Times: Finding buyers for the dead wood is Manchester United’s biggest challenge this window

jesperjaap

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Honestly, I'd be willing to consider free transfer or nominal fees for a lot of our players. Who is going to pay real money for someone like Marcos Rojo? The only purpose players like him are serving right now is stopping us from allocating our wage bill to players we might actually want.

Its United's fault for giving long contracts to so many players who were clearly not up to snuff. In the last couple of years we have been daft enough to give new deals to Jones, Rojo, Andreas and others who were only ever going to be a wage sink for us. So not only can we not shift them, we're stuck with them for the foreseeable future.

Its like we don't learn: No matter how much you re-paint and clean your robin reliant nobody wants it. Nobody gives a toss about what you paid for it. They see its a banger and aren't going to be tricked into spending money on scrap. We waited and waited and waited for someone dumb enough to pay us over £10m for Darmian and, in the end, had to finally accept (what everyone could see) that nobody was going to pay that for someone who wouldn't be starting for a mid-table team.

Any or all of the following players could leave the club without weakening the squad in any way:

  • Romero
  • Pereira
  • Jones
  • Smalling
  • Rojo
  • Dalot
  • Mata
  • Lingard
  • Andreas
  • Alexis
I'd be happy to see the bulk of those to go. If we could sell all of them for around what we sold Darmian, which was £3.5m, that'd be £35m in incoming fees. Add another £35m to that and you're reaching the kind of sums you need to buy an elite centre back or defensive midfielder.

Woodward and Judge just have to get them out of the club.
I know that there have been form, injury and big contracts for some of these players but wow £35m for selling 10 players, the majority of which are internationals and more than half are under 30 years old.

Now tell me which 10players you would sign as replacements for £35m if you were given all the money and you couldnt, ridiculous valuations.

I am not saying some of those wont be hard to shift, they will, but the majority of those players would start for quite a lot of premiership sides next season.

Just realised you named Pereira twice but still, for those 9 players we really should be looking at recouping somewher around £90m at elast, not the £31.5m you are suggesting.

I too would be happy for us to sell pretty much all those players and others too in all honesty and I totally agree with you that our handing out of contracts has been very poor in salaries and lengths of contract (Matic 3yrs was crazy), but even so, come on £31.5m is absolute madness
 

#07

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I know that there have been form, injury and big contracts for some of these players but wow £35m for selling 10 players, the majority of which are internationals and more than half are under 30 years old.

Now tell me which 10players you would sign as replacements for £35m if you were given all the money and you couldnt, ridiculous valuations.

I am not saying some of those wont be hard to shift, they will, but the majority of those players would start for quite a lot of premiership sides next season.

Just realised you named Pereira twice but still, for those 9 players we really should be looking at recouping somewher around £90m at elast, not the £31.5m you are suggesting.

I too would be happy for us to sell pretty much all those players and others too in all honesty and I totally agree with you that our handing out of contracts has been very poor in salaries and lengths of contract (Matic 3yrs was crazy), but even so, come on £31.5m is absolute madness
I wouldn't sign 10 players to replace them because most have made no contribution to the club this season.

Value is reflective of demand. If I am starving an apple might be worth my life's savings. You can't say X player went for Y therefore our cast offs must be worth Z.

How many clubs desperately need the players I have listed. Only Smalling is really wanted by someone else, and if we hold out for too much money there's no guarantee Roma won't go looking for an alternative.

Its all well and good saying Rojo is an international. So was Darmian. If the only interest in Rojo is coming from Argentina don't expect Argentinian clubs to suddenly magic up millions.

Look at the rest of the Premier League, look at the teams around Europe who might take a punt on our deadwood. Of the clubs who might, how many of them do you think would be so hot for Phil Jones that they wouldn't switch focus to another target if we just refuse to compromise on fees?

Know the market you are in. The likes of Watford and Bournemouth have just been relegated. That means they will have less money and will have to reduce their wage bills. In a market where players like Deulofeu and Sarr might be gettable for cheap, how many clubs will make Andreas or Lingard their sole target?

If you are the only grocer around you can charge what you want. However, if there are half a dozen supermarkets nearby you need to price accordingly or you won't sell s-t.

PS) We have Joel Pereira and Andreas in our squad?
 

UNITED ACADEMY

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I wouldn't sign 10 players to replace them because most have made no contribution to the club this season.

Value is reflective of demand. If I am starving an apple might be worth my life's savings. You can't say X player went for Y therefore our cast offs must be worth Z.

How many clubs desperately need the players I have listed. Only Smalling is really wanted by someone else, and if we hold out for too much money there's no guarantee Roma won't go looking for an alternative.

