Most important summer window in years (100-150m budget)

[eire-red]

If Woodward had supported Mourinho's vision, we wouldn't have had our arguably best player (Martial) today.

The problem wasn't that Mourinho wasn't backed financially, it was that his short-term plan for success was a solely self-serving plan that would be detrimental to the club in the long run. The best sporting decision Woodward ever made, except for sacking Mourning (and van Gaal and Moyes), was to stand up to Mourinho and insist that United had to invest in a future beyond Mourinho's mercenary stay.

Makes you wonder why he was hired in the first place. Awful costly decision to get cold feet on halfway through.

 

[r0663664]

Sancho and Rice. I rather keep Smalling and Sanchez as squad players if we cannot seek them for decent money. Both doing well in Serie A, Smalling can cover Maguire 15-20 games a season and Sanchez could play on the left since I don’t see anything much from Rushford in the last few games.

 

[Mainoldo]

Fred is on 120k.

There’s your answer. No one is paying that with a big transfer fee on top.

 

[dannofdawn]

Sancho for sure is a must. But if I'm going to be honest, I hope we try and get SMS.
Right now, the biggest weaknesses I see are

a) Depth of course,
b) fullbacks that can play from the back.

Our fullbacks are actually quite decent, at least good enough in terms of defence and offence, the problem is their inability to play under pressure from high press. Which is a massive problem if Ole's plan is to play from the back. Depth is the big and obvious problem, Fred and Scott are great for rotation and backup, but they're a bit too jack of all trade at the moment, we can't just lean on Pogba and Bruno to provide all the necessary quality a team needs in the midfield to win matches. Matic, while played well recently, he's still going to inevitably decline. That's why I think SMS would be massive, he's the type that we need to help out, particularly the right flank in possession against high press. I think he solves the 2 big weaknesses I see. And I even think we can play Pogba, SMS, Bruno together. Our fullbacks are good defensively, they don't need to push up as much if we have Pogba and SMS pushing up the flank and we have Rashford and Sancho as wingers. Bruno has the workrate to cover needed, roam to look for holes when not. That still leaves us a solid 4 in the back if we need to be cautious, 3 if one overlaps to overload one flank.

 

[UNITED ACADEMY]

There’s your answer. No one is paying that with a big transfer fee on top.

Pretty much prove my point that your expectation is just your football fantasy.

 

[Dante]

The transfer window has been open for over an hour, and Woodward still hasn't done shit.

 

[jamesjimmybyrondean]

If it was that easy & quick to solve, last season Ole wouldn't say that it needs 3-4 year to fix the problems to go back to where we are supposed to be. Klopp needs 3 years before he can win CL & challenging the league.

I don't know how much we have to spend but if it's true that it's up to 150m and we still plan on including player sales to this budget, then i don't see how we can't make 4 solid signings that should get us ready to challenge for next season

 

[bond19821982]

The aim was to build a team so we can win major trophies not so the manager can build one season team to achieve "the highest point since SAF". That's pathetic.

The point is that Jose is a spoil manager who has been backed with lot of money for 3 years budget, wasting money on new toys, not pleased with them & he wanted new ones. Just like Jose, Ole will be given certain budget he will spend in 3 years and it's up to the manager to spend the money wisely rather than throwing them away. The money isn't arab money mate.

You are contradicting . If the aim is to build a competent team as you mentioned, then the best time to do that is when you finish second and has CL. Especially for a team who has consistently spent close to 100m every summer , investing half of it on one player (which we didn't need) was bit of an anamoly.

Not to mention, we did the exact same transfer next year by paying 20m more and this time with EL instead of CL. No one knows whether we would be in CL next year or not and given the fact that other clubs wouldn't be spending as much as they normally do this is the most important window since SAF retired.

 

[lolok]

Liverpool have 6 key players who are 28 or older and City have 7 key players who are 28 or older. I really think the 2020-2021 season is the season to improve, with the goal being to win the title in the 2021-2022 season.

I looked @ 3 United teams in the past. 1998-1999, 2007-2008 and the 2019-2020 teams.


