5 for the price of one Lukaku - could this be our most shrewd window post Fergie?

[ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg]

No. Replaced Lukaku who scored 38 goals last year in Italy with Cavani who scored 7 goals last year in a much easier league.

Lukaku was replaced by a combination of Martial, Greenwood and Rashford. All of which had their best ever goal scoring season. Outscoring Liverpool’s front three.

Cavani is here to add depth to that front line. Lukaku is irrelevant.

 

[Ali Dia]

Yet we haven’t actually plugged any leaking gaps. No DM, no CB and no RW

which is just crazy when you think about it. Fans are happy with signings but from a planning and PR standpoint this window was an absolute disaster

 

[Craig Ward]

I'm actually really optimistic about the signings we've made relative to the fees we've paid. But the lack of proper first-team signings to improve us in positions that badly needed improving casts a negative shadow over the transfer window.

I don't think you could ever call it a shrewd window when we failed to address the claring weaknesses in our squad. That doesn't mean the signings won't turn out well, though.

Completely agree.

Diallo and Pellistri might turn out to be great business, I'm certain Donny will get a starting spot and keep it soon enough. Cavani IS better than Ighalo even though it's a bit of an uninspiring signing and it may take him 4-8 weeks to be match sharp.

But to go a whole window without signing a RW who comes in NOW and improves us and a CB, along with a defensive midfielder is beyond incompetent.

I'm also really really disappointed with the out-goings. To only permanently offload Sanchez and Smalling isn't good enough. We needed 6-8 players gone from this club on permanent deals.

Shrewd wouldnt be a word i'd use to summarise this transfer window thats for sure

 

[CG1010]

Even without Sancho, we have some of the best attacking prospects between age of 18-22 and Martial who also had an open ceiling in terms of possible growth.

We really should focus on ensuring that this season isn't wasted and atleast 2 of these develop into world class players like Rooney-Ronaldo.

 

[Amadaeus]

Glad you agree with my sentiment. It seems like you saw my post and agreed with me. It was the type of window we will see under Sir Alex. Excited to see all these players debut.

Also didn’t realize we spent£75m.

 

[youmeletsfly]

What's good about the window is that we seem to have signed technical players.

I'm sick of seeing the likes of Matic, Martial, AWB and the overrated little british golden boy not being able to stop a fecking ball or to hit a 20 yard pass.

 

[Sky1981]

People thinking telles gonna be succesful wingback. He'll never be under the current team, a bombing full back..... imagine what the oppo will do on our 2 exposed CB

 

[AFC NimbleThumb]

What the ****.

 

[Lash]

£75.15m before performance related add-ons

Cavani
Telles
Van De Beek
Diallo
Pellistri

Bit of optimism perhaps?

Very much so. It's a shame we couldn't pull off our main target and I still think there is more to address next window if we can, but I'm happy considering a Sancho-less window was always going to be somewhat of a disappointment.

 

[tjb]

Last year's starting eleven wasn't bad. We just needed real depth which we've gone a way to solving.

The unknown factor is the defence falling off a cliff compared to last season

That might be structure. Plus we already have Mengi and Tuanzebe in the wing who we have yet to test out. I don't feel comfortable yet dropping the amount of money required for a centre back in the current market. They all look like risks, especially for the price tags. For me its better for us to see fully what we have before we blow the budget on a potentially average centre back. Even De Ligt doesn't look like a guarantee.

 

[tjb]

Lukaku was replaced by a combination of Martial, Greenwood and Rashford. All of which had their best ever goal scoring season. Outscoring Liverpool’s front three.

Cavani is here to add depth to that front line. Lukaku is irrelevant.

Lukaku scored around 7 goals with us in his last season, why? becaause we knew he was leaving, similar to Cavani. He only started 7 league games and 1 champions league the whole of last season.

 

[Oldyella]

Last year's starting eleven wasn't bad. We just needed real depth which we've gone a way to solving.

The unknown factor is the defence falling off a cliff compared to last season

Kind of agree, but ideally you want incoming players to go into the first 11, improving that and pushing them onto the bench, which gives you your depth. Still, cant say I'm not excited by a couple of unknown wingers coming in and seeing what they have. Club obviously left all this way too late which let negativity fester but it's still early in the season.

 

[The White Pele]

For this to be viewed as a positive window it probably needs 2 of Telles/Pellestri/Traore to be Vidic/Evra style successes.

 

[ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg]

Lukaku scored around 7 goals with us in his last season, why? becaause we knew he was leaving, similar to Cavani. He only started 7 league games and 1 champions league the whole of last season.

I don’t understand your point? We had already replaced Lukaku.

 

[Classical Mechanic]

Lukaku scored around 7 goals with us in his last season, why? becaause we knew he was leaving, similar to Cavani. He only started 7 league games and 1 champions league the whole of last season.

Cavani barely played last season, he made 7 starts for PSG.