Its all well and good saying Rojo is an international. So was Darmian. If the only interest in Rojo is coming from Argentina don't expect Argentinian clubs to suddenly magic up millions.

Look at the rest of the Premier League, look at the teams around Europe who might take a punt on our deadwood. Of the clubs who might, how many of them do you think would be so hot for Phil Jones that they wouldn't switch focus to another target if we just refuse to compromise on fees?

Know the market you are in. The likes of Watford and Bournemouth have just been relegated. That means they will have less money and will have to reduce their wage bills. In a market where players like Deulofeu and Sarr might be gettable for cheap, how many clubs will make Andreas or Lingard their sole target?

If you are the only grocer around you can charge what you want. However, if there are half a dozen supermarkets nearby you need to price accordingly or you won't sell s-t.

PS) We have Joel Pereira and Andreas in our squad?
  • Romero 5m-10m
  • Pereira 0m
  • Jones 10m
  • Smalling 15m
  • Rojo 5m
  • Dalot 20m
  • Mata 5m
  • Lingard 15m
  • Andreas 10m
  • Alexis 15m-20m
Those are just some rough valuation for the worst case and realistic if Lovren went for 10m. That alone is 100m plus already. It can give you at least good quality of 2 or 3 squad players in return.
 

Champagne Football

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Alexis is in sparkling form so I think Inter will pay about 5 million for him as long as Man Utd pay him what he'll lose out on by taking a salary deduction. So breaking even to get rid of him is probably what will happen.

West Ham might be willing to pay about 6.5 million for Lingard.

I don't think anyone is gonna pay more than 14 million for Smalling in the current climate.

I don't think anyone else will offer anything for the other deadwood, but we might offload Dalot for 5 million if we're lucky.

So I think we'll be looking to make between £20 to £25 Million from sales.
 

Havak

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I always felt like Lingard would be sold, but the more I've thought about it and the more Ole has trusted him towards the very end of the season (still not a lot, but he's been bringing him on for energy in games ahead of a lot of other players). He's on £100k a week, surely it's in his best interest to just stay and run that contract along for another year? He isn't getting that money anywhere else, even if his wonder agent can spin it that he brings more than just football. Anyone buying Lingard now is buying him more for the brand and popularity than footballing ability IMO. He can't run the contract down himself as we have the option for another year after June 2021 and I fully expect the club to exercise that, but I wouldn't be bothered if we don't and he just leaves on a free. The thing is, even with how he is regarded by a lot us at the moment, he's the one I'd expect to go for the most money, probably over £20m. He'd have to take a wage cut to join another team though I'm sure.

I don't think we'll have any trouble selling Sanchez and Smalling as they definitely have buyers, it's just a case if we can negotiate a fee we're happy with. If we'd have sold Smalling to an English club previously I bet we'd have got £30-40m! But sadly it will probably be more like £15m to Roma now. Similar with Sanchez to Inter.

Andreas, Jones, Rojo... These are the more difficult ones. Supposedly on anywhere from £30-80k a week. They'd probably need to take wage cuts to leave and the latter two have the most God awful injury records in football history. I still think we can get £10m each for these guys at least, but they will be difficult to offload for sure. Why would a team buy Jones or Rojo?

I'm optimistic we can raise £70m+ in sales this window, but that requires selling anywhere from 5-7 players and all of that money would go on one. I don't particularly see this as being regarded as good business from the board. You can't sell that many players and only buy one. We need to buy 3-4 and we aren't going to be able to spend silly money I reckon. If we sold 5 players and all of that money (and then some) went on Sancho, we'd have to buy another couple of players just from whatever our budget is without any player sales. Our net spend last Summer window was about £78m, buying three players and selling only two (although we released two and loaned out two from the first-team squad as well). We did then buy Bruno, so our net spend for the season was about £128m. I'd guess in a Covid climate that we spend less for the combined Summer/Winter windows? It's going be a long drawn out process again, trying to get these three signings over the line and we will unfortunately keep a couple of the players everyone wants rid of I expect. Hopefully we can back the recruitment and push on but I assume this next step to challenge for greater rewards is a two-year process so they won't be rushing it and blowing silly money this coming season.

Don't be surprised if loan deals are even more common for all clubs for the next year or two.
 
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Red00012

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We'll end up selling for cheap just to at least save on wages. Every little helps. We'll struggle to get good money as they're mostly crap, it's that simple.
Liverpool are getting £11million for Lovren
 

Fortitude

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Why can't we? Matteo Darmian went for £3.6m and he wasnt even in the first team squad.

