Key word in @crossy1686's post was 'potentially'
So what do you want us to do? Not spend any more money?
The John Murtough Era
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So what do you want us to do? Not spend any more money?
The club never actually promised or declared an end to significant manager influence in transfers. People just kind of took their own headcanon and ran with it. This isn't something one should ever have gone about assuming. There's no hard or fast rule to these things so I don't personally think either model is inherently bad. Moving forward we can also strike a balance between club and manager targets. Would require personnel with enough acumen to help the manager on a target or two and have it pan out. The murmurs about swapping brexit fc for Dutch fc will subside with a proper structure he can trust to identify targets that are not onlt talented but also suit his football.
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The whole idea is to work together, there's a reason Murtough led the process to recruit the manager, picking a manager with similar view to what the club wants so backing the manager who you picked is the way to go, in the long haul we'll use our scouts to identify targets but I don't think there was enough time to do that this window ETH only got appointed after the season ended.
So if ETH gets the sack (hopefully not) we won't be appointing a Simeone for example but another manager who would have similar ideas about football, this ideas long term would become the club's identity, its Murtough role to protect this identity regarding scouting, recruitment, playing philosophy, contract renewal, the youth system and what not.
If he gets FDJ, Malacia and Martinez it'll be a good turn around.
Credit where it is due, nice to see some movement on things the last 24 hours... hopeful to have at least 2 of them announced within the next week.
Credit where it is due, nice to see some movement on things the last 24 hours... hopeful to have at least 2 of them announced within the next week.
Erm no, that's why I said potentially...
A turn around from what?
Well of course it's moved in the last 24 hours, we know how much of the budget has gone on FDJ so now we can attack the other targets appropriately knowing how much cash we have left.
Funny isn't it?
Turn around from nothing. They've obviously been in, and are in, negotiations with multiple clubs all the time. I don't think people understand how complicated it is to buy something or sign someone when there's this kind of money involved. I encourage everyone to try and buy a new home tomorrow and see how quick that process is.
These potentially good signings are (most likely) possible because Murtough appointed ETH as the manager, against the Board's conservative choice of Poch. So credit is due.
Fully aware of the process, I work in finance and went through a 3 year mortgage process to then be dragged out further thanks to covid by another 8 months.
As for Murtough, still not fully convinced by any means. It's promising seeing these hijack rumors to get players in though which is what supporters want to see.
Preparing to sing "Are you Woodward in disguise..."
Ah so you're fully aware of how slow big finance moves, to be honest my comment was more for the folk who think buying a player is like popping to the shop for a loaf of bread, instant and a painless transaction, it's just a case of being arsed.
Me neither but we have to give new people the benefit of the doubt otherwise negativity just breeds negativity. It's nice that we're doing surprise deals now but this generally happens when players aren't all that good or no one really know's who they are. Hopefully this lad we're hijacking is good in a few years but I expect him to be well off the pace when he first arrives from Holland.
The new era is looking good.
We expect that this guy will do 8-10 transfers (ins and out) this summer? 
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How many players we signed so far? How many players we sold?
Even that Arsenal signed 2 first 11 players already.
You are trying to spin this since window started but so far; 0 transfer
Point is every club moans about their transfers as they follow the news about their club daily. It's not something related to ManUtd only.
Somehow ManUtd fans think Chelsea are some smooth operators, who just turns up in suits, gets the deal done and leave a thank you note when the reality couldn't have been far from that.
I touched upon this in the Lisandro Martinez thread.
The issue here is a simple one, and since Murtough became the de facto DoF, he removed the two Chief scouts who compiled the transfer lists. And those lists according to the most credible journos like David Ornstein, were drawn up in January and ratified in April. So it would be naive imo to on one hand remove the head scouts and then to carry on using their work. Klopp did the same at Liverpool in his first summer window where he signed players either associated with the German Bundesliga or the Austrian Bundesliga, with the the exception of Wijnaldum.
So what Klopp did imo was smart thinking. He got the ball rolling as far as getting his high tempo play style going and then guided the recruitment team to scout-analyse transfer targets for his way of playing a high tempo, high intensity game style with counter pressing capabilities. And Liverpool fans were still calling for Michael Edwards to be sacked, 2 years after Klopp was appointed the manager.
The scouting network isn't the problem but rather we don't have anyone as yet, leading the recruitment. So we need someone who will join us in a head of recruitment capacity and will oversee the scouting at first team level. At youth level Murtough had David Harrison who led the scouting, so targeting someone like Lee Dykes from Brentford who works as the director of recruitment at both Brentford and Midtjylland fc in Denmark would potentially be a good move imo. He's also some that has created his own algorithm when it comes to applying data called 'The effective score' data system.
