Ole's transfer strategy

[AgentP]

You didnt dare to mention Phil Jones

He just signed a new contract. Else he would have been the first name on the list!

 

[Mrdan1709]

What i would do

Get rid
Lingard (30m), Lukaku (40-45m), Jones (7-10m), Darmian (7m) , Young (-10m), Herrera (0), Sanchez (?), Bailly (17m) , Matic (8-10m)


Sign
Bruno Fernandes (50m), Ricardo Pereira (50m), Aldeirweireld (25m), Felix (75m), Sancho (80m), Rabiot (free), Mata (free), Son (60m)



New lineup
De Gea
Ricardo Aldeirweireld Smalling Shaw
Sancho Bruno F Pogba martial
Felix Son

Bench: Rabiot, , Lindelof, Rashford, Fred, Mctominay, Dalot, Mata.

One can dream...

In reality though i know Ole wont get rid of the United lads (Jones, Young, Lingard)

 

[Devils11]

So you’re saying we shouldn’t ever sign anyone who might become good one day because they might have ambitions to play for Real Madrid?

I am saying no way a world class player would have stayed for 10 years if we are not winning. /Read

 

[Bestietom]

Alderweireld
Wan Bissaka
Fernandes
Lozano
Gueye

 

[settembrini]

I would like to believe Solskjaer but talking about being ruthless and 'survival of the fittest' seems like hot air when someone like Jones is being handed a new long term contract. It's saying one thing while doing the exact opposite.

 

[Keefy18]

Out: £250m

DDG - £50m PSG
Valencia - free(already done)
Darmian - makeweight for Skriniar
Bailly - £15m Fenerbache
Jones - £15m West Ham
Rojo - £5m Estudiantes
Young - £5m Villa
Matic - £10m Milan
Herrera - free(already done) PSG
Pogba - £150m Madrid
Mata - free(all but done) Barca
Lingard - makeweight for Eriksen
Sanchez - free(hell, subsidize his wages) China
Lukaku - makeweight for Oblak

In: £350m

Oblak - £30m + Lukaku
Meunier(final contract year) - £20m
Skriniar - £70m + Darmian
Neves - £50m
Eriksen(final contract year) - £50m + Lingard
Sancho - £80m
Felix - £50m

First XI

Rashford—Martial—-Sancho
———Eriksen—McTom
—————-Neves
Shaw-Lindelof-Skriniar-Meun
—————-Oblak

Subs: Romero Dalot Mike Fred Pereira Felix Greenwood

Properly promoted: Henderson Laird Tuanzebe O’Connor Garner Gomes Chong

It’s so simple.

Simple me arse!

That's fantasy football stuff right there and ain't going to happen.

You aren't including wages, signing on fees, agent fees in your incoming's. So it would be a lot closer to €500m.

 

[2 man midfield]

Out: £250m

DDG - £50m PSG
Valencia - free(already done)
Darmian - makeweight for Skriniar
Bailly - £15m Fenerbache
Jones - £15m West Ham
Rojo - £5m Estudiantes
Young - £5m Villa
Matic - £10m Milan
Herrera - free(already done) PSG
Pogba - £150m Madrid
Mata - free(all but done) Barca
Lingard - makeweight for Eriksen
Sanchez - free(hell, subsidize his wages) China
Lukaku - makeweight for Oblak

In: £350m

Oblak - £30m + Lukaku
Meunier(final contract year) - £20m
Skriniar - £70m + Darmian
Neves - £50m
Eriksen(final contract year) - £50m + Lingard
Sancho - £80m
Felix - £50m

First XI

Rashford—Martial—-Sancho
———Eriksen—McTom
—————-Neves
Shaw-Lindelof-Skriniar-Meun
—————-Oblak

Subs: Romero Dalot Mike Fred Pereira Felix Greenwood

Properly promoted: Henderson Laird Tuanzebe O’Connor Garner Gomes Chong

It’s so simple.

