If Mctominay is back earlier that would be good. Guess the international break helps that. I agree panic buying could turn out bad, why not do a loan for Saul or something and just pay a bit extra to avoid the clause where we have to buy him?
Luckhurst: United prepared to move for a holding midfielder in January
- Thread starter Valar Morghulis
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If Mctominay is back earlier that would be good. Guess the international break helps that. I agree panic buying could turn out bad, why not do a loan for Saul or something and just pay a bit extra to avoid the clause where we have to buy him?
Quick maths...
Sancho: £70-75 million
Varane: £40-45 million
Ronaldo: £20-25 million (with colossal wages)
Spent: £130-145 million
Recouped: Dan James £25-30 million.
Even ignoring the tiny timeframe we have left to make a signing, I just don't think we're spending any more.
Sancho: £70-75 million
Varane: £40-45 million
Ronaldo: £20-25 million (with colossal wages)
Spent: £130-145 million
Recouped: Dan James £25-30 million.
Even ignoring the tiny timeframe we have left to make a signing, I just don't think we're spending any more.
Our poor performance came from one reason… lack of control in midfield. I love Pogba, our best player imo and I want him to sign that contract more than anything. Him in a midfield 2 just doesn’t work because he isn’t a CM.
Jack Wilshere on a free? Maybe 34 year old former Chelsea player Ramires on a free? How about Darron Gibson...so the Old Trafford faithful can shoat "SHOOOOOOOT" with great nostalgia.
Beggars can't be choosers after all.
I’d take them tbh.
Sure, but how patient can we be? We take so long to rebuild that the players we start rebuilding with are suddenly past it or moved on by the time we bring in the players needed to compliment them. Let's say we don't bother with a holding midfielder until next season, then we've just thrown away our title chances this season and thrown away a year with Ronaldo for no good reason. Then suddenly we buy a DM next season but now we've lost Pogba on a free, Ronaldo is a year older, Cavani is gone etc. We've always got a glaring issue, we just leave one problem after another rather than actually giving ourselves the best possible chance of success.
You can't pin that on 1 player solely.
It’s as simple as this - if we don’t sign a top class midfielder then we’ve resigned ourselves to another transition season
Quick math doesn’t equal making up numbers. Sancho was £73m paid over 5 years. Varane is £34 fee without addons also paid over time. Ronaldo was only £12m upfront.
There's a huge difference in getting one of the many available midfielders across Europe and signing one of the scrubs you mentioned. Your entire point has no meaning
When you are playing 2 in there they both have so much responsibility. The facts are we had zero control and got steam rolled over and over because Pogba has very little defensive anticipation and Fred had a bad game.
We had no control, but I'm not pinning that on 2 players specifically.
It was a systematic failure vs Wolves.
Sadly I agree, no matter what we've done elsewhere, which has been outstanding, that hole in the midfield will be our undoing.
It worries me that people think Pogba is a defensive liability whilst also thinking Fred is our best of a bad bunch at DM. Pogba spent the whole game yesterday having to drop deeper than Fred & was constantly pointing & shouting telling Fred where to be. The fact our supposed DM in Fred needs telling where to go by a player like Pogba who most percieve as defensively inept is the stuff of nightmares. McTominay is no better either, he gets skipped past like he's not there, mistimes every tackle, bites on every skill & takes far too many touches. Our midfield is a horror show.
Glad someone else sees it too, for all Fred’s energy he’s basically a headless chicken with zero positional sense and a first touch that’s barely better than Lukaku yet he’s our best bet at defensive midfield.
The point was that we are Beggars. So surely Beggars would accept anyone of the number of players available no matter how poor or unsuitable they are.
There is a huge difference between signing the right player for Manchester United and simply signing one of the many options across Europe. Besides we've more than likely left it too late to do a deal with clubs outside of England, I think we would struggle to get Permits and Visa's etc sorted.
I don't think Neves is the right player to solve our midfield issues and I don't think we as a club should settle for another player who can just do a job in there.
Right, like I don't care if Fred buzzes about and gets the ball back 5 times in a game if he's giving it away 20 times with shocking passing & first touches that act as through balls to our opposition's striker. I'd rather have someone that doesn't even win the ball back, so long as they can pass and don't give it away 10 times as often as they win it, we'd still be better for it.
he was shocking in the first half defensively against Wolves. They played around and thru him like he had no clue how to defend. Traore skipped around him on that one long run early in the first half which almost led to a goal. Just can't see how you can defend him playing centrally.
