Antony | Here we go! €100mill, contract until June 2027, option 'til 2028.

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Flexdegea

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Has a Dutch Manager ever won the PL?
look, I like ETH but he’s demanding that we spend £75M or most of our budget on a player not proven in the PL, he got outdone by Pochetino whose own stock is on the slide in a Champions league Semi Final and falls into the level just below Elite or Worlds Best Managers.
The Club apparently has been quoted £75M for FDJ, £69M for Antony, 53M for J Timber, no disrespect here but none of them are proven in the PL and our primary directive is that we need to improve in the PL, maybe Murtogh and Fletcher are being vigilant and doing their due diligence.

Let’s face it for £207M we could get the following who are all premier league proven;

S Johnstone or N Pope - Free or 10M

T Lamptey -£25M
W Foffana , E Konsi Or M Guehi £45-65M
W Ndidi or N Kante £25M
C Erikssen or Y Tielemans - Free or £35M
J Bowen or Raphina - £50M
I Toney or D Ings - £40M or £25M

This window could be the start of yet another terrible mundane transfer window for the board, the Glaziers are playing Russian roulette with a new dynamic manager who will soon find out that this club have always been a disaster in the transfer window since David Gill and Sir Alex left.

'proven..........."



Parody is dead
 

DeGea’sFeet

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Has a Dutch Manager ever won the PL?
look, I like ETH but he’s demanding that we spend £75M or most of our budget on a player not proven in the PL, he got outdone by Pochetino whose own stock is on the slide in a Champions league Semi Final and falls into the level just below Elite or Worlds Best Managers.
The Club apparently has been quoted £75M for FDJ, £69M for Antony, 53M for J Timber, no disrespect here but none of them are proven in the PL and our primary directive is that we need to improve in the PL, maybe Murtogh and Fletcher are being vigilant and doing their due diligence.

Let’s face it for £207M we could get the following who are all premier league proven;

S Johnstone or N Pope - Free or 10M

T Lamptey -£25M
W Foffana , E Konsi Or M Guehi £45-65M
W Ndidi or N Kante £25M
C Erikssen or Y Tielemans - Free or £35M
J Bowen or Raphina - £50M
I Toney or D Ings - £40M or £25M

This window could be the start of yet another terrible mundane transfer window for the board, the Glaziers are playing Russian roulette with a new dynamic manager who will soon find out that this club have always been a disaster in the transfer window since David Gill and Sir Alex left.
I agree with you on some points… chasing FDJ for £70m when there’s probably equally good CM’s available for cheaper isn’t ideal for the type of player he is and stage United are at.

But this whole “proven in the Premier League” how many of City’s, Liverpool signings were proven in the Premier League? If you have a system, the right players will excel in that system regardless of the league. Also our biggest waste of money have been on players “proven in the prem” post SAF.
 

V.O.

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Has a Dutch Manager ever won the PL?
What a daft thing to bring up. Who gives a feck?

Liverpool shouldn't have hired Klopp because a German had never won the PL.
City shouldn't have hired Guardiola because a Spaniard had never won the PL.
City shouldn't have hired Pellegrini because a Chilean had never won the PL.
Chelsea shouldn't have hired Ancelotti because an Italian had never won the PL.
Chelsea shouldn't have hired Mourinho because a Portuguese had never won the PL.
Arsenal shouldn't have hired Wenger because a Frenchman had never won the PL.

Let’s face it for £207M we could get the following who are all premier league proven;

S Johnstone or N Pope - Free or 10M

T Lamptey -£25M
W Foffana , E Konsi Or M Guehi £45-65M
W Ndidi or N Kante £25M
C Erikssen or Y Tielemans - Free or £35M
J Bowen or Raphina - £50M
I Toney or D Ings - £40M or £25M
Lamptey is a midget who would be massively exposed defensively in a back four. All of those defenders have one good season under their belt and would be as much of a gamble (or more) as the type of signings you're railing against. Leicester wouldn't sell us Ndidi for £25m in a million years. Kante is showing signs of being past it and injury prone. Eriksen we are, in fact, trying to sign. Tielemans has looked like shit for most of the last season. Bowen would be more like £100m than 50. Raphina wants to go to Barcelona and is as wasteful with the ball as Bruno. Ivan Toney and Danny Ings are Ivan Toney and Danny Ings.