When building a squad, SAF always liked to look @ the average age of the squad, and make sure that it wasn't getting too old. He broke players down in under 22, 23-30 and over 30 brackets. He was always trying to mix experience with youth, while realizing that a team had an average life of 3-4 seasons. He was always looking years ahead, and also considered the state of his team, to evaluate which players to keep and go after. He definitely was always great at selling/getting rid of a player 1 year early, vs 1 year late. Over 26 years, he basically rebuilt the team 5 times.

So I decided to compare this years team with the 1998 and 2007 team.

Stam	26​
Blomqvist	24​
Neville	23​
Irwin	32​
Keane	26​
Beckham	23​
Scholes	23​
Giggs	24​
Yorke	26​
Cole	26​

Average age 25.3 1 player over 27.

2007-2008 team.

Ferdinand	28​
Vidic	25​
Brown	27​
Evra	26​
Carrick	26​
Scholes	32​
Giggs	33​
Ronaldo	22​
Tevez	23​
Rooney	21​

Avg age 26.3, 2 players over 28. But SAF added Anderson and Nani who were 19 and 20 years old respectively as players who could spell Scholes and Giggs.

The one thing to note is the youth with Ronaldo, Rooney and Teves. We see something similar today with Greenwood, Martial and Rashford and potentially Sancho who is 20.

Current team. (Matic turns 32 August 1st.)

Maguire	28​
Lindelof	26​
Shaw	25​
Wan Bissaka	22​
Matic	32​
Pogba	27​
Bruno	25​
Rashford	22​
Martial	24​
Greenwood	18​

Similar in a way to SAF's team. Youth. Only Matic over 30, and Maguire over 27. Average age, 24.9.

Now, it's not enough to build a young team-- you still need young talented players. Heck, I can assemble a young team, and it would suck. You still need talent. But if you were SAF, and you were always looking into the future, 2-3 years in advance, what are you looking to do?

If I want to compete for the title in 2021-2022, Matic is not a player who will likely be able to play a full season as he will be 33 to start the season. I'm definitely looking for someone that I can either groom this season to split time with Matic with the intent of making that player the everyday starter in 2021-2022. Or to buy someone now or next offseason to take over for Matic.

Is Garner the solution to take over in 2021-2022? IDK.

Maguire and Lindelof. Ole always likes to talk about how SAF wanted a British spine. Well, SAF also liked pace. Pace everywhere on the pitch. While I do appreciate Ole looking for players with good work ethic, and trying to form a British spine-- he definitely needs more pace in the squad. I can't complain about the pace in the front 3. Pace is definitely lacking with the CB's and with Matic. Also in a couple of years, Maguire is 30 so you will only get a couple more solid years out of him.

If I'm Ole, I'm definitely looking for a pacey young quality CB.

The thing is, I don't want Ole to spend money for the sake of spending money. I want him to spend on young players with tremendous upside. Players who have the potential to be World Class, and also could be in the squad for 7,8 years.

Spending money on mediocre players defeat the purpose. That's what got United into to this mess, by signing too many mediocre players in the Moyes-LVG-Mourinho reign. Sometimes it's better to save your money, and use it the following transfer window, vs wasting it on mediocrity.


I do think Ole is trying his best to be like SAF. He has done some good things in terms of squad building and making United younger. I know Ole will get rid of some of the aging deadwood, so I'm not concerned about that.

I just want him to buy SMART, and not buy for the sake of buying. Quality over Quantity.

IF he gets Sancho and another promising young player, I will be pretty happy, especially if the young player is a pacey CB prospect. This is Ed we are talking about, so 3 transfers in is about the most we can ask for. As long as they are the 2 or 3 right transfers, I'm happy.

Sign a few right players this window, a few next summer, and win the title in 2021-2022. If we are able to compete for the title next year-- even better. But I'm definitely targeting the 2021-2022 season, and I think it is in reach with 2 good summer transfer windows.

 

[Andersonson]

We really need a centerback who can challenge Lindelof or even sign a better one. I think our defence ok, but the best teams got better.

Napoli didnt qualify for CL, so maybe Koulibaly is available and not that expensive.

We also need a CM and a RW. The attack is settled if we get Sancho I think.

