You cringed at Andy Cole being in the starting lineup?I can't think of many players whose performance hasn't waned this season. Martial, Greenwood, Matic, Shaw and even the likes of Bruno had seen a dip in their performance. Which kind explain why we're in 10th place. That's a concern. Good managers tend to improve players through coaching. I can make you a list of players that I cringed whenever their name popped up on the lineup and who went on improving and becoming useful under Sir Alex. Some like Andy Cole and Gary Neville ended up becoming first teamers and key players in our team. That's what top managers do. They improve players
However my biggest concern is how many players are breaching disciplinary measures. We had AWB breaking covid rules, Maguire going full bust up in Greece, Greenwood breaking rules in Iceland and that on top of Pogba usual 'I feel unhappy' BS and Lingard not focusing on football again. That's bad very bad. I had the 'pleasure' of having a mate whose unfortunately is a Liverpool supporter. He was very close to Houllier (ie I spoke to the guy myself once via his phone) and he told me the crap good old chap Evans faced to keep the dressing room happy. Basically Ince would choose the formation on Evans behalf. Which kind of explains why such great talent was sold so cheaply the moment the frenchman took full control over Liverpool. I hope that we do not have a good old chap Ole at the wheel ie someone who'll accept anything just to have a happy dressing room.
Regarding transfers there was no way on earth that United would have spent big in the middle of a pandemic not after we nIearly spent 200m last summer, 140m of which on overrated/overpriced players who are nowhere near to WC. That stinks of naivety from Ole/Pundits part. Sure we should have signed Cavani and Diallo earlier then we did and we should have tried to sign a CB as well. However considering everything we did had a productive summer with VDB/Telles being mint and Pellistri and Diallo being quite interesting prospects.
To conclude I think we've been messing up ever since Sir Alex retired. Moyes was out of depth, LVG had no idea of how the EPL works and that was something he himself ended up admitting while Mourinho is burned out and its only a matter of time before clubs notice that. With Ole we've gone full circle ie we signed a manager whose out of depth again. Having said that I do agree that the manager is not a problem. Actually he's a subset of a bigger problem and that is a board who keeps taking football decisions despite having no idea of what football is. A knowledgeable board would have brought in top people (DOF, head of recruitment etc) which in turn would made us more efficient on the transfer market they would have hired a top manager and they would hire top coaches to aid him. I mean look at the picture. Take Phelan out of the picture and they all look like boy scout leaders rather then manager/coaches of the biggest club in the world. Their CV kind of suggest the same thing.
https://assets.manutd.com/AssetPick...8ECA6231E381179FE9CC1100B53C1545399498995.jpg
January....
- Thread starter UnitedSofa
- Start date
You cringed at Andy Cole being in the starting lineup?
Andy Cole was class but he was shockingly wasteful for the first season or 2. You could tell cantona hated playing with him. Great reply @devilish I’ll get back to it after the match.
@Ali Dia replied better then I possibly could
Do we think any of the below positions can be signed in January
CB
RW
DM
CB
RW
DM
No fans in the stadium, lacks money so don’t expect something.
Yeah our only January addition is likely to be someone who was signed in the summer
Or our January signing is likely going to be part of the 2021 summer. We might get someone if we sell someone with lot of cash like Pogba.
I think there is some truth in this. I dont see anyone on the management team who players would be afraid of, modern age or not, you still need that.
I am quietly optimistic that we will make a big signing in January, whether or not it's the right player is anyone's guess, but I just have a feeling (unfounded) that something will be done.
Think us signing anyone in Jan totally depends on our form around that time.
There won't be any signings in January I don't think. We might agree to a deal for the summer in January at the very most. Hopefully a top CB.
fergie/Kidd changed his game though, he took a while to adapt to it, he came as an out and out poacher but Fergie wanted him to be more involved in build up. As you say absolute class player once settled, horribly underappreciated by younger Utd fans.Ironically Cantona took a season before we truly started to see his greatness as well.
from what I remember I think it’s fair to say cole only really fully clicked when yorke came along but he was improving a lot every season up to that point
Would love a CDM out of nowhere like Zakaria but think zero links to any at all is very telling
We were linked with him in October, you can look up the article by typing Manchester United Zakaria in google. City was linked with him in November. His contract is up in 2022 and very likely to be sold in the summer or may be even in January. But he had long term injury since March 2020 and only just started playing last week as subs so may be no buyers will be convinced to buy him in January if he’s not fully fit yet.
I was very young back then but I do remember us signing Andy Cole quite vividly. I was in the car which was driven by my older cousin and he was so angry with this signing that we nearly crashed. In time I understood why he was so much against this signing. Andy was a decent but hardly WC goal poacher (he would be WC on today's standards but not back then) who was also a confidence type player and had a pretty sensitive soul. That meant that it took him very little to lose his way. We signed him from Newcastle ie a club that built the team around him. That wasn't going to happen at United especially not with Cantona around. Eric was Manchester United back then. I've been following United for decades and I never saw a player holding so much influence over the side then Eric did.. The French man was used having Hughes doing the dirty work and he was in no mood to start doing the Beardsley's job (ie drop deep, work hard and simply feed Cole chances) on Andy's behalf. To make matters worse we also had a certain Ole back then ie a guy everyone loved including Roy Keane. Eric made it obvious that he preferred playing with Ole then with Cole which ruined the little confidence Andy had back then. Andy's low came in the CL semi against Dortmund were he kept missing one sitter after another. Eric's body language in that game was damning and could have ruined anyone especially someone as sensitive as Cole was.