But nevermind that shit, let's be PL Proven FC, because it's worked so well for us with Fellaini, Mata, Schneiderlin, Lukaku, Sanchez, Wan-Bissaka, Maguire...
 

NewYorkRed

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I agree with you on some points… chasing FDJ for £70m when there’s probably equally good CM’s available for cheaper isn’t ideal for the type of player he is and stage United are at.

But this whole “proven in the Premier League” how many of City’s, Liverpool signings were proven in the Premier League? If you have a system, the right players will excel in that system regardless of the league. Also our biggest waste of money have been on players “proven in the prem” post SAF.
Name them.
 

AndySmith1990

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I agree with you on some points… chasing FDJ for £70m when there’s probably equally good CM’s available for cheaper isn’t ideal for the type of player he is and stage United are at.

But this whole “proven in the Premier League” how many of City’s, Liverpool signings were proven in the Premier League? If you have a system, the right players will excel in that system regardless of the league. Also our biggest waste of money have been on players “proven in the prem” post SAF.
Send Ten Hag an email with a list of these cheaper and equally good CM's, you'd be doing the club a massive favour
 

croadyman

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If we want a new spend of £100-150m this summer, I'd suspect its de Jong and Antony and that's our business done, if we don't get Eriksen.
Yeah he needs to push for this transfer to bring that valuation to our level, signing those two still leave me concerned about RB, DM and backup ST.
 

DeGea’sFeet

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Name them.
We signed Maguire for £85m, in the world of football you don’t think there was a better CD available for cheaper? Either known or unknown… well I’m certain the same applies to FDJ, if he was the Messi of his position I don’t think Barca would want him out seeing as the reason they want him out are not purely financial and I doubt we’d be the only club interested in him.
 

NewYorkRed

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We signed Maguire for £85m, in the world of football you don’t think there was a better CD available for cheaper? Either known or unknown… well I’m certain the same applies to FDJ, if he was the Messi of his position I don’t think Barca would want him out seeing as the reason they want him out are not purely financial and I doubt we’d be the only club interested in him.
So…you don’t know any but you’re sure there are some. Cool.
 

FrankDrebin

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I mean, there were better CB's out there when we splashed 80 odd million on Maguire.
 

evil_geko

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In our case, it's probably not the worst thing to bring in players who should be more adapted to the league. Do we really want to spend £50-60m on someone like Antony only to be saying this time next year that hopefully his second season is much better as he needed to adapt to the league?
I would much rather bring players who are Ten Hag system proven than PL proven, being "PL proven" was always overrated.
 

FrankDrebin

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I mean, there were better midfielders out there when we splashed 90 odd million on Pogba.
There was also better strikers out there when we splashed out 70 + million on Lukaku.
 

Adnan

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Excuse the long post!

I’ve been a fan of the Brazilian and championed his signing since he came on the scene based mostly on the idea he’s unpredictable, entertaining in the CL and a bit of a nutter. I think he and Chiesa would still be my dream wingers if I was designing an attack. Sancho would be right there too. To me that’s very exciting recruitment. Nice one United

On paper FDJ also looks like a player we could desperately need. He could be a transformative kind of signing but I think he’ll just be alright for some reason. So another yes from me. He’s currently the best we can get. Apart from that if Timber doesn’t want to come then just leave Ajax be.

To be safe we should definitely try and mix it up a little, it probably doesn’t take a data dept to see how hard it can be for even top players from the Dutch league to quickly impose themselves here and elsewhere, whereas more recently players from Portugal Germany and France can do really well in the PL and a with a few exceptions for pretty reasonable money.

I hope we aren’t making one of those Barca going Dutch mistakes and it somehow costing ETH momentum and possibly even his job next season but I’m probably being melodramatic when I mention the sack. I think the board will probably stick with ETH over the players for this season unless we are in a relegation battle or something.

