We are going into the new season on the hope one striker (who we still havent signed yet) will get the goals we are lacking. As there is no sign of a decent striker to come in from the youth teams who could step up in a year or two should we be looking at the championship or the 'lesser' leagues around Europe for a cheapish backup, say around £30 mill or less. Who could step up from the championship or abroad and improve here?
Should we scout for strikers from lower leagues?
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) was joined by comedian Ali Woods to look back at the best and worst moments of a rollercoaster season with the annual United Hour Awards.
Has Ten Hag been sacked yet? We're not sure and we hope not, but it's looking more likely as the days pass.
Who should replace him and why is it taking so long to make a decision?
Absolutely. Nicholas Jackson has been impressive for Chelsea so far, and he was bought on the cheap. But some people will say there's no good striker on the market for cheap. I think our scouting team and manager needs to up their game.
I dont know TBH its worth a go if we have another squad player for a small amount that can bang in 10 to 15 in the league I gess there is no risk in that. Toney was an option in the beggining of last season but I guess his price has gone up by at least 60%
Iheanacho will be a bargain for someone.
Christ no !!!
I've been reliably informed by various soccer experts online that Paul Mullin would score more goals than Weghorst, so he's worth a punt?
In theory yes but only a a very small percentage would be able to make the step up. It would be more worthwhile to improve scouting in order to identify potential targets in lower leagues.
Its possible, players like Vardy or Lambert made late moves from lower leagues to PL. I'd imagine we are scouting lower leagues though it's just incredibly rare there'd be someone identifiable as suitable.
I don't think it's worth the time, even if you went looking for young talents to develop I think it would be near fruitless.
Football is so professional now you aren't going to find an Ian Wright type player who gets discovered late, all the great strikers (or any position) of the future are going to be playing in the leading academies of the country they're born in, or if they're amazing, getting snapped up by a PL, La Liga, Serie A, BL etc. academy by about 6 or 7 years old. If you want a run of the mill/mid table striker at best, I'm sure some from the Championship or some of the 'lesser' leagues have good players but we want to be a CL club and elite strikers are like gold dust.
Football is so professional now you aren't going to find an Ian Wright type player who gets discovered late, all the great strikers (or any position) of the future are going to be playing in the leading academies of the country they're born in, or if they're amazing, getting snapped up by a PL, La Liga, Serie A, BL etc. academy by about 6 or 7 years old. If you want a run of the mill/mid table striker at best, I'm sure some from the Championship or some of the 'lesser' leagues have good players but we want to be a CL club and elite strikers are like gold dust.
Maybe but some fecker punctured his lung.
I’d be shocked if we didn’t already scout the lower leagues for players including strikers.
There's been plenty of strikers who have come up from the championship and looked decent enough to be a no 2 striker for us. If we'd have got either Mitrovic, Toney, Watkins, Wilson we'd have been better off and there's plenty more.
Our issue is we're so focused on the expensive elite players and they still don't always work out.
I was hoping we could take a look at Ben Brereton since he was available on a free. Could play anywhere across the front and a pretty fast player as well. Not the best, but a decent backup nonetheless.
I’d be more shocked if we scouted anywhere for players. Our strategy is ‘who used to play for Ajax’ or ‘who has been signed recently for £4m that we can buy for 20x as much?’
Fleetwood Town are my home team and I watch a fair bit of them, including when Vardy was there. At that time it was plain to see that he was MILES above anyone else on the pitch every single week. Even I could have scouted him and tipped him for the Prem.
However, as regular League 1 watcher I can safely say that players at that level are extremely few and far between. It’s not like there is an untapped resource of promising youngsters or somehow overlooked players.
That said, I’d be surprised if our scouting dept weren’t fully aware of any potential recruits from the lower leagues. It’s good to keep your eyes open everywhere, but a lot of these lads have already been at Prem clubs at youth level and didn’t quite make it.
However, as regular League 1 watcher I can safely say that players at that level are extremely few and far between. It’s not like there is an untapped resource of promising youngsters or somehow overlooked players.
That said, I’d be surprised if our scouting dept weren’t fully aware of any potential recruits from the lower leagues. It’s good to keep your eyes open everywhere, but a lot of these lads have already been at Prem clubs at youth level and didn’t quite make it.
There’s no denying that our scouting doesn’t seem to bear much fruit.
I'm not sure those players really work in this scenario - it's not like we're buying them based off their recent form, it would be like buying them when they were in the lower leagues before the transfer to their first PL club (otherwise the OP is just should we look at players who at one point were in the lower leagues). Then you have to remeber we're not just saying a mid table PL club might take a chance on them, United even in our worst form recently have been in the CL or fighting to get back into the CL.
- Mitrovic at Anderlecht (I guess this counts as a lesser league even though it's their best league) was very good. He was well known and there were big clubs in for him like Chelsea. First jump to the PL was ok, he wouldn't have got game time though given we had a lot of strikers in 2015. (RVP, Rooney, Wellbeck, Chicha, Falcao)
- Toney wasn't particularly amazing at Northampton, he did not do enough to break into the Newcastle squad in his first jump to the PL, also in 2015.
- Watkins maybe is an outlier here, he was v good for Brentford in the Champ. He was behind Mitrovic in the golden boot race that year but being younger I could have seen a mid table PL club going for him. I am sure we scout the Championship and even though I like him he'd have cost a lot of money + not sure he was good enough at that time.
- Wilson I am a big fan of, I used to say on here we should sign him back in the Bournemouth days but he has cruciate and hamstring issues and you only need to look at the difference between his Championship season (20 goals and 12 assists) and the seasons which followed for him to see the risk. Season ending cruciate injury 2015, season ending cruciate injury 2016, he only really had his first good PL season 3 years after coming up and then he had some ok seasons until last year.
