more flashy of the two, Mount the more tenacious hard worker. Both have the same number of goals in the PL and both look like they could score every game.
Should be some great competition between them for an England place going forward.
Harvey Barnes too.... really impressiveMaddison and Mount this season.
Two young English midfielders with excellent technical ability, great set piece delivery, and integral to their sides being level on points in the top 4.
Maddison is the more flashy of the two, Mount the more tenacious hard worker. Both have the same number of goals in the PL and both look like they could score every game.
Should be some great competition between them for an England place going forward.
I cannot stress enough the brilliance of his goal. Players often take a touch there, open their bodies up and try to go for the far corner. He went for the surprise shot no one was expecting. Great stuff.
He's mint.
Think I'm right in saying he'll have a year left on his contract come the summer. We need to be all over him now before Leicester get him to extend.
Think I'm right in saying he'll have a year left on his contract come the summer. We need to be all over him now before Leicester get him to extend.