Lingards contract runs out 2021 but the club will most likely choose to extend it for another year to increase his transfer value. And before someone asks why would anyone pay money for Lingard?.. just... just don't, you're not actually being serious. Of course Jesse Lingard has monetary value to a PL or elsewhere club. Just stop with this absolute nonsense.
What isn't being taken into account enough is the wage these players are on. Not only does a club need to cough up a fee, they have to match, or even better, the wage these outcasts are currently taking home. It's all well and good talking about £15m or £25m for Lingard, but when £100k+ a week enters the equation, suitors will become sparse because that is superstar money for two thirds of the league, and the other third are not going to be looking towards a Lingard to turn their fortunes around.

This relative scale can be applied multiple times over for most of the players we need rid of - they are on the kind of wage that would make them top earners at the kind of clubs who would come in for them whilst having done little to justify the outlay, which means we subsidise or get lucky, but even that's unlikely since China have stopped their foolishness.

These players, for the most part, are not going to just leave and take a sizeable pay docking, and why would they? So we either sell for less than their market value so their wage demands can be met, or, more than likely, they see their contracts out and go on frees at the end of them.

Even at out best, when cast offs were still a huge upgrade for lesser sides, we sold on the cheap most of the time; with how those who aren't good enough for us have performed these past couple of seasons, there's little reason for teams who could afford them to look in their direction when the same outlay can get them promising players on the up who have shown far better form and potentially have superior re-sale value.

James Maddison is only now getting his hands on Lingard-level wage. He was a key component at Leicester throughout 2019 and has hit a slump this year, but still, his upswing and the reasons for the renewal at Lingard rates make sense - in a couple of years, he could potentially move on for a massive fee and make Leicester a fortune in the process. Lingard has no such upswing, given his age and the form he's been in for 18months now. If you look at the players on £100k+ who are at clubs who would want a player like Lingard in the first place, the pickings are slim to none unless we subsidise; Lingard at £25m and £40k-£50k p/w? You've a good reason to think mid-table clubs take an interest. Double that wage and who do you honestly think is still interested?

Unless he wants to go and is prepared to take a financial hit (no chance), or China come knocking... or we [heavily] subsidise, Lingard being here next season is a sure thing, imo.

The players from the list we don't need who are not on relatively exorbitant wages I can see going quite expeditiously, but they won't bring much to the coffers and we'll need a few of them gone to offset for bringing in the costly upgrades we need.
 

Judas

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Lovren probably wasn't on the same wages as his dud equivalents at United.
This is the critical issue people seem to miss. We pay players just the daftest of wages, hopefully we've learnt our lesson, but players like Rojo are on just eye watering amounts for their talent. It's just puts us in a deep hole.
 

Salt Bailly

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Lingard's well-publicised personal issues also need to be taken account; I can't see him wanting to relocate his family, so the teams he'd be willing to move to are likely limited in number.
 

Skills

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What isn't being taken into account enough is the wage these players are on. Not only does a club need to cough up a fee, they have to match, or even better, the wage these outcasts are currently taking home. It's all well and good talking about £15m or £25m for Lingard, but when £100k+ a week enters the equation, suitors will become sparse because that is superstar money for two thirds of the league, and the other third are not going to be looking towards a Lingard to turn their fortunes around.

This relative scale can be applied multiple times over for most of the players we need rid of - they are on the kind of wage that would make them top earners at the kind of clubs who would come in for them whilst having done little to justify the outlay, which means we subsidise or get lucky, but even that's unlikely since China have stopped their foolishness.

These players, for the most part, are not going to just leave and take a sizeable pay docking, and why would they? So we either sell for less than their market value so their wage demands can be met, or, more than likely, they see their contracts out and go on frees at the end of them.

Even at out best, when cast offs were still a huge upgrade for lesser sides, we sold on the cheap most of the time; with how those who aren't good enough for us have performed these past couple of seasons, there's little reason for teams who could afford them to look in their direction when the same outlay can get them promising players on the up who have shown far better form and potentially have superior re-sale value.

James Maddison is only now getting his hands on Lingard-level wage. He was a key component at Leicester throughout 2019 and has hit a slump this year, but still, his upswing and the reasons for the renewal at Lingard rates make sense - in a couple of years, he could potentially move on for a massive fee and make Leicester a fortune in the process. Lingard has no such upswing, given his age and the form he's been in for 18months now. If you look at the players on £100k+ who are at clubs who would want a player like Lingard in the first place, the pickings are slim to none unless we subsidise; Lingard at £25m and £40k-£50k p/w? You've a good reason to think mid-table clubs take an interest. Double that wage and who do you honestly think is still interested?

Unless he wants to go and is prepared to take a financial hit (no chance), or China come knocking... or we [heavily] subsidise, Lingard being here next season is a sure thing, imo.