I don’t expect anything but obviously it clicking and us getting Top 4 would be very nice. Will the Ajax lads get on with everyone else? If things start going south will the remaining superstar wage players pretend to get into it enough? Surely they can’t throw ETH and his Ajax players and coaches under the bus too can they?

Regarding the data setup I’m looking forward to hopefully one day again seeing the football side of us being run in a much more responsible and proactive manner. Keep the talent moving much faster at first team level until it clicks again. Sell players while their value is still as high as possible and their wages are still low. we are still a major brand that everyone follows and we should be making a huge revenue stream from buying and selling players. we should always have a conveyor belt of talent and to not settle or be forced to massively overpay until we find the very best again. It doesn’t need to be only wait until they are 100 million euro players… the next big player is always there for the taking if you’re run by smart people who understand the market and know how to get in early and sell it well.

I’m very happy with the youth. It’s been almost totally revamped and it’s producing again. If the first team can kick on in the same kind of way that would be a big positive for sure.
You make some fair points and your concerns are valid.

But what i'll say is that if in a hypothetical scenario our head coach was someone other than ten Hag, who also like the Dutch head coach preached positional play in a vertical axis, we would be happy with the names being linked to us currently. Players like Martinez and Antony along with Frenkie de Jong would represent a fantastic window imo, where we target players for a specific need, which aligns with the vision of the head coach where the aim is to exert zonal and positional control on the ball to then create numerical superiorities in the opponent's half to exploit space which should open up for the free man. And all that is expected without compromising on the intensity and work rate off the ball. And I wouldn't worry about signing a couple of Ajax players regards dressing room morale because these lads at Ajax are coming from a dressing room which was said to be united and with a good team spirit. So signing a couple of players from Ajax can only be a good thing in that regard. Bayern have also signed two players from Ajax for the new season.

i think we will mix it up when it comes to recruitment and the evidence is already there at the club. And a data department is there to help the football men make better informed decisions when it comes to recruitment and performance.

I completely agree with you about wanting to see fully functioning football departments that are aligned/streamlined towards supporting the head coach. And the data department will hopefully be one of those departments which will aid the cause. But it's going to take a bit of time for things to bed-in and then we will hopefully see a much more effective approach that is thorough and detailed in nature. Liverpool were the same in that regard, and it took Edwards and his team some time to settle and become as effective as they became. But before that, Edwards was widely ridiculed by the fans and media alike.

And it took John Murtough some time to get the youth teams to where they're now. Because when he arrived at the end of 2013, beginning of 2014, we were a bit of a shambles where things had started to deteriorate and parents were taking their kids to other academies. Murtough had to modernise the youth setup and now in the present day, we have numerous first contract players with big potential on the books and are reportedly close to signing a 15/16 year old left back (Jayden Meghoma) who is said to be amongst the biggest talents in his age group.
 

NewYorkRed

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Yeah it’s called common sense. We’re building a team.
Yeah, the manager’s building a team and he considers him vital to it. Also you keep staying a ton of stuff, but none of it contains any suggestions of these mysterious CMs better than him. I’ll make it easy for you: there are none that are avaliable.

We’ll it’s not their job to know they’re not a scout
Did you read any of the other posts? The logic was “we should ditch him, i’m sure there’s other players in the world who are better/just as good” so I just asked him to name some. Hardly an absurd request.
 

2 man midfield

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Ajax want insane money for every fecker until Dortmund tickle their bellies for Haller. Then suddenly 30m is enough to get a deal done. He’s their main goal scorer!
 

Kaushal

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Ajax want insane money for every fecker until Dortmund tickle their bellies for Haller. Then suddenly 30m is enough to get a deal done. He’s their main goal scorer!
Not only that, they are barely trying to make a profit on haller after he scored tons for them whereas with us, they swore an oath to make us eat from garbage bins.
 

Stadjer

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Ajax want insane money for every fecker until Dortmund tickle their bellies for Haller. Then suddenly 30m is enough to get a deal done. He’s their main goal scorer!
Because they know Haller isnt that good and will never have a higher value or reach better number than he did last season. This is their perfect ''cash in'' moment. Not even all Ajax fans are convinced by him.
 

