Marcus Thuram was available on a free
A striker who doesn't score goals, a keeper who costs us points, and a midfielder who is never fit. Our marquee Summer signings have NOT improved us.
- Thread starter The Oracle
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They've all been shite and haven't improved us one iota.
Maybe that will change. Maybe I'll win the lottery. Stay tuned.
Maybe that will change. Maybe I'll win the lottery. Stay tuned.
And there lies the problem. Following a pretty successful season, we should have been looking to push on this one. Unfortunately, due to the wrong profile of signings, we've regressed.
That being said, I was all for Onana. A ball playing keeper was what exactly we needed. Unfortunately, he's been below par with his shot stopping abilities.
Hojlund and Mount have disappointed. Every man and his dog knew we needed a ball playing number 8. Basically, someone like Eriksen who could play with more intensity. Whilst Mount gives us that intensity and running off the ball, he's anything but a ball playing midfielder, and the combination of he and Bruno hasn't really worked.
Whilst I've been impressed with Holjlund's hold up play, ultimately, a striker will be judged on goals, and other than the CL, which we're now currently out of, he's yet to score.
At the time, I said how much of a priority Kane should have been. Not only would he have scored plenty of goals, but he'd have transformed our attack, in that he so often makes the right decision - something our attacking players often struggle with.
Having said all of that, it is what it is, and we'll have to try and make it work, but yet again our recruitment has been poor. That's not to say Mount and Hojlund are poor players by the way, but the wrong profile of player.
That being said, I was all for Onana. A ball playing keeper was what exactly we needed. Unfortunately, he's been below par with his shot stopping abilities.
Hojlund and Mount have disappointed. Every man and his dog knew we needed a ball playing number 8. Basically, someone like Eriksen who could play with more intensity. Whilst Mount gives us that intensity and running off the ball, he's anything but a ball playing midfielder, and the combination of he and Bruno hasn't really worked.
Whilst I've been impressed with Holjlund's hold up play, ultimately, a striker will be judged on goals, and other than the CL, which we're now currently out of, he's yet to score.
At the time, I said how much of a priority Kane should have been. Not only would he have scored plenty of goals, but he'd have transformed our attack, in that he so often makes the right decision - something our attacking players often struggle with.
Having said all of that, it is what it is, and we'll have to try and make it work, but yet again our recruitment has been poor. That's not to say Mount and Hojlund are poor players by the way, but the wrong profile of player.
I said it on August 15th:
It's no surprise the season has gone like it has done.
The idea that it wasn’t possible to sign a striker who could manage a single goal or assist as we approach the halfway mark of the season for £70m is pretty hard to get my head around.
On the contrary. Had we signed them up in Sep for example, they would have avoid injury and perhaps a much better Oct-Dec period. Went to USA was a disaster, only Dalot returned fit and going concern. (OK, add Maguire and McTom)
Bad recruitment.
Ifs and buts are not enough for me to cover up that our centre forward is tucking into his pigs in blankets having scored 0 league goals.
I’m not saying he’ll never come good, but saying “if he scores his next 200 he’ll have more PL goals than Andy Cole” sounds a bit desperate.
Watkins wouldn’t be on 0, DCL probably would.
Onana is a good keeper and if we can ever get the whole team playing well, he will improve us further. At the moment he has fallen to the same curse that affects all our players.
Hojlund looks good but he is a kid that should be getting 20 minutes at the end of games and learning from our main strikers. We're setting him up to fail.
Mount is bewildering. The embodiment of a nothing player and everybody knew it.
Hojlund looks good but he is a kid that should be getting 20 minutes at the end of games and learning from our main strikers. We're setting him up to fail.
Mount is bewildering. The embodiment of a nothing player and everybody knew it.
It’s a fans forum where we talk about players and the club. If we can’t mention that we are nearly half way through the season, and our shiny new CF has less league goals than Dalot, Lindelof and Varane, what are we doing here?
Should we close the player performance thread when a player has a bad game so the “toxic” fans don’t hurt their feelings?
Nobody is slamming Højlund or saying anything out of order or writing him off. But we can’t ignore those 0 league goals.
Hopefully he will come good. He doesn’t need to “prove anyone wrong” because he’s not been written off.