 

[tjb]

I don’t understand your point? We had already replaced Lukaku.

I'm saying that discussing Cavani's goal tally last season is as mute as Inter discussing Lukaku's in his last season at United. Both were frozen out and Cavani was also injured for parts of the season, therefore he only scored 7 total because he only started around 10 games and the French league also ended early.

 

[AltiUn]

I hope we've signed the right personalities. I want more people like Fernandes in the team, Cavani I'm sure will be a great personality and player to have around. I've got a really positive feeling about Pellistri and Diallo, there's just something very "Man United" about those type of signings. If all our signings work out then it can be considered a shrewd window, I have a feeling we're bound to have at least 1 dud though.

We need to sort out what on earth has happened to the defence. Something's changed because all of our defenders and midfielders suddenly have no idea how to defend. Maybe it's the wingers not tracking back, Matic being immobile, De Gea never coming off his line, I don't know if we need to tweak the system or we need to change the personnel up a bit but whatever's happening at the moment ain't working.

 

[mu4c_20le]

Yet we haven’t actually plugged any leaking gaps. No DM, no CB and no RW

We signed two RW while still leaving the door open for Jadon.

 

[DickDastardly]

Problem is we needed 2-3 players who would strengthen the first XI right now. We haven't come anywhere close to doing that. Arguably Telles is the only that does that but the jury is still out on whether he manages to make the LB position his own.

Signing prospects like Diallo and Pellistri should be in addition to strengthening the first XI, not as a direct replacement. In football you need to have both short term and long term thoughts in your head at the same time. We're somehow always doing one or the other.

This window seems like a 'tanking' of the 20/21 season. While teams around us have strengthened their starting XIs and probably leapfrogged us in the short term, we're hoping our investment works out in the longer run. Problem is we're taking a massive gamble because each season without CL is disastrous from both an economical and a sporting perspective. The likes of Camavinga, Sancho, Haaland will probably be leaving within the next 12-18 months and without CL there is no chance of picking up players of that calibre. We needed to stamp our authority this summer and take the next step but just like any other season after finishing in the top 4 under Woodward, we failed to do so.

Honestly, looking at our first team, don't actually think we need that much improvement.

We just need better coaches.

Not to bring Liverpool into equasion needlesly, but we do need to compare ourselves to the current champions.

Our front three are au pair.
Firminho - Martial.
Rashford - Mane
Greenwood - Salah. (ok, Mason is still much younger but we could argue that there is quality)

Our midfield should be better, at least on paper.
But, as we see, football matches aren't won on paper.

If only someone could properly coach this team, i believe we have a good team.

I see the point you made, we could have gone for Partey, or Havertz, or Werner in order to improve our first XI, but see what prices they went for?

I like the long run planning, and if Cavani can bag a couple of late goals the likes of Crouchy or Fellaini, he'll be a great addition.

And if Telles is good enough, he'll be in the FT in no time.

So, there's prospects, competition for first XI and late winner goals in this window.

What we should be after in the market are coaches!!!
And a new manager, but that's a different topic.

 

[Ali Dia]

We haven’t recently been a shrewd outfit by any means but we are firmly stuck between the 2 things now. If we overpay and the player bombs we don’t know what we are at. If we don’t spend enough we aren’t serious about winning anymore. Something has to give. There is a recruitment sweet spot that the likes of Dortmund, Liverpool, Munich, Spurs/Leicester, RBL etc operate in which seems to provide the most value. Signings up to around 40/50 million. All of our signings for over 50 million have been patchy at best. Maguire, Lukaku, Pogba, Di Maria and so on and it’s clear that the major money movers over the last few years have almost all provided a poor return on investment. Sancho was the best possible signing for this season but he was also clearly the most expensive player out there and it’s very disappointing but if this is the summer we finally get tougher on overpaying then fair enough. Change is always painful at the start. Players might start agitating to join us or run their contracts down more often if we stay quiet and keep offering the big wages but not always the big transfer fees. The problem is it’s still Ed and the glazers calling the shots and they have been the major problem this past seven years because they will neither lead nor follow. I think there are probably too many glazers involved and major decisions are taking way too long to execute due to there being so many people involved in the process and controlling the purse strings.

 

[Lennon7]

Except for the two right wingers?

Both unproven, one not coming until Jan and probably will get 10 appearances between them. It doesn’t plug a gap, no.

 

[johnny1980]

short answer no
time will tell but im betting cavani is a busted flush and the 2 young lads will be another james in disguise
dvb looks good and jury is out on telles but make no mistake this is a extremely poor window

 

[Lennon7]

which is just crazy when you think about it. Fans are happy with signings but from a planning and PR standpoint this window was an absolute disaster

And it’s not like there weren’t any options, either. Arsenal just got Partey so he was clearly available, Sancho was desperate to join and we were linked to clear upgrades on what we have such as Pau Torres and Upemecano

 

[AltiUn]

Both unproven, one not coming until Jan and probably will get 10 appearances between them. It doesn’t plug a gap, no.

