True story
Do we need to sign a striker?
- Thread starter jamesjimmybyrondean
- Start date
We guaranteed him time off
Ok let’s play devils advocate here.
Elite Left Back - N Brown or L Hall - £55m
Marquee DM - A Tchouameni - £70m
CM - M Fernandes - £45m
BTB - A Scott or Ederson - £40m
Total - £210m
Wages - £600-650k per week added to Payroll
Players Leaving either sold or released ;
Casemiro / Free / £350k wages
R Hojlund / £38m /£120k wages
M Rashford / £25m / £325k wages
J Sancho / Free / £275k wages
T Mallacia / Free / £100k wages
A Bayinder / £5m / £50k wages
A Onana / Loaned / £100k wages
M Ugarte /£25m / £140k wages
J Zirkzee / £30m / £100k wages
Potential M Greenwood Sell on of £16m
We should recoup £100- 125m of actual sales, now most of these simple pay off what’s already owed in historic payments for players however selling Rashford for £25m and Receiving a sell on for Greenwood of £15m means the club would bank 100% profit of £40m in this years accounts and would allow them to invest that money yearly for 5 years, potentially increasing the summer budget from £150-200m to £300-350m this summer?
There will be no issues with UEFA Squad Ratio Rule or the PL new squad Ratio rule.
The only issue is can the club find the £100-130m of working cash this summer to facilitate transfer in 3 year instalment plans.
Potentially reducing the wages by £1.5m per week and then adding new contracts worth £800-900,000 per week will save the Club £30m per year annually so yes there is the potential to easily spend £80-100m on an elite striker and £200-250,000 on yearly salary.
The club might however chose to finally act smart and go get Gonçalo Ramos on loan for £5m per season with a £40m option and then make PSG pay half his wages while at the same time negotiating the purchase of the best young attacking English player coming through like Morgan Rogers for £80m and £180k per week wages.
Yes we can do all of this and deep down Wilcox, Berada and SJR know they must have the best transfer summer for the club in the last two decades to really move the needle.
Only Elite physical high cardio Players can make United a stronger team going forward.
We really need someone that is a hybrid that can equally play as a striker or out on the wing.
What about Jean-Philippe Mateta or Robert Lewandowski just to cover a year or 2?
Lewandowski on a free. One year deal to reduce the load on Sesko and help assist his growth.
What a short term upgrade that would be on Zirkzee.
What a short term upgrade that would be on Zirkzee.
Yeah would love to see that. I know his best years are behind him but it's the kind of experience we need around Sesko.
Would be nice if it happened, just for a season. But it's unlikely
If the club is not signing a LW this summer any more, then it needs to be someone with real quality. If they can also play a deeper role then that would be a bonus.
This team already struggles for goals without Casemiro's set-piece threat to bail it out, it's going to need more from somewhere next season.
This team already struggles for goals without Casemiro's set-piece threat to bail it out, it's going to need more from somewhere next season.
Yes, because Zirkzee is not the answer and one assumes he will be leaving.
Having a striker on the bench is an important option for game management.
Also to provide Sesko with competition and fill in when he is injured/rested.
Wasn't there a report from the club that striker is one of 4 key recruitments this summer?
Having a striker on the bench is an important option for game management.
Also to provide Sesko with competition and fill in when he is injured/rested.
Wasn't there a report from the club that striker is one of 4 key recruitments this summer?
Yes, however there have been next to no rumours. It could be that the entire focus is on CMs at the moment and once we start landing them, they will move onto strikers.
A few of us on here would like Utd to use the free transfer market, especially since majority of funds are going into multiple CM signings.
A LB and a backup keeper has also been muted. So it will be interesting who they target.
2 centre mids and a left back sound like they’re coming in no matter what. Anything else feels contingent on sales.
We MIGHT bring in a striker with the £50m we get for Rashford and Zirkzee. Or the former goes on a subsidised loan and the latter is back to Italy on one of their patented loans plus obligation.
We MIGHT sign a third midfielder, but we’ll need some chump to cough up a fee and wages for Ugarte.
We MIGHT bring in a backup keeper, but we’ll need to move on Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-shite before we do it.
Yes we do. No top side has only one natural number 9 (unless they play with a false 9). Our system is setup for a 9, and we need another.
We're not signing Lewandowski. He's not coming here to be a backup, and don't think itd sit well with Sesko to be displaced like that after the season he's had.
He'll go to the US/Saudi for money, or maybe somewhere like Juve/Milan to be a starter.
We're 3rd in goals. Wouldn't say that's struggling. Case was unlikely to repeat this kind of set-piece performance anyway, but we can hopefully continue being a big threat from set pieces team. That is a real durable advantage.
