‘Ole’s recruitment has been great’ narrative

[Dargonk]

The three signings have been good, but not great. Sure we overpaid for both AWB and Maguire, but they have still both improved the team to some extent at least. What we could say we are doing wrong, is largely only targeting players from other premier league clubs that have no need to sell their players. All it does is drive up prices, and we end up missing out on positions that need players.

The bit that has cost us, and it was obvious before the season started was that we didn't bring in the players in midfield and attack. Which for me is on the board, not Ole. If you gut the squad, and then don't bring in some replacements, it is no surprise that the team doesn't improve.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

It's weird. I like AwB but he's really uncomfortable going forward. Maguire is not a standout CB but a merely good-ish one. At the end of the day if you spend 130/140 million on your defence it should really be elevated. Can't help but feel we could have invested the Maguire 80 million on midfield and an attacking LB instead. He's comfortable on the ball but everything is your run of the mall tough CB you'd find at many clubs. I reckon Leicester suited him. Don't think we'd be any worse off had it been Smalling in his place.

I suppose these players need more time to prove themsleves to be hits (or misses).

 

[VictoriaRed]

Amol...whatever your name is, wow, you're so wrong, kind of. Harry is top quality, in my mind. What if Vida didn't have Rio beside him, then what? He's solid, didn't put a foot wrong today. I mean, he looks a bit laboured tracking back, but he will hopefully improve!

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

I have this feeling in a year or 2, we'll look back on the summer window and think of it as a failure.

 

[Nou_Camp99]

We are keeping less clean sheets than last 4-5 seasons so how has the defence improved? I don't think it has one bit. We look awful defensively and in particular from set pieces we look abysmal.

Maguire isnt much better than Smalling. £80m was a huge mistake.

Wan Bissaka is one of the poorest footballers I have seen at the club. He's a great tackler but has nothing else. Looks like a bottom 6 player on the ball......which is what he was at Palace.

James started well but has faded badly due to him playing more games than he should have.

Transfers 4/10. Another poor return on investment.

 

[elmo]

Amol...whatever your name is, wow, you're so wrong, kind of. Harry is top quality, in my mind. What if Vida didn't have Rio beside him, then what? He's solid, didn't put a foot wrong today. I mean, he looks a bit laboured tracking back, but he will hopefully improve!

He's not shown anything with us that we've not seen with Smalling. If anything, his partnership with Lindelof looks worse than Smalling's.

We should have spent money on other areas rather than buying him.

 

[AbusementPark]

Everyone is slating the defence and new players as failures. Without the rest of the team picking up the slack in their relative positions then it leaves more pressure on the defence. Matic was a passenger today and provided no cover for the defence and we got over run time and time again. AWB is disappointing going forward and doesn't feel comfortable but he's trying to improve on that, he's still young and can develop it. We have too many other mediocre players in the squad that the good players look as bad as them because they are being dragged down.

We beat City away and Maguire looked every bit the 80m player, down to the fact everyone followed the game plan and stuck to their positions and performed, same as the spurs game at home.

We need 4 players this window, and players with experience. Cavani and bale on loan and Fernandes and Soumare as perm transfers. Even if bale plays half the games it will be enough to give James a rest and maybe help his development. With rashy out for a few months, cavani would be a good option to have, even if he is 32.

 

[edgar allan]

We are keeping less clean sheets than last 4-5 seasons so how has the defence improved? I don't think it has one bit. We look awful defensively and in particular from set pieces we look abysmal.

Maguire isnt much better than Smalling. £80m was a huge mistake.

Wan Bissaka is one of the poorest footballers I have seen at the club. He's a great tackler but has nothing else. Looks like a bottom 6 player on the ball......which is what he was at Palace.

James started well but has faded badly due to him playing more games than he should have.

Transfers 4/10. Another poor return on investment.

We look awful defensively in a large part because we have absolutely no midfield and one forward of note who is now injured.
Your comments on WB are nonsense.

 

[devilish]

We look awful defensively in a large part because we have absolutely no midfield and one forward of note who is now injured.
Your comments on WB are nonsense.