We should strike a deal for Zaniolo for the midfield spot. They want smalling, time for ED to shine

 

[bosnian_red]

I think we do Sancho, and then get some depth. I don't think we do any starting player other than Sancho. Can see Grealish happen, or some random defenders for more reliable depth.

 

[Dirty Schwein]

100-150 isn't much when you think about it.

If we get Sancho, who appears to be our top target, he would cost around £100m.

That leaves us £50m.

We definitely need a DMF and CB as urgent transfers. Matic is getting way too old to be playing that position for a season that will include UCL and the less said about our defensive "cover" the better.

This is before even thinking about GK and backup striker once Ighalo leaves.

That means we will either:

Go into next season a little weak in squad depth

Bring back Smalling and Alexis

It sell a bunch of players to gain the extra cash. But how much will the likes of JLingz and Rojo realistically get you?

But imagine our 25 man Champions League squad looked like the below, it would be wank worthy:

GKs:
DDG
Romero
Grant

CBs:
Maguire
Lindelof
Bailly
Koulibaly

FBs:
Shaw
AWB
Williams
Dalot

DMFs:
Rice
Matic

CMs:
Pogba
Bruno
Fred
McTominay

Wingers:
Rashford
Sancho
Sarr
James
Chong

ST:
Martial
Greenwood
(Ighalo Replacement)

 

[UNITED ACADEMY]

You are contradicting . If the aim is to build a competent team as you mentioned, then the best time to do that is when you finish second and has CL. Especially for a team who has consistently spent close to 100m every summer , investing half of it on one player (which we didn't need) was bit of an anamoly.

Not to mention, we did the exact same transfer next year by paying 20m more and this time with EL instead of CL. No one knows whether we would be in CL next year or not and given the fact that other clubs wouldn't be spending as much as they normally do this is the most important window since SAF retired.

365m plus adds on for 3 summer budget he has spent, in additional he was allowed to have a player with 21m per year salary. That's pretty much on average of more than 100m spent per summer window. Is this money not enough for a manager to just at least not going backward in his 3rd season?

 

[jesperjaap]

Given that we have Pogba and Bruno, I dont get the push for Grealish. Surely a holding midfielder and maybe a weaker attacking midfielder to come off the bench is all we need there. Grealish is too attacking for the first and too good for the second.

The worst reason for signing him is the cover he gives us. We have no cover for Rashford of any quality only really Daniel James, the same for Greenwood on the right who will surely be a centre forward longer term, our cover really a the moment for Fernandes is Mata/Lingard/Perreira and surely most of them will be moved on. We do have cover for Pogba in Fred and McTominay or a morem defensive mindset so he increases the quality of cover in all those areas. That in itself is surely reason to sign him as if we need to change something and chase the game I would much rather him coming on than any of the other current options.

But he also offers us ball retention and the ability to ghost and dribble with the ball past players which we dont reallt have currently. We have ball retention from strength, dribbling through pace but with sides behind the ball we have lacked creativity recentlywhen Fernandes has been out of sorts, for me he doesnt just improve our squad depth hugely, I think many games over a season he will actually improve our first eleven, who knows how good he could actually be surrounded by a higher quality of player, we havent seen it at all in his career yet. Maybe he may not make the step up, maybe we havent seen anywhere near the best of him.

I do however agree that a defensive midfielder is needed too.

 

[UNITED ACADEMY]

I don't know how much we have to spend but if it's true that it's up to 150m and we still plan on including player sales to this budget, then i don't see how we can't make 4 solid signings that should get us ready to challenge for next season

So 100m on Sancho.
50m on another player.
40m on another player.
And the 4th signing is a free signing. Okay, I can see it's happening. I never say it's not possible because my point was just that the manager and the club has reasonable reason why they have to extend Matic's contract.

 

[UNITED ACADEMY]

Oh definitely we can make a real improvement in attacking depth this window which is probably the biggest issue in my eyes.

I think anyone expecting 4 minimum is being a tad optimistic but it is possible.

We absolutely shouldn’t be trying to sell Fred for once we have good CM options you’d don’t weaken that to bring in a DM.

We’ve got Mejbri coming through so by the time Fred hits 29 we’ll have a potentially better young player making a step up.

