Is a 30-year old high profile player too old to be worth the outlay in the PL?

[KeanoMagicHat]

Yet someone pointed out buying a 36 year old was an issue last season and they got trolled out of here and the thread got deleted.

30 years old is fine depending on the player. Makelele was 30 for Chelsea when he signed.

Modric won the Ballon d’Or at 33.
Xavi was 30 in 2010 and still ruling midfields in 2012.
Pirlo was 30 in 2009 and also ruling it a few years later in 2012.
Xabi Alonso was 30 in 2011 and won the CL in 2014 at 32 and was still looking the part at 35 for Bayern

 

[Jed I. Knight]

Not necessarily.

A 30 year old player who’s won it all, and whose only motivation for coming is a ridiculous payday? Absolutely.

 

[marktan]

I'd be fine if it was the price of Mane, Thiago, Koulibaly etc - around £30m - £40m.

£60m takes the biscuit though.

 

[TheNewEra]

No, and United need a big name and a strong team.

United can get top young players once they're competing again. If Casemiro is 33 and the rest of the team is built then a young replacement can come.

United needs experience and winners.

 

[Blood Mage]

When he's (a) a midfielder and (b) a very good one and (c) when you look at our absolutely laughable midfield options, then the answer is a resounding yes.

 

[Siorac]

Casemiro would fit into that last category. Maybe he will work out long term, maybe not. But you have to work with what is realistic. I would love to focus on unknown players who we scouted well and rising stars, but our fanbase won't buy into it, no matter how much they say they would. The strategy that people talk a lot about (decent player at a good age from a smaller club, like Neves and Tielemans), has mostly failed here tbh. Mostly because we don't have a defined style of play where it is clear how and where people fit

But your last sentence is exactly the issue once again. We are desperately throwing offers around for a wide variety of players, with the only criteria being that he's better what we have. That's how even amazing players become deadwood: throw them into a dysfunctional team with no vision of how to build a functional one.

Casemiro - if he actually joins which I still doubt - won't be anywhere near as good as he is for Real Madrid where he had a specific job in a midfield unit that played to his strengths and compensated for his weaknesses. He won't unlock the midfield because he's the first piece of a hopefully great future midfield - except he may or may not be in decline by the time we actually put that together.

 

[Marwood]

If he comes he's probably going to have to run more im his 30's than he ever has before. Same goes for any player coming to United right now around that age.

He'll certainly have to be an exception because everytime we've tried this sort of signing it's not been great.

 

[Abraxas]

I don't think it's a case of never buying a 30 year old. It's having the skills as a recruitment side to weigh up every detail and make a judgment.

Sometimes a v.Persie can come in, make a huge impact, and you've got your money's worth. It does necessitate some fairly quick forward planning as it is just a fact that over 30 we are more likely to see decline. It could be this year, next year, or the one after - or more likely it will be gradual. You don't just turn shit at 35, it is a process, so you're not generally getting a peak player.

However you have to look at all the circumstances. If you're spunking 60 million on a 30 year old that is used to football on the continent, has gigantic wage expectations, and he has to take a step down in his career, then yes there are a lot of warning signs there that are telling you this might not be the greatest idea. The club is massively financially exposed on the deal due to the number of risk factors.

The other thing that I think is important is the nature of the squad. Is the 30 year old the icing on the cake, a high quality addition to a functioning squad? Or are we throwing money at problems in a way which kicks the can down the road?

 

[Reiver]

I don't think there's a definite answer on this. You can only judge each individual properly with hindsight.

 

[SirReginald]

He is definitely a better profile and fit for you than Rabiot would have been, achieved more and isn’t a dick.

Financially speaking, it’s terrible for you. You literally his retirement package. I get that your club generates a shit tonne of cash but you spend it so recklessly on wages that it’s beyond a joke, it’s simply unfathomable. If he doesn’t work out he will Winston Bogarde your club so hard.

 

[World Game]

Imagine you’ve spent most of your career at your dream club United. You’ve won the CL 5 times, the PL 3 times, a FA Cup and 3 Club World Cups. Now at age 30 a foreign club such as Atletico Madrid want to sign you. You would want to stay at United but they just signed a younger player in your position and Madrid are offering you big money. You will be playing in the Europa League with no guarantee of returning to the CL in future seasons.

You sign for them anyway because of the money. After a few games playing in front of Maguire and next to McFred you realise you won’t be winning anything with this team. So the question is how much effort do you want to put into the 4th place trophy for your new club? After all you’re still getting paid big money and you have 5 CL medals already.

