Post-Fergie: Which players have come here and performed equal to or better than at the club they were purchased from?

Cloud7

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Di Maria. Even not wanting to be here he was still our leading assister that season.

Varane has been as good as he always was, he's just never fit and the unit around him isn't as good but he has been individually very good.

Shaw has been as good as he was when we signed him. Same with Martial, they just both have injury problems.
 

Cloud7

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Cloud7 said:
Di Maria. Even not wanting to be here he was still our leading assister that season.

Varane has been as good as he always was, he's just never fit and the unit around him isn't as good but he has been individually very good.

Shaw has been as good as he was when we signed him. Same with Martial, they just both have injury problems.
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Beginning to think that fitness is as much of an issue for our signings as anything else. We need to start thinking about the worth of keeping injury prone players around, regardless of how good they might be when fit.
 

Son

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Cloud7 said:
Di Maria. Even not wanting to be here he was still our leading assister that season.

Varane has been as good as he always was, he's just never fit and the unit around him isn't as good but he has been individually very good.

Shaw has been as good as he was when we signed him. Same with Martial, they just both have injury problems.
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Di Maria alongside Bruno are the most talented players we’ve had at a the club post Fergie. Maybe Zlatan too at the end of his career even.

They all put in numbers regardless.
Class never goes away with some footballers. They just know how to create.

Very rare you get those talents in your side. Seeing it in Madrid now with Bellingham and Vinicius. They are just special players.
 

Scandi Red

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Herrera, Shaw, Martial, Blind, Bruno, Martinez.

Martial sticks out like a sore thumb, but we signed him as a teenager so it makes sense for him to improve at least a little.
 

Chumpsbechumps

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This is a point I keep making to people who keep saying “the manager isn’t getting the most out of this squad” about every manager.

The answer isn’t we keep signing managers simply not good enough, we keep signing players who fail to bring their form and qualities to the club regardless of manager. We have 10 years of failed transfers, this is not a manager issue and it’s not necessarily a player issue either.

At this stage, it’s undeniable, there is systemic issues at United far beyond our managers and even individual players that effectively undermine any efforts to cultivate success.

The Glazers run United prove that if you bring quality players into a broken club that’s not setup to help them and a manager succeed , then the players form will inevitably collapse.
 

norm87cro

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Zlatan for sure. Never going to be atomic football with him but we knew who we bought.

Shaw was bought as a young unproven LB and did well so yeah him.

Thats about it
 

AndySmith1990

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Genuinely struggling to think of many. Shaw (although he's had long periods of being shit), Bruno (currently shit), and erm....dont know. We're the real life fecking Space Jam
 

Oscar Bonavena

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A lot of people mentioning AWB, Shaw and Martial, probably on the basis that they were signed as raw, inexperienced but talented youngsters and are now experienced professionals. So of course they're going to be "better" than when they joined. But what should be measured with them is how much have they fulfilled their potential?

Shaw I would say 70%. He's gone through spells where he's looked a world class left back for club and country, but there have been other spells where he's looked completely overweight and unfit (not helped by an horrific injury in between, I concede).

AWB maybe 50%. Defensively he's one of the best 1 on 1 full backs I've ever seen, but he's still prone to lapses of concentration and his technique and attacking prowess has scarcely evolved since he joined, which is massively disappointing.

Martial 25%. When he scored that brilliant goal on his debut v Liverpool, I thought we had the next Henry on our hands. Needless to say, he hasn't even come close to that standard. Not aided of course by a seemingly never ending string of injuries, but also a laid back on field persona which gives the impression, rightly or wrongly, that he's not too fussed!
 

Irwin99

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Bruno? First season and a half here he was matching his Sporting output i believe. Had a very good season last year.
 

Oscar Bonavena

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Of established, experienced players that have joined, not many. Bruno for the first 2 seasons or so was magnificent. I think he needs a break out of the team now for his own sake, to get that spark back.

Loved what Herrera gave us for most of when he was here although I didn't see much of him at Bilbao so I can't compare.

Past their best Zlatan and to a lesser extent Ronaldo and Cavani offered moments of class up front which hinted at how good they were at their peak, but we were never going to get sustained periods of excellence from them.
 

Ali Dia

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Chumpsbechumps said:
This is a point I keep making to people who keep saying “the manager isn’t getting the most out of this squad” about every manager.

The answer isn’t we keep signing managers simply not good enough, we keep signing players who fail to bring their form and qualities to the club regardless of manager. We have 10 years of failed transfers, this is not a manager issue and it’s not necessarily a player issue either.

At this stage, it’s undeniable, there is systemic issues at United far beyond our managers and even individual players that effectively undermine any efforts to cultivate success.