Adama was skipping past a lot of players during the early periods of that game.
Maybe however this particular occasion he went in to help double the ball with Fred and not only was Pogba late but he also let Traore split them. Tell me the last time Pogba played in the CM for United and put in a solid performance?
That stretch around New Years when he was probably our best player.
Are City in transition because they don't have a striker?
Were Chelsea in transition last year when they didn't have a striker?
They have a manager who can come up with solutions to those problems. Also, midfield is arguably the most important part of the game.
against Burnley, Fulham and Sheffield United.....one tough opponent with Liverpool
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Cant help but feel that Lingard digging his heels in probably ends our hopes of getting a midfielder, which massively massively sucks.
Why are we not signing Renato Sanchez on loan instead?
It is clear our club doesn't think so. Other than Rice and that Newcastle ginger I don't remember us being seriously linked with any in the past couple of years.
I think that's unfair on McTominay. He's still improving, and he's put in a number of good performances, and plenty of solid ones. I think he, much more so than Fred, would look better and better next to a capable midfielder with a good football brain.
Fred was awful and a calamity waiting to happen while on the ball but really Wolves did to us what we've been doing to the teams at the top of the table for the past couple of years. The only way Pogba or Fred could have stopped Traore with the kind of poor team spacing we had would have been to commit Fernandinho like fouls and somehow avoid the yellow cards. We've seen our boys skip past the midfields of Man City, Liverpool, PSG et. al but never concluded that those midfielders weren't good enough. As mentioned in the other thread about our buildup play, it's all about the spacing between the lines.
No 'proper CM' anywhere will solve the systematic issues that we have. They would certainly lose the ball less often than Fred (and maybe that would be enough for us) but I don't think any one single player can give us better control against teams that press.
No 'proper CM' anywhere will solve the systematic issues that we have. They would certainly lose the ball less often than Fred (and maybe that would be enough for us) but I don't think any one single player can give us better control against teams that press.
I think you saw Edi apart that panic buying late in last summer's window didn't work out well for us, I just hope that we see more midfield performances like Leeds and less like Southampton & Wolves but not many play like Leeds do they.
That's just life under the Glazers for you, stuck in transition limbo while the oil clubs mop up the trophies. Next year we'll have to replace Pogba too.
He's about to turn 25 ffs. People treat him like a youngster when he's not. He's the new Lingard. He has no defensive talent at all, he loses his man constantly, is awful in the challenge & will get sold on any slight dummy. He doesn't read danger and he's average at best going forward.
He did and the teams we faced are irrelevant to the question you posed.
Agreed.
My thinking is that it will be Haaland and Rice we go for.
Hopefully next year with the bounce back of the market from COVID, we'll see the likes of Pereira, Dalot, Williams, one of Axel or Bailly, and maybe one of DDG or Henderson sold which should ensure that we get our net spend down to a reasonable enough level.
Add in Grant, Mata and Cavani leaving at the end of their contracts too, and we should be clearing a good £400k-£500k cleared in wages without needing sales as well.
EDIT - While I do think we'll go in for Haaland in 2022, I don't know if we'll get him. In the case that we don't, I can see a move for Martinez at Inter (who isn't necessarily a 9 admittedly), Vlahovic at Fiorentina, or even Calvert-Lewin happening. The good thing is that while we will no doubt have Haaland as the obvious plan A, the alternatives all have plenty of their own strong points too and I would not be unhappy with any of them coming in.
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He has proved useful defending set pieces, he's added aggression to his game, has a very good shot on him, and when the team plays well he plays well. I see a player who is still improving. And I like him very much as a squad player. He'll improve further training with higher quality midfielders.
I really hope they add a solid RB that can actually play some football. I think some people are massively underestimating what a good attacking back could bring to this team. Would allow Greenwood/Sancho to play with more freedom and cut in more as well. Both Shaw and AWB are super predictable and better defenders but provide barely anything offensively, but at least Shaw can give the team something from time to time. I really wished they would pursue someone else after they backed out for Trippier.
Luke Shaw is predictable and offers nothing offensvely
.Sorry but what a load of bollox.How about a last minute loan for Arthur Melo, he was a very good mid at Barca and Juve doesn't use him at all.
They call him Arthur Melo, quite rightly.