In fact the only medal you are missing is the World Cup coming up in a few months. The last thing you would want is to try too hard and get injured before it…

 

[ufb]

Imagine you’ve spent most of your career at your dream club United. You’ve won the CL 5 times, the PL 3 times, a FA Cup and 3 Club World Cups. Now at age 30 a foreign club such as Atletico Madrid want to sign you. You would want to stay at United but they just signed a younger player in your position and Madrid are offering you big money. You will be playing in the Europa League with no guarantee of returning to the CL in future seasons.

You sign for them anyway because of the money. After a few games playing in front of Maguire and next to McFred you realise you won’t be winning anything with this team. So the question is how much effort do you want to put into the 4th place trophy for your new club? After all you’re still getting paid big money and you have 5 CL medals already.

In fact the only medal you are missing is the World Cup coming up in a few months. The last thing you would want is to try too hard and get injured before it…

I imagine Casemiro is doing this for a new challenge. He'll be paid more money than Madrid, but I don't doubt he could get more money elsewhere if he really wanted to.

I see this happen a fair bit in my line of work as well, people who've made a tremendous amount of money in their current company/business take on major challenges that they don't really _need_ to. For the right player, I imagine helping a major european football back to the top (or somewhere near it) must have some appeal.

It is also possible that he's doing this purely for the money but there can be multiple motivators at play here.

 

[Powderfinger]

There are a few points that really need to be central in this kind of discussion, but which are often swept under the rug by people who want to reason back to whatever conclusion they are hoping for.

The first is that the PL is easily the most physically demanding league in Europe. You have to do more sprints and cover more ground per match (this is statistically proven), you have less time on the ball, the opposing athletes overall are arguably the best of any league (this is subjective but IMO at least true), and the weather is often cold and crappy . Examples of guys playing well into their 30s in other leagues just aren't very useful in thinking about how players age in the PL.

The second is that position matters quite a bit. Studies suggest that wide players, whether FBs, WBs, or wingers, decline the earliest. Other than the obvious in GKs, CBs probably have the longest careers. Midfielders and CFs are somewhere in between.

The final issue is survivor bias. So often you see people pointing to somebody like Thiago Silva or Fernandinho and saying something to the effect of "Age is just a number, see you can play at a high level in the PL." It's easy to say that because the guy is on your television staring you in the face. What you don't see are all the 33-year-old footballers who have already retired or gone off to some other league entirely because their bodies broke down right after they hit 30 or they lost a step and were no longer effective enough or they simply lost the motivation to put in the daily grind.

All in all, the one inescapable conclusion is that betting on field players, especially non-CBs, to play at a high level after 31 in the PL is a terrible idea from a probability standpoint. Some of those bets will beat the odds (ie, Fernandinho), but most will turn up crap.

How many field players in the PL who were 32 or older when last season began went on to play 2000+ minutes in the league? This isn't a particularly high bar, I'm not talking about good play per se, just being able to start games on a fairly regular basis. The answer is 5 - Seamus Coleman, Craig Cathcart, Joao Moutinho, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Thiago Silva. That's the entire list of age 32+ players (at season's start) who were capable of simply being regular starters. So if you're looking at a 30-year-old player - of which there are tons - and thinking "Yeah, what's really the difference between 30 and 32 in the end? He'll still be a big part of this team when he's 32" there is a lot of wishful thinking going into that calculation. Is it possible? Of course. Is it likely? No.

 

[bosnian_red]

Depends. Generally, most of the time, no you don't want to spend big on them. Casemiro is a different situation. We are in free fall. We need to stabilize as a club and get some breathing room and time to figure out what we want to do. Casemiro does this for us. Huge money, but the money is worth it because otherwise it's just scrambling to fix fire after fire. Casemiro puts the fire out, at least for 3-4 years and should make us solid, and let Ten Hag implement his system, build trust, build a plan, etc.

Generally though, signings like Griezmann, Coutinho, Hazard, Ronaldo etc are bad ideas and don't work out. We'll see with Lewa. But they generally don't work out.

Also as others said. Position matters. Centerbacks last longer, defensive mids last longer. Wingers/attackers decline the fastest, and fullbacks as well.

 

[hobbers]

Really depends on how dependent they are on pace.

The top midfielders in recent history have all peaked in their thirties and been world class well into their mid thirties. Scholes, Xavi, Modric, Kroos, Busquets, Xabi Alonso, Makelele, Pirlo....

But for the money all we can say right now is that this is a massive gamble in sheer desperation, with Murtough and co having fecked up the window so badly.

 

[Shiva87]

A team having Casemiro, Ronaldo, Varane is basically taking the spine from the Madrid team which won Champions Leagues, and putting them together in Manchester 5 years too late.

Even when they were winning CLs that Madrid team were a bunch of game raisers who didn't perform to the same level in league games.