Even with 350m spent and a whole lot of FM fantasy upheaval, the first 11 still looks shit. If you’re going to make it up you could do a much better job.

 

[Class of 63]

You buy one, you get one free.

 

[Smores]

I would like to believe Solskjaer but talking about being ruthless and 'survival of the fittest' seems like hot air when someone like Jones is being handed a new long term contract. It's saying one thing while doing the exact opposite.

Ole is going to be the type like Poch to say whatever sounds good so I'd take a lot of it with a pinch of salt. Better than the negativity we had earlier this season though.

 

[RedDevil-85]

Solskjaer and Woodward has a tough job ahead of them.
Too much deadwood in our squad,players running down their contracts,the player Ole wants to build the team around wants to play for Madrid and so on.

There is only 8 players i would definitely keep and thats

Romero
Lindelof
Shaw
Dalot
Mctominay
Fred
Martial
Rashford

These are young hungry players with the right attitude in my opinion.
Romero a little old but his attitude is great.


The deadwood that must be sold!

Darmian
Young
Rojo
Valenica
Sanchez

And the ones that i would not mind being sold or leave for free.

Pogba
De Gea
Mata
Lukaku
Herrera
Matic

I know we wont get rid of all of them but i really wish we could start a fresh.
The attitude of some of our players is rotten and im getting tired of them.

 

[Phil Osophy]

It's true that keeping Jones doesn't seem very ambitious, but if we review the squad there's a lot of potential departures. At first sight:

Rojo, Darmian, Valencia, Herrera, Mata and hopefully Alexis.

On a second plane we have Bailly, Lukaku as doubts, De Gea contract situation, and I don't know if adding Matic and Pereira or not.

Any player who leaves either on a free or just for peanuts needs a replacement, so maybe they think that keeping Jones as squad player and selling Bailly it's better option than keeping Bailly and letting Jones to leave for free. If both of them left, then our CBS are Smalling-Lindelof which is probably too thin. With Jones, Smalling and Lindelof there's still place for a new quality CB, even more if that formation with 3 at the back is an alternative for certain moments.

The same happens with Young who I can't wait to see the back of, but we don't have a second leftback nor a single proper right back, not even one. Signing a RB and keeping Young for one season to cover both flanks gives margin to focus on other positions, and evaluate Dalot without much pressure.

With Mata it's a different thing. I don't think he's totally useless as some suggest, but we've got Lingard to play that conservative role about offering support in central zones, keeping it ticking and all that without much substance in the last third. What we need is fire on the right side, so with a proper signing, Lingard and the kids knocking at the door I think we are well served in that position.

Maybe our contract offer to Mata is an elegant invitation to show him the door without doing it, I mean to offer certain conditions that he won't accept. Sounds stupid but it wouldn't be the first time it happens in football nor the last one. I don't really know how it works inside the club but I'd be surprised if Ole and the staff really asked the club to keep Mata. He's a decent player to have around if you have a thin squad and play with 3 men behind the striker, but our base formation is 4-3-3 and we should be well served in that place after the summer so I don't see the sense of it.

 

[Sandikan]

Solskjaer and Woodward has a tough job ahead of them.
Too much deadwood in our squad,players running down their contracts,the player Ole wants to build the team around wants to play for Madrid and so on.

There is only 8 players i would definitely keep and thats

Romero
Lindelof
Shaw
Dalot
Mctominay
Fred
Martial
Rashford

These are young hungry players with the right attitude in my opinion.
Romero a little old but his attitude is great.


The deadwood that must be sold!

Darmian
Young
Rojo
Valenica
Sanchez

And the ones that i would not mind being sold or leave for free.

Pogba
De Gea
Mata
Lukaku
Herrera
Matic

I know we wont get rid of all of them but i really wish we could start a fresh.
The attitude of some of our players is rotten and im getting tired of them.

Wouldn't mind De gea and Pogba going, wow!