We've still got Greenwood there who scored 17 from the right last season.

 

[AltiUn]

And it’s not like there weren’t any options, either. Arsenal just got Partey so he was clearly available, Sancho was desperate to join and we were linked to clear upgrades on what we have such as Pau Torres and Upemecano

Arsenal was Partey's dream move, there was absolutely no chance we would've got him. Also Torres and Upamecano both stayed at their current clubs so it's not like we missed out on them, they may well have wanted to stay put for another year of their development, in fact Upamecano said as much and he signed a contract extension.

 

[Lennon7]

We've still got Greenwood there who scored 17 from the right last season.

I know, but he’s a striker. We still had Young at left back for ages which worked to an extent but we were still screaming our for an actual left back. It makes the world of difference playing players in their natural positions.

Plus, as much as I rate Martial he can be incredibly inconsistent. Imagine Cavani, Martial and Greenwood fighting it out for the CF position.

 

[kafta]

At the start of the window i thought our priorities should be a RW, CB and CDM.

We didn't plug any of those holes.

But i do think that Telles and Cavani are actually good signings, and we could've definitely used VdB at the end of last season, so im sure by the end of this season, we'd be glad we got him.

I'm happy with who we've signed, but i'm just unhappy we didnt get any of the priority positions sorted (RW, CB, CDM)

 

[SER19]

Kind of agree, but ideally you want incoming players to go into the first 11, improving that and pushing them onto the bench, which gives you your depth. Still, cant say I'm not excited by a couple of unknown wingers coming in and seeing what they have. Club obviously left all this way too late which let negativity fester but it's still early in the season.

The glimmer of hope is that city and Liverpool have both been pummelled too. I suspect it might be a season like no other with all that's going on.

 

[SER19]

That might be structure. Plus we already have Mengi and Tuanzebe in the wing who we have yet to test out. I don't feel comfortable yet dropping the amount of money required for a centre back in the current market. They all look like risks, especially for the price tags. For me its better for us to see fully what we have before we blow the budget on a potentially average centre back. Even De Ligt doesn't look like a guarantee.

Yeah upamecano is the only one that really excites me and I might be wrong but supposedly he can be got for less in future?

Aside from set pieces our defence was actually good last season and I really pray this has just been a horror start, like the side that let in 11 in 2 games in 96.

 

[Stig]

I am really surprised at the positivity in this thread. I expected people to say:-

"The house is falling down but we bought a few cheap rolls of Sellotape - because - they were cheap."

 

[tenpoless]

But... but... Bayern, Chumpa Mouthing, etc.

 

[acnumber9]

It’s never shrewd to ignore gaping holes in your team. And it doesn’t matter how good the other players may turn out to be.

 

[Irwin99]

Was the overall net spend 50 million again? Think Ole or someone did say that Bruno was bought with summer funds, so I guess we take that into account.

 

[Mr PG]

Diallo and Pellistri look to be as good as Greenwood if not better (Greenwood finishing way superior thought). There are not many players good at keeping the ball in our current team and who want the ball. These boys will be an improvement even on Rashford and Martial. Martial and Rashford have their strengths and Martial at one time looked destined for great things but you have to admit something just never worked out and he has great moments but consistency has never been there.
I love natural footballers and on the current team the only players I would classify as natural footballers (smooth intelligent players) are Greenwood , Fernandes and VDB

 

[ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg]

Diallo and Pellistri look to be as good as Greenwood if not better (Greenwood finishing way superior thought). There are not many players good at keeping the ball in our current team and who want the ball. These boys will be an improvement even on Rashford and Martial. Martial and Rashford have their strengths and Martial at one time looked destined for great things but you have to admit something just never worked out and he has great moments but consistency has never been there.
I love natural footballers and on the current team the only players I would classify as natural footballers (smooth intelligent players) are Greenwood , Fernandes and VDB

You have decided that these two will be an improvement on Rashford and Martial, who have both already played over 200 games each for the first team?

Based on what? How many times have you seen either play?

 

[sp_107]

According to you , We still need a good CF, RW. DM and a CD after spending 900M+ in last 8 years. Shambles

 

[sp_107]

You can also add willy kambwala to the list

 

[gerdm07]

What's good about the window is that we seem to have signed technical players.

I'm sick of seeing the likes of Matic, Martial, AWB and the overrated little british golden boy not being able to stop a fecking ball or to hit a 20 yard pass.

I assume you are speaking of rashford. "Little" threw me off for second. I agree his passing and ball control is atrocious.

 

[LoneStar]

I’m unsure at this point. None of them are obvious starters and two of them are unknown youngsters who could go any way.

it has the potential to be one of our best or worst transfer windows. Only time will tell I suppose.

 

[Devil may care]

No, considering none of them start except Telles and only if we switch to 3-5-2.