It's another pendulum swing.
We've gone from throwing big money at established players to lift the squad, to throwing big money at projects that aren't going to offer an immediate improvement. And make no mistake, all of our signings were projects.
Every outfield player we signed in the summer joined injured, or just off an injury plagued season. Half of them were badly out of form too. In Mount's case, not only did he have both of those points to contend with, but he's also been asked - in the fleeting moments he's been available - to learn a new position on the job. With the benefit of hindsight, the fact that he's been out so much makes more of a mockery of the deal - we've paid £55m to nurse a player back to health with that one.
At a certain point the Hojlund deal will have to come in for serious criticism too. If you spend £72m on a striker and he can't score you a single league goal by December, you have to ask serious questions. As for his all round game, it hasn't really been much to write home about, if we're being honest. The best that can be said about it is that he does a number of things that you would expect a more experienced number 9 to do. Hardly a "shut up and take my money" level of play.
He isn't ready to be starting - he wasn't at Atalanta, and he isn't here either. He should be coming on to run at tired defences after an hour or so - basically where Garnacho was last season at 18. But in signing him and knowing you've still only got Martial to rely on, we've essentially written off the striker position again, for as long as it takes to develop Hojlund (and developing players has hardly been our forte) or actually get one in who can do the job.
All 3 marquee signings may well come good eventually. But they've been no help whatsoever in the short term, and that could force the club to undo a lot of the progress we made last season.
The takeaway, for me, is that we should be finding the right balance in terms of recruitment. Don't go big on players you'll be committed to well into their thirties, but likewise don't bet the house on players with barely 1800 minutes of Serie A football to their name. Players loosely in the 23-26 bracket, coming off a good couple of seasons, with good injury records, who might not be flashy but do offer an obvious improvement in the here and now. You'll still get the odd miss, sure, but it saves you wanting to immediately recruit more/less experienced versions of the same player every window.
We've gone from throwing big money at established players to lift the squad, to throwing big money at projects that aren't going to offer an immediate improvement. And make no mistake, all of our signings were projects.
Every outfield player we signed in the summer joined injured, or just off an injury plagued season. Half of them were badly out of form too. In Mount's case, not only did he have both of those points to contend with, but he's also been asked - in the fleeting moments he's been available - to learn a new position on the job. With the benefit of hindsight, the fact that he's been out so much makes more of a mockery of the deal - we've paid £55m to nurse a player back to health with that one.
At a certain point the Hojlund deal will have to come in for serious criticism too. If you spend £72m on a striker and he can't score you a single league goal by December, you have to ask serious questions. As for his all round game, it hasn't really been much to write home about, if we're being honest. The best that can be said about it is that he does a number of things that you would expect a more experienced number 9 to do. Hardly a "shut up and take my money" level of play.
He isn't ready to be starting - he wasn't at Atalanta, and he isn't here either. He should be coming on to run at tired defences after an hour or so - basically where Garnacho was last season at 18. But in signing him and knowing you've still only got Martial to rely on, we've essentially written off the striker position again, for as long as it takes to develop Hojlund (and developing players has hardly been our forte) or actually get one in who can do the job.
All 3 marquee signings may well come good eventually. But they've been no help whatsoever in the short term, and that could force the club to undo a lot of the progress we made last season.
The takeaway, for me, is that we should be finding the right balance in terms of recruitment. Don't go big on players you'll be committed to well into their thirties, but likewise don't bet the house on players with barely 1800 minutes of Serie A football to their name. Players loosely in the 23-26 bracket, coming off a good couple of seasons, with good injury records, who might not be flashy but do offer an obvious improvement in the here and now. You'll still get the odd miss, sure, but it saves you wanting to immediately recruit more/less experienced versions of the same player every window.
Not suggesting closing player performance threads or suggesting they should be protected from opinions and criticism. You personally may not be writing him off but there are already many comments stating that he is a flop, not good enough for the PL and so on.
When a club is in a spiral as we have been for a good few years now, there is a certain type of unpleasant fandom that seems to revel in the misery and cannot wait to pile on the next target. We have seen this repeatedly with our players and managers in recent years and whilst a lot of the negativity comes from the ABU media and rival fans it is seeded by some of the over the top negativity that the minority of fans love to fuel.