Yet want to keep much lesser players in that keep list of 8.

 

[Untd55]

Wouldn't mind De gea and Pogba going, wow!

Yet want to keep much lesser players in that keep list of 8.

De Gea makes a bit of sense if we would have to sign him to a £400k per week contract. That is a heck of a lot for a goalkeeper and we would have massive contract issues later on - worse issues than what will have arisen from Sanchez. It might be better to sell him and spend the money on the outfield players.

Besides, there is no guarantee we will sign him to a new contract and he will leave next summer for free.

Pogba - depends on whether he really suits our team. If we are going for a hardworking Liverpoolish style, I don't think he is suitable. It might be beneficial to sell him for a lot of money and sign players who may be more suitable for our style of play.

Either way, I don't think Pogba will be massively effective unless we have a real leader in the squad. Pogba is not a leader and really needs someone higher up than him in squad stature; at the moment, we don't have that. At Juventus, he had Pirlo, Chiellini, and Buffon.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Players to Sell/Leave (Should be definite)
- Mata - Rarely plays. Very rarely has an effect when does. Will never know why he became a right winger for us.
- Valencia - Formerly good play for us. He has already gone, according to Solskjaer.
- Herrera - I think he is replaceable, so I am not that bothered if he left.
- Rojo - Injury prone. Although, Solskjaer has said he is in his plans. Why?
- Young - Used to be a good player. Looks finished now. Poor decision giving him a new contract
- Jones - Injury prone. Again, bad decision giving him a new contract. (Not sure who is to blame, Solskjaer or Woodward?)
- Sanchez - Will be difficult to sell if he does not want to lower his wages.

That will do for sales. We have too many first team players to buy to spend money on the squad players as well. The above players are not going to raise much in terms of funds. We will need to demote some of the current first team players to the bench.

Signings Required (Must be high quality): Right Winger, Right Back, Central Midfielder, Centre Back.

 

[He'sRaldo]

In Jose's first season, we got a solid "spine" of four quality players, almost all POTY in some capacity in their respective leagues. Bailly, Pogba, Mkhitaryan, and Ibra. Central defender, box to box midfielder, attacking mid/ winger, and striker. IMO, we also played really good football in that first year, some of the best since Fergie retired.

Since then two of the four have gone, and one is not really in the picture as of now, so I think we need to do the same thing again. Four quality players for the spine of the team, and then an extra experienced attacking right back. So 5 signings in total, while we leave the youngsters of other clubs to (hopefully) develop for one more year so we can snap them up from a position of strength.



With that in mind, my plan for the next 3 transfer windows would be:

1st Summer Window: Near World Class CB, Box to Box, Winger, Striker.
Winter Window: Replacements for weak positions after half season of evaluation, probably rotation/ backup level.
2nd Summer Window: Go hard for prospects like Sancho, Felix, etc, after they've shown a bit more, and also hopefully after a good season from us, and thus a position of strength. Sort out options for the future. Move away unneeded players to make way for incoming signings & any academy prospects.
The first window is critical because we hopefully should have gotten a good CB to partner Lindelof, a good experienced RB to phase out Young and help Dalot, a good midfielder to partner Pogba, a good winger to take the load off of Lingard and Martial, and a good striker to take pressure off of Rashford.



By this time next season, the whole team should hopefully have been sorted, with the focus now on keeping the squad fresh, and moving out unneeded players the way City are doing currently. The only issue is for the first window, I haven't the slightest clue who those first 5 players would be. Maybe Meunier for the RB role, or Rabiot if his character can actually be evaluated properly? A clue might be to look at the TOTY's of the top 4 leagues like we did last time.

 

[ash_86]

OLE: WE NEED PLAYERS WITH THE RIGHT MENTALITY

“It’s not like playing Football Manager this, you know,” Ole told reporters in his press conference on Friday ahead of Sunday's Premier League clash with Chelsea.