That would be true if what we lack is decent defensive minded players. However it's not the case. Both McT and Fred are great engines in CM and Matic is doing fairly well lately. What midfield lack is creativity which hurts the forward line way more then CM

So in my opinion its down to two things

a- lack of coaching. Williams shouldn't have been marking Van Dijk.
b- our new signings, while decent, aren't worth 130m. AWB can't go forward while Maguire is solid but that is all. I think both Palace and Leicester laughed their way to the bank on that one.

 

[Judas]

I don't remember AWB being as dreadful on the ball at Palace as he is here, if he was I'd never have fancied him here really, its painful watching him at times. But he's a young guy and with quality coaching he'll improve.

 

[E-mal]

We look awful defensively in a large part because we have absolutely no midfield and one forward of note who is now injured.
Your comments on WB are nonsense.

How did you come to that conclusion?
What is obvious is that we did not get value for money for the players signed.
Maguire and AWB are not worth anywhere near what we paid.

 

[Massive Spanner]

I do think AWB and Maguire will be here for the long haul so calling them "poor" transfers is a bit overblown. We did completely overpay for both of them, though. I think Maguire was arguably more the wrong transfer to make in the summer and we could've spent the £80m better elsewhere, but he's here now and despite being nowhere near an £80m player he's still good enough for a top four side.

James.. could go either way. I think he'll be a squad player at best here and at worst he'll end up nowhere near good enough and be gone to a mid table side in a few years.

Ultimately it was another summer where we simply made the obvious signings instead of the correct ones and where we arguably bought in the wrong areas and ignored our problem areas yet again, and letting Smalling go whilst keeping dross like Lindelof and Jones was unforgivable.

I'm not sure how a club spends £140m and comes out with a weaker squad but we managed to do it, very impressive, really.

 

[Nou_Camp99]

We look awful defensively in a large part because we have absolutely no midfield and one forward of note who is now injured.
Your comments on WB are nonsense.

Not nonsense. I have said he's a very good defender (even though he didn't defend well yesterday) but on the ball I have had an issue with him all season. He's crap mate. He looks like a bottom half footballer in possession. People just making excuses for him. Brandon looks a better player and he's playing on his wrong side ffs.

People were saying he was best right back in league because they know feck all. Trent is fecking miles better. It's not even close.

Don't even think he's as good as Doherty at Wolves.

 

[E-mal]

Amol...whatever your name is, wow, you're so wrong, kind of. Harry is top quality, in my mind. What if Vida didn't have Rio beside him, then what? He's solid, didn't put a foot wrong today. I mean, he looks a bit laboured tracking back, but he will hopefully improve!

Victoria or whatever your name is, wow, you're so wrong, kind of. Harry is not top quality, in my mind, at best decent and for what we paid, I think we were fleeced.
He put many foot wrong today, for someone that big, he is very poor in the air.

 

[SteveW]

Should we list out LVG and Jose's signings for comparison???

Ole has signed 3 good players and zero shit ones so far. More of that and we'll be fine.

 

[AneRu]

I do think AWB and Maguire will be here for the long haul so calling them "poor" transfers is a bit overblown. We did completely overpay for both of them, though. I think Maguire was arguably more the wrong transfer to make in the summer and we could've spent the £80m better elsewhere, but he's here now and despite being nowhere near an £80m player he's still good enough for a top four side.

James.. could go either way. I think he'll be a squad player at best here and at worst he'll end up nowhere near good enough and be gone to a mid table side in a few years.

Ultimately it was another summer where we simply made the obvious signings instead of the correct ones and where we arguably bought in the wrong areas and ignored our problem areas yet again, and letting Smalling go whilst keeping dross like Lindelof and Jones was unforgivable.

I'm not sure how a club spends £140m and comes out with a weaker squad but we managed to do it, very impressive, really.