For Rasmus, I think we can all see there are some good raw tools there and his CL and International goals show the potential. It is indisputable that he should not have been signed to be the savior of our forward line as a barely experienced 20 year old and he is suffering from the weight of far too much expectation coupled with the abysmal play of the team around him. A well run club would have signed a veteran, a Giroud like figure maybe, who could split time with him and act as a mentor. We are not a well run club and instead dithered over signing a forward, backed ourselves into a corner and then overpaid for a player who is not ready and then threw him to the wolves. I would just hope that supporters can see that he is in dire need of developing and better support from coaches and teammates alike and we resist the urge to dog pile on every bad performance.
Its correct that they havent improved us other than maybe Hoijlund in the champions league where he has a good record and we didnt have a striker with a good record last season, we just had Rashford.
Onana has to some degree changed how we play and occasionally makes a great pass with his feet but when its like once or twice a game its not changing a lot. He's a lot more composed than DDG when the ball is played back to him but the problem is, then we're even more comfortable and happy to go back to the goalkeeper and spend the majority of our time with the ball with the CBs and goalkeeper not making any progress forward. And thats not hurting anyone nor do I think the fans want to spend much time watching that. That shouldnt be our plan A.
Mount has been injured too much and when he has played he's had maybe 2 good games, every other game he barely got involved and when he did finally pick the ball up 30-35 yards from goal he had bad touches and lost the ball. He didnt make enough of the ball when he did have it in attack.
However... I think the main thing is last seasons' signings that did dramatically improve us, Casemiro and Lisandro have been injured/unfit or just played poorly when available. So now we've undone the progress that was made last year as well because the players giving us stability in the spine of the team last season havent been dependable this season. So other players are having to try and step up. Maguire has done it to some extent, McTom has provided the goal threat Casemiro gave but nowhere near the total midfield performances.
Onana has to some degree changed how we play and occasionally makes a great pass with his feet but when its like once or twice a game its not changing a lot. He's a lot more composed than DDG when the ball is played back to him but the problem is, then we're even more comfortable and happy to go back to the goalkeeper and spend the majority of our time with the ball with the CBs and goalkeeper not making any progress forward. And thats not hurting anyone nor do I think the fans want to spend much time watching that. That shouldnt be our plan A.
Mount has been injured too much and when he has played he's had maybe 2 good games, every other game he barely got involved and when he did finally pick the ball up 30-35 yards from goal he had bad touches and lost the ball. He didnt make enough of the ball when he did have it in attack.
However... I think the main thing is last seasons' signings that did dramatically improve us, Casemiro and Lisandro have been injured/unfit or just played poorly when available. So now we've undone the progress that was made last year as well because the players giving us stability in the spine of the team last season havent been dependable this season. So other players are having to try and step up. Maguire has done it to some extent, McTom has provided the goal threat Casemiro gave but nowhere near the total midfield performances.
"Did we waste...." is original. This is cheap replica.
Not sure if this was ironic, but isn’t this what everyone has been criticising recently? The Ibra / Cavani / Ronaldo has-been type signings?
In ETH's system Onana made sense. A ball playing GK can also cover the role of a sweeper which in turn allow defenders to play more comfortably in a high line. That in turn would add more bodies in midfield which in turn should help us retain ball possession. Unfortunately a mix of injuries (Martinez in particular), inappropriate staff (AWB, Maguire etc) and laziness/selfishness from our wingers who think that they are all prime Ronaldos makes us unable to play that system.
Hojlund is young and raw. The potential is there but he's not the goalscoring beast we needed.We shouldn't have spent that silly money/fee on him. That's again on the DOF and the board.
Mount is on the manager though. This playing two no 10s is pure craziness. The Casemiro-Eriksen sort of worked with weaker opposition simply because Casemiro ran like a man possessed. We should have added a DLP instead who could share the work with the DM
Hojlund is young and raw. The potential is there but he's not the goalscoring beast we needed.We shouldn't have spent that silly money/fee on him. That's again on the DOF and the board.