“There’s players that we maybe have expressed an interest in and if they’re not available for sale, it’s not just like 'I’ll get him'.”

“We have to have the right type of player, with the right quality and the right personality. If they’re driven by money or fame then they’re not right for Man United or right for my team.

“I’ve been the same at Molde and Cardiff and I’ve been the same here. I need players who can reflect me as a person as well and my values.”

“Everyone knows that times have changed and what the gaffer did has been unbelievable,” Solskjaer said. ”But we are doing things differently to all the previous managers.

“We can’t try to copy Sir Alex and think that’s going to be successful, because he was unique.

”We’ve got a different generation of players and we’ve got to do it our own way. Maybe some of them couldn’t have handled Sir Alex’s way of managing, but we’re looking to do it our way.“

“They [the players] know the history of the club and that it means a lot for everyone, but we can’t just linger on,” Ole added.

”We can’t because the clubs underneath are chasing us. We shouldn’t be looking back, we should be chasing the top positions, but at the moment that is the reality of where we’re at.“

https://www.manutd.com/en/news/deta...r-on-wanting-players-with-the-right-mentality

The second second sentence maybe about Sancho?

 

[JohnnyKills]

OLE: WE NEED PLAYERS WITH THE RIGHT MENTALITY



https://www.manutd.com/en/news/deta...r-on-wanting-players-with-the-right-mentality

The second second sentence maybe about Sancho?

Stop calling Fergie 'the gaffer' FFS. You're the gaffer now, so wise up.

 

[Bastian]

We keep saying "players want to join United" "agents are getting in touch" etc. which seems quite desperate. Then Ole tempers expectations repeatedly saying we can't sign many players, mentioning 2-3 players. And that we have to keep fighting to stay in the top 6.

We're out of the CL, we play absolutely woeful football, who would really want to join us knowing that we're only going to do a fraction of what needs to be done this summer?

I honestly can't see any major player or hugely promising player wanting to join ahead of so many other much better run clubs that have a clear vision.

 

[Mark Pawelek]

PS: I debated starting a new thread with myself. But instead I'll bump this because is has the right title.

No more 'United Tax'

It seems Ole's strategy may simply be to go for young, quality, fit, available players. According to Tyrone Marshall at MEN, United's transfer strategy changed under Ole, and isn't what OP here said it was. It's not Brexit, it's more trust scouts to find me players, with no more 'United Tax'.

United executive are long used to seeing their club's name used by rivals and agents to try and instigate a bidding war. Not so long ago there was a sense they could be talked into a deal as well, chasing star names rather than sensible squad building.​

​

That has changed under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and while the summer has been a frustrating one so far United are determined they won't be held to ransom for the players they want. They plan to end the idea of a 'United tax' when they become involved in the bidding and see the idea of haemorrhaging cash on over-priced deals this summer as implausible, given they are still uncertain quite how hard revenues will be hit as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.​

 

[OleBoiii]

I like what I see. The transfers seem smarter than in a long time. There's something Klopp-esque about these transfers.

 

[duffer]

I like what I see. The transfers seem smarter than in a long time. There's something Klopp-esque about these transfers.

What transfers? Anyone apart from VDB that I've missed?

 

[Carl]

What transfers? Anyone apart from VDB that I've missed?

Presume he's referencing Bruno, AWB and James. Whilst you can never guarantee success with a new player, I must say I like the profile we seem to be targeting.

 

[Carl]

Not sure whats supposed to be "Klopp-esque" about them though.

 

[KiD MoYeS]

I think the new policy revolves around the targeted player having a strong desire to join the club and that they meet us halfway in negotiations.

 

[duffer]

Presume he's referencing Bruno, AWB and James. Whilst you can never guarantee success with a new player, I must say I like the profile we seem to be targeting.

Bruno is a top player in his prime signed for a huge fee, AWB a hot young prospect at a big cost, James a low cost gamble with little risk.