It's always possible, we can still make 4th signing via peanut fees or free signing or even on loan. But my point is about not impossible to do it, but the logic behind the club's decision to give a certain player's new contract like Matic.

 

[Web of Bissaka]

RW and CB are the top two highest priority.

100m ~ RW = Sancho
50m max ~ CB

+ selling players, use the leftover to get a CAM and DM.

 

[jesperjaap]

So 100m on Sancho.
50m on another player.
40m on another player.
And the 4th signing is a free signing. Okay, I can see it's happening. I never say it's not possible because my point was just that the manager and the club has reasonable reason why they have to extend Matic's contract.

There is no reasonable reason why we have handed a 31year old a three year contract, we havent learnt any lessons there at all from the likes of Mata and Jones for example, terrible business. He has done well again this season but go back 18months ago everybody thought he was finished.

I saw earlier you saying you cant do everything in one window and it took Klopp three years to get Liverpool to challenge which is true yes. But, Klopp started with a worse Liverpool side than any of our managers post Fergie started with and he also had less money to spend for the majority of it and was unable to hold on to star players either which of course has skewed the net spend to look better than it is the crazy fees they recieved but still. He has just spent really well on players, barely a dud in there and some great bargains.

Apart from Mourinhos first window our spending has been absolutely awful on the whole. The best thing SOlkjear has done so far for me which is promising, is he has been buying the right kind of players, even if some may not have been my choices, he has paid way over the odds for them though at the same time and this is an important factor which is of course partly out of our control.

He says 3/4yyears, you say the same and there is of course a budget but the side he took over had loads of players needing moved out and we probably actually needed about 8players in which wouldnt happen in one window. But we spent nearly £200m on just four players. We have failed to make bargain young signings of the likes of Solkjear, Johnsen, Chicharito for a very long time, even back to Fergusons last couple of years with JOnes, Zaha and Powell which were failures.

Apart from over spending on players, bad buying of centre backs this is our next biggest problem, our last few Dalot, James, Lindelof....I dont see any of these being a gem of a signing whatsoever.

We are going to spend a fortune now this window on Grealish and Sancho though I think these are actually two excellent signings, only thought Bissaka was last year an excellent signing at the time, that is our budget but again 2 even 3 players simply isnt enough even with some of the youth coming through, it will take longer than 3/4 years if we are making 2/3 signings each window....it will never happen as our squad is so far behind the top two we would never catch up. We really do need to make a minimum of four this window so there needs to be a couple of bargains in there and we need to move on at least 7/8players this window too.

That in conclusion is my big problem at the moment, We are moving on the right players and this year signing the right kind of players but we are only doing 1/2 to 2/3 in terms of number what we need to.

Its only from moving on these players that we get a bigger budget and that is made harder when we give out big long contracts to the likes of Matic and Mata who are the wrong age, new contacts to the likes of Jones who has barely played and then huge contracts to others we have never given before....so no, there was no reasonable reason for Matic and his new contract

 

[UNITED ACADEMY]

There is no reasonable reason why we have handed a 31year old a three year contract, we havent learnt any lessons there at all from the likes of Mata and Jones for example, terrible business. He has done well again this season but go back 18months ago everybody thought he was finished.

I saw earlier you saying you cant do everything in one window and it took Klopp three years to get Liverpool to challenge which is true yes. But, Klopp started with a worse Liverpool side than any of our managers post Fergie started with and he also had less money to spend for the majority of it and was unable to hold on to star players either which of course has skewed the net spend to look better than it is the crazy fees they recieved but still. He has just spent really well on players, barely a dud in there and some great bargains.

Apart from Mourinhos first window our spending has been absolutely awful on the whole. The best thing SOlkjear has done so far for me which is promising, is he has been buying the right kind of players, even if some may not have been my choices, he has paid way over the odds for them though at the same time and this is an important factor which is of course partly out of our control.

He says 3/4yyears, you say the same and there is of course a budget but the side he took over had loads of players needing moved out and we probably actually needed about 8players in which wouldnt happen in one window. But we spent nearly £200m on just four players. We have failed to make bargain young signings of the likes of Solkjear, Johnsen, Chicharito for a very long time, even back to Fergusons last couple of years with JOnes, Zaha and Powell which were failures.

