Drogba, Bergkamp, Sheringham, Zola.
That's just off the top of my head without even thinking about it.
The centre-forward market...
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
That's just off the top of my head without even thinking about it.
That RVP guy wasn't awful if I recall.
Yeah, on FM22 too, is Iliax Moriba and Theo Zidane also great in FM23?
I’ve actually watched him a few times for that very reason, just because I found him interesting. Like, it’s obvious why he is a FM darling. He can dribble. He passes the ball really well. His shot makes him a threat from distance. But OTOH, he was just awful against Chelsea in the CL this year. Felt like he lost the ball every time he got it.
Youssoufa Moukoko could be available, but he does give me a bit of a Michy Batshuayi vibes.
What do you guys think? It’s really hard to get a grip of an 18 y/o playing at that high level.
What do you guys think? It’s really hard to get a grip of an 18 y/o playing at that high level.
Drogba had one incredible season at 31 and then largely fell apart and was nowhere near top class.
Bergkamp and Zola were mainly playmakers, especially later in their career.
Sheringham wasn't a truly top class player at that stage in his career, certainly not in the 21st century.
That you have to reach back to all these players who maybe played a couple years in the period I mentioned (last 20 years) says a lot. The game changed a lot between then and now, there's no doubt that older attacking players had more success in the 1990s in England (Ian Wright being the best example).
Think De Ketelaere has really struggled in Italy so far..
I have a bit of egg on my face about this lad as I was long touting him as a possible United signing. It turns out he’s super lightweight and passive. He’s struggling in Serie A. The Prem would eat him alive for physicality.
He’s still very technically gifted and intelligent so I think he’ll be a smashing player in the future. At 6’4 too, he could be a real beast once his frame fills out.
AC Milan is the best place for him. They seem to be very good at strength and conditioning training and he’ll be given time to develop alongside a young and gifted team.
It's highly irritating watching Julian Alvarez running rampant at the WC, to then go and sit on the bench behind Haaland at City whilst we are in need of him. He is young, was cheap as chips and would of been perfect. City seem great at headfaking on some targets that end up flopping whilst picking up great young players.
Really eager to get into the transfer windows to see what we actually try to do as we've discussed here there are a lot of interesting options. Something Leftfield I hope.
Really eager to get into the transfer windows to see what we actually try to do as we've discussed here there are a lot of interesting options. Something Leftfield I hope.
To be honest, he was very lucky with the first goal and I could have scored the second, brilliant work by Messi in the build-up.
Would United not take Messi for a year? I mean to replace Ronaldo with Messi would be a talking point, would it not?
As usual went for the shiny toy for marketing purposes that actually turned out to be an unmitigated disaster. Typical Manchester United.
You don’t sign players for the purposes of taking points. I love Messi but that would be a catastrophic move for the team. He runs less than Ronaldo and while he has equals in the PSG team such as Neymar and Mbappe to prevent it becoming too Messi-centric, United would just collapse into serving him again and Eth would never get to implement his pressing team oriented gameplan
All good points.
But be wary, I bet there will be rumours about City pairing up Messi and Alvarez for a year - Foden, Grealish, Messi, Alvarez and Haaland would be a frightening attack - and then United think hang on we can't have Messi at our noisy neighbours so they pay him the money saved by Ronaldo going on TalkTV and sign him up....
If this happens, remember Tigersam predicted it!
(You are owned by Americans and they probably only know two footballers - sorry I mean soccer players!)
I just hope he gets sick of being second fiddle and crosses the great divide to join his countrymen Garnacho and Martinez. He looks a way better goalscorer than Jesus ever has been already, he looks too good to be content being benched week in week out as he is not a winger or getting ahead of their wide creators. Maybe he forces his way onto their right wing for more game time.
Imagine being World Cup Golden Boot winner and then next game back you are on the bench!!! Man United should put in a cheeky bid at Xmas time if that happens.
Has a 'cheeky bid' ever worked in football history?
Has a cheeky bid ever been accepted?
Leeds accepted our Cantona bid. You don't get if you don't ask.
Were there not extenuating circumstances associated with the Cantona from Leeds to United move (something to do with a s€x scandal: an affair or something?). He was undervalued at £1 million.
I mean for a start Leeds and Manchester United are one of THE BIG rivalries, so something weird happened.
I wish but never happening in a million years
Ditto - given Juve's financial problems I think he might represent one of the few "bargain" centre-forwards available. It's just whether they'll sell in January or not...
You would think if they needed to sell in January then something may have leaked by now
Martinez (argentina) is such gash. Terrible striker. Lukaku must hsve made him look a better player than he is.
Kolo Muani looks like the sort of striker we could do with. Great all round game when he came on tonight, lot of qualities.
He has changed the last 2 games
Yeah definitely taken his chance
I wonder if he's too reliant on speed to fit Ten Hag's system, we've seen how Rashford struggles as a lone 9 for us compared to how he's done at LW. But there are worse ideas than signing a 24 year old 6'2 forward who can jump but scores very few aerially, and hope that he adds some headed goals to his game and becomes a 1 in 2 type guy during his peak. There's a path there. My guess is he's not seen as good enough back to goal, though. He was much better than Thuram, but Thuram got a couple assists and the one in the final for Mbappe was the kind of wall pass Ten Hag seems to prize in a striker more than the runs in behind Kolo Muani made. The other path for him is to just become an animal of a speedy presser and constant threat in behind, modeling his game after Vardy, I guess.
I think he is far more combative than Rashford, he wins a lot of duels, but I see your point. I don't think we fully know what style of striker we're targeting, because we could easily go for a false 9 type too.
Kolo Muani has definitely impressed in this tournament
Was he the one that blasted straight at the keeper in one of the last touches of the final?
bit harsh, it was a good save from Martinez with his very outstretched foot!
