Sofyan Amrabat | signs for United on loan

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peridigm

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I'm fairly certain the starting XI still is: Casemiro, Mount, Bruno, Rashford, Antony, Hojlund.

Amrabat will be used situationally (shoring up a lead, rotation with Casemiro etc.)
Case red card coverage.
 

DJ_21

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I'm fairly certain the starting XI still is: Casemiro, Mount, Bruno, Rashford, Antony, Hojlund.

Amrabat will be used situationally (shoring up a lead, rotation with Casemiro etc.)
Until Amrabat gets a start and ETH realises how much more stable we are with him in the team.
 

mav_9me

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Hmmm you're right there, this don't make no sense.
Yeah, the FFP excuse doesn't really make sense. The most likely 2 options are therefore either 1) there literally wasn't enough cash in the bank for anything close to the up-front fee a decent quality midfielder would cost to buy outright. The most recent accounts showed the cash in the bank was really low and we still owe about a quarter of a billion pounds for previous transfer fees paid in instalments. This would also explain why the club waited so late in the window (hoping a player sale would raise funds), and why they turned down some bids for players they wanted rid of and accepted others (because they were insisting on more cash up front and less in instalments).

Option 2 is that the club is just as poorly run and short-term in their business as they usually are. Paying £10m for a 1 year loan vs £17-30m for a permanent move means a 'saving' for the financial year in pure cash terms, even though much like the Casemiro deal, it's a panicked short-term midfield bandage after a poor start rather than a permanent cure.
Your reply is even better than what I was thinking. I was just thinking we are short on cash right this moment but either of your options are possible. And both show how fecked we are because of the glazers.
 

NLunited

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How long before the Caf turns in him? By October?

Another shambles of a window!
Another transfer failure by the club! Sack Murtough.
What did ETH see in him?
0 days. Some of the reactions here are bonkers. Amrabat will prove them silly.
 

Infra-red

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I think Nicolas Dominguez who Forest just signed from Bologna for 10 million euros is better. Will be interesting to see how they both do in the premier league coming in at a similar age from serie A
Very good deal, that.
 

Paddymcc

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He won’t be fit for Sunday anyway. He hasn’t had any sort of pre season with Fiorentina, did he?
No chance for Sunday.

I'd say he will spend the international break getting himself in shape for when the league resumes.
 

AneRu

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Yeah, the FFP excuse doesn't really make sense. The most likely 2 options are therefore either 1) there literally wasn't enough cash in the bank for anything close to the up-front fee a decent quality midfielder would cost to buy outright. The most recent accounts showed the cash in the bank was really low and we still owe about a quarter of a billion pounds for previous transfer fees paid in instalments. This would also explain why the club waited so late in the window (hoping a player sale would raise funds), and why they turned down some bids for players they wanted rid of and accepted others (because they were insisting on more cash up front and less in instalments).

Option 2 is that the club is just as poorly run and short-term in their business as they usually are. Paying £10m for a 1 year loan vs £17-30m for a permanent move means a 'saving' for the financial year in pure cash terms, even though much like the Casemiro deal, it's a panicked short-term midfield bandage after a poor start rather than a permanent cure.
This looks bad and reflects muddled thinking but I think it's better to solve a problem, doesn't matter how hurriedly you do it, than to walk into certain disaster with your eyes open. We now have the tools to map a way forward without watching an unfolding disaster on the pitch whilst waiting for January and predictably the summer when the Glazers deny us funds in January.

This signing, if it works, should bring us stability, make us harder to break down and thus give us a better chance for top four and doing well in the CL. Next year we know we have him to sign up, Kobie is a year older and the picture is much clearer. It's better for us to go into next summer needing a back up striker, CB, making the Amrabat signing permanent and having the base to make a long term Cm project signing.
 

DuruttiColumn

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Well, we need someone who plays in front of the back 4 and knocks the ball about, but I’m not sure this guy changes our prospects a great deal. It’s not like we fought off Real, Chelsea and City for him.
 