The Glazers run United prove that if you bring quality players into a broken club that’s not setup to help them and a manager succeed , then the players form will inevitably collapse.
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Who are the big potential generational players/best players in the the league that we have managed to get while City and Chelsea will have felt like they missed out? Bruno James AWB Herrera Dalot Fred and Shaw have been decent to good but its not like we had major competition for them, Di Maria - fail. Pogba - fail. Lukaku - fail. Maguire - fail. Sancho - fail. Antony - fail. Greenwood - fail. These are all players at the right age who with the proper guidance and structure around them should have succeeded at the highest levels. In the meantime city quietly (enough) go and get Haaland and assemble the best young team in the league while we waste years with Ronaldo Sanchez Casemiro Varane Wout Ighalo Falcao Bastian Matic Evans and so on. We are shopping on a completely different planet to the best teams (Bayern, Madrid and City) we are only taking young players they wouldn't want and eyeing up their castoffs for one last stupid payday

No wonder we are where we are
 
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ti vu

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Blind, Romero, Bruno

Shaw is a stretch since we got him when he's very young. Developed version better than the young version is very common. He developed more with us can realize some of his potential. His career here is still a mixed bag with some very low down, inconsistency, injuries (beside the leg break). Even now, he can still have game with disastrous performance like that second half at Anfield this past season.
 

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Solius said:
The same guy who was constantly injured but magically available for every Uruguay game?
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Not in his first season, he played nearly 40 games.

The second season he got screwed over by United with the purchase of Ronaldo, and even gave up his shirt number for him.

First season he was magic and more than doubled his goal tally from PSG the season before. For me that's a player who was performing as good or better than he was at his previous club. Can't compare him to earlier PSG seasons due to his age, he was never going to reproduce those numbers from his peak.
 

frostbite

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Bruno.

De Gea and Shaw were too young when they arrived, so they don't count.
 

MadDogg

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TheKingEraIsOver said:
First season he was magic and more than doubled his goal tally from PSG the season before. For me that's a player who was performing as good or better than he was at his previous club. Can't compare him to earlier PSG seasons due to his age, he was never going to reproduce those numbers from his peak.
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Cavani spent most of that season being a good impact player off the bench but he struggled when he started games. There was a month or two in the second half of the season where he was quality when starting, but overall even his first season was underwhelming. Not bad, but nothing to really write home about either.
 

pocco

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Not sure I agree on Shaw. But that's more of a "not lived up to the hype" in a sense that he looked absolutely rapid and was bombing up and down the wing at Southampton. He's changed, let's say. Maybe a bit better defensively but not as exciting to watch.

AWB looked better at Palace. He actually looked decent in attack there too, I remember him playing great against Liverpool and practically carried Crystal Palace.

If find it hard to say anybody has translated their performances or improved apart from Bruno under Ole.
 

Skills

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De Gea is the only player I think we actually successfully developed. He improved year on year in his first 5 years even post Alex Ferguson. I think he maximised his potential here.

Unsurprisingly, as the keeper he generally had nothing to do with the club managers and was developed by specialist goalkeeper coaches who did a good job with him.
 

Pogue Mahone

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The fact we’re all struggling to name names speaks volumes. The whole point of a successful transfer strategy is to identify players with the potential to go up a level after they join us. To fail by this basic metric, so often, over such a long period of time, is a catastrophe. And we’re currently reaping the rewards of this gross dereliction of duty by the people in charge of our scouting system.
 

RedRonaldo

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De Gea was actually Fergie signing. He has been here since 2011.
 

Superden

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Shaw and Martial were hyped as being world class talents when we bought them, and we paid record fees for them too...hasnt quite turned out that way has it, which i think is the point of the OP. so im surprised these names are being mentioned.
 

TheRedDevil'sAdvocate

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Superden said:
Shaw and Martial were hyped as being world class talents when we bought them, and we paid record fees for them too...hasnt quite turned out that way has it, which i think is the point of the OP. so im surprised these names are being mentioned.
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Top-class potential doesn't always give you top-class end product. A lot of things can happen on the way. United are a mess, but these two in particular have played under 5 different managers and they have only performed well sporadically. Sometimes, it is what it is and, most likely, as good as it gets.
 

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MadDogg said:
Cavani spent most of that season being a good impact player off the bench but he struggled when he started games. There was a month or two in the second half of the season where he was quality when starting, but overall even his first season was underwhelming. Not bad, but nothing to really write home about either.
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Fair point but there's nothing wrong with being a great impact player off the bench either - alot of solksjaers career was doing exactly that.

I'm not suggesting Cavani was a world beater but I think he does meet the "performed as good or better than at his last club" criteria if we're taking age into consideration and comparing to his most recent season at psg.

It wasn't just his good looks or performances that I liked - it was the passion on the pitch and giving 100% to the cause. He was a real man that played for the team and defended his team mates, something we've lacked for so long.

What other United players have shown this type of protection to youth players in the last 10 years? Very little. https://youtube.com/shorts/AT-nca_dG5Y?si=D2g7fBcf8k5Mf3Li

Just to add. Igahlo is another player I had a soft spot for and did better than I expected in his short tenure. Probably doesn't fit the criteria but deserves a call out.
 
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