It's all doom and gloom eh? Lets revel in it. Anyway, lets look at our current "deadwood" including the ones that left
Fellaini: Most people agree he was not "United quality" and not suited to how we wanted to play. Not to bothered about selling him really, but calling him deadwood is a bit unfair considering he was useful in some cases. Also, i dont think he regressed that much with us compared to what he was at Everton.
Sanchez: The worst bit of business we have ever done. Lost a yard of pace or so the season we bought him and his entire game fell apart. Was deadwood when he arrived
Smalling: Hes only on loan so we do keep our options open. Hes a decent enough defender, just really clumsy on the ball. Not deadwood imo
Darmian: Deadwood from day 1. No doubt
Valencia: Amazing athlete in his prime, but quite limited technically. Turned into deadwood when he lost his pace
Jones/Rojo/Baily: Awful injury record and always seem to have an error in them when they play. Dont know if i would call them deadwood (maybe Rojo), but i think we can safely get rid of them and dont lose to much
Maguire: Not spectacular so far, but very solid imo. And keep in mind hes only 26. Still got his best years ahead of him. Unless he falls of a cliff either literally or form wise, hes not going to become deadwood
Shaw: I want him to do well, but hes always just a gust of wind away from another injury. I thought he would be our leftback for years to come, but considering he spends about 3/4 of the season sidelined, hes deadwood sadly
Young: Think he gets slagged of a lot unfairly. Yeah, hes not very good, but hes a 34 year old winger moonlighting as a fullback. Deadwood? Yeah, probably, but hes been a model professional and is obviously made from steel since hes never injured and plays a lot of fecking football for his age
AWB: The best defensive fullback i have seen. Nothing gets past him. Can work on his crossing, but barring a serious injury hes not becoming deadwood anytime soon. Not a chance
Fred/Pereira/Lingaard: Deadwood
Mata/Matic: Deadwood, but mostly because of age. Especially Mata was quite good for us for a couple of years, though he never replicated the form when he became POTY at Chelsea.
James: Take set pieces out of the equation and hes our most productive player this year. Maybe hes just having a great start and it turns out hes shit, but i dont see why that would be the case. As long as he packs on some muscle hes going to be solid imo
So, many of our "deadwoods" have become so simply because of age(Matic, Mata, Sanchez, Young) and was very capable players once, but should have been replaced about 2-3 years ago. Some are deadwood because they can stay fit for more than two matches in a row (Shaw, Jones, Baily, Rojo) and regress as players because of this. The rest are just shit (Darmian, Fred, Pereira, Lingaard)
AWB, Maguire and James though are all very young for their respective positions, so there is no risk of their legs falling off just yet. Maguire has also played at a high level in the PL for years so i would be really surprised if he suddenly turned shit. AWB is still young, but imo looks like a once a generation talent. If he turns into deadwood i am giving up football altogether. James i dont know, but considering his good start i would be more surprised if he turned to shit than if he turned out alright
Compare these three to the other deadwood we have that dont have an age or injury excuse. James and AWB have so far delivered quite a few MOTM performances and that cant be said for Lingaard, Fred, Darmian and Pereira. Lingaard has been shit pretty much his entire United career bar a few good spells where he has been unplayable, where as Darmian, Fred and Pereira has looked like deer in traffic pretty much the entire time they have been here and has at most managed to string together 2-3 acceptable performances before looking shit again
So when does Oles signings turn into deadwood? Hopefully never