The easy way out would have been to simply cut the losses. Instead United coached him into greatness. Andy learnt that there was more to the game then simply score goals. He embraced his qualities ie his workrate, his altruism, his blistering pace and his ability to read the game from a deeper role and do something with the ball rather then simply aim for goal. He also learnt not to get influenced by the media, his teammates and his critics which in turn made him a better man. That proved instrumental as he became the hybrid type of striker (ie a mix of a no 10 and a goalpoacher) which proved instrumental during the treble run.
Andy was not the only player United had transformed. Gaz, Scholes (STK to the best CM England had ever had since Charlton), Ronaldo (from a brainless chicken who would dribble his way to the corner flag into the best player of his era) and Giggs (from AML into a CM) are few of the best examples of what good coaching can do to players. Great coaching can transform players, it can make low EPL side level players like Cleverley or OShea useful and it allowed very flawed United sides to reach the CL final twice (only to get hammered by Barca) and win our last EPL title. In his last season with us, Sir Alex would probably kill to have the quality side Ole has at his disposal.
Smartest thing United can do is buy a hidden gem. Like vidic and evra was.
Cheers for the heads up but need to be linked to him in somewhere more concrete than The Sun for me to believe
David Alaba would be worth a try in this window as I don't think Bayern would want him to go for free.
A balanced midfielder to replace Pogba would be nice.
I'd agree with that.
As much as I like Upamecano, he is still raw, whilst Alaba has invaluable experience, he has been there and done it all.
Someone like that, is probably going to be a better partner with Maguire, rather than a young player, as I don't feel that Harry is a particularly good boss of the duo.
Rumoured to be asking for north of £300k a week. Which probably means we've got a decent chance of getting him. Juventus would be my guess though. They love a bargain / free transfer.
That was what I was thinking, Maguire's not a leader, he didn't do as well with Axel as Lindelöf did. So putting a more experienced, more talented and more successful CB next to him makes sense, especially when that CB also has tge attributes that cover Maguire's physical flaws.
Can Juve afford those kind of wages? I thought they were haemorrhaging money, especially with Ronaldo's contract.
Juve won't go for him. Barca would. Easily. They need a defender. They can always sell a surplus player and as Koeman has said, he needs to buy defenders. Alaba would be tempted more to barca as well.
Pogba getting back to fitness in January will be like a new signing. 
I think we will see some outs, even if its just Robert, Rojo we might see something. Not desperate for it but Erikson to cover Mata whi I think will go in the summer be good business. CB we know we need but who could we get. Quiet window.
Barce are far more likely to go for Rojo than they are Alaba, their accountant is probably crying at even you posting that suggestion.
Eriksen to replace Mata? That's the last bloody thing we need.
but wasn’t Van de Beek signed with very little notice? I’m sure there was some rumblings but from what I remember it happened out of nowhere. Same with Cavani and Pellistri.
This January or next January?Pogba getting back to fitness in January will be like a new signing.
No, we were linked with van de Beek for a while, I think we were just aiming for Grealish who ultimately was too expensive.
I don't see us doing anything this window outside of Diallo finally arriving. Sounds like we might get Calhonoglu in the summer, not before.
I'm just hoping we can sell players. Amazes me how Rojo, Lingard and Jones are still here.
Looks like Adam Armstrong is the breakthrough player in the championship this season. Striker. Looks a real prospect. Could be the next Jamie Vardy.
Do people think signing a fast CB or a proper CDM would make the biggest difference to this team
Isn't Tuazebe quite fast? And Mengi as well? I feel that any more CBs will just block the path of these two. Tuanzebe needs game time but we can't afford that it seems.
A proper CDM Matic replacement would see us being able to play both Bruno and VDB. Right now they can just try and mark Bruno completely out of the game, but if you have VDB buzzing around always available, always running into attacking space it will pull players away.
Yes. If we get the proper players. For CDM I'd say we should get a DM with Mctominay's mobility, tenacity and ability todeal with the press combined with good passing ability like Pogba. Kalvin Phillips will be my choice.
For CB there are quite a number of fast CBs like Badiashile Torres Upamecano Konate etc but I'm not sure if they are good enough yet to transform our defense. I'd pick Kounde because I was very impressed by him in the Europa league
Think CDM is the next most crucial position we need to fill and it needs to be the right player. If we get that one right it should solidify our defence without having to buy a new CB allowing Tuanzebe to hopefully develop in to that role and help going forward by allowing Bruno and VdB to play together more.
Unlikely to happen but what if we could agree a deal in Jan for the summer to get Ramos for a couple of years.
Feel like Cavani his leadership and experience could be huge whilst allowing those two to keep developing.