Yes. We should be looking in South America in particular. I've already read that Fiorentina is looking at signing Lucas Beltran from River Plate. He's a 22 year old striker who would probably cost them around 12m. Problem is, our fans don't seem to do well with signings like this. If we sign a player from South American for such a low price, the Caf would go into meltdown. Our supporters would much rather have a club like Fiorentina sign him for 12m, and then have us sign him a year or 2 later for 70m. It's all about the status. Can't have guys nobody's heard of...
Just buy the whole of league 1 for the price of one our signings and surely one player will be good enough
I think there’s prob some talents in lower leagues. Been quite a few. sharpey from Torquay, Smalling from lower leagues, ben foster…
He's signed for Villarreal?
It's tricky. For every Ivan Toney, there is a Patrick Bamford too.
Yes and the following would be good places to start
Jonathan David - lille
Iheanacho - Leicester
Santiago Gimenez - Feyenoord
Gift Orban - Gent
I also agree South America would be a good place to look also.
Jonathan David - lille
Iheanacho - Leicester
Santiago Gimenez - Feyenoord
Gift Orban - Gent
I also agree South America would be a good place to look also.
I see this thread has become another one to berate our vast scouting department with little to no evidence to do so.
United routinely purchase young players from other academies, routinely scout every continent looking for promising players.
Not many top European teams buy 'prospects' or players from lower leagues very often, not sure why United should be any different.
United routinely purchase young players from other academies, routinely scout every continent looking for promising players.
Not many top European teams buy 'prospects' or players from lower leagues very often, not sure why United should be any different.
Weghorst was a brilliant success so we should do it even more now.
For every Ivan Toney it’s a bit of a gamble.
Gift Orban - Gent - I love this dude, he will be the next big thing
Sign the next Kane.
Any strikers sitting on Leicester's bench?
Any strikers sitting on Leicester's bench?
Yep and given his rumoured release clause is under 20mil I'm surprised we don't take a chance, has great off the ball movement and finishing and could be the next big name in terms of goal scorers in European football.
Yes this really bugs me and always has. Højlund is a Utd fan and we could have gotten him on the cheap from Austria or Denmark and loaned him out for a season or two. I’m sure he’d have been up for it seeing as he’s pushing so hard for this move now. Why do we wait until everyone and their granny is after the player and all value and transfer upside is lost?
We scout these players for ages we should be going in early and hard. Let Madrid or PSG or whoever faff about considering their options. We are playing catch up so we need to be decisive. Our approach in the market which has frankly been a total failure has us struggling with FFP? One of the richest clubs in the world. It’s really early days but we believe you are the type of player that will bring us back to the top table here’s a contract that will pay you world class money when you hit the heights.
Anyway in this window I would like us to get a physically strong striker such as Højlund and a speedy finisher. Like Moukoko or Adeymi or something like that. A highly rated punt so that if it doesn’t work out everyone moves on without much fuss. There is value out there we are just crap at finding it or acting on it fast enough.
We scout these players for ages we should be going in early and hard. Let Madrid or PSG or whoever faff about considering their options. We are playing catch up so we need to be decisive. Our approach in the market which has frankly been a total failure has us struggling with FFP? One of the richest clubs in the world. It’s really early days but we believe you are the type of player that will bring us back to the top table here’s a contract that will pay you world class money when you hit the heights.
Anyway in this window I would like us to get a physically strong striker such as Højlund and a speedy finisher. Like Moukoko or Adeymi or something like that. A highly rated punt so that if it doesn’t work out everyone moves on without much fuss. There is value out there we are just crap at finding it or acting on it fast enough.
He would take time to adapt but surely he would not be that far off Hojlund in that respect, if his form continues into next season there will be a big battle for him in summer 24. This is the type of lad that Ajax or Dortmund will hoover up and sell on for mad money in a few seasons.
That all said i do like what the club are doing in going for potential with Hojlund.
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The latter two I would agree with. David is priced higher than Hojlund though and is very meh and Iheanacho is at his right level in the Championship.
A few good pre season performances from the biggest flopped striker graveyard in the world and we should shift our transfer strategy.
This. Scouting players for United must be the easiest gig in the world.
Yeah, championship clubs will be lining up out the door
Hojlund was pretty much unknown before Atalanta. He was struggling for game time at Copenhagen where he scored 0 goals, and had a decent but not phenomenal run with Sturm Graz where he only played 18 times and scored 9 goals. You would not have expected top teams to really have much interest in him.
Then we need to improve our scouting? Look at Brentford finding PL level strikers on the cheap. Watkins and Toney would walk into our team to this day. Even fecking Maupay would have played a lot for us last season. There’s no point in us shopping at the top table once the player is a fully known quantity because if they are truly top class they are most likely going to choose Madrid Barca or Bayern over us. We aren’t the draw we once were. We can’t get any edge like that apart from the fact that we are prepared to give big wages but at that point big wages are a given and other factors come into play.
Tom Cannon. Everton player on loan at Preston. Only 2 years left on his contact.
What about someone like Gelhardt? Obviously is a total punt and would cost a lot but he seems to have something.
I agree with this. A deal not too different to that of Dan James. You bring someone to come be 2nd choice for cheap they can turn out like a chicharito or a mame biram diouf. Either way they will be on low money and easy to move on. We did make a profit on dan james when he turned out not to be United quality. Similar to Pellestri if we want to let him go he won't be a financial headache to the club.