The players from the list we don't need who are not on relatively exorbitant wages I can see going quite expeditiously, but they won't bring much to the coffers and we'll need a few of them gone to offset for bringing in the costly upgrades we need.
Depends on how long he's got left on his contract. If you've got a year left on 100k a week (5.2m), I think he might consider taking a paycut to about 60-70k for a 4 year deal. He's giving up a bit but he's getting a longer guaranteed contract (anything can happen in professional sports so you'd rather be tied in a long term contract, rather than a short one as a professional athlete).
 

roonster09

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Just because player is not good enough for ManUtd doesn't mean they are not PL players, there are so many midtable clubs who will sign players like Lingard, Pereira. Problem is their wages, that's the reason we won't get bigger fee but it will be lot more than 3.5 million ffs.
 

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Depends on how long he's got left on his contract. If you've got a year left on 100k a week (5.2m), I think he might consider taking a paycut to about 60-70k for a 4 year deal. He's giving up a bit but he's getting a longer guaranteed contract (anything can happen in professional sports so you'd rather be tied in a long term contract, rather than a short one as a professional athlete).
£70k is still really big money for a lot of clubs in the PL.

£60k is a big drop for a high earner and around the ball park where hedging your bets and getting signed on a free + bonus plus the kind of money give of take £10k (less) or so someone like Lingard could expect elsewhere becomes wait it out territory.

Unless an outstanding offer comes along, or we subsidise the offers he does get, moving, and thus lowering his profile, just seems like a bad choice to make across the board. Lingard doesn't strike me as someone who is hellbent on proving himself and taking a pay cut to rise from the ashes having been written off. He's very comfortable here, on a great wage, around family and living a great life, sans the stick he gets.
 

Skills

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£70k is still really big money for a lot of clubs in the PL.

£60k is a big drop for a high earner and around the ball park where hedging your bets and getting signed on a free + bonus plus the kind of money give of take £10k (less) or so someone like Lingard could expect elsewhere becomes wait it out territory.

Unless an outstanding offer comes along, or we subsidise the offers he does get, moving, and thus lowering his profile, just seems like a bad choice to make across the board. Lingard doesn't strike me as someone who is hellbent on proving himself and taking a pay cut to rise from the ashes having been written off. He's very comfortable here, on a great wage, around family and living a great life, sans the stick he gets.
Is it? I mean Aston villa spent £140m in transfer fees last season, so they must have players earning more than £3.5m a year?
 

Havak

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  • Romero 5m-10m
  • Pereira 0m
  • Jones 10m
  • Smalling 15m
  • Rojo 5m
  • Dalot 20m
  • Mata 5m
  • Lingard 15m
  • Andreas 10m
  • Alexis 15m-20m
Those are just some rough valuation for the worst case and realistic if Lovren went for 10m. That alone is 100m plus already. It can give you at least good quality of 2 or 3 squad players in return.
That is absolutely not how it will work though.

Sure, those players could be worth that much to some clubs / we feel they're worth that etc but it isn't the point.

You don't sell 10 and buy 3.

All that money could go on Sancho and we are only able to buy two players of the quality we need leaving our squad as many as 7 players light of what it was.

I more-so expect us to sell 5-7 players and sign 3-4. I also expect loans to play a big part again.

I get that people like to go into this get rid of the lot and buy a few much better players, but this doesn't happen. The club want quantity as well, they don't see good business sense in trading 10 for 3 regardless of quality and this is correct.
 

Schmeichel's Cartwheel

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Lingard's well-publicised personal issues also need to be taken account; I can't see him wanting to relocate his family, so the teams he'd be willing to move to are likely limited in number.
Everton, Leeds, Burnley all within less than an hour driving distance to Manchester.

Can’t see any of them matching his rumoured 100k a week wages though.
 

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Is it? I mean Aston villa spent £140m in transfer fees last season, so they must have players earning more than £3.5m a year?
£70k and thereabouts and you're talking about top performers at the lower clubs and then they eventually get bumped to a [current] Lingard level wage. IIRC, Vardy isn't on much more than Lingard is now, and look at the disparity between their performance and importance to their respective teams. Maddison is only now getting bumped up to what Lingard's on and the same goes for him. Grealish is on £100k apparently, but only because of the promotion clause Villa had, I guess he'd be on that anyway to try fend off suitors, but again, 2 of the 3 mentioned are assets who will more than repay back what they're on when they're sold.

Perhaps one of the stattos on here has the wage breakdowns. It would be interesting to see how many players are earning more than £65k who are at non-CL (or considered 'giant') clubs and what status they have in their teams.
 

Tom Cato

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What isn't being taken into account enough is the wage these players are on. Not only does a club need to cough up a fee, they have to match, or even better, the wage these outcasts are currently taking home. It's all well and good talking about £15m or £25m for Lingard, but when £100k+ a week enters the equation, suitors will become sparse because that is superstar money for two thirds of the league, and the other third are not going to be looking towards a Lingard to turn their fortunes around.