This is our problem in general and, as has been proven over the last few years, if you ignore the balance of the side when making transfer deals the team will inevitably suffer. I think the problem, to avoid going back all the way to 2013, started when we signed Fred and ignored RW and CB which later affected us last season and by the time the season had ended we had lost Herrera, a player who plugged so many hole even if he wasn't that great whilst still needing a CB and we just didn't do enough a fact which amplified by having an 80m defender whilst having no midfield depth at all.

 

[Massive Spanner]

Should we list out LVG and Jose's signings for comparison???

Ole has signed 3 good players and zero shit ones so far. More of that and we'll be fine.

What's the point in doing that? How is it relevant to discussing OGS's signings?

People need to quit with the whataboutism. Ole should be judged on his own merit, not the known failings of our previous managers.

 

[devilish]

I do think AWB and Maguire will be here for the long haul so calling them "poor" transfers is a bit overblown. We did completely overpay for both of them, though. I think Maguire was arguably more the wrong transfer to make in the summer and we could've spent the £80m better elsewhere, but he's here now and despite being nowhere near an £80m player he's still good enough for a top four side.

James.. could go either way. I think he'll be a squad player at best here and at worst he'll end up nowhere near good enough and be gone to a mid table side in a few years.

Ultimately it was another summer where we simply made the obvious signings instead of the correct ones and where we arguably bought in the wrong areas and ignored our problem areas yet again, and letting Smalling go whilst keeping dross like Lindelof and Jones was unforgivable.

I'm not sure how a club spends £140m and comes out with a weaker squad but we managed to do it, very impressive, really.

I don't think anyone will ever call them poor signings.

a- they are British so there's serious bias here. Few would label Jones and Shaw as bad signings.
b- they will fall into the category of being decent but not WC players in the same way the likes of Lindelof, Blomqvist, May, Heinze category etc ie they will be good but not WC.

The issue is the price. There's no way AWB is worth 50m and Maguire is worth 80m.

 

[Judas]

I don't think anyone will ever call them poor signings.

a- they are British so there's serious bias here. Few would label Jones and Shaw as bad signings.
b- they will fall into the category of being decent but not WC players in the same way the likes of Lindelof, Blomqvist, May, Heinze category etc ie they will be good but not WC.

The issue is the price. There's no way AWB is worth 50m and Maguire is worth 80m.

Few would label Jones a bad signing? Eh? I think when we signed him most were excited, but overall of course he's been a bad signing, you'd struggle to find anyone who thinks otherwise.

 

[Adisa]

They haven't pulled up any trees. Not been poor either.

 

[Massive Spanner]

I don't think anyone will ever call them poor signings.

a- they are British so there's serious bias here. Few would label Jones and Shaw as bad signings.
b- they will fall into the category of being decent but not WC players in the same way the likes of Lindelof, Blomqvist, May, Heinze category etc ie they will be good but not WC.

The issue is the price. There's no way AWB is worth 50m and Maguire is worth 80m.

What? Both were terrible signings.

 

[Kush]

What's the point in doing that? How is it relevant to discussing OGS's signings?

People need to quit with the whataboutism. Ole should be judged on his own merit, not the known failings of our previous managers.

It is not, but take a look at the poster you're quoting. You'll get more out of talking to a wall than him.

£150m is what every single one of them spent in their first window, few months down the line most players turned out to be not so good. Shit buys eventually caught up to them and ending up costing them their job. It's gonna be same for Ole, 2 are marginal improvements over what we had (AWB and James) and I'm still unsure on whether Maguire is an improvement on Smalling or not, but for that sort of money you'd expect substantial improvements.

 

[SpyLuke10]

Wan-Bissaka and James have been great signings. Maguire a good one too but definitely not 'great' so far, and definitely a bit overpriced, but I'd rather us do that than go into the next season with a gaping hole in our team. Maguire is consistently fit which is a breath of fresh air from Rojo, Jones and Bailly always being injured, and Tuanzebe as well so far this season. He also prefers the left side which only Rojo also prefers and Rojo is never fit so having Maguire is great for team balance in this way. Plus hes a bit of a leader apparently, hes been made captain for a reason.

 

[SpyLuke10]

It is not, but take a look at the poster you're quoting. You'll get more out of talking to a wall than him.