Mount is on the manager though. This playing two no 10s is pure craziness. The Casemiro-Eriksen sort of worked with weaker opposition simply because Casemiro ran like a man possessed. We should have added a DLP instead who could share the work with the DM
Not really in a way, we signed strikers of who you mentioned rather than trying to sign a one for the future. Just that this time we went the other end of the spectrum, putting all the pressure on a young player when it should be a mix of both.
Martial is a waste of space and Rashford is not clinical enough up front. Plus I'd rather get rid of both now at this stage.
Towards the end of last season, I knew we needed a striker. That does not mean a youth player, learning his trade. I'm talking about a man either in his prime or entering it.
I know Kane was always going to be difficult, but if we'd just bought him and nobody else, I think that we'd be in a better position than we are now.
Whatever the case, we are buying the wrong players and spending too much on these players.
Hojlund is an unproven youth player for whom we should've paid £20M and then loaned him out to a Championship side. Instead, we are now using him as our main striker, in a team which can't create chances and he can't score a league goal. If he doesn't start scoring goals soon, I can definitely see him being "written off" and moved on. The demands of being a MUFC striker are immense and if you go almost half a season without scoring a league goal, you are on borrowed time.
I know Kane was always going to be difficult, but if we'd just bought him and nobody else, I think that we'd be in a better position than we are now.
Whatever the case, we are buying the wrong players and spending too much on these players.
Hojlund is an unproven youth player for whom we should've paid £20M and then loaned him out to a Championship side. Instead, we are now using him as our main striker, in a team which can't create chances and he can't score a league goal. If he doesn't start scoring goals soon, I can definitely see him being "written off" and moved on. The demands of being a MUFC striker are immense and if you go almost half a season without scoring a league goal, you are on borrowed time.
Why are we calling these "marquee" signings?
They're just normal first team signings.
They're just normal first team signings.
What I dont get is that it was just blatantly obvious. I cant believe the whole recruitment team, the manager, the coaches, everyone is that incompetent and/or stupid. We were 30 plus goals off the top teams last year. We lost Ronaldo. We lost Greenwood. Everyone knew Martial is fkd. Everyone knew that Rashford carried us goalscoring wise and the odds of him doing it again were 1000/1. Everyone knew Antony and our other wingers weren't going to make that amount of impact on our goalscoring and chances created. So they sat there and came up with a genius plan - Get a relatively unknown 20 year old that has scored 9 goals for Atalanta. That was their genius plan.
Then they moved to point 2. Our midfield was run over again and again and again. We got battered 7-0 by the scousers. Battered by City and on and on. We had no back up for Casemiro. We had no one that could link the defense and attack bar Eriksen who is just too weak defensively. Then they came up with a genius plan. Lets play one 6 and two 8's. That will sort it right out. Then lets get Amrabat last minute on loan who is 27 that has never made it to a big team and is weak defensively. That was their genius plan.
Then they went to point 3 - CB's. Varane injurie issues, Maguire out of favor, Lindelof only good as back up. No its fine. Lets get a keeper instead. Ok sort of makes sense. De Gea contract up. Had a poor season. Who should we get? A keeper good with his feet but sht at all other aspects of goalkeeping. Then put him in a team that requires him to play longball most of the time. Genius. That was their plan.
I dont get it. It was obviously a stupid idea.
Then they moved to point 2. Our midfield was run over again and again and again. We got battered 7-0 by the scousers. Battered by City and on and on. We had no back up for Casemiro. We had no one that could link the defense and attack bar Eriksen who is just too weak defensively. Then they came up with a genius plan. Lets play one 6 and two 8's. That will sort it right out. Then lets get Amrabat last minute on loan who is 27 that has never made it to a big team and is weak defensively. That was their genius plan.
Then they went to point 3 - CB's. Varane injurie issues, Maguire out of favor, Lindelof only good as back up. No its fine. Lets get a keeper instead. Ok sort of makes sense. De Gea contract up. Had a poor season. Who should we get? A keeper good with his feet but sht at all other aspects of goalkeeping. Then put him in a team that requires him to play longball most of the time. Genius. That was their plan.
I dont get it. It was obviously a stupid idea.
