At this point, I don't understand why we don't go all-in on Bellingham.
Adrien Rabiot | signs 1 year deal at Juventus. See you all next year
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
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Because both him and Dortmund would just laugh at us? And so would the rest of the football wirld?
How do all these top English talents end up at Dortmund?
Why would they laugh at us?
Old man Rooney won’t be to handle her. His granny days are truly done, doesn’t have the legs anymore.
Because Dortmund are a fantastic club to develop at. Good coaches, the play talented youth without pressuring them, the quality of the team is good and they let them move on without too much effort when the time is right. Its one of the places I would go if I was a sensible young player looking to keep developing.
Why would he want to come to Man Utd at the moment? If/when Bellingham comes on the market he's going to have much better options than Man Utd, unless Ten Hag is a magician.
However, that doesn't change the fact that we could do better than Rabiot. Not that Rabiot isn't an improvement on McTominay. However, for the wages it will cost us, there are other players of comparable stature who will be keener to come. Its a bizarre move by a bizarre management team.
"Hello Miss Rabiot, can Adrien come out and play?"
The latter stage of this transfer window continues to deliver.
The latter stage of this transfer window continues to deliver.
Yeah we never get lucky when signing Dortmund players. Awful relationship with them.
He's moving next season anyway
Bellingham would because next summer he'll have the pick of actual clubs that are run well and have a good team.
I've said this before i'll say it again why would Bellingham come to us when next year he could go to City, Liverpool, Madrid, Bayern etc etc and win things or alternatively come to us and struggle to get 5th or 6th in the league.
We need to move onto realistic transfers that have significant upside and we need to get it right more times than not like Liverpool did with Salah and Mane and build from there, our DoF/Board/Manager/Fans talking up the likes of Haaland (before City bought him), Tchoumaeni (before Madrid bought him), Bellingham and others is just wishful thinking at the point we are at now, being Manchester United is not going to get us very far as we are not an attractive option for most players in the bracket of those mentioned.
Being desperate isn't the thing that creates the damage. Making bad decisions because of desperation is what creates the damage. We just have to develop a feeling to identify bad decisions and stop making them. But before anything is published about the actual offerings and/or demands, it is a bit pointless.
Most of those young talents are products of Chelsea and City's academies where you have to be exceptional to make it. Dortmund is known for fielding sides with a low average-age, they're always in the CL and they play in the Bundesliga, a major European league. All of which are enticing to young players.
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It'll be Rabiot +
Positionally he played pretty much 50/50 as a #6 and a #8 during his time at PSG. He has played a lot more as a #8 for Juve, but they play a very different system/style where his role there wouldn't translate directly to how he would be used under Ten Hag.
You look at his analytics, year after year, and his profile says:
- little to no goal threat
- unadventurous passing
- Safe and high completion passing (90's percentile)
- Strong defensive stats, very strong pressures, tackles, interceptions, etc (70's, 80's, 90's percentiles)
- Strong ball carrying stats (this kind of fell last season at 60's percentile on average, but prior to last season was very strong, 80's percentile)
- Most of his years he had more touches in deeper positions than in advanced positions (of the 5 seasons on FBRef, only in 2019/20 did he have fewer touches in his defensive third then in the midfield or attacking thirds)
- Decent at not giving the ball away with miscontrols or being dispossessed, a very important attribute for a DM (but vastly improved on Pogba/Fred/McTominay who are all stupidly low ranking in this)
https://fbref.com/en/players/8794e251/scout/11222/Adrien-Rabiot-Scouting-Report
Everything about his analytics profile says he's a defensive minded player. He's not a creator, he's not a ball progressor, but either he's a defensive #8, or just a #6 who can carry the ball well. Either way, fits a pretty obvious hole in our squad, both in terms of what he'd bring defensively, but also his ability to move with the ball and not get dispossessed or miscontrol the ball constantly.
He's decent but not worth crazy money. Let him rot in Turin if his greedy mother won't be realistic. Then we can go and get the Rodriguez fella at Betis to play next to our Frenkie.
Prepare for one of these to be a back up GK...
Recent history doesn't support this argument.
United haven't been a major European force for over a decade, yet, that hasn't prevented us from buying up much of Europe's top talent/highly rated players. The majority of footballers these days follow the money - it's nieve to think otherwise, mate - and United have it in abundance.
Liverpool were in the shadows for three decades but they always managed to sign top players despite that. I also want to point out that they remained one of the richest clubs in Europe throughout those bad times. Do you think those players joined Liverpool because they cared about the history of the club or because Liverpool could afford to both buy and pay them an impressive wage?
Money talks my man. It always will.
SMS for me really doesn't fit any sort of need. He's an advanced midfielder. His best qualities are receiving the ball in high positions, and then taking shots on or creating goal scoring opportunities. An attacking 8 or just a 10. Like Pogba. Like Eriksen. Like Bruno.
From where we are today, getting De Jong, Rabiot and Gakpo would be a fantastic achievement. Do we think this should be considered a good transfer window for us?
Hang on - his mum is his agent?
The only thing we can offer is money and here we are at this point now.
You can cite Liverpool as an example but even now they don't go for obvious transfers all the while Diaz, Jota, Carvalho in recent times have hardly had the same profile as say Sancho and that's why Liverpool are up there and we are down where we are in my opinion
Agreed it would be a very good window if it's De Jong and a good window if it's SMS - although I'm unsure whether he's actually good enough.
We have so many gaps in our team, our best bet is to buy players who make us strong favorites for the Europa League and also most importantly help EtH form a style of play which I think is what we're all desperate to see.
No RB? Come on now
That's a great summary.
No - I didn't mean it like that. It was an honest question - I didn't know whether he was represented by his mum or not.
I'm with @Chesterlestreet on this. Puts me off massively.
Dad agents being trouble is 50-50, mum agents is 100-0.
But then... McFred
Well, sorry, I read it differently as well.
How about if he wants to have a close family member as his agent... but his dad had a stroke when he was 12 and has been paralysed ever since?
Family in general...not ideal.
Wives, fathers, mothers, brothers - you don't want that.
Brilliant post. Means, we really need him.
He passed away, not that it helps but.
So, basically, we upgrade McTominay, give him the primary defensive duty and don't need Fred to be a DM.
That would indeed be an improvement.
Ah, thanks for letting me know. The most I could find was a throwaway line here or there in an article about the stroke and locked-in syndrome. I guess there must be a lot more info in French.
But yeah, I guess in terms of the agent situation it's the same effect.
More of a reason to have a regular agent?
Sounds lovely.
Can't say I'm fully sold on him (Rabiot) in any case.
But it doesn't take a lot to improve on either Fred or McTominay as a semi-reliable defensive midfielder.
Not everyone trusts agents? He seems to be doing fine.
FDJ for sure will be a great signing but Morata is absolutely dog shit and Rabiot is a mediocre midfielder.
If somebody would have told me our midfield and attack recruitments at the start of summer would be Morata and Rabiot I think id cry. Poor players from a poor, fading Juve team.
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