Yes, they've bought Lucas Hernandez for 80mil who has played as LB at Atletico but a lot of people think he will be a CB one day. Bayern bought Pavard too.
I read that Boateng is on his way out, and if they land De Ligt Hummels is also allowed to leave. Robben, Ribery, James Rodriguez, Rafinha contracts/loan running out too, I imagine they were getting decent wages. So they should have some room financially. I expect a major overhaul of their squad this summer.
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Shut up Louis.
To be fair he's basically saying he should go to Barcelona and if not then Juventus or City. Nothing wrong with those comments. United aren't flavor of the month, I'm sure most professional young players would chose those 3 over us at the moment.
people fussed at what LVG says about the players best moveI think I saw the same thing but as I interpreted it he wasn’t saying he is going to go to Bayern or Barca so he could go elsewhere and I don’t think the manager was ruling that out. Still expect him to see him at Barca but not based on the latest quotes from the coach.
Not fussed, I imagine LvG would simply say nothing positive about us regardless of circumstances. Even if we were in Citys position regarding being an attractive position Id bet he would only mention Juve and Barca as best destinations.Louis isn't saying De Ligt should move to Barca & City because of his hate for United - he is saying it because they are the only teams that attempt to hold possession & benefits de light's game.
When Messi goes, or even before, Barca will splash out fortunes on players like Mbappe. Players who are going to be amongst the best in the world for the next decade. When Fergie left, we signed Fellaini and crossed our fingers.
No way will Barca be in a situation like us. Look at their investment in the squad. They are cherry picking all the best talents in the world. They won't be as strong without Messi obviously but they will still be strong contenders for CL and keep winning La Liga titles.
I'm still upset over our lack of investment in the latter years of Fergie especially after Ronaldo left. We were still a top team at that point and a few shrewd purchases would have kept us competing at the top.
They're doing that now with Messi in the side and they're not an elite side IMO.
Madrid didnt invest in their squad though. Barca rely on a lot of younger inconsistent players and their manager isnt one of the best around. Once some of their players step up and they get a better manager in, they will be excellent. They may not win the CL, but they will win La Liga and be in the Semi finals of the Cl. Not many better sides around.
They have bought Dembele, Arthur, Lenglet and De Jong. They will probably sign De Ligt too. Ter Stegen is the best keeper in the world imo. So that will leave them with only one or two positions left to fill when Messi leaves in 3-4 years.
So that we can say he’s ‘embarrassing’ or ‘instead of signing Koulibaly he spent all summer chasing De Ligt who was playing him?’.
They could push Pavard to right back and Kimmich to midfield. So don't rule them out.
We haven't 'come in "late'. Barca, Bayern, Juventus,and us have spent a season and a half trying to seduce De Ligt to choose them. Barca only seem 'ahead' because they bagged De Jong first.....we are 'losing' due to our managerial, dof and progression problems....
It requires a complete fresh start. They've built their team around him for so long they don't know anything else and there is no way to replace Messi like for like. They're buying talent but there is no guarantee any of them will develop into the finished article. Even if they do the club still needs to figure out a new way to play as a team, which they're not going to even start trying until Messi is on his last legs.
Agreed. They will struggle a bit. Barca have always had great players and have managed to move on pretty quickly. Moving on from Messi would be a whole lot harder but they should be able to adapt. They won't dominate as much as they are doing now but they'll still be a top team.
Just like all these young players mentioned, the likes of Isco, Asensio, Viniscus were all ready to step into Ronaldos shoes and their future was sorted for pennies compared to how badly we spent our money etc etc. They've spent a shed load over the last 3/4 years and haven't done anything in Europe, if they were up against a side who were competent in attack last week that would have continued into 2019.
True. You never know how things will turn out. Luckily for them, there is still a few more years before they reach that situation.
He's 32 soon. If it was going to be a smooth transition someone would be stepping up by now and starting to run games in his place. La Liga will always be a 2 horse race but I don't think they'll feature much in Europe for a while.
Personally, I think Madrid's coaches are the architect of their problem. No doubt that they should have brought in a goal scoring forward who could have compensated for the loss of Ronaldo's goals rather than sticking with the likes of Asensio, Benzema, Vinicious or the injury prone Bale who weren't known to score as many goals like Ronaldo did for Madrid however majority of Madrid's woes were caused by their coaches.
I think Bayern in this story is what PSG was to De Jong and what United has been on various occasions. They are the club that get you a better contract at the club you're really aiming for. Barca didn't want to pay Ajax top price and didn't offer De Jong a super contract at first, on the premise that they have such a good relationship and the player really wants to go there blah blah, and the agent/Ajax are like "nice try, but we're not into philanthropy, pay up the market price b*tch".
This.
We beat Madrid to Pogba, but De Ligt doesn't exactly please the sponsors so we'll put in a cheeky late bid to make it look like we tried
Hope to see ole and Woodward making decisive decisions this summer.We beat Madrid to Pogba, but De Ligt doesn't exactly please the sponsors so we'll put in a cheeky late bid to make it look like we tried
Woodward/decisive decisions? Mutually exclusive