Apart from over spending on players, bad buying of centre backs this is our next biggest problem, our last few Dalot, James, Lindelof....I dont see any of these being a gem of a signing whatsoever.

We are going to spend a fortune now this window on Grealish and Sancho though I think these are actually two excellent signings, only thought Bissaka was last year an excellent signing at the time, that is our budget but again 2 even 3 players simply isnt enough even with some of the youth coming through, it will take longer than 3/4 years if we are making 2/3 signings each window....it will never happen as our squad is so far behind the top two we would never catch up. We really do need to make a minimum of four this window so there needs to be a couple of bargains in there and we need to move on at least 7/8players this window too.

That in conclusion is my big problem at the moment, We are moving on the right players and this year signing the right kind of players but we are only doing 1/2 to 2/3 in terms of number what we need to.

Its only from moving on these players that we get a bigger budget and that is made harder when we give out big long contracts to the likes of Matic and Mata who are the wrong age, new contacts to the likes of Jones who has barely played and then huge contracts to others we have never given before....so no, there was no reasonable reason for Matic and his new contract

For the fans selfishness, there is no reasonable reason. As a United fans I want him gone because he hasn't been good enough overall with us ever since he joined us fact is that 40m plus adds on is such a bad investment for him but the reality is this is the players Ole was left with thanks to the previous managers and if the budget isn't enough then he has to stick with whatever he got and that's why him & the club came into decision to give these players a new contract. Better signing the right players than do panic and the wrong buy if it means that we have to stuck with someone like Matic for another year, at the same time this allows other players in the club to show what they can do.

 

[Freak]

Think it will be 200m with outgoing sales.

Sancho
Grealish or VDB
CB
DM (might be able to hold this off until Jan window)

 

[KaushikR]

Woodward was correct in vetoing some of the rubbish moves Mourinho wanted to pull off. He should do the same if Ole starts dreaming of the likes of Declan Rice which I don't think he will.

It's an important window no doubt but every summer is important and full of hope of improvement. We've got a strong foundation in this team, crucial that we add 3-4 quality players to take us up a level or two, like Chelsea appear to be doing with their business.

I actually think we have a brittle core. De Gea, Matic and Mcguire do not really fill me with confidence. The core needs a complete relook.

 

[ReallyUSA]

Has to be the budget before sales. We can get 50 from some of these players (Smalling, Sanchez the Sanchinze, Rojo, and I think Lingard is out too)

 

[bond19821982]

365m plus adds on for 3 summer budget he has spent, in additional he was allowed to have a player with 21m per year salary. That's pretty much on average of more than 100m spent per summer window. Is this money not enough for a manager to just at least not going backward in his 3rd season?

Either you are not reading properly or deliberately ignoring the key point just to suit your narrative. You are so obsessed with Jose that you are even bringing his salary and the average money spent for a manager for certain years.

point is simple- If you have catchup to do, you do it when you get CL. Its as simple as that. You have more chances of getting quality players and ofcourse , you have more money because of CL.
Is it so hard to understand? Seriously?

 

[Revan]

150m plus money generated from selling Lingard/Smalling et al. would be pretty nice. Sancho, another attacking midfielder like Grealish or Chiesa, and maybe another one or two cheaper players would be pretty good. I wouldn't mind selling Fred too, in order to generate some cash to improve other positions.

 

[Revan]

More like £200m to £250m, I think if we get Sancho and Grealish we will probably need to be very creative with how we fund a move for the next player and look towards the European Leagues for a player similar to Rice.

That is why we might need to check alternatives to Grealish. There are decent attacking midfielders in Europe, who would cost half as much as him. Signing him and Sancho means that we cannot sign anyone else, and we definitely need cover for Matic, in addition to another CB (if either Lindelof or Matic gets injured, we are fecked, considering that the other defenders are injured by default). I don't rate Smalling high, but we should consider bringing him back as third choice, if we don't have the money for a new defender.