£150m is what every single one of them spent in their first window, few months down the line most players turned out to be not so good. Shit buys eventually caught up to them and ending up costing them their job. It's gonna be same for Ole, 2 are marginal improvements over what we had (AWB and James) and I'm still unsure on whether Maguire is an improvement on Smalling or not, but for that sort of money you'd expect substantial improvements.

How is AWB a marginal improvement? Hes world class defensively.

 

[Fiskey]

Means nothing we severely overpaid for Maguire and could have got a better player for less

I don't know if we could've got a better player for less. There aren't many decent CBs out there, City have bought Mangala, Otamendi, Stones and Laporte for £40m+ each and you would say only Laporte has been a success. We needed someone who would guarantee a level, and Maguire is the only player I can think of.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

It is not, but take a look at the poster you're quoting. You'll get more out of talking to a wall than him.

£150m is what every single one of them spent in their first window, few months down the line most players turned out to be not so good. Shit buys eventually caught up to them and ending up costing them their job. It's gonna be same for Ole, 2 are marginal improvements over what we had (AWB and James) and I'm still unsure on whether Maguire is an improvement on Smalling or not, but for that sort of money you'd expect substantial improvements.

I said it to @SteveW in another thread, in January (game 23) of their first seasons most fans were pleased with both manager's business.

LvG was on 43 points and Shaw, Blind, Herrera all looked like they were gonna be good long term signings for us.

Same for Jose after game 23, United were on 42 points and Bailly was loved, Miki was starting to settle, Pogba looked a signing to take United back to the top.

But as Massive Spanner says, enough of the whataboutism, for a start we're not even certain any longer with our new transfer committee and strategy that James, AWB or Maguire were even Ole signings, they could and probably are club signings. So the biggest positive many have here to defend Ole's horrific 23 games points tally this season might be only 20% due to him anyway.

 

[Fiskey]

What? Both were terrible signings.

Disagree, injuries and perhaps lack of heart have meant both haven't reached their potential but they are the profile of player Manchester United should be buying.

 

[devilish]

What? Both were terrible signings.

Still, people were far more patient with them when compared to the likes of Darmian, Taibi and co. Which is fair enough really. Its common for local players to be judged less harshly then foreign imports.

 

[devilish]

Few would label Jones a bad signing? Eh? I think when we signed him most were excited, but overall of course he's been a bad signing, you'd struggle to find anyone who thinks otherwise.

He was a bad signing but he get away with things far more then foreign imports do. The very fact that he's still at United is kind of a clear example of that. Which is fair enough really. Foreign flops do tend to be more criticised then local flops irrespective in which country they play in. I

 

[Kush]

How is AWB a marginal improvement? Hes world class defensively.

Good thing a modern fullback is required to do a lot more than just excelling at one aspect. I like him but he's very limited going forward, people are critical of Young and Shaws' attacking abilities but they both managed 5 and 6 goal contribution respectively in PL last season. AWB has only 1 so far, if you judge the overall impact he's had on the side i.e. both in defence and attack, it's fair to say he's only been a marginal improvement over what he had available to us there before.

The positive is his age, he's very young so with competent coaches and manager in the near future, that aspect can be worked upon and improved.

I said it to @SteveW in another thread, in January (game 23) of their first seasons most fans were pleased with both manager's business.

LvG was on 43 points and Shaw, Blind, Herrera all looked like they were gonna be good long term signings for us.

Same for Jose after game 23, United were on 42 points and Bailly was loved, Miki was starting to settle, Pogba looked a signing to take United back to the top.

I'm sure that person is full aware about how signings are judged early on. Fans are always excited with new players and only start to notice their flaws and actual quality after a while. 'Good recruitment' is one of few things which can be used to back Ole, hence they constantly parrot it in every thread to deflect the criticism.

But as Massive Spanner says, enough of the whataboutism, for a start we're not even certain any longer with our new transfer committee and strategy that James, AWB or Maguire were even Ole signings, they could and probably are club signings. So the biggest positive many have here to defend Ole's horrific 23 games points tally this season might be only 20% due to him anyway.