This relative scale can be applied multiple times over for most of the players we need rid of - they are on the kind of wage that would make them top earners at the kind of clubs who would come in for them whilst having done little to justify the outlay, which means we subsidise or get lucky, but even that's unlikely since China have stopped their foolishness.

These players, for the most part, are not going to just leave and take a sizeable pay docking, and why would they? So we either sell for less than their market value so their wage demands can be met, or, more than likely, they see their contracts out and go on frees at the end of them.

Even at out best, when cast offs were still a huge upgrade for lesser sides, we sold on the cheap most of the time; with how those who aren't good enough for us have performed these past couple of seasons, there's little reason for teams who could afford them to look in their direction when the same outlay can get them promising players on the up who have shown far better form and potentially have superior re-sale value.

James Maddison is only now getting his hands on Lingard-level wage. He was a key component at Leicester throughout 2019 and has hit a slump this year, but still, his upswing and the reasons for the renewal at Lingard rates make sense - in a couple of years, he could potentially move on for a massive fee and make Leicester a fortune in the process. Lingard has no such upswing, given his age and the form he's been in for 18months now. If you look at the players on £100k+ who are at clubs who would want a player like Lingard in the first place, the pickings are slim to none unless we subsidise; Lingard at £25m and £40k-£50k p/w? You've a good reason to think mid-table clubs take an interest. Double that wage and who do you honestly think is still interested?

Unless he wants to go and is prepared to take a financial hit (no chance), or China come knocking... or we [heavily] subsidise, Lingard being here next season is a sure thing, imo.

The players from the list we don't need who are not on relatively exorbitant wages I can see going quite expeditiously, but they won't bring much to the coffers and we'll need a few of them gone to offset for bringing in the costly upgrades we need.
With Regards to Jesse Lingard who was the player i responded to, he's got 1 mandatory year left on his contract at £100k a week. There is no automatic seniority with regards to football contracts. At some point a player may, or may not, choose playtime and longevity of a career rather than sit on a bench somewhere collecting a paycheck. For a player like Gareth Bale who has accomplished literally everything he can in football and is on fantasy money, that is a nobrainer.

The potential "money left on the table" with regards to his particular transfer is significantly less than you might think, one that can very well be offset by a sign-on fee to make up for lost wages. The sums aren't that enormous in professional football in one of the bigger leagues. It's 1 seasons worth of wages, not 4. Will it impact his asking price? Well yes, but that is why we are talking a small transer sum to begin with.

For Jesse, he's still going to be able to command a sizeable salary anywhere else, it's however entirely up to him if he wants to leave for a new challenge or stay in United, see out his contract and attempt to regain his position in the squa. Unlike with certain fans, Lingard is a very popular character in the dressing room and I doubt his presence there is being seen as a negative.
 

jesperjaap

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I wouldn't sign 10 players to replace them because most have made no contribution to the club this season.

Value is reflective of demand. If I am starving an apple might be worth my life's savings. You can't say X player went for Y therefore our cast offs must be worth Z.

How many clubs desperately need the players I have listed. Only Smalling is really wanted by someone else, and if we hold out for too much money there's no guarantee Roma won't go looking for an alternative.

Its all well and good saying Rojo is an international. So was Darmian. If the only interest in Rojo is coming from Argentina don't expect Argentinian clubs to suddenly magic up millions.

Look at the rest of the Premier League, look at the teams around Europe who might take a punt on our deadwood. Of the clubs who might, how many of them do you think would be so hot for Phil Jones that they wouldn't switch focus to another target if we just refuse to compromise on fees?

Know the market you are in. The likes of Watford and Bournemouth have just been relegated. That means they will have less money and will have to reduce their wage bills. In a market where players like Deulofeu and Sarr might be gettable for cheap, how many clubs will make Andreas or Lingard their sole target?

If you are the only grocer around you can charge what you want. However, if there are half a dozen supermarkets nearby you need to price accordingly or you won't sell s-t.

PS) We have Joel Pereira and Andreas in our squad?
I wasnt saying we need to sign 10 to replace them at all, simply that your valuation is ridiculous so show me this current market players you could buy instead for the same kind of value of any quality.

You mention look at relegated sides, this season there isnt one big star player in any of the relegated teams like usual, just promising youngsters. There is Sarr and Brooks as the only real genuine young talents well on there way and Watford paid a club record fee for Sarr, he wont be that cheap. As for the relegated sides, just look at the centre backs for example.....Phil JOnes would get in all those sides just as he would all the sides coming up. There are a lot of sides would like an experienced ENgland international, its the injury problems maybe a concern.