It was just a random name. A veteran player should have been signed alongside Hoijlund. Not advocating for that player to be signed for an astronomical fee or given a long contract but clearly he needed a mentor and we needed an option for rotation and lets be frank, Martial is not it.
We could have signed Verbruggen, Kane, Thuram and Amrabat and improved massively on what we had and what we bought at a lesser cost then we paid for Onana, Mount, Hojlund and Amrabat.
I know there are those who say Spurs or more Levy wouldn’t have sold Kane to us but I think if we’d offered £100 million then he would have and Thuram on a free would have given us a decent back up, Verbruggen looks a better all round keeper than Onana and has a very high ceiling but was available for cheap then Amrabat in on loan still just for depth.
I know there are those who say Spurs or more Levy wouldn’t have sold Kane to us but I think if we’d offered £100 million then he would have and Thuram on a free would have given us a decent back up, Verbruggen looks a better all round keeper than Onana and has a very high ceiling but was available for cheap then Amrabat in on loan still just for depth.
Because of how bad murtough and ten hag recruitment has been i still think we took a punt on hojlund based on some lazy comparisons with haaland.
Their names sound familiar, both blonde, both from Scandinavian countries, both young fox in the box strikers
Their names sound familiar, both blonde, both from Scandinavian countries, both young fox in the box strikers
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He signed Willian.
There are some among us here who deny that our summer signings have been disastrous. Bless their sweet hearts…
Hojlund gets a break from me, he clearly has the frame, the pace and strength to be our no 9 and when given the ball can score and that's the major issue he doesn't get the ball in scoring situations.
Honestly, I still don't understand what people are expecting from Hojlund. He simply doesn't get the chances. We see the runs and he makes himself a presence both inside and out of the box. We literally have been struggling to keep the ball beyond our halfway line. We don't create chances. We're 11th in expected goals this season, yet somehow he's supposed to have done what exactly. It's like people just see the stats without using reason. His expected goals is 2.6. In comparison, Haaland has 14.8 expected goals, has scored 14 goals. He only has 16 total shots in the league this season, literally shooting 1.81 times per game, for comparison, City have 6 players shooting that amount per game, one of which is Rodri. Liverpool have 7, with Nunez shooting 4.65 times per game. Rashford, Bruno, Mctominay, Garnacho, Antony and even Casemiro have more shots per game. They take the shots in the team, so Hojlund feeds off scraps, showing a wider systemic issue. Gabriel Jesus - 2.71 shots per game; Nketiah - 3.04 shots per game. So how did Hojlund somehow start getting blamed for this mess up front??
But does he have the technique?
Lots of players are big and strong, doesn’t make them great players though.
I said we would regret selling De Gea, and would finish the lowest in the league for decades this season.
People just didnt appreciate how many games he saved us points with his sometimes ridiculous saves, many of them per match. He was like our Casillas in the Galactico days when Real only concentrated on going forward and Casiallas had to make like 10 brilliant saves every match to help them get wins and points.
As for the kid, he's lucky if he gets 2 chances per game, literally.
We are just not a very good team, and have wasted hundreds of millions every year.
People just didnt appreciate how many games he saved us points with his sometimes ridiculous saves, many of them per match. He was like our Casillas in the Galactico days when Real only concentrated on going forward and Casiallas had to make like 10 brilliant saves every match to help them get wins and points.
As for the kid, he's lucky if he gets 2 chances per game, literally.
We are just not a very good team, and have wasted hundreds of millions every year.
No, unfortunately Martial is not it. But signing a second, experienced striker to mentor the new one is not very attractive to someone like Giroud. Why would he want to do that?
And our FFP wouldn’t allow it either. Signing 2 expensive players for 1 position (when we already have an expensive player there) would be ridiculous from a financial point of view. Unfortunately, seeing the Højlund experiment fail (or at least isn’t ready) they will probably have to sign another player in January.
The best striker on our books is playing in Spain. Not that I want him back but it is another example of what a weird mess we're in as a club.
I'm really perplexed by fans assuming hojlund is one for the future and that all we need to do is wait a few years and then we will have a world class striker on our hands, I just don't see the specialness in him to reach that level, even rashford and martial looked like more promising players than him at an even younger age, same with lukaka and Greenwood, nothing screams out about hojlund that he is going to be on the level of a van persie, Ibrahimovic or nistlerooy.
