200m alone is not enough to win you PL especially with this city side. You said they are dross which is saying they are shit, when they have done a good job. Maybe they are not the problem but the problem is we need more quality.
Ole and his dross signings
- Thread starter Rajma
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Fair. I would give VDB and James 3 and 5 respectively.
The real reason we brought VDB was to have backup to Bruno as JLingz didn't seem like he'd find the required quality to fight for any spot in this team.
But how could you drop Bruno for VDB and give him any minutes?
James on the hand - keeping in mind he came from a Championship team and being still very young, would mean we could cut him some slack. But still
he hasn't managed to give any selection headache to the manager.
AWB and Maguire were necessity. In my opinion they were arguably the best options for us in that market. From all available and willing to join us CBs and RBs
they were probably the best options. Unfortunately their price tags put a lot of pressure on them and fans are expecting miracles from them.
AWB is still very young and has a lot to learn. He's showed improvement from last season. I think he'll improve more within the next 2/3 seasons.
Maguire on the other hand - he's a good solid defender. But that's all. Lindelof is also a fairly good defender. But combining two defenders, which are fairly good isn't enough.
We need a world class defender next to Maguire. Unfortunately if we want one next summer we have to pay outrageous amount of money.
The other option is to scout and develop, but that will take time. We're still work in progress.
He's also made some very good signings, plus average signings we overpaid for e.g. Maguire, but we always have to overpay.
How can Cavani be a hit when he is injured so often and now wants to leave instead of signing an extension? The Only signing that was a hit out of all of them is Bruno.
I disagree with some of your comments. We got 3rd place last season, probably due to tightening the defence, AWB and Maguire were integral to that. James had chipped in with some goals, and has a tremendous work ethic, and is still learning his trade, (I don't think we would have got third without those three players, so they definitely improved us) and I would hazard a guess that we would get back more for James than we paid.
VDB is an interesting one, certainly he hasn't looked great in any match I've seen, just doesn't seem to fit in with the way we play, so with that buy, you are correct
Well Harry Maguire would definitely be starting for city if they bought him like they wanted to. AWB and Bruno aren’t Pep like players - but we don’t play that way so what relevance is that?
100%. I defended Jose based on his past success, but I was so wrong. Every managerial signing has been wrong since Fergie. Ole was fine in his temporary role, but we'll have to invest an incredible amount of money into the team to be able to compete with him. He's gone as far as he can with us I feel.
You’re way too liberal with the word “excellent”
I wish we would have went for someone other than Maguire but other than that I really don't put much blame on Ole. Does anyone really think this past summer signings is anywhere close to what Ole would've asked for?
I will say though, spending ~70m on 2 players that have hardly featured at all this season when we clearly had a very limited budget doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
I will say though, spending ~70m on 2 players that have hardly featured at all this season when we clearly had a very limited budget doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
I don’t like blaming the manager for the amounts paid for players that’s not his job and we’ve overpaid for pretty much everyone since Woodward/judge took charge of transfers. With regards to the quality of signings they’ve been good without being spectacular (minus bruno) and mostly improved us. I’m in the ‘ole’s probably taken us as far as he can’ camp but don’t think his signings are a stick to beat him with
Dross is too harsh but other than Bruno none of them have proven to be really good signings based and performance and value or just being unproven so far.
Yea, why ignore Cavani? He's been dross too.
So if they all cost half of it, would that have been ok
Both are among the top players in the league in their positions. I'm really not. Both are very good players, play virtually every minute as they can stay fit and have great energy to keep a high level (and us having no depth for them), and will both be mainstays for a long time, for good reason.
If anyone looks at our team and decides that one of Maguire, Wan Bissaka, Shaw, Bruno or Rashford are the problems, then quite simply, they don't know what the feck they are talking about. Fix our weak links. Don't focus on our best performing players who need to bail out a midfield 2 who can't pass or a complete lack of a right wing or strikers who never score (and are never fit).
You're in cuckoo land if you think Maguire has done nothing at all or barely improved us.
Another tedious thread totally knee jerked after a defeat in a tough game.
We have some of the worst fans out there.
We have some of the worst fans out there.
Agreed. Then they'll insist Jonny Evans or Dunk are better.
Having spent 2 years slating Lingard as championship level, then instead of admitting their error, use him suddenly hitting great form as a sign of how mis-managed we are.
I think it’s pretty clear that VDB wasn’t Ole’s idea as he hasn’t fancied him at all season but with injuries and overplaying players becoming an issue VDB was given a game and the results were there to see, I’d happily see him gone in the summer and anyone who thinks he’d be acceptable as Pogba’s replacement should Pogba leave in the summer is crazy.
A good way of measuring if a signing was a hit or miss is to ask yourself would you repeat the signing? Under that premise I would say:
Van de Beek - absolutely no
Telles - yes
Cavani - yes
Maguire - no for that fee
AWB - no for that fee
James - no
Ighalo - no
Bruno - absolutely
Diallo and Pellestri to early to tell.
Thats a 3 out of 8 signigns that I would repeat, and 1 out of 4 in big money signings.
Van de Beek - absolutely no
Telles - yes
Cavani - yes
Maguire - no for that fee
AWB - no for that fee
James - no
Ighalo - no
Bruno - absolutely
Diallo and Pellestri to early to tell.
Thats a 3 out of 8 signigns that I would repeat, and 1 out of 4 in big money signings.
I think managers should take the blame, ultimately it’s a zero sum game with the spending and if they don’t get it then that’s not the type of manager you want in charge.