The window has barely opened and you say the only interest is in Smalling, Inter are reportedly negotiating over Sanchez, Argentinian clubs over Rojo, DAlot has rumoured interest from Barcelona, Lingard from West Ham and most of the names havent even been made available.

Do you really think no promoted sides, lower sides or teams like Newcastle for example wishing to improve wont have any interest in England international players.

My whole point is yes, some of those players for various reasons, it wont be easy to sell, but to say all these international players are notin the current market worth more than £3.5m....and you are saying I should know the market we are in, is sorry, at best utterly naive, just name me one international player under 30 and not at the end of the cotract ANYWHERE we could if wanted sign for £3.5m? PS Papa New Guinea internationals dont count
 

Fosu-Mens

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Newcastle paid £40m for Joelinton and you think nobody will pay more than £5m for Jesse Lingard? You’re being ridiculous.
And Southampton paid £20m for Danny Ings... A transfer price does not reflect how good a player will be at the club, the demand and assumed ability of the player does. At least Joelinton came of two halfdecent seasons for Hoffenheim and he was an asset for his team and actually wanted by a club. Creating demand and thus an increase in price. Lingard has not shown anything of worth on the pitch for 18 months, his on the ball abilities is limited and there is no real need for the club to keep him. Joelinton showed enough on the pitch for people to actually think that he was half decent, filling a specific role for Newcastle. And while Newcastle got fleeced, the conditions were there to somewhat understand the price paid. For Lingard, these conditions are not there...
 

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That is absolutely not how it will work though.

Sure, those players could be worth that much to some clubs / we feel they're worth that etc but it isn't the point.

You don't sell 10 and buy 3.

All that money could go on Sancho and we are only able to buy two players of the quality we need leaving our squad as many as 7 players light of what it was.

I more-so expect us to sell 5-7 players and sign 3-4. I also expect loans to play a big part again.

I get that people like to go into this get rid of the lot and buy a few much better players, but this doesn't happen. The club want quantity as well, they don't see good business sense in trading 10 for 3 regardless of quality and this is correct.
Most of the players mentioned are either out on loan or played tiny cameos post lockdown. Its clear that ole doesn't want to use any of them even when our players are crying out for a rest.

Pogba and Bruno showed signs of tiredness yet Mata, Andreas and Lingard didn't get a look in. AWB running on empty and TFM got the nod over Dalot. DDG has a series of howlers and still Romero is plonked on the bench. Selling 10 players you wont ever use and buying 3 you will might make more sense than keeping numbers for squad reasons. bringing in 3 first teamers and maybe looking for options to step up from the youth team might be more what ole is thinking.
 

#07

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I wasnt saying we need to sign 10 to replace them at all, simply that your valuation is ridiculous so show me this current market players you could buy instead for the same kind of value of any quality.

You mention look at relegated sides, this season there isnt one big star player in any of the relegated teams like usual, just promising youngsters. There is Sarr and Brooks as the only real genuine young talents well on there way and Watford paid a club record fee for Sarr, he wont be that cheap. As for the relegated sides, just look at the centre backs for example.....Phil JOnes would get in all those sides just as he would all the sides coming up. There are a lot of sides would like an experienced ENgland international, its the injury problems maybe a concern.

The window has barely opened and you say the only interest is in Smalling, Inter are reportedly negotiating over Sanchez, Argentinian clubs over Rojo, DAlot has rumoured interest from Barcelona, Lingard from West Ham and most of the names havent even been made available.

Do you really think no promoted sides, lower sides or teams like Newcastle for example wishing to improve wont have any interest in England international players.

My whole point is yes, some of those players for various reasons, it wont be easy to sell, but to say all these international players are notin the current market worth more than £3.5m....and you are saying I should know the market we are in, is sorry, at best utterly naive, just name me one international player under 30 and not at the end of the cotract ANYWHERE we could if wanted sign for £3.5m? PS Papa New Guinea internationals dont count
You're talking about stars being available, you don't need stars as alternatives to the players we're trying to offload. Lots of clubs would see Junior Stanislas as a cheaper and better alternative to the attackers we're trying to cash in on. If a club could get Emi Buendia or Cantwell, do you think they're going to pay upwards of £10m for Andreas or Lingard and much bigger wages than the alternatives would command?

I might like waitrose bananas but if I can get cheaper bananas in the co-op then I'll go to the co-op, at the end of the day a banana is a banana. We're not talking about how people would react if our very best players were on the market. We're talking about players who are very much unwanted and who are very much at the level of dozens of other, cheaper, options.
 

sp_107

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The way we talk about our fringe players, any buyer will drop out if they read redcafe :)

Not saying people make decisions based on Internet forum but these days anyone can read data.
 

sp_107

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I want to set salary cap to avoid this situation in future but when you see clubs like Dortmund paying 190K a week to Sancho and Madrid paying 600K to Bale, I think we need to pay over the odds to get top players.

