I'd rather we spunk the 100 mil on 3 different midfielders and maybe hit a winner.
Diversification.
Diversification.
Declan Rice
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80-100m on Rice would be typical of the signings that have plagued United in recent seasons, he’s good but what good is a scouting system if you can’t pick up decent players in that position for a reasonable fee?
Irrespective of what happens with this lad, signing that contract 2 years ago was (retrospectively) really bad business for him.
Fred, McSauce heck even Dalot make upwards of 4 times his salary. And getting a 5 year deal at that salary is like betting against yourself. No wonder they’re asking 100m for him - 3 more years of this he’ll be 25 before anyone can approach them for a realistic fee.
Really poor business - his manager lost the plot there.
Fred, McSauce heck even Dalot make upwards of 4 times his salary. And getting a 5 year deal at that salary is like betting against yourself. No wonder they’re asking 100m for him - 3 more years of this he’ll be 25 before anyone can approach them for a realistic fee.
Really poor business - his manager lost the plot there.
I've been wrong about players plenty of times before, but I really, really don't think dropping £100m on Rice is smart. I also didn't see this absolutely amazing performance yesterday that others seem to have seen, in my opinion, yesterday's rave reviews are the result of commentator hype. To me, he's simply not going to be the difference between us and a title, and that's what I'd want when dropping £100m on a CDM, which I think is a fecking ludicrous idea in its own right.
Me either, he was sitting in 2 banks of 4 on the edge of his box for 90 mins. Its not a set up to judge a dm. The maguire comparison is suitable here with people still questioning his ability to play in a high line. Rice would similarly need to do what he did yesterday with a fraction of the support and so much more space to cover, its worlds apart from what he was doing yesterday.
I'd be really surprised if Ralf and his DOF eye will look at Rice and think 'yes we need to spend big on him'.
He's a good player, 60m is a massive fee for a dm and i think most would be happy enough to pay that. West Ham just dont have reason to sell and he has a contract till 2025 - so you can just forget about him getting him before 2024 for anything less than the most extortionate, outrageous price.
He'll need to run his contract down to get a move and it wont happen for a couple of years.
Something like that - he will be the best midfielder in the P.L within 3 years.
He just feels like a United player, definitely see this happening. And while a case can be made that a player like Tchouameni may be a better signing I think it's important for an english club to have solid contingent of English players. I feel like when I watch City that team could be playing in any country in the world, there is nothing english about them.
Not really, I’m saying 60–75m plus add-ons
Only between 60-75m would come from the budget,’perhaps even split over several years
Actually... no. @Fortitude makes a good point about the context he is good in.
If we play on the frontfoot and want to dominate games, the DM job becomes significantly different to the one asked of him at WHU.
I can't say I've watched the guy enough to have the foggiest idea how he would perform for us (more so given I'm not sure how we are supposed to be playing).
It's a very real issue though and I'd expect our fans to be more sensitive to it given Kagawa, Mkhitaryan, Sancho so far... Would be funny as feck if we got Haaland and he bombed.
Well, no, it wouldn't, but you get my point.
Would love to get Guimaraes/Kessie/Bennacer/Kamara, but low confidence that we'll go for that so as long we actually get a midfielder in, I don't care if it's spending too much for Tchouameni or Rice. Worst case is none of these and we get a B2B or an attacking midfielder again.
He makes a lot of good points.
When I say “how good is he?” I am, by implication, saying “how good will he be for us?” And couldn’t care less about any other context.
It’s true that you can never know but we’re all making our judgements based on what we see and projecting from that if he’ll be good for us. Between his performances for WHU and England, my assessment is that he is what we need and should be our priority signing.
If you believe he is that good, the high fee looks okay. If you don’t believe he is that good, the fee seems very high. There are other options and if we were talking about Philips I’d be saying the fee is too high. It comes down to that question “how good is he?”.
Well its all opnions isnt it. I thougt he was an awful signing at the time though. He was £30m odd wasnt he, hardly cheap at that time. We have spent well over £100m on him, Fred and VDB.
DId well at SOuthampton but never looked anywhere near the level of the answer in midfield to our problems, sadly that is something that has continued with the very few purchases we have made there since including those mentioned
Stats stats stats...I hate them, can always been angled to suit a point.
McTominay for me is a really valuable squad player and has a pivotoal role in some of the big game for breakign up play and breaking....but for me consistency wise over a season is positioning defensively is lacking, his reading of the game defensively is lacking, his consistency of passing is lacking he does give the ball away a lot....he isnt a starter for me if we want to win trophies, different player but he has a role likr Darren Fletcher.