Make of that what you will but it doesn't look good from the outside.

 

[Sir Erik ten Hag]

Yes, generated because of the Casemiro thread where some are turning their noses up at him purely due to his age, but it’s a long-standing theme on the caf in and of itself that 30-years old is ancient and a big risk to take on a footballer In the PL.

Is that correct? Would you not want your club to sign an elite player who was 30-years old?

Sanchez, Cavani, Ronaldo, Matic, Ighalo, Ibrahimovic, Falcao... Our record speaks for ourselves. That's why people are skeptical.

 

[General_Elegancia]

It depends on that person ability/ fitness and style of playing, I’m not talking about transfer strategy but I will talk only in term of individual. The advantages from getting players over 30+ years old are experience, more calmness and better tactical understanding ( due to experience) and the last one they have leadership in locker room and can advice some young players both on and off the pitch. I still think it depends on their fitness/ability and class. Look at Thiago Silva ( 38 years old), KDB and VVD ( 31 years old), Ibrahimovic ( at that time 35 years old), Ronaldo ( 37 years old) or Koulibaly ( 31 years old), all of them still play at the highest level. Consider Casemiro is only 30 years old and still plays superbly , I think he has a lot of chances to be successful in United( despite he was a bit post-peak, since his peak form was during 2016-2018).

 

[berbasloth4]

Kevin de Bruyne is best player in the league. Probably the world right now. He’s 31. Age is just a number

 

[World Game]

I imagine Casemiro is doing this for a new challenge. He'll be paid more money than Madrid, but I don't doubt he could get more money elsewhere if he really wanted to.

I see this happen a fair bit in my line of work as well, people who've made a tremendous amount of money in their current company/business take on major challenges that they don't really _need_ to. For the right player, I imagine helping a major european football back to the top (or somewhere near it) must have some appeal.

It is also possible that he's doing this purely for the money but there can be multiple motivators at play here.

I hope this is the case. The positive I guess is that even Casemiro playing at 80% will be better than McFred. But I doubt we will get a 70m player out of him, probably more a 40m player.

 

[Trigg]

It’s a massive risk. Matic was the same, he fell off a cliff in physical terms out of nowhere. Casemiro is a very good player but that outlay plus a 5 YEAR CONTRACT is risky business.

It always feels massively like the approach they’ve had for years with regards to transfers…

 

[MUFC OK]

I'd rather spend that on Caicedo to be honest. However, this signing improves us massively in the short term, he is a leader and still one of the best in the world in his position. Hardly had an injury in his career either and if you look at someone like Fernandinho, he could easily play to 35.

 

[fergiewherearethou]

It really depends on the player, some age differently than others. A CDM can play until 33-34 without problems.

I don't remember Casemiro having many injuries and he played 40+ games every year for RM. Whether he adapts to the physical aspect of the PL and the players around him, to play at the same level as he played at RM, that's a different question.

 

[Jacob]

A team having Casemiro, Ronaldo, Varane is basically taking the spine from the Madrid team which won Champions Leagues, and putting them together in Manchester 5 years too late.

Even when they were winning CLs that Madrid team were a bunch of game raisers who didn't perform to the same level in league games.

Make of that what you will but it doesn't look good from the outside.

Varane was a passenger next to Ramos though.

 

[Jacob]

If we have to manage hid game time, it's an abysmal deal. If he can be a mainstay for at least three seasons then it's all good.

 

[NoLogo]

For a rebuild signing 30 year old players is a bad idea. Neither City nor Liverpool did it during their rise to the top of the PL, they mainly bought early and mid 20s players with high potential. At least this is the part where my frustration kicks in, that we can't seem to find these players. That being said I think Casemiero and Eriksen are actually two really good midfielders and will really improve our midfield.

 

[ROFLUTION]

The not-so-talked-about benefit of signing the best in the World is also that the next generation can learn from this fella. Let's be honest, no next-gen World beater defensive midfielder is available currently, so it's probably a development project anyways.

 

[sullydnl]

In general, it's to be avoided. But there are exceptions.

To increase the chances of it being a successful exception, especially for a huge fee, you'd want the player to have been your first choice and a perfect fit for your plan going into the transfer window.

That isn't the case here and there's no sign of a clear strategy being successfully implemented in this transfer window. So we just have to hope it works out, even by accident.

 

[Gordon Godot]

In general, it's to be avoided. But there are exceptions.

To increase the chances of it being a successful exception, especially for a huge fee, you'd want the player to have been your first choice and a perfect fit for your plan going into the transfer window.

That isn't the case here and there's no sign of a clear strategy being successfully implemented in this transfer window. So we just have to hope it works out, even by accident.

