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.

[gerdm07]

The best move this summer is the fact we got Amrabat on loan. He is an average midfielder like Fred and McT. With Amrabat we only have to suffer for one season and not waste 50m. We had to suffer many years with Fred and spend 50m for him. With McT we keep suffering and see him get a raise every couple of years.

Such a well run club.

 

[AFC NimbleThumb]

The best move this summer is the fact we got Amrabat on loan. He is an average midfielder like Fred and McT. With Amrabat we only have to suffer for one season and not waste 50m. We had to suffer many years with Fred and spend 50m for him. With McT we keep suffering and see him get a raise every couple of years.

Such a well run club.

The sad thing is he isn’t, he is far worse than either. He makes Fred look like De Bruyne.

 

[Big Ben Foster]

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

Hojlund's name also looks and sounds like Holland, which is coincidentally the only place ETH likes to source all his signings from.

 

[Big Ben Foster]

The best move this summer is the fact we got Amrabat on loan. He is an average midfielder like Fred and McT. With Amrabat we only have to suffer for one season and not waste 50m. We had to suffer many years with Fred and spend 50m for him. With McT we keep suffering and see him get a raise every couple of years.

Such a well run club.

Fred's transfer fee = 10m per year
Amrabat's loan fee = 8.5m this year

Not a huge difference to be honest. Although as you point out, it's only one year and then surely we'll be rid of him.

 

[Sandikan]

We were better with Weghorst, De Gea and Sabitzer. 200M flushed down the lav.

I think it's more that we had a fully firing Rashford, Casemiro and Martinez. Those 3 players subbed in this year wouldn't have us any better.
De Gea was making loads of errors for years. Although maybe not quite the same as Onana, who doesn't seem to be able to stop many shots and alarmingly favours just sitting down on the grass instead of narrowing the angle.

 

[JediSith]

Hojlund is quality. At a team with more creativity he’d have more goals.

 

[LDUred]

I wouldn't say Amrabat has been worse than Fred, especially if you are going off Fred's trainwreck of a final season. I wouldn't say he's been particularly good, either, but he's done relatively well next to some of the more conspicuous failures.

He's looked pretty isolated, which has a lot to do with ETH's disastrous way of setting the team up. I mean, Amrabat just isn't a player that will work as a single pivot, but Erik insists on playing him there because he insists on putting round pegs in square holes rather than recognizing how to get the best out of players who have their limitations.

If, as rumoured, Erik plays McTom as a striker tomorrow and has someone in the midfield like Mainoo to form a double pivot with Amrabat, that is when we should be judging him.

 

[foolsgold]

Hoijlund will come good I'm sure. Mount I'm starting to get Donny VDB vibes about, hope I'm wrong but he needs a strong second half of the season.

Onana is fatally flawed, he's not going to make it here.

 

[foolsgold]

The problem isn't this year's signings. It's last year's.

We paid Real Madrid 60 million for Casemiro's injuries, and we signed a one-footed winger with no pace for 80 million. Two shocking bits of business even by our standards.

Last years signings were poor. Antony in particular looks a disaster. Ajax supporters I know were delighted to see him go at that price. Malacia was a gamble that doesn't look like it's going to pay off. Martínez looks the only real win from last year, Eriksen on a free is obviously fine too.

 

[Leftback99]

I wouldn't say Amrabat has been worse than Fred, especially if you are going off Fred's trainwreck of a final season. I wouldn't say he's been particularly good, either, but he's done relatively well next to some of the more conspicuous failures.

He's looked pretty isolated, which has a lot to do with ETH's disastrous way of setting the team up. I mean, Amrabat just isn't a player that will work as a single pivot, but Erik insists on playing him there because he insists on putting round pegs in square holes rather than recognizing how to get the best out of players who have their limitations.

If, as rumoured, Erik plays McTom as a striker tomorrow and has someone in the midfield like Mainoo to form a double pivot with Amrabat, that is when we should be judging him.

Fred was man of the match in a number of our best performances last season. He's won every game he's played so far for Fenerbahce. Daft sale of one of our most useful players.

 

[frostbite]

Last years signings were poor. Antony in particular looks a disaster. Ajax supporters I know were delighted to see him go at that price. Malacia was a gamble that doesn't look like it's going to pay off. Martínez looks the only real win from last year, Eriksen on a free is obviously fine too.

Right now, Martinez doesn't look great either. He played very well for half a year, but after that he was either average or injured, he contributed very little for almost a year now.

 

[frostbite]

Hoijlund will come good I'm sure. Mount I'm starting to get Donny VDB vibes about, hope I'm wrong but he needs a strong second half of the season.

Onana is fatally flawed, he's not going to make it here.

Never be sure about a youngster. Do you remember James Wilson? Many were sure about him, too.

 

[ROFLUTION]

Saw a stat mentioned today that Højlund was the striker with the lowest amounts of passes/crosses for him. Number two from the bottom was Martial.

How can anyone actually succeed here with such little going on around them?

 

[United888]

We were better with Weghorst, De Gea and Sabitzer. 200M flushed down the lav.

That’s because Casemiro, Eriksen, Martinez, and Shaw the main players were available and playing, while Rashford on his goal scoring form.

Swap Onana, Hojlund, and Amrabat with those three right now with our injuries and Rashford without his goal scoring form, we wouldn’t be better. We could be even worse.

 

[oz insomniac]

Hojlund is getting no service from the wingers/outside players, how does anyone expect him to score when they don’t seem able to play decent through balls or crossed. Rashford, Anthony , Dalot are just hopeless at setting up a striker. Shaw and Garnacho are a little better , but not in the class of who we see at other clubs. Shit even the likes of Brentford and Bournemouth have wingers who play into their striker.