Reditus

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Well, we need someone who plays in front of the back 4 and knocks the ball about, but I’m not sure this guy changes our prospects a great deal. It’s not like we fought off Real, Chelsea and City for him.
Is that how every signing is judged now?
I reckon vast majority of signings we don’t fight off competition. Clubs express interest and said player says yes long before anything ever gets done more often than not.

have city and Chelsea fought stiff competition for everyone of their signings so far this summer?
 

Fetshu

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Every sensible signing doesn't have to be measured by the fact how many teams are also pursuing that player.
Maybe he fits a certain team's play style, but not another one's? Maybe they already have a good player in that position?

There are many reasons by which you can judge a signing, but that one certainly isn't it.

I think he's a very good addition, not only to the potential starting XI, but also to our depth. Especially with the injury woes we're having at the moment.
 

Escobar

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Every sensible signing doesn't have to be measured by the fact how many teams are also pursuing that player.
Maybe he fits a certain team's play style, but not another one's? Maybe they already have a good player in that position?

There are many reasons by which you can judge a signing, but that one certainly isn't it.

I think he's a very good addition, not only to the potential starting XI, but also to our depth. Especially with the injury woes we're having at the moment.
It was a stupid comment. Salah or de Bruyne were not really chased by too many clubs yet they turned out great. So
 

SirScholes

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I think this is the repeat. Sign an average player that ten haag knows from the netherlands on loan. Like with Weghorst. Sign someone average like Fred was. There were plenty of players who look better than the tired Fred and McTom chances, we just didnt pick one. We signed a different type of player in Mount and now we're taking an average midfielder to fill a gap, rather than improving an area that needed improvement
We don’t have room to spend the wonga mate
Otherwise I’m sure we would
 

Levi1

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So let's think this through. Let's even say we could have got him for 30m£ in June, so with a 5 yr contract, that's amortized to 6m£ a year. But now we are paying a 10m€/8.5m£ loan fee, which obviously for this year's FFP is higher. So why would we do this and make our FFP numbers? Why do you think that could be?
I had the same question. Only thing I can think of is that until Henderson was sold, we did not have room, but that we now do. (We also have more clarity on Maguire not leaving,, which sounds like it would likewise have burned quite a lot of space.).

Now we have about 15m plus 5m wages of space, and we want to use every dollar of that space this year so as to require less of it next year, when the purchase is completed. On transfer day, we know exactly the dollar value of space remaining and want to use it all up. Make sense?
 

mav_9me

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I had the same question. Only thing I can think of is that until Henderson was sold, we did not have room, but that we now do. Now we have about 15m plus 5m wages of space, and we want to use every dollar of that space this year so as to require less of it next year, when the purchase is completed. Make sense?
Does make sense. But that would be another loophole. Transfer fees could be broken down into big loan fees for that year if FFP has room, and rest paid in different years with lower amounts amortized per year.

Above leads me to wonder how one years incoming profits for FFP are used in the following years. Say for example if Liverpool sell Salah for 200m£ this summer, unless they spend it all within a year, do they lose the benefit of that 200m£ for next year's FFP? That sounds counter productive to the idea of FFP to ensure responsible spending.
 

avgp_1

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I think Nicolas Dominguez who Forest just signed from Bologna for 10 million euros is better. Will be interesting to see how they both do in the premier league coming in at a similar age from serie A
He is good but he is not the #6 we need
 

C'est Moi Cantona

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Don't know much about him, really only the WC and European final, where he was great, so I'm very hopeful, maybe overly so.

Amrabat, Casemiro, and Bruno in midfield just seems like it will be really good.
 

OrcaFat

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I'm fairly certain the starting XI still is: Casemiro, Mount, Bruno, Rashford, Antony, Hojlund.

Amrabat will be used situationally (shoring up a lead, rotation with Casemiro etc.)
I’m fairly certain that EtH wants to play a certain way and has certain roles to cast. There are favourites to get those roles, as you say, but Amrabat is coming in to compete, mainly for no6 in this set up.