My main point though is we arent just talking about ability on the pitch, we are talkign about a potential captain and leader, something we massively lack.
Of course West Ham are going to ask big money for him just like Villa did for Grealish, youn gplayers, captains, talented anad the hearbeat in differnt ways of the team. Is £100m overpriced, yes of course, there are some good players like Kamara and Kessie possibly free and some talented players that have moved or are linked moves for 1/3 of that price.....but I do think people have massively under rated Rice over the last 2/3years, he is only starting to get recognition this season that he deserves. People are obsessed with technique and passing ranges etc etc but for every Scholes you need a Keane and Robson and again, Rice isnt the same qualit as those dont get me wrong (who is after all), but he does have similar traits in terms of drive, positioning an under rated judgement of his weight and choice of passing for short passing, great positioning and reading of the game and strength.
For me maybe he is the wrong price, but he is the right player. I keep hearing peopel talking of much better players in Europe that are a fraction of the price, who are they then?
His ball carrying qualities have improved so much. Also he's got a lot braver with his passing. Now he always looks for progressive and penetrative passes.
Has leadership qualities too. Proper captain material this lad!
He would be an amazing signing for any top 4 club tbh.
Yeah I get that he ain't a 100m player but I'd say he's definitely a 60m player deservingly. Very mature for his age. But if you want him from West Ham you'll definitely have to pay the infamous "English tax".
Has leadership qualities too. Proper captain material this lad!
He would be an amazing signing for any top 4 club tbh.
Yeah I get that he ain't a 100m player but I'd say he's definitely a 60m player deservingly. Very mature for his age. But if you want him from West Ham you'll definitely have to pay the infamous "English tax".
Good player but stars in our eyes about a new £100 million shiny toy. We never learn.
This is exactly what worries me about him.
He plays in a West Ham side perfectly setup for him. Tightly knit, no space between defence and midfield where he can go about his business (admittedly does that well) but at United he'd be asked to play a COMPLETELY different way.
He won't get protected in tight spaces, he will be asked to be a lot more progressive than what he shows right now. Most of his passes are safe, simple 5-10 yard balls and while he is a consistent passer in that sense, we already ask more of Fred and Mctominay when they do the same.
Rice is a good solid player, but nothing more than that. Nobody is buying him for £80m+.
He will definitely be at a big club by next year and he seems to have all the tools to exceed at being better than what carrick was for us and that is no knock at carrick either.
He's not anywhere near Carrick level.
I actually don't think he will be to be honest. Don't see anyone paying what West Ham will want.
I actually think had Ole stayed there was a very good chance we would have pursued this. It's a very Ole signing.
He's clearly someone we have watched for a long time and will have all kinds of data and reports on, but the chances that Rangnick and the new manager are going to alight upon Rice seem a lot smaller to me.
Let's say ETH comes in, why would the first name on his mind be Rice? He's far more likely to go to his own scouting and knowledge and I think that goes for any new manager. I don't see the club thrusting a really expensive signing like this upon a manager either.
He's clearly someone we have watched for a long time and will have all kinds of data and reports on, but the chances that Rangnick and the new manager are going to alight upon Rice seem a lot smaller to me.
Let's say ETH comes in, why would the first name on his mind be Rice? He's far more likely to go to his own scouting and knowledge and I think that goes for any new manager. I don't see the club thrusting a really expensive signing like this upon a manager either.
Yeah would definitely give us some much needed leadership in the middle, however wonder if we are better served getting a couple of players for the same money.
Yeah that's my fear about going for him too, however maybe having better players could bring his forward game on as well. I can understand people in our fanbase who worry he is only flourishing in a defensive side.
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Feels like he'd somehow end up being the next Maguire.
Unless we give the chosen one another shot
I would say if Poch is our new manager then he will have first hand experience of seeing him in action and we would move swiftly if he fancies him.
You didn't rate him while he was at Southamton? That's the point I'm making, that our process was good in that case. He had looked good for several years, in this league, so the assumption probably was that he wouldn't need much time to adapt and we most likely did our due diligence on his character as well. That he wasn't good player for us, once he was signed, is without question. I thought we were going to use him like Kanté next to Carrick/Schweinsteiger and he would later transition to their roles.