All seem totally different profiles (other than being excellent buys, which is the most important thing!).

 

[Adisa]

Hasn't been discussed but don't we essentially now have a transfer committee? In that it isn't just up to Ole anymore?

 

[Carl]

Bruno is a top player in his prime signed for a huge fee, AWB a hot young prospect at a big cost, James a low cost gamble with little risk.

All seem totally different profiles (other than being excellent buys, which is the most important thing!).

The shift seems to be towards the sort of player ready for the next step though. Rather than trying to go for those that have already made that next step and are already at bigger clubs as a result.

 

[Bilbo]

Mentality is the key now. Not nationality. Players who want to be here and are prepared to give everything.

 

[duffer]

The shift seems to be towards the sort of player ready for the next step though. Rather than trying to go for those that have already made that next step and are already at bigger clubs as a result.

How many of those have you signed in the past 5 years though? 2? Matic and Sanchez?

Lukaku may not have worked but at the time he fit profile of someone ready to make a step up.

 

[cyberman]

Brexit FC obviously

 

[DFreshKing]

He has a great strategy and a type in sense of high energy, technically strong with speed of mind and body. Loving the job he is doing after the last few managers it is how I like to see football played.

 

[Tarrou]

three foreign players on the bounce but someone on here will still think Brexit FC is a thing, I guarantee it

 

[flappyjay]

Not sure whats supposed to be "Klopp-esque" about them though.

With you on this

 

[Mark Pawelek]

Presume he's referencing Bruno, AWB and James. Whilst you can never guarantee success with a new player, I must say I like the profile we seem to be targeting.

Note sure. We paid a United Tax for AWB. I think we got James because Giggs wanted us to.

So far, players in the strategy are: Fernandes, Van der Beek, Ighalo, six kids we brought in this year, Hannibal and kids brought in last summer. Stevanovic, if we sign him.

 

[Slysi17]

three foreign players on the bounce but someone on here will still think Brexit FC is a thing, I guarantee it

Nah I definitely don't think that now. Bruno Fernandes and Donny Van De Beek well and truly ends that. Could even get a foriegn Centre Back too.

 

[flappyjay]

How many of those have you signed in the past 5 years though? 2? Matic and Sanchez?

Lukaku may not have worked but at the time he fit profile of someone ready to make a step up.

Di Maria, schweinsteiger, Falcao, Pogba, Zlatan, Matic and Sanchez

 

[Carl]

How many of those have you signed in the past 5 years though? 2? Matic and Sanchez?

Lukaku may not have worked but at the time he fit profile of someone ready to make a step up.

Pogba too.

Not saying we haven't made any signings like this over the last 5 years or so, but the focus has seemed to be on a marquee signing rather than younger players ready for that next step.

 

[duffer]

Di Maria, schweinsteiger, Falcao, Pogba, Zlatan, Matic and Sanchez

Didn't realise they were all in the past 5 years! Falcao, Di Maria and Schweinsteiger for Man United seems a million years ago!

 

[Skills]

The shift seems to be towards the sort of player ready for the next step though. Rather than trying to go for those that have already made that next step and are already at bigger clubs as a result.

Depay, Schneiderlin, Blind, Rojo, Mkhitaryan, Lukaku, Bailly, Lindelof, Fred

 

[Mark Pawelek]

Pogba too.

Not saying we haven't made any signings like this over the last 5 years or so, but the focus has seemed to be on a marquee signing rather than younger players ready for that next step.

I wouldn't ban marquee signings, but some of our marquee signings were daft. We got players, nearing the end of their careers, who'd never played in PL, and had been out injured for a year or more (Falcao and Schweinsteiger).

 

[Jonno]

Depay, Schneiderlin, Blind, Rojo, Mkhitaryan, Lukaku, Bailly, Lindelof, Fred

They seemed to be whoever was available and offered to us, as oppose to who our manager has spent the past 12 months personally scouting