There needs to be a serious look at the personnel and set up , more basically the players and why the heck are some signed or retained when they don’t suit the needs of the team. We don’t have a playing style that’s the problem, how basic is that, someone needs to find a director of football and a manager with coherent style and strategies, it’s so ferking hit or miss and has been since Fergie left.

 

[Kinky Melinky]

Højlund getting some unwarranted negative focus on here. Come on lads, we all know the craic here. It's as plain as day to see he's not getting the supply he needs to score goals. You put a player like Højlund into a SAF team and you'd see a completely different outcome.

 

[Redfrog]

But but we were told Don Murtough is a genius who just needed time.

Je is here since Moyes days. He had time to Lear from the best…

 

[RedinIndia]

The best move this summer is the fact we got Amrabat on loan. He is an average midfielder like Fred and McT. With Amrabat we only have to suffer for one season and not waste 50m. We had to suffer many years with Fred and spend 50m for him. With McT we keep suffering and see him get a raise every couple of years.

Such a well run club.

Fred could have been used far better than how he was used by Ole. A competent football manager would have used his energy well.

Love Ole but he's a shit manager

 

[Bert_]

If we kept the same squad as last year and just added Kane where would we be? Biggest no brainer in football history and we let it slip.

 

[Lee565]

Højlund getting some unwarranted negative focus on here. Come on lads, we all know the craic here. It's as plain as day to see he's not getting the supply he needs to score goals. You put a player like Højlund into a SAF team and you'd see a completely different outcome.

The issues I have is hojlund solely relies on service, for 70 million you would expect a striker to have a bit more about him than that, for instance a player like Greenwood could create something out of nothing for himself at times to score, same with martial before the injuries mounted up and even rashford did the same at times last season like his goal against arsenal last season.

 

[Lord of Blackhaven]

That’s because Casemiro, Eriksen, Martinez, and Shaw the main players were available and playing, while Rashford on his goal scoring form.

Swap Onana, Hojlund, and Amrabat with those three right now with our injuries and Rashford without his goal scoring form, we wouldn’t be better. We could be even worse.

I was being a bit facetious to be honest. Although I genuinely don't think Onana is an upgrade on De Gea or Mount on Sabitzer. Fair enough Hojlund has a lot of potential and is obviously superior to Wout.

 

[The Bloody-Nine]

Højlund getting some unwarranted negative focus on here. Come on lads, we all know the craic here. It's as plain as day to see he's not getting the supply he needs to score goals. You put a player like Højlund into a SAF team and you'd see a completely different outcome.

He should've scored today. No one to blame but himself on this one.

 

[Toca99]

Hojlund is quality. At a team with more creativity he’d have more goals.

Amen to that !

 

[roseguy64]

If you really think Onana was a better signing .. think again..
He was good but if yiu had looked at. His technique , you would have noticed he was not that good ..
Any top goalkeeper coach/ recruiter would have identified that ..

Why are you assuming Onana's technique was not identified? There have been articles about it. He proved to people at Ajax that his technique was better for him and so they let it rock.

 

[roseguy64]

The Mount signing was bad from minute one, he made no sense at the time and he still doesn't now, it's December and he's started about 5 games. Most range inducing comments was highlighting your fears that he was a very poor signing only to be met with "won Chelsea player of the year two years in a row, can't be that bad! Can he? Heh heh!". Yeah he absolutely can be.

I was intrigued if not somewhat sceptical about the Hojlund signing when he was linked for £35m thinking it was an exciting but slightly pricy punt, we then went on to spend £72m for him and I thought I'd woken up in an alternate reality. We're now in December and he hasn't got a league goal ... talk about service all you want, Martial's abysmal and even he's managed to pick up a league goal.

Onana signing made sense, he's just been disappointing but that's the same with most of our signings.

You know you're absolutely fecked when you're signing players like Reguilion, who Tottenham fans couldn't believe we were signing, and Evans, who wasn't even good enough for relegated Leicester.

Are you sure about that?

 

[roseguy64]

All signings have been terrible.

Hojland is raw. To sign him and expect him to be our leading striker is a shocking decision. We should have signed a far more experienced forward and brought in Hojland as a backup. We looked desperate and Atalanta took us to the cleaners.

Mount had a number of injuries in 2022-23. To think that we signed him on the back of this season at top $, when we only had a year left on his contract. Still, no one know, when fit, where Mount would play. Ten Hag tried him as a second 8, but that left us wide open in midfield, so that was scrapped after a few games. He was on £80k a week at Chelsea. We put him on £250k a week!

Onana. Putting his errors to one side, we were not ready for a "ball playing" goalkeeper. Everyone knows that our midfield lacks press resistant midfielders who are happy to take the ball facing their goal. We are also short on defenders who are comfortable receiving the ball. We needed to improve in this positions, before changing to the keeper.

Amrabat is not the quality we need to start every week. He is very limited. Backup at best and I bet we don't sign him at the end of the loan.

Bayindir. What was the point in signing him and not giving him any play time? Especially with Onanas form and the AFCON coming next year.

Dislike the Mount signing all you want but he'd be getting at least around 200k at either Chelsea, Liverpool or Arsenal with a new contract. He was about to sign a contract for a similar amount last season at Chelsea.

 

[roseguy64]

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.

He played Serie A football last season. In what world would it have been a good idea to loan him to the Championship?

 

[Jippy]

This thread is a clone of this existing one. @The Oracle just check and make sure you're not making a duplicate thread.

https://www.redcafe.net/threads/did-we-waste-€200-million-this-summer.479532/page-12