Its classic Glazer expensive short term fix. No plan, no strategy. WE still have Ronaldo stinking place out, in a couple of years anohter OAP on massive wages we cant move on.

 

[Poborsky's hair]

Fernandinho was comfortably still one of the best DMs in the league at 34-35ish. We are getting a 30 year old with at least 3 years at peak of his career, and we need at least this season or two to get out of him to find a long term replacement, to get back to CL and save ourselves a humiliation.

It's not a risk to get the player with the right attitude and quality in even if it's aon a shorter term..

 

[Sir Erik ten Hag]

Fernandinho was comfortably still one of the best DMs in the league at 34-35ish. We are getting a 30 year old with at least 3 years at peak of his career, and we need at least this season or two to get out of him to find a long term replacement, to get back to CL and save ourselves a humiliation.

It's not a risk to get the player with the right attitude and quality in even if it's aon a shorter term..

Sounds more like we are desperately trying to convince ourselves it would work out despite all the red flags.

 

[TheReligion]

Sounds more like we are desperately trying to convince ourselves it wouldn’t work out despite him being the best DM in the world

 

[Sir Erik ten Hag]

him being the best DM in the world

I get what you are saying but the bigger red flag is we are once again acting desperately, swaying from our original plan. How often has a desperate move on the transfer market with no actual plan behind it worked out in the football world?

This is exactly why we signed Amad and Pellistri only to not give them proper minutes and struggling to offload them til this day. Because we acted desperately on that summer's deadline day just to avoid the fans's wrath, instead of following an actual plan.

Desperate act with no planning in the football world does not save teams. It instead punishes them. And we have witnessed that many times.

 

[Zen86]

I see the likes of Casemiro to be the kind of signings to take you up a step, the final pieces of the puzzle to push you into a title challenge. Particularly beneficial if you have a young and experienced team.

We're at least a couple years from doing anything of note, we're not on the cusp of winning anything right now. Will he make us better? Yes, but that's a pretty low bar with the squad we have currently.

 

[ROBSON No7]

With the end of the window imminent, I feel like a child who has submitted his list to Santa for Christmas. I asked for a Raleigh Burner but feel I'm gonna end up with a skateboard. Now skateboards are OK but they ain't no BMX

 

[TheReligion]

I get what you are saying but the bigger red flag is we are once again acting desperately, swaying from our original plan. How often has a desperate move on the transfer market with no actual plan behind it worked out in the football world?

This is exactly why we signed Amad and Pellistri only to not give them proper minutes and struggling to offload them til this day. Because we acted desperately on that summer's deadline day just to avoid the fans's wrath, instead of following an actual plan.

Desperate act with no planning in the football world does not save teams. It instead punishes them. And we have witnessed that many times.

Often you move away from the plan or adapt it.

Its clear we have been working on more than one deal and the club want another CM along side Casemiro. None of us know how much of a deviation this is but I welcome the club, and manager, acknowledging that we need a DM and bringing in literally the best in class to help the club this season.

It’s great buying lots of young gems for less money but you need the right mix and profile of player. The team is mentally weak and we’ve needed steal in the middle of the pitch for many years.

Casemiro is exactly the profile we need and is the best in the business at what he does. A rebuild doesn’t happen in one window. We aren’t City or PSG. We need to be harder to play against now not just in 12 months time or when the next new thing develops.

Another season out of the CL makes recruitment even more difficult again.

 

[RedRoach]

IMO clubs have changed strategy with signings. There is no loyalty in football anymore so if you know a player is going to almost certainly leave at the end of their contract what difference does it make signing a 30 year old vs a 25 year old on a 4 year + 1 contract?

 

[TheReligion]

I see the likes of Casemiro to be the kind of signings to take you up a step, the final pieces of the puzzle to push you into a title challenge. Particularly beneficial if you have a young and experienced team.

We're at least a couple years from doing anything of note, we're not on the cusp of winning anything right now. Will he make us better? Yes, but that's a pretty low bar with the squad we have currently.

The fact he makes the team better is the point surely?

Baffled at people moaning about Casemiro when we have Mctominay in the same role, and have for a few years.

 

[hazldinho]

If this was the final jigsaw piece to launch this team to success I would say yes but I don't think it even touches the sides and will be another expensive mistake to add to this regime's list of big transfers.

With any luck it could be the last big transfer they make.

 

[Zen86]

The fact he makes the team better is the point surely?

Baffled at people moaning about Casemiro when we have Mctominay in the same role, and have for a few years.

I think the point is that lots of players would make the team better, ones who will be around for longer. It's a continuation of the awful, short-sighted transfer strategy that landed us in this situation in the first place. It's not necessarily about Casemiro as a player.