I know it's difficult to take Ole words at face value, but I highly doubt these signings were made by a certain transfer committee. It has Oles' fingerprints all over it, the same with certain players who've been sold, and existing players whose contracts have been renewed.

 

[Massive Spanner]

Disagree, injuries and perhaps lack of heart have meant both haven't reached their potential but they are the profile of player Manchester United should be buying.

What you've done there is prove my point.

 

[R'hllor]

What's the point in doing that? How is it relevant to discussing OGS's signings?

People need to quit with the whataboutism. Ole should be judged on his own merit, not the known failings of our previous managers.

When gets tough,make a finger gun and shout " pew pew..."

 

[SteveW]

So are they actually bad signings that Ole made or good signings that the club made without him? Those are the two scenarios being consistently floated in this obviously agenda free thread.

 

[Enigma_87]

So are they actually bad signings that Ole made or good signings that the club made without him? Those are the two scenarios being consistently floated in this obviously agenda free thread.

It's the same type of signings that we use to make in the last 6 years with the Brexit label added to it (couple of millions more because they are British).

Absolutely no improvement or something to brag about.

Overpaid for Maguire, overpaid for AWB who might not be useful for the next manager in line(if he's looking for attacking RB) and James after a bright start looks like okish rotational player.

 

[Cassidy]

I don't know if we could've got a better player for less. There aren't many decent CBs out there, City have bought Mangala, Otamendi, Stones and Laporte for £40m+ each and you would say only Laporte has been a success. We needed someone who would guarantee a level, and Maguire is the only player I can think of.

Upamencato would have been a better purchase, and would have been a lot cheaper. Maguire doesn't guarantee any level as we have seen before and after his purchase. No point ringing off names of players City bought

 

[Siorac]

I think all three summer signings have performed as well as could be realistically expected.

James is a 21-year old bought from the Championship for 15M. That is exactly how he played, too.

Wan Bissaka: we knew he was very good defensively while mediocre at best in attack. That's exactly what he showed here.

Maguire was a decent CB who is reasonably comfortable on the ball but lacks pace which can cause problems. That's exactly what we've seen at United, too.

It's been quite predictable. I sincerely hope the coaching staff didn't expect anything different from them and these are the kind of qualities they had in mind when they decided to sign them.

 

[DomesticTadpole]

It's weird. I like AwB but he's really uncomfortable going forward. Maguire is not a standout CB but a merely good-ish one. At the end of the day if you spend 130/140 million on your defence it should really be elevated. Can't help but feel we could have invested the Maguire 80 million on midfield and an attacking LB instead. He's comfortable on the ball but everything is your run of the mall tough CB you'd find at many clubs. I reckon Leicester suited him. Don't think we'd be any worse off had it been Smalling in his place.

I suppose these players need more time to prove themsleves to be hits (or misses).

The thing with AWB might have been to sign an actual right winger, not another left winger and force the kid to play on the right. AWB would then have someone competent at crossing and running from the right and he could concentrate on what he does best and that is defending.

 

[hobbers]

Fred is now looking like a genuinely superior signing to all 3 of Ole's. Shows how quickly things can change.

 

[Alabaster Codify7]

His signings have been 'good'. But therein lies the problem - our standards and expectations have been lowered so much that 'good' is the new 'great' for us nowadays. All three have gone backwards as well, which is indicative of poor coaching at the club. This is a theme for more or less every signing we've made since 2013, also - the poor coaching at United is a huge problem.

 

[edgar allan]

Not nonsense. I have said he's a very good defender (even though he didn't defend well yesterday) but on the ball I have had an issue with him all season. He's crap mate. He looks like a bottom half footballer in possession. People just making excuses for him. Brandon looks a better player and he's playing on his wrong side ffs.

People were saying he was best right back in league because they know feck all. Trent is fecking miles better. It's not even close.

Don't even think he's as good as Doherty at Wolves.

Silly people were saying that he was the best in the league.....he has easily been our best though.