He was and he should have done better with that chance but overall he changed the game when he came on.
He's another one who's more of a wide forward like Rashford, who is more effective when games are stretched and he can use his pace to make runs as per yesterday.
Utd often face teams who sit back in a low block and currently have only Martial who can hold the ball up in such tight spaces.
They therefore need someone who is excellent in at least one of, but ideally all of: hold-up play in congested areas, goal poaching, headed goals.
Ole managed to compensate to this to a degree by turning Utd in to a counter-attacking team, which got the most out of players like Rashford, but ten Hag wants Utd to dominate the ball.
Could have and should have won the World Cup at that point
I wonder if we totally have written off Ivan Toney.
The length of Ivan Toney’s suspension will depend on whatever he betted on games in the same league he played. It’s already stated that he never betted against his own .
Trippier got 10 weeks for an offense that should be seen as more serious than Toney’s. Tripp was directly involved in a bet regarding himself. Anyone interested in Toney should get full insight into the allegations. Will he get a 4/8/10 week suspension? 4 months?
When will the decision be taken? Toney should have responded to the allegations on 24 November but Brentford obtained an extension. It seems to take on average 2-3 months from the time the player was charged to when the sentence was decided. If appealed, the suspension is not enforceable before the appeal has been handled. Joey Barton appealed his decision, that took 3 months.
However, these dates always tend to be really random. You have a disciplinary committee which schedule x amounts of meetings per year. Like 6 or whatever. 3 before Christmas and 3 after Christmas. And I am sure there is nothing preventing them from having extra meetings, change the schedule or whatever. Sometimes they work really fast, sometimes they take their time.
Ultimately, I don’t think Brentford would have considered selling Toney if they where sure they could use him the entire season. But with this news hanging over them — do they gamble on Toney or do they bring in a replacement in January? In Brentford they are calling for a replacement.
Could Toney be had “cheap”? Say 40m? It seems like he will miss around 4-8 weeks due to suspension. We need the back up, but if it’s 4 week, it’s not that bad.
I don’t know. Just thought about him.
The length of Ivan Toney’s suspension will depend on whatever he betted on games in the same league he played. It’s already stated that he never betted against his own .
Trippier got 10 weeks for an offense that should be seen as more serious than Toney’s. Tripp was directly involved in a bet regarding himself. Anyone interested in Toney should get full insight into the allegations. Will he get a 4/8/10 week suspension? 4 months?
When will the decision be taken? Toney should have responded to the allegations on 24 November but Brentford obtained an extension. It seems to take on average 2-3 months from the time the player was charged to when the sentence was decided. If appealed, the suspension is not enforceable before the appeal has been handled. Joey Barton appealed his decision, that took 3 months.
However, these dates always tend to be really random. You have a disciplinary committee which schedule x amounts of meetings per year. Like 6 or whatever. 3 before Christmas and 3 after Christmas. And I am sure there is nothing preventing them from having extra meetings, change the schedule or whatever. Sometimes they work really fast, sometimes they take their time.
Ultimately, I don’t think Brentford would have considered selling Toney if they where sure they could use him the entire season. But with this news hanging over them — do they gamble on Toney or do they bring in a replacement in January? In Brentford they are calling for a replacement.
Could Toney be had “cheap”? Say 40m? It seems like he will miss around 4-8 weeks due to suspension. We need the back up, but if it’s 4 week, it’s not that bad.
I don’t know. Just thought about him.
Re: Toney my question is does he fit from the perspective of coming in and working his butt off to be great. I'm not so sure about that with him.
The guys who fit EtH the best will be the guys who do the work but who also have a high talent level. I think that is what he will be targeting in the next couple windows. Makes it hard for us too, as we don't have the reports coming from the other coaches like the club does. But I think some of these guys you can see that they're not those types, and those probably won't be in consideration.
Lot of folks are not exactly keen on Gakpo but he's a bigger and younger version of Toney and given ten Hag's consistent linking with him makes me think he has the work ethic he wants too. Problem for him is he is likely a backup option not the top option once again. Moreso the guy that requires certain things to happen a certain way for him to be the choice, like in his case Rash telling the team he wants PSG.
The guys who fit EtH the best will be the guys who do the work but who also have a high talent level. I think that is what he will be targeting in the next couple windows. Makes it hard for us too, as we don't have the reports coming from the other coaches like the club does. But I think some of these guys you can see that they're not those types, and those probably won't be in consideration.
Lot of folks are not exactly keen on Gakpo but he's a bigger and younger version of Toney and given ten Hag's consistent linking with him makes me think he has the work ethic he wants too. Problem for him is he is likely a backup option not the top option once again. Moreso the guy that requires certain things to happen a certain way for him to be the choice, like in his case Rash telling the team he wants PSG.
I am just going to put a danish name in here. We need a striker and preferably not to expensive.
Casper Tengstedt. 22 Years old. Currently plays for Rosenborg in Norway. 14 matches: 15 goals and 9 assists.
We should be able to get him very cheap. Young, firing on all cylinders at the moment and should be cheap.
Worth a punt?
Casper Tengstedt. 22 Years old. Currently plays for Rosenborg in Norway. 14 matches: 15 goals and 9 assists.
We should be able to get him very cheap. Young, firing on all cylinders at the moment and should be cheap.
Worth a punt?
Tbf it's not a bad finish but a good one actually. Would have gone in 9/10 other times. Martinez was simply too fantastic I think.
Thought it was obvious it's Gakpo
Linked with Marcus thuram now on a cut price deal. Would be very good business for the 10m quoted
Cheap price indeed so I can see we go for that
Bar Drogba they were all number 10s really but what an earth are you on about regarding Sheringham? He was 31 when he signed here