WHO ?
Antonio Silva. Benfica CB.
Can we please not sign another CB for 50m please. We do this every year and it's a terrible waste, CB is a position where a lot of talent exists at reasonable prices. Natan above someone mentioned went for £10m. Arsenal signed Gabriel and Saliba for an average of £25m. This kid is young too, no way should we be spending £50m on this.
We’re not West Ham either to be spending like them.
Which CB talents are out there for c. 10-25m that are good enough to start for United? The answer is not many. Saliba went out on loan for three seasons after being signed for 27m. Gabriel for a similar price and it took 2 years and Saliba partnering him before you'd consider him a top CB. United can't afford to wait, they need a CB now so they're going to be paying a premium but what you want to do is hit the now and future in one swoop which players like Yoro, Scalvini and Branthwaite meet. Unforunately you'll have to pay a price of c. 50m to do that.
For us? Lots. Our CBs other than Maguire were poor this season. In the first half of the season our attack didnt score enough but considering the youth of our front players they did a good job second half of the season. Leaking goals was the bigger issue overall.
I meant now, those players won't go for that price anymore. Tosin for example is on a free but he's not a starting player for a top club.
Though I dont believe he is beyond United's reach even in our Current State still lets humour that thought and assume top talents would avoid United for the time being , who then we should be targeting as Our CB options according to you.
Nobody knows how much players cost until the transfer fees
Come on, you are a top club and you're being pedantic when you know exactly what I mean. You finished 3rd last season and are only 8 points off 4th this season. Those margins are small. You're not a club that's targeting to finish 8th again, you're a club targeting top 4 and titles. There's a different standard between Tarkowski (who has been excellent for us) and a CB capable of doing that.
We finished 3rd because some other clubs were in turmoil. We werent 3rd best
You can use the exact same argument about clubs this season in reverse. The point remains, you're a club targeting top 4 and the title, not to continue to finish 8th. To do that, there is not many, if any players currently that are going to be less than 25m and capable of being a title winner.
Alright but heres the issue - important players to us finishing 3rd, namely Lisandro Martinez and Luke Shaw cant stay fit. Theres no reason to think they will in the future, rather its more likely to continue. So we're not the same side as the one that came 3rd because we can't pick some of our best players that got us there.
Sure, but again, you're not a club that tries to catch up, you're a club that tries to get ahead (you've made terrible transfer decisions recently though). I think those signings to get ahead are of the Scalvini, Branthwaite, Yoro ilk, which are going to be around the c. 50m mark. Players like Tarkowski, Andersen are just 'catching up' and players like Akanji are very rare to get.
Nah, he'd have to get this treatment from the United faithful should he ever transfer in.
What do you mean recently? We've made terrible transfer decisions almost forever. Even Sir Alex had a few, but post sir Alex we've been almost non stop consantly overpaying for players and getting plenty wrong completely.
It is fine, we just disagree about what United need. Personally I think they need to start thinking of signings as long term strategy players who are both good enough for now and the future which Scalvini is.
I think Scalvini is obvious. The problem is what do we offer that top teams dont right now? More money? He'd be confident he'll play wherever he goes.
Indeed. Lucky for him there was a Bayer player offside. The ball didn't reached him because a defender managed to cut it, but is still offside under the laws of the game, despite the player not touching the ball.
Yep, good lesson for him to always check his shoulder and lucky for him didn't have to face the consequences of losing track of the attacker. As I said though, shouldn't negate the rest of his performance, he's going to be a great player.
There was one in my post - Natan. CB is one area of the pitch where players tend to require less of a specialised skillset - e.g. a player like Vini is rare, but most CBs tend to do similar things. You can buy one for less and develop them - under SAF we had the likes of Vidic, Smalling, Johnny Evans play regularly who were all cheap/free.
You can scout properly for players who go for those types of fees too, it's not only limited to cheaper signings.