 

[Cman]

Anybody seen much Van de Beek?! I haven’t seen much of him but still surprised he’s not getting a mention. He’s available, has leadership qualities, can play a number of midfield roles and is the right age. Granted if he doesn’t have the talent then there’s no point. Just surprised after all the talk on him last year it’s gone so quiet now.

 

[Gazza]

I think we will sign Sancho and one other. I go with the formula that every summer we think United should buy X amount of players and United tend to end up signing (X - 2)*players. We won't sign another CB or LB, we may sign a player for the Matic role though.

 

[UNITED ACADEMY]

Either you are not reading properly or deliberately ignoring the key point just to suit your narrative. You are so obsessed with Jose that you are even bringing his salary and the average money spent for a manager for certain years.

point is simple- If you have catchup to do, you do it when you get CL. Its as simple as that. You have more chances of getting quality players and ofcourse , you have more money because of CL.
Is it so hard to understand? Seriously?

Why it is so difficult for you to understand that he was given money to catch up and he spent it on Sanchez, Dalot & Fred. Has he spend the money wisely on the right players?

 

[bond19821982]

Why it is so difficult for you to understand that he was given money to catch up and he spent it on Sanchez, Dalot & Fred. Has he spend the money wisely on the right players?

Factually, you are wrong there as well. Sanchez was a free signing in January while Fred wasn't his signing - next point please. And sorry, signing a 19 old who has played less than 5 games in Portugal is not considered as a catch up signing.

So just to recap: despite I repeatedly saying that this is not about Jose you somehow keep bringing the topic to him just to suit your agenda.(4th post continuous reference). Yet, you have absolutely nothing in the current topic context.

 

[Nori-]

Out:
Pereira - £15m
Lingard - £20m
Sanchez - £15m
Jones - £10m
Smalling - £20m
Rojo - £5m
Fred - £40m (hopeful value)
James - Loan

Total: £125m

In:
Sancho - £90m
Grealish - £70m
VDB - £50
Koulibaly - £65m

Total: £275m (minus the £125m from sales, net spend about £150m)

I'd love a world class DM next to Pogba but that would push net spending over £200m which the club won't do. Neves would be a dream.

The values won't be spot on but I think they're in the right ball park. If we make those signing and the team gel quickly, we could challenge for the Prem next season. Thoughts?

 

[Revan]

God knows, it is time for our scouting system to find a gem or two, which would make our life so easier. In all honesty, every position in the back 6 can be improved, and then we need Sancho too, as we need some depth for Bruno and Pogba. We ain't gonna sign 7-8 world-class players. Where are the new Evra and Vidic, the new Hernandez or Rafael? Would be so awesome to sign a couple of great cheap players, that would allow us to spend big in the other positions. Liverpool for example spend big on Alisson and Van Dijk (and wasted money on Keita), but they also bought smartly on Salah, Mane and Firminho and hit the jackpot with Robertson.

Thank the heaven (and our good work) for our academy which has massively helped us in the recent years, giving us for free two 100m+ players and a decent squad player on McTominay, with more players to come. Time for our scouting system to do the same. After all, we cannot spend 50m+ for every squad player like we did with Fred, or spend 80m on decent, but not great players. There needs to be a combination on spending big on megatalents like Sancho, and finding cheap hidden gems.

 

[jem]

Borderline done with this forum. We just qualified for the CL against the odds and you lot all focus on the negatives and the past.

Bit melodramatic, no? The thread is about how best to push on from here, including arguments about not repeating alleged past mistakes.

 

[sp_107]

Sancho + Geralish + a defensive midfielder and we should be good enough for next season I believe.

Agreed, DM is a top priority than anyone else thinks. We need someone to unleash more of Pogba and Bruno

 

[amolbhatia50k]

Out:
Pereira - £15m
Lingard - £20m
Sanchez - £15m
Jones - £10m
Smalling - £20m
Rojo - £5m
Fred - £40m (hopeful value)
James - Loan

Total: £125m

In:
Sancho - £90m
Grealish - £70m
VDB - £50
Koulibaly - £65m

Total: £275m (minus the £125m from sales, net spend about £150m)

I'd love a word class DM next to Pogba but that would push net spending over £200m which the club won't do. Neves would be a dream.

