Centre Midfielder Transfer Links

Who’s this lad Danilo from Botafogo that were are linked with for 40m quid
 
BarryWinks said:
What’s happening with our midfield development within the academy. Asides Mainoo who has his own limitations I have not been impressed with any of our young midfielders since Garner.

We’ve seen Hannibal, Zidane, Collyer, Forson etc come up with much hype and amounted to nothing. The best of them is going back down to the championship this season. And it doesn’t look to be getting much better as the twins don’t look very good personally, and Kone is all hype at the moment, like we saw with most of the ones before him.


Is this dearth in CM talent peculiar to us alone or are we seeing it across the other top academies in the country?
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Thwaites, the Fletcher twins, Kone, Devaney and Moorhouse all coming through in midfield and I guess you could include Ibragimov too so there’s talent coming through
 
goldenboy said:
The fact that you saw fit to add J Gomes in there (shudder) almost makes me reconsider how decent a prospect De Cat might be if you're rating him as well...
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He's my least favorite target, however, would be cheap and clearly a backup option.
 
BarryWinks said:
What’s happening with our midfield development within the academy. Asides Mainoo who has his own limitations I have not been impressed with any of our young midfielders since Garner.

We’ve seen Hannibal, Zidane, Collyer, Forson etc come up with much hype and amounted to nothing. The best of them is going back down to the championship this season. And it doesn’t look to be getting much better as the twins don’t look very good personally, and Kone is all hype at the moment, like we saw with most of the ones before him.


Is this dearth in CM talent peculiar to us alone or are we seeing it across the other top academies in the country?
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Could you please on elaborate on Mainoo's supposed "limitations"? From what I can tell this is a very recent post, so your answer would be of great interest to me.
 
Were we linked with Fernandes from West Ham in the press or is it just a Caf suggestion?
 
We haven’t really been linked with Wharton have we?

Shame as we really need someone who can advance the ball from deep midfield. I hope we have him on our radar
 
DuruttiColumn said:
We haven’t really been linked with Wharton have we?

Shame as we really need someone who can advance the ball from deep midfield. I hope we have him on our radar
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We’ve been heavily linked with Wharton for months but now the links are saying that Wharton is considered to similar to Mainoo therefore no longer a serious option, I think Mainoo does advance the ball from deep but in a different way as Wharton is very immobile so does his work with passing whereas Mainoo drives forward with the ball
 
davidmichael said:
We’ve been heavily linked with Wharton for months but now the links are saying that Wharton is considered to similar to Mainoo therefore no longer a serious option, I think Mainoo does advance the ball from deep but in a different way as Wharton is very immobile so does his work with passing whereas Mainoo drives forward with the ball
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I think the links to the Scousers has been stronger.
 


Very sensible if true. Might make a Hackney purchase more realistic. We definitely need four central midfielders.
 
Bastian said:


Very sensible if true. Might make a Hackney purchase more realistic. We definitely need four central midfielders.
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Question is would somebody like Hackney even want to join United if he's gonna be designated 4th choice as he'll no doubt have other PL offers on the table with more regular game time.

Realistically there's gonna be very few players that are attainable in the summer as an upgrade on Ugarte that would be willing to play ~30% of all available minutes. Best bet is probably to keep hold of him as insurance and try and bleed one of the U-21's into the squad next season and hope they can unseat him in the pecking order.
 
DannyCAFC said:
Question is would somebody like Hackney even want to join United if he's gonna be designated 4th choice as he'll no doubt have other PL offers on the table with more regular game time.

Realistically there's gonna be very few players that are attainable in the summer as an upgrade on Ugarte that would be willing to play ~30% of all available minutes. Best bet is probably to keep hold of him as insurance and try and bleed one of the U-21's into the squad next season and hope they can unseat him in the pecking order.
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As his defenders on here say, with some degree of accuracy, he's not a bad player. He just doesn't fit what we need. So yes, there are loads of players who could come in and fit way better than Ugarte and we should do all we can to move him on as he's been atrocious as a United player.

I am not averse to a youth player being promoted to fourth choice if the coaching staff judge one to be ready. But we cannot rotate 50-60 matches between three midfielders.
 
If we need a third cheaper CM purchase, how about Joao Palhinha from Bayern. He would be a cheap buy and is prem proven. Also might be available on another loan. Good player.
 
Andreson Belaba. Sell Ugarte bring Fernandes/Ederson
 
Bastian said:
As his defenders on here say, with some degree of accuracy, he's not a bad player. He just doesn't fit what we need. So yes, there are loads of players who could come in and fit way better than Ugarte and we should do all we can to move him on as he's been atrocious as a United player.

I am not averse to a youth player being promoted to fourth choice if the coaching staff judge one to be ready. But we cannot rotate 50-60 matches between three midfielders.
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Not arguing this. My point is that if United already have Mainoo and go out and sign 2 top quality CM's in the summer alongside him - what level of midfielder are they realistically then going to attract who is happy to come in and be 4th choice and start maybe 12-15 games across all comps? Probably not a player who is any better than Ugarte, otherwise they'd end up at another PL club where they're likely to start most weeks (Hackney being one such player).

I'm just saying it seems unrealistic to me that they're going to get 3 midfielders in during the summer and probably wouldn't sell Ugarte for an sort of book-value profit anyway. So might be a better policy to try and promote from within but with Ugarte still at the club as insurance in case the youngster doesn't take to senior football in the way they hope.
 