I think the bigger thing is we've had pretty good health from our attackers. Bruno/Sesko/Cunha/Mbeumo/Amad have only missed a handful of games, and next year obviously we'll increase our game load. Another flexible attacking piece will help spread the load and prevent major issues if 1-2 of them picks up a long-term injury.
Should at least ask him the question even though you will almost certainly be proved right about it
Absolutely correct. I’ve given up arguing against the repeated suggestion now. An absolute non-starter for player and club.
Falls into the Woodward flow chart. Would Ed do it? If the answer is yes, then it’s the wrong decision.
Shades of Martial having a great first season and then being benched for Zlatan the next season.
No, it’s more mad, because Zlatan was 4 years younger than Lewandowski.
He was an absolutely world class forward, but I think he’d just look miles off the pace in this very athletic iteration of the premier league. He’s not an automatic starter for Barca now in a slower league.
Superb analysis. Perhaps out of undue caution I worry that we cannot address all our needs this summer, but perhaps we can. And the needs seem to me at least mostly in finishing out our depth, our key weakness, although obviously the Casemiro is far and away the top priority, with possibly a new LB to usurp Shaw a not too distant second.
A potential struggle we haven’t discussed here but is clear to me is landing signatures of top players willing to be squad men for us. But that’s a subject for another thread.
Think you need to significantly adjust Fernandes price, however would be great to afford Ramos on loan deal too
If you're referring to Mateus Fernandes, for me he's leapfrogged over Anderson and Baleba. Even assuming West Ham go down, I think we'll need to spend 60m to bring him in. He lacks a bit of height and he'll never have the aerial power of Casemiro, but he's looked significantly better than Anderson (though the stats may say otherwise) this season and Baleba last season.
But this is the striker thread so let's stick to that. The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of Lewandowski but I just don't see it happening. Leao could be genius, ticking two boxes of need -- backup winger and backup striker. Unless it meant going short on a midfielder and a LB, Leao could be the ideal signing for us. He's more than a super sub, for sure, but I wouldn't want to pen his name as an automatic starter for us either. If his dream really is the PL, we're the club for him and he's the man for us. Let's say 50m gets the job done, after the 60m we'll need to spend for Fernandes that leave us most likely with 75m at most to spend to address other needs. I'm not sure at all that that will be enough to bring in 1 or maybe even 2 more central midfielders and a left back but if our scouting team has gotten its act together maybe we can pull off the kind of diamond-in-the-rough magic that Brighton and similar clubs have mastered in recent years.
Mateta yes. Lewa hell no..
Mateta is in my opinion by far the best, most safe bet we could get as an experienced backup/rotational striker. Mentioned it in the other thread: good finisher, physical with solid hold up play and decently quick too. He's in the last year of his contract and would probably cost somewhere between £35-40m.
One of the only players I'd have no qualms about sticking upfront and not losing too much quality in case Sesko needs a rest or picks up an injury. He's also one of those you can confidently throw on next to Sesko for the last 15min of a game to cause some mayhem in the box and exploit tired defenders.
Danny Welbeck for a season or two. Sell Zirkzee, save some money. Revisit when Danny is done.
Wish we could get Kane with only year left on deal, however fully expect Bayern to offer him extension
Like Mateta, however haven't got the budget to spend that sort of fee on a striker considering midfield rebuild
I like Mateta, but I’d have two concerns. Firstly, his knee after failing that Milan medical and secondly, he’s not the greatest player technically. How well would he adjust to being a squad player? Purely a hunch, but strikes me as a guy that might need the rhythm of games.
Esteban Le Paul
Kane is not leaving assured trophies for perhaps
This is such an obvious transfer.
I do think we need another striker but realistically the budget needs to be spent on CM and LB. I can't see there being too much remaining after signing these positions to bring in anyone of any real quality whose going to compete with Sesko. I'd love Wharton and Fernandes for midfield and probably Lewis Hall for LB.
Would deffo take Mateta
Get the Sloth from Atletico.
We could just bring Rasmus back and have him and Sesko as options. For the 38 million that Napoli owe us, we probably won't get anyone decent for that sort of money, so bring him back and see how he fares in a different system with a new manager.
For £38m you'll get someone better at football though. Rasmus is still not good at football, scoring goals for Napoli or not.
I know Lewandowski would probably be a bad idea and would stop Sesko's development, but he started 15 games in La Liga this season and scored 13 goals. Could we not just wheel him on at 70 minutes given Carrick point-blank refuses to make any subs before that time?
Not so sure Lewandowski wants to go to a more physical league this late, when he is not a 95 kg-Ibra and will be constantly bumped into and sandwiched by La Liga standards(not prem standards)