The values won't be spot on but I think they're in the right ball park. If we make those signing and the team gel quickly, we could challenge for the Prem next season. Thoughts?

Not convinced by those other Sancho. VDB I haven't seen so can't really say. But Grealish doesn't come across as a 70 million player. He's good but you'd want a top player/starter for that fee. And I'd go for a younger CB, Koulibaily is 29 I believe. Would not end well IMO.

 

[SinNombre]

Is there any reason to want Grealish for 70m outside of him being English.

We need a 6 and a 8/10 hybrid, Grealish is neither of those tbh.

VDB for 30-40m would be a much better signing.

I know muppetry thinks every £ of players sold comes back in the transfer kitty; it doesn't. I would imagine the real transfer budget is 125m (middle of the speculated range) + 50% of sales.

 

[sp_107]

Sancho, CB and DMF. Lets say, if we have funds only for two, i would buy Sancho and defensive midfielder and keep Smalling.

exactly, DM should be one of our top priority if we want to be ambitious

 

[bosnian_red]

We really need a complete overhaul with the squad players. Ole made the good point that this year we had Europa league where we could rotate loads and still struggled through and were stretched. Next season will be CL and League. Only rotating in the carabao cup (which we should scrap entirely, or go full reserve squad, not even rotated squad ) and half rotation in the FA Cup. There won't be "easier games" next year, or very few. So we need a revamp with the depth. Sancho to our attack makes me pretty comfortable with our front 3 options (Greenwood the first sub, Ighalo and James as further depth). Need similar quality to Greenwood in every area though, that we have somebody pushing for a starting spot and the level won't drop in case anyone gets injured from one of the positional groups. 2 players from one then of course you'll feel it.
Sancho, Grealish, a centerback and a fullback would be perfect. Sancho the main one of course, but don't expect much more than him (which isn't bad still).

 

[Man of Leisure]

Lotta people saying Grealish, but I’d rather go for Sancho and a top CB. Defensive midfielder next. Rather we concentrate on defense, if/once we get Sancho.

 

[UNITED ACADEMY]

Factually, you are wrong there as well. Sanchez was a free signing in January while Fred wasn't his signing - next point please. And sorry, signing a 19 old who has played less than 5 games in Portugal is not considered as a catch up signing.

The league title was pretty much Man City for the taken in December when they beat us. Sanchez, Fred & Dalot are part of his signings to improve his squad. Sanchez wages alone cost 21m per year and this is not including his agent fees. These are expensive signings for first team player and as a manager, he is responsible for the signings because he has the final say for all them. And it's not coincidence because these players are not the only ones are considered as failure investment during his time.

So let me ask you the question again, has he spend the money wisely on the right players?

If you can take aside your ego, I can guarantee you it's not difficult to answer the question.

So just to recap: despite I repeatedly saying that this is not about Jose you somehow keep bringing the topic to him just to suit your agenda.(4th post continuous reference). Yet, you have absolutely nothing in the current topic context.

It is not about Jose, you are only reading what I wrote without understanding it. I'm using Jose as only an example of what happened if you wasted the money on the wrong players despite of being backed with enough money. The point is that our manager needs to spend the money wisely. The board isn't stupid enough to keep spoiling a manager who keep wasting money on wrong signings.

 

[buckooo1978]

Think we have 3 main areas in the squad we need to address as our primary targets

CB, DM and RW

in terms of CB we are light given Bailly/Tuanzebe and Jones fitness. Would love to see a strong left sided CB come in

DM or a DLP would be great. Matic is a good player and McTominay is really useful deep. As we take the step up to hopefully compete for the league title we need a better quality of defensive/passing midfielder. Im a fan of Pogba but in that deeper role he doesn't have the same consistent ability as Michael Carrick did for example

RW is the obvious one - Sancho is a great fit and I like his profile.

I think we have players to shift obviously and we should also be wary of some bargains to be had to flesh out the squad. Players like Sarr, Doucoure, Ake could be useful squad options and there will be teams across Europe perhaps more motivated to sell

It really depends on the Glazers. Ole has done an amazing job of clearing the squad and changing the mentality - now he needs to be backed