It will create the divide though, Bruno on 130K imagi e if he sees Mata taking 150K and Pogba pocketing 250K soon 350K.


Always wondered how come Spurs/Chelsea keep players on low wages
 

MikeUpNorth

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It’s gonna be a weird transfer window because of the Covid situation and its impact on club finances. Until we start seeing some completed deals and their associated fees, it’s really difficult to say what kind of transfer fees are realistic. Everything has changed.
 
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Havak

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Most of the players mentioned are either out on loan or played tiny cameos post lockdown. Its clear that ole doesn't want to use any of them even when our players are crying out for a rest.

Pogba and Bruno showed signs of tiredness yet Mata, Andreas and Lingard didn't get a look in. AWB running on empty and TFM got the nod over Dalot. DDG has a series of howlers and still Romero is plonked on the bench. Selling 10 players you wont ever use and buying 3 you will might make more sense than keeping numbers for squad reasons. bringing in 3 first teamers and maybe looking for options to step up from the youth team might be more what ole is thinking.
I do agree, I just don't think it is going to be as many as 10 being offloaded to bring in three. I expect more like seven to be shifted if we are lucky and still sign the three you expect.

Of course, it's different when loans and/or out of contract players are included. We will have trimmed the squad massively in the space of 2-2.5 years, I think it'll take another window or two after this coming season to get rid of everyone that Ole isn't interested in using.
 

VP89

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Lingard: £5-10m (Brighton/Villa sort of club can take him. He had a loan spell w/ Brighton + an Athletic podcast suggested its a possibility. Given his personal issues and wages I don't see a big fee for him though. Limited time left on United contract too).
Sanchez: £10m (If we believe the report today that Inter only want to offer 10m EUR which is pretty much £10m).
Rojo/Jones: feck knows. Just take them off our hands - £5m a pop?
Smalling: Can see him moving on for £15m as a bare minimum. If Roma don't want to play he can walk into most teams in the PL and its strong value, even for Everton, Leicester, Southampton etc.

That's nearing £40m on what I believe is conservative estimate from shifting 5 players. I haven't gone to Mata/Periera/Dalot. Such sales above can fund an entire Grealish transfer, and we won't miss a single one of the above players. They have barely played for us all season.
 

Scriblerus

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I'm not expecting to see a huge clearout this summer. The last few weeks have shown how clearly we need to bring in a creative midfielder and a mobile forward to allow us to rotate. Even in the current climate that's probably the budget blown if we are looking at players who are good enough to take their turns as starters. So for everyone we get rid of we have to ask where the replacement is coming from as a bench/squad player, because we're not going to be able to bring in quality for peanuts. So maybe Romero goes if we have Henderson back. We can lose a centre back or two (but not three). Apart from that, who is coming through from the U23s who could do a regular job (not the odd cameo in the Carabao)? Laird? Garner? Or is it more likely that we hold on to likes of Dalot and Pereira? I reckon we'll see about 4 max leaving - Sanchez ideally because of the wages, Lingard maybe because we'd expect a decent fee, but both of these will depend on finding a buyer who is willing to put down enough in fee and wages in spite of the financial effects of Covid. Anyone expecting 8 or 9 of the first team squad to go is being unrealistic.
 

jesperjaap

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You're talking about stars being available, you don't need stars as alternatives to the players we're trying to offload. Lots of clubs would see Junior Stanislas as a cheaper and better alternative to the attackers we're trying to cash in on. If a club could get Emi Buendia or Cantwell, do you think they're going to pay upwards of £10m for Andreas or Lingard and much bigger wages than the alternatives would command?

I might like waitrose bananas but if I can get cheaper bananas in the co-op then I'll go to the co-op, at the end of the day a banana is a banana. We're not talking about how people would react if our very best players were on the market. We're talking about players who are very much unwanted and who are very much at the level of dozens of other, cheaper, options.

So an England international with several caps, worlc cup experience, premiership and cl experience isnt going to get bids over £10m because there are players liek Cantwell/Buendia who would cost over £20m. And Stanlislas who will cost over £10m too is a better option.....well I dont agree whatsoever, you say banana I say your are bananas
 

acnumber9

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And Southampton paid £20m for Danny Ings... A transfer price does not reflect how good a player will be at the club, the demand and assumed ability of the player does. At least Joelinton came of two halfdecent seasons for Hoffenheim and he was an asset for his team and actually wanted by a club. Creating demand and thus an increase in price. Lingard has not shown anything of worth on the pitch for 18 months, his on the ball abilities is limited and there is no real need for the club to keep him. Joelinton showed enough on the pitch for people to actually think that he was half decent, filling a specific role for Newcastle. And while Newcastle got fleeced, the conditions were there to somewhat understand the price paid. For Lingard, these conditions are not there...
If Lingard goes this summer, it will be for more than £5m. You even give an example in Ings of a player who had done nothing of note in the Premier League ever, going for four times that.
 