UnitedSofa

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Ajax want insane money for every fecker until Dortmund tickle their bellies for Haller. Then suddenly 30m is enough to get a deal done. He’s their main goal scorer!
It’s not the Dortmund effect it’s the fact that half their team is getting ripped apart 2 already gone to Bayern and Haller to Dortmund.

They’re reluctant to let any more players go so have slapped high price tags on the remaining ones who teams want
 

Terranova

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Because they know Haller isnt that good and will never have a higher value or reach better number than he did last season. This is their perfect ''cash in'' moment. Not even all Ajax fans are convinced by him.
Indeed, Haller isn't good enough and the 35 million is already waaaaaaaay too much, so easy sell.
 

dal

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People seem to forget there are many examples of players who are incredibly one footed who have done well in the PL or world football - Robben, Di Maria, Valencia, Giggs, Duff, Mahrez etc.
Messi?
 

C'est Moi Cantona

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Ajax got £40-50 million from us for DVB, £140 million + for De Ligt and FDJ the year before, they could get £80 million + if they sell Antony to us as well as Haller this season, etc, where does the profit go? They never seem to buy big money players, just produce them.
 

Terranova

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Ajax got £40-50 million from us for DVB, £140 million + for De Ligt and FDJ the year before, they could get £80 million + if they sell Antony to us as well as Haller this season, etc, where does the profit go? They never seem to buy big money players, just produce them.
Massive wages. That's why they can keep players for longer at the club. It's the only way Ajax can at minimum stay at the same level each year. TV Money is only 10 million a year, so it has to come from somewhere.
Oh and the bank, Ajax has a buffer of like €100 million.
 

pocco

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Ajax got £40-50 million from us for DVB, £140 million + for De Ligt and FDJ the year before, they could get £80 million + if they sell Antony to us as well as Haller this season, etc, where does the profit go? They never seem to buy big money players, just produce them.
One day they'll probably just open the war chest and blow the rest of Europe away :lol:
 

NewYorkRed

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Ajax got £40-50 million from us for DVB, £140 million + for De Ligt and FDJ the year before, they could get £80 million + if they sell Antony to us as well as Haller this season, etc, where does the profit go? They never seem to buy big money players, just produce them.
Umm, that’s sort of the point….
 

GledTheRed

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Massive wages. That's why they can keep players for longer at the club. It's the only way Ajax can at minimum stay at the same level each year. TV Money is only 10 million a year, so it has to come from somewhere.
Oh and the bank, Ajax has a buffer of like €100 million.
Really, how much is Antony on out of interest?
 

Terranova

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Really, how much is Antony on out of interest?
Not really public knowledge, but probably a lot less than the 6 million supposedly Haller earns :lol:
Edit: From what i could find Antony is only on €1+ million. So i'm guessing he'll get a big upgrade if he doesn't leave this summer and he probably will with the €60/70 million price tag.
 

Sparky Rhiwabon

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I don’t think Ajax need to sell anyone else now this summer, unless someone offers crazy money. We’ve farted about too much.
 

GledTheRed

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Not really public knowledge, but probably a lot less than the 6 million supposedly Haller earns :lol:
Edit: From what i could find Antony is only on €1+ million. So i'm guessing he'll get a big upgrade if he doesn't leave this summer and he probably will with the €60/70 million price tag.
You would imagine he'll be well up for leaving then and earning the silly money we through about.
 

Terranova

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You would imagine he'll be well up for leaving then and earning the silly money we through about.
Might be. But this is the way it usually goes at Ajax. Clubs want a player, Ajax doesn't sell and instead massively upgrades the wages and promises that they can go the next year. Happened multiple times now, it usually works out fine for Ajax and the player.
 

LordSpud

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Not only that, they are barely trying to make a profit on haller after he scored tons for them whereas with us, they swore an oath to make us eat from garbage bins.
We did waste two years of the career of one of their old players to be fair. They want to play hard ball now.
 
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