DannyCAFC said:
Not arguing this. My point is that if United already have Mainoo and go out and sign 2 top quality CM's in the summer alongside him - what level of midfielder are they realistically then going to attract who is happy to come in and be 4th choice and start maybe 12-15 games across all comps? Probably not a player who is any better than Ugarte, otherwise they'd end up at another PL club where they're likely to start most weeks (Hackney being one such player).

I'm just saying it seems unrealistic to me that they're going to get 3 midfielders in during the summer and probably wouldn't sell Ugarte for an sort of book-value profit anyway. So might be a better policy to try and promote from within but with Ugarte still at the club as insurance in case the youngster doesn't take to senior football in the way they hope.
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Yeah, get your point. I just think we can get a player of a similar level but more suitable. If a potential 4th midfielder can also do a job elsewhere on the pitch, it might make the prospect of joining as a squad player more appealing.

But obviously it would be best if the coaching staff genuinely thought an academy player was ready for the step up.
 
Scrappydog said:
If we need a third cheaper CM purchase, how about Joao Palhinha from Bayern. He would be a cheap buy and is prem proven. Also might be available on another loan. Good player.
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Yeah, I could easily see him being a late in the window backup option on loan for a season if we sell Ugarte and sign one expensive CM and one younger CM who might not be ready day 1.

Bayern will be happy to claw back whatever they can from his wages like us with Sancho loans. Spurs had a 30M option. One less year on contract, one year older, hasn't been great overall, that's like a 15-20M signing. Starts to look pretty cheap.

Let's say we strike out on our 3 of our top 4 on the wishlist and sign one. If you were betting you'd say Baleba. Then you need at least one more and #5 on the list might be a highly rated teenager like De Cat for 30M over paying 70M for a player we're not set on like Tonali, and then Palhinha's tackling and intensity look useful for one year and you live with the technical deficiencies.

You can ease in the teenager backing up Mainoo, get insurance if Baleba struggles to start or gets hurt and also rotation with the CL games and add a guy you can throw on with 10 minutes to go and a lead who enjoys defending.

Mainoo(De Cat)-Baleba(Palhinha) as an example. Give the academy kids another year to get stronger and maybe one can be in the mix next year. Lower the pressure on the arrivals.
 
My concern is that we need a midway point between the likes of Casemiro and Mainoo - an established CM but with years ahead of him.

All of the players we’re linked with are 21-22yrs old, meaning our CM average would be exactly the same. Where is the ‘wise head’ to help them through tricky games?
 
Jericholyte2 said:
My concern is that we need a midway point between the likes of Casemiro and Mainoo - an established CM but with years ahead of him.

All of the players we’re linked with are 21-22yrs old, meaning our CM average would be exactly the same. Where is the ‘wise head’ to help them through tricky games?
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Fabian Ruiz from PSG. Just turned 30, but still one of the best midfielders in the world. Contract expiring next year but there are rumours he's extending. We should look into him, because he's the most attainable one out of PSG's midfielders.

Tchouameni, Mateus Fernandes and Fabian Ruiz would be dream rebuild for this summer.
 
So apparently;

80m - Baleba, Wharton
40m - Fernandes
20m - Shea Charles

These are the options being looked at, a main, side dish and a cup of tea. Not sure the tea is my favourite drink
 
golden_blunder said:
So apparently;

80m - Baleba, Wharton
40m - Fernandes
20m - Shea Charles

These are the options being looked at, a main, side dish and a cup of tea. Not sure the tea is my favourite drink
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I'm hoping the tea in this particular metaphor of yours is Hackney.
 
golden_blunder said:
So apparently;

80m - Baleba, Wharton
40m - Fernandes
20m - Shea Charles

These are the options being looked at, a main, side dish and a cup of tea. Not sure the tea is my favourite drink
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We shouldn't just admit defeat on any of Anderson, Tchouameni or Tonali this early in summer. Admittedly would be very surprised if Fernandes can be obtained for that fee even if they go down. The third signing could well be someone identified by the scouts not mentioned yet.
 
croadyman said:
We shouldn't just admit defeat on any of Anderson, Tchouameni or Tonali this early in summer. Admittedly would be very surprised if Fernandes can be obtained for that fee even if they go down. The third signing could well be someone identified by the scouts not mentioned yet.
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That’s from tonight’s tweets. It seems we’re moving on from Anderson as the price is prohibitive. We moved on from Tonali weeks ago. Tchouameni there are no serious links to him, someone’s getting a new contract I reckon. Particularly if Mourinho does go there
 
golden_blunder said:
Not according to their nights tweets. It’s Charles. I know he’s got physical traits but I’m not convinced. Even as an NI fan
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I think feasibility may also depend on which team does not manage to get promotion to the Prem. With Wolves and potentially West Ham going down, it'll be a harder competition next season too.
 
golden_blunder said:
That’s from tonight’s tweets. It seems we’re moving on from Anderson as the price is prohibitive. We moved on from Tonali weeks ago. Tchouameni there are no serious links to him, someone’s getting a new contract I reckon. Particularly if Mourinho does go there
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How are Ducker, Whitwell and Mitten not serious links, also Laurie didn't say Tonali deal was dead more than it depended on the costs involved.
 
golden_blunder said:
Not according to their nights tweets. It’s Charles. I know he’s got physical traits but I’m not convinced. Even as an NI fan
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As a fellow NI fan, I think Charles looks like there's a player in there but I really don't think he's what we need this summer.

I'd definitely go for Hackney as my Dan James-esque Championship punt
 
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