UNITED ACADEMY

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That is absolutely not how it will work though.

Sure, those players could be worth that much to some clubs / we feel they're worth that etc but it isn't the point.

You don't sell 10 and buy 3.

All that money could go on Sancho and we are only able to buy two players of the quality we need leaving our squad as many as 7 players light of what it was.

I more-so expect us to sell 5-7 players and sign 3-4. I also expect loans to play a big part again.

I get that people like to go into this get rid of the lot and buy a few much better players, but this doesn't happen. The club want quantity as well, they don't see good business sense in trading 10 for 3 regardless of quality and this is correct.
I made a counter argument to the poster who thinks that we should just consider free transfer or nominal fees for lot of those listed players with only total of 35m. My point was that we can get 100m not 35m.

I'm not suggesting that we should buy 3, I only said that 100m alone can be used to buy 2-3 quality squad player which something we are lacking in our squad.
 

Havak

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I made a counter argument to the poster who thinks that we should just consider free transfer or nominal fees for lot of those listed players with only total of 35m. My point was that we can get 100m not 35m.

I'm not suggesting that we should buy 3, I only said that 100m alone can be used to buy 2-3 quality squad player which something we are lacking in our squad.
Yeah, I agree with that to a degree as well. I think we can get both more and less money than a lot of our fans would think. It'll balance out but I think a lot of these players can command fees in the £10-20m if we're going to scrutinise it. However, I think the people who post a list like yours but actually expect us to sell all of those players by October are going to be disappointed. It's my opinion that we will fail to offload every player we want to and may end up loaning out players or even keeping them as part of the squad for another year or so. We may even be forced into taking players on loan ourselves instead of buying. I can see this being a very different transfer window than the norm for a lot of teams, not just us. Chelsea is the only one looking like they are doing the whole mass-change thing, but I am going to assume they have additional funds that they weren't allowed to spend due to their transfer ban and they probably have more money than they initially thought due to qualifying for the Champion's League (I actually think they only expected Europa League football when the season kicked off).
 

Isotope

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That is absolutely not how it will work though.

Sure, those players could be worth that much to some clubs / we feel they're worth that etc but it isn't the point.

You don't sell 10 and buy 3.

All that money could go on Sancho and we are only able to buy two players of the quality we need leaving our squad as many as 7 players light of what it was.


I more-so expect us to sell 5-7 players and sign 3-4. I also expect loans to play a big part again.

I get that people like to go into this get rid of the lot and buy a few much better players, but this doesn't happen. The club want quantity as well, they don't see good business sense in trading 10 for 3 regardless of quality and this is correct.
3 players that can be used heavily is much better than 10 players who have little to no use throughout the season. The last games of the hectic end season proves that Ole didn't use much of these deadwoods because he just doesn't rate them. So what use to have 10 or 100 of these kind of players?
 

Havak

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3 players that can be used heavily is much better than 10 players who have little to no use throughout the season. The last games of the hectic end season proves that Ole didn't use much of these deadwoods because he just doesn't rate them. So what use to have 10 or 100 of these kind of players?
I'm just going off how a business would see quantity of assets.

It would be a massive change from our usual transfer dealings and direction we're taking to do this. If we do it, fair enough and hopefully it is a good decision and the correct model. I just highly doubt it'll happen because it never happens.
 

UNITED ACADEMY

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Yeah, I agree with that to a degree as well. I think we can get both more and less money than a lot of our fans would think. It'll balance out but I think a lot of these players can command fees in the £10-20m if we're going to scrutinise it. However, I think the people who post a list like yours but actually expect us to sell all of those players by October are going to be disappointed. It's my opinion that we will fail to offload every player we want to and may end up loaning out players or even keeping them as part of the squad for another year or so. We may even be forced into taking players on loan ourselves instead of buying. I can see this being a very different transfer window than the norm for a lot of teams, not just us. Chelsea is the only one looking like they are doing the whole mass-change thing, but I am going to assume they have additional funds that they weren't allowed to spend due to their transfer ban and they probably have more money than they initially thought due to qualifying for the Champion's League (I actually think they only expected Europa League football when the season kicked off).
It was the poster's list not mine. I only requote it and place price next to the players.