It's concerning that when people big him up it's more for work ethic qualities like he runs a lot and is scrappy than his qualities with the ball.
It's concerning that when people big him up it's more for work ethic qualities like he runs a lot and is scrappy than his qualities with the ball.
Not bad signings at all, Mount was the strange one though, wasnt really needed and has been unlucky with injuries. Hojlund will be fantastic once he gets service and a goal in the Premier League.
Sounds like you don't really know where to rate him and that's normal because he does nothing in games. Chases around, tries to hold up the ball with 2-3 opposition players already knowing where the pass is headed, makes fruitless runs all game and barely gets a pass. There's a graphic going around that shows that he's received the least passes among all strikers in the league.
Højlund feeds on scraps game after game, did he even have a shot in the last few games? I genuinely can't remember. Put all of this together and it's no wonder why some fans are asking themselves questions about him. With Weghorst we knew he was shit because he wasted chance after chance, with Højlund we don't even know how good he is at finishing. We are quite literally one of the worst teams in the league at creating danger in the opponent's penalty box.
We had at least 46 touches in Bournemouth's penalty box and didn't manage to score once. Not even one goal. It's not surprising when our wingers are utterly incapable of creating (Antony) or would rather go for glory themselves (Rashford, Garnacho). Our tactical setup is crap as well, this team is built to play in behind the opponent's backline yet our wingers receive the ball as close to the touch line as possible (death sentence for someone like Antony). Well the team and manager are just a mess right now.
I don't think ETH expected Hojlund to score many goals. He is just a foil to help the wide players. Same as Weghorst was. His job is to hold up the ball, occupy the CBs and cause disruption and ideally link with the wider players. But the wider players are the main goalscoring threat. Or the 8's. If we want the striker to score then we would set up that way and get wider players that cab actually cross. When Ronaldo was here we barely crossed to him and he is one of the best headers of the ball in the world
Which is exactly why I called out the ‘We have to buy any striker’ narrative last year. Once Spurs were obviously not playing ball over Kane we should have changed tact.
Thurman or someone cheap & invested in the midfield properly.
He's a striker. His job is to score goals.
Antony is no goalscoring threat whatsoever.
Basically ten hag messed up all 3 signing because none of them actually fit in the side.
hojlund does not fit the side as he is not a kane who will come deep and play balls in behind for the wingers which would be pointless as at best we had one goalscoring winger in rashford but even that has not materialised, he doesn't create opportunities for himself like say son of spurs or a rooney, he clearly relies on others creating for him but we do not have those type of wingers with rashford and Antony who you would assume were first choice in eth mind at start of the season.
Mount does not fit in the side unless something happens to bruno
Onana's best attribute is his passing but yet our players are not coached well enough to have the technical qualities to handle such passes.
So not only has all 3 of eth signings been a bust but they didn't even fit the side to begin with, hence why eth should not be given any say in transfers which then basically signals the end of him if you have zero trust in him having any input on recruitment, especially when he is even preferring the likes of Evans, lindelof and shaw over varane, then also shipping out ferndandez to then bring reguilon in or selling fred for 10 million who always gave his all to then loan a midfielder from fiorentina for 10 million
hojlund does not fit the side as he is not a kane who will come deep and play balls in behind for the wingers which would be pointless as at best we had one goalscoring winger in rashford but even that has not materialised, he doesn't create opportunities for himself like say son of spurs or a rooney, he clearly relies on others creating for him but we do not have those type of wingers with rashford and Antony who you would assume were first choice in eth mind at start of the season.
Mount does not fit in the side unless something happens to bruno
Onana's best attribute is his passing but yet our players are not coached well enough to have the technical qualities to handle such passes.
So not only has all 3 of eth signings been a bust but they didn't even fit the side to begin with, hence why eth should not be given any say in transfers which then basically signals the end of him if you have zero trust in him having any input on recruitment, especially when he is even preferring the likes of Evans, lindelof and shaw over varane, then also shipping out ferndandez to then bring reguilon in or selling fred for 10 million who always gave his all to then loan a midfielder from fiorentina for 10 million
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