- Maguire has been one of the best CB's in the PL this season
- AWB is absolutely solid in defense, and hes improving going forward
- Bruno is one of the best players in the league
- James was a 20 million punt and a okish squad option
- Telles and Cavani were decent and cheap backups
- Diallo and Pellestri are exciting prospects
The only dross signing is VdB.
FFS. Why does every bad game spawn 2-3 new hysterical, knee jerk threads
- AWB is absolutely solid in defense, and hes improving going forward
- Bruno is one of the best players in the league
- James was a 20 million punt and a okish squad option
- Telles and Cavani were decent and cheap backups
- Diallo and Pellestri are exciting prospects
The only dross signing is VdB.
FFS. Why does every bad game spawn 2-3 new hysterical, knee jerk threads
Thanks to our owners not backing us properly and Ed dilly dallying around transfers. Nothing will change until they are out of here
Why on earth would you repeat the Cavani signing? Massive wages for 7 goals in 26 games? What a rip-roaring success. Ibra was basically an identical scenario signing and he bagged us 30 goals, that's something worth repeating.
Seems like they got Cavani to sell some tshirts. Bruno has been pretty bad recently as well..for the past 10 games or so. Extremely inaccurate passes. Loses the ball all the time and cries and moans to the ref for absolutely anything and everything. He is quality but not sure if all the fame hasn't gone to his head a bit.
He was a free signing and just one year contract, eventhough he's been mostly injured he's performed relatively well when available. I woudlt offer him a new deal because his fitness problems but I dont think it was a mistake bringing him this year.
There’s definitely some blame attached but the reason I don’t like it is we don’t know the ins and outs of conversations being had with the hierarchy making financial decisions. It’s fair to say ole would likely have to ok a transfer and know the risks that come with spending record amounts on players if it doesn’t work out, but I think our value for money in transfers is a long-standing issue which seems to be a constant regardless of manager.
I personally think ole has a decent eye for a player and pretty much all his signings have been decent and an improvement on what we had
Anyone suggesting Maguire has not been a hit needs their head examining. He's one of the best defenders in the league and has quite clearly improved us defensively, he's fit to play every game (which was something we'd been crying out of for about 5 years) and will be a mainstay for years. Same goes for Wan Bissaka to be honest, very, very good defender and not as bad as people make out going forward, it's not his fault we have literally nobody else to play right back so he plays 90 minutes twice a week and seemingly will continue to until he's dead. I don't think it's fair blaming the players for the fees paid. Dan James is a squad player brought in for a small fee, some games he's effective and others he isn't, I don't think he's great but was amazed he didn't come on today as with the space behind their wing backs he would've had some job IMO.
Telles deserves a 7 minimum for the difference we've seen in Luke Shaw.
If vdb is 1/10, surely Bruno is 10/10?
Cavani has not bee a hit when compared with similar recent free transfer of striker in his mid 30's in Ibrahimovic, he is what you call a hit.
Honestly the expectations are dropping and more at this club, wont be long until we become just like arsenal.
Honestly the expectations are dropping and more at this club, wont be long until we become just like arsenal.
"Revolutionise our approach to transfers"
Has he feck.
Has he feck.
I think it was a mistake personally. LvG brought in Martial and he had a great season as a teenager, Mourinho comes in and replaces him with Ibra and Martial drops off a cliff. That ended up being okay because Ibra produced. Ole comes in a rejuvinates Martial, he has his best season for us in the first season he was properly played as our striker, gets 17 goals and is again replaced with a stop-gap striker that has averaged 1 goal in 4. Martial again looks a shadow of his former self and we're absolutely worse off. In my opinion we've just thrown big wages at a flop and destabilized another one of our players whilst doing so.
I don't know why AWB gets so much shit from our fans. We obviously overpaid for him at £50M and he is limited going forward but he's still one of the best young fullbacks and he's improving his game. It would be nice if we had a back up right back so he could get a rest every so often. He plays way too many games and it hurts his performances sometimes.
What does this even mean, the mans spent 300 million and I don’t even agree with the OP, the only truly bad signing has been VDB and even that’s because of how he’s being used.
I think the scenarios are different, Ibra came here to take the starting spot I understand why Martial got angry with that decision, but Cavani was always meant to be for rotation if Martial was destabilized because of that then he is of no use. I mean should we have no depth at all in order to keep Martial happy? If he doesnt fancy himself to keep his position against a 33-34 year old Cavani then feck him.
Absolutely, but with the money spent on some of them, the question cannot be if they are better than what we had. It should be if they are good enough to take us where we want to be.
Maguire signing is shocking. At 80m you expect a CB to have pace and brains. AWB was also too expensive for what he offers. Bruno was the only super star he signed.
There's no way we could have signed maguire for less then 70m. Which would be around 40m more then its worth.
There's no way we could have signed maguire for less then 70m. Which would be around 40m more then its worth.
I've said it for a long time: His signings are hugely overrated. Overpriced for mediocre players. Just because AWB, Maguire, Telles etc is better than what we had before, people are cheering them like Ole is some kind of genius. I don't know who is to blame, Ole, the scouts or Woodward, but no sane human being is paying £50 for AWB.
With that logic, Seamus Coleman would be a good signing because he is better than what we had.
Sad to see such threads popping up after a loss. If we had won you'd never see these discussions on the forum.
We lost to the better team. End of story. No need for the doom and gloom threads.
We lost to the better team. End of story. No need for the doom and gloom threads.
Personally I think maguire has been fairly solid recently
Too much is read into transfer fees
Is he 80mil player? No
But he is a good defender from a rival prem proven and British so you can add all the extras
James is poor for me
VDB I’m baffled
Awb defensively I don’t think there are many better
the problems aren’t his signings
Martial is awful these days
And Fred mctom matic, not a good combo to be picked there