I agree that, where he isn’t selected to start in the no6 role, he will still get minutes as a tactical or relief sub.

Occasionally he may start in a different role if there are injuries or we play a different system. He’ll also get rotation starts in cups etc if he’s not managing to get ahead of Casemiro for the bigger games.

In any case, I don’t think EtH will be inflexible. He will pick players on form, provided they can follow his rules.
 

Bobski

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What manner of sorcery is this? A midfielder running with the ball!?

Also, it won't be long before he gets a red card :lol:
I love a midfielder who can run with the ball but I fear that he will be a bit one paced for that style in the PL. Interested to see how Ten Hag uses him, we will see how tied he is to the 2 advanced midfielder set up. Cas and this guy might also be a bit pedestrian as a pairing but we will see.

Really hope that his whoscored stats are the usual shit from that site, average rating of 6.46 last year, probably not helped by the amount of yellows he gets.
 
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Gordon S

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Honestly quite excited for this guy.
Not that he looks that special, but he actually looks like a midfielder that can play the nr 6 role. He seems to read the game just fine, he has decent defensive awareness, strong ballwinner, can find a teammate with a pass more often than not, somewhat diciplined and consistent. Ticks a lot of boxes. Only worry is that he doesn`t seem to be a step faster than Casemiro. Hope he can figure out quickly that he has very little time here to cruise around with the ball and look for a teammate. Specially when we play against the teams that press well.
 

Abraxas

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The way he strikes the ball on some of those longer and medium range lofted passes is really good. You can tell he's a player with the passing technique that will pull that stuff off more often than most. With some players you can just see with the way they connect with the ball, it looks right.
 

westmeath

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Any time I’ve seen this guy play I’ve been really impressed. He seems made for a big stage like Old Trafford. A really good signing and on a really good deal.
 

zaafi

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The way he strikes the ball on some of those longer and medium range lofted passes is really good. You can tell he's a player with the passing technique that will pull that stuff off more often than most. With some players you can just see with the way they connect with the ball, it looks right.
Kroos does the same and has his own technique for it. Love to see his shots along the ground end up perfectly in the corner.
 

cpresc

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What manner of sorcery is this? A midfielder running with the ball!?

Also, it won't be long before he gets a red card :lol:
I honestly think him and the big Dane are going to absolutely transform this team.

I think he’s gonna be incredible for us next to Case
 

Licha-Vidic

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Any time I’ve seen this guy play I’ve been really impressed. He seems made for a big stage like Old Trafford. A really good signing and on a really good deal.
As delusional as it seems, I will say it again.
If everything clicks, we will either win the league or achieve 85+ points this season. Only a catastrophic injury crisis will hinder the progress as I said 4 weeks ago. If we manage to achieve 95% clean bill of health on our players we will achieve 85+ points.

We just need to tweak now how we build up, as we have Amrabat and Onana very competent players.
ETH has really tried to solve our main issues with what is available to him.
100% on the managers back now.

Just praying we get a good result tomorrow, it will be enormous in our psychological warfare especially this early in the season.
We are right track, with a few buffering issues.
 

crackers0seven

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Really good in world cup.and best player in final against West ham.bar that I've not watch much of him. Hopefully he'll be a good signing and be a cult hero,cause we do love a tough tackler.
 

didz

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What manner of sorcery is this? A midfielder running with the ball!?

Also, it won't be long before he gets a red card :lol:
It's a very good argument for him being brought in as rotation for Cas rather than to play alongside him :lol: There might be one of those random stats at the end of the year... "Amrabat and Casemiro were only available at the same time in 18.3% of Manchester United's matches last season."

I think he'll be a good. From what Ive seen of him, he's basically Fred, but really good at keeping the ball. My guess is he's being brought in to help us in tougher games (thinking away form in particular) without sacrificing our ability to retain possession in those fixtures.

Very undercooked in term in terms of preseason though, so not expecting him to hit the ground running at all.
 
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