I don't disagree that our transfer policy has been baffling and straight up poor. I didn't want either of Fred or van de Beek. In Fred's case mainly because there were alternatives to him, that I would have preferred, who would have cost the same as him and I thought with the little information I had, that we overpaid for him and I still think that way. In van de Beek's case I thought we needed an actual specialist to compete with Fred, McTominay and Matic, not someone who generally seemed like backup to Bruno and possibly could play deeper, despite him looking talented for Ajax.
Overall, I think you can question why we have bought the midfielders that we did, when we didn't have the best plan for them and how to play them. Pogba falls into that category as well.
I see lots of people are drumming this 100m price tag and of course it's a worry. Imo the biggest problem in a price tag like that is the added pressure from media and fans, and the unrealistic fan expectations that will come with it from naive part of the fan base. Of course he is not worth 100m, just like Maguire wasn't worth 80, just like Hazard/Dembele/Coutinho weren't worth 100m+, Lukaku for how much exactly? Nobody apart from maybe 10 players in the world football are worth the fee the selling clubs require in order to let them go. So we either find a better option and equal player or we just pay the price the seller is demanding, and that's not just about Rice.
At the weekend they fielded a first eleven that featured Walker, Sterling, Grealish and Foden. There's definitely something English about them...
The success rate of big money transfers over the past 10 years have been very poor across the entire market, of course this doesn’t nessarily mean he will be a failure but we have got to be more cautious spending nearly our entire transfer budget on Rice.
While I kind of understand your point, it doesn't really has any legs in this case: we have AWB, Shaw, Maguire, Rashford, Greenwood, Sancho plus Henderson and Lingard. The last criterium we should look at right now is the nationality. A british core is definitely something I tend to lean towards as well. But that core is there.
I would love Declan Rice here but that said there is a price and that should be looked at closely. There are many young hungry talents across Europe that I would be more than happy with and many would cost far less. Throw in James Garner who is bossing the center as a loaner and I am not sure the answer we seek will cost as much as we think.
Add in Stones too, they'd probably have the most english starters along with us
better than Carrick. My god
Played well I thought, but we'll need a quality ball-playing #8 next to him to actually keep the ball under pressure and also to sit so he can go upfield. His best work when West Ham had possession was about his movement going up the pitch to get open so the wingers or fullbacks had an option. Not going to get open with subtle movements I don't think, more so with 5-10 yard sprints.
Basically, he's a lot like Khedira and so probably needs a Kroos or Xabi Alonso type to pair with him if we're gonna play 4-2-3-1, I think. We really should have one in a 29 year old Pogba, but we probably don't.
If he's going to be good enough to justify a huge fee here I think it's in a role where he can go forward in possession and when we're in a lower block, play as a lone DM with an 8 pressing ahead of him. Casemiro does this at times for Madrid with Kroos sitting when he goes forward, but Rice you'd want doing it even more. Also Bruno isn't Modric in terms of defending and reliability in possession.
No idea who would fit the bill, though. Frankie De Jong is my dream. Maybe Fabian Ruiz or Tielemans? Not an easy player to find, typically.
Basically, he's a lot like Khedira and so probably needs a Kroos or Xabi Alonso type to pair with him if we're gonna play 4-2-3-1, I think. We really should have one in a 29 year old Pogba, but we probably don't.
If he's going to be good enough to justify a huge fee here I think it's in a role where he can go forward in possession and when we're in a lower block, play as a lone DM with an 8 pressing ahead of him. Casemiro does this at times for Madrid with Kroos sitting when he goes forward, but Rice you'd want doing it even more. Also Bruno isn't Modric in terms of defending and reliability in possession.
No idea who would fit the bill, though. Frankie De Jong is my dream. Maybe Fabian Ruiz or Tielemans? Not an easy player to find, typically.
He's like the anti-Khedira.
260+ pages for a bloke who isn’t a Manchester United player or titled ‘Messi vs Ronaldo’ 
Yeah, I’d have thought if anyone can be like Khedira (a player with the profile of a no.6 but totally plays his best football not in that position) it’s McTominay in our team
DM's aren't worth £100m even in this fecked up market so Rice is never joining for that much, I think we get him for around £60m this summer. Thought more about his comments and they're not the kind of thing you say about another club unless there's already agreements in place to move in the future. Would also explain why we're a bit hesitant to move in on another DM this window, even a cheap one.
It should be blatantly obvious to anyone with half a brain that DM is still a value position, even in the last 5 or so bonkers years of transfer prices. It's always possible to find a gem for relatively little, when compared to other positions. Spending 100m on one would be our stupidest transfer ever by far, if he doesn't work out we'd struggle to sell for 30m.
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