Cheers. I've read somewhere that United wanted Dykes now, but that he will stay at Brentford. Maybe someone to bring in for next summer?
I think someone is going to be appointed before the start of the new season.
feels pretty much exactly what Spurs and Liverpool have done (not to mention City)... but of course I'm not allowed to sound negative so...
It's short term planning. We need as a club to identify a certain way we want to play, and scout and recruit accordingly regardless to who's in charge. Since Fergie, with every new manager we had to play differently and buy accordingly, and it meant almost a decade of failure. Managers should have an input of course, but going all Dutch isn't logical, it's just ETH going with the familiar.
The point is that you have pattern which is repeated every season and i don't know why is so big problem to some of our fans to accept that. We are just not good on transfer market. Every season we struggle to sell players and every season we need weeks and weeks to sign one player.
Look at Spurs. They signed best player from 2 Pl teams. Huge money involved. They needed less than a week to complete each transfer. City signed Haaland soon as window started (so they were obviously had everything set even before transfer window). Real quickly sealed their biggest transfer. Bayern, Liverpool, Arsenal ... all did quick jobs so far.
Murtough last 6 months knew that we have huge summer regarding transfers and he still struggles to make first. Ins or out.
Maybe all this will end well. Maybe. But so far it is a debacle. We are presenting every our transfer as "tricky one" because of this or that.
Of course their having to defer to ETH, there isn’t anyone there with the competence to do anything else and he probably demanded it to take the job. Saw some people talking about ETH being a Head Coach rather than a manager and assuming he wouldn’t be heavily involved in transfers but that was never going to be the case.
The issue is going to come further down the line because if ETH’s signings are successful it’s not going to be easy to take that control and influence away. Because club keep moving goalposts they never have a structure in place before a new manager comes in but hopefully they’ll get there sooner or later.
The issue is going to come further down the line because if ETH’s signings are successful it’s not going to be easy to take that control and influence away. Because club keep moving goalposts they never have a structure in place before a new manager comes in but hopefully they’ll get there sooner or later.
Did they or were you just not paying attention to the minutiae of Spurs transfer dealings?
The problem with following ETH's list is according to Ajax's fans, ETH's signings at Ajax were all shits. Overmars was the one got all the signings spot on.
Really hope it's not true though. Otherwise we are going to be in trouble again.
Really hope it's not true though. Otherwise we are going to be in trouble again.
What pattern, every club sign players early in the window and late in the window depending on which players they target and sign.
We have signed plenty of players early in the window, likewise Liverpool and City signed plenty of players late in the window.
TBF, We are ridiculously slow with completing transfers.
Now it could just be that the media run relentless stories about our activity but christ... Folks heralding this FDJ transfer a huge success and genius are crazy. The fee is good but wages insane and its taking forever to conclude. We're at least up to week 7 of it now.
Not saying other clubs don't have transfer sagas, but they don't seem to have as many or as bad ones as often as we do.
That's because you don't follow every tweet posted about those clubs.
No matter how it is spun, signing FdJ is a success.
In terms of transfer fee yes, wages... I'm wary.
Simply for the fact if he doesn't turn out to be a fit for the league / us then it'll be a big investment and him stuck here with huge wages.
You sign big players, you pay big wages. This is true for any club.
He's not really a "big player" though. He's a good CM.
A big player is Neymar, Messi, Mbappe, Lewandowski, Ronaldo etc etc.
If he is on 300k or there about then he is going into that bracket of player, which doesn't seem right to me.
He is big player, he won't be taking paycut to join a club that's not even if CL.
Ronaldo, Messi, Mbappe are in different stratosphere when it comes to wages. They are generational level players and couple of them are GOAT level. They are no where near 300k range.
If he's getting about 300k it puts him in the bracket of Salah pretty much which seems ridiculous. He hasn't done anything to warrant those wages, which is my concern.
We have to pay them cause that's what he gets from Barca who paid idiotic fees to get him.
Salah is not earning 300k.
If Martial, Rashford, De Gea is getting those wages then FdJ more then deserve those 300k wages.
It's illogical and hilarious to expect FdJ to take paycut to join ManUtd who are not even in CL.
You're right he's on 400K now with his new deal
Yeah you see that right there is the problem!
Martial, Rashford and De Gea are not deserving of those wages either! Have you learned nothing from the mess the club is in?
Sticking another player on those wages without having genuinely proven themselves is asking for problems.
It's rewarding mediocrity.
de Jong is not joining academy or as a youngster. He has proven his quality, just because few are ignorant about his quality doesn't mean he didn't.You're right he's on 400K now with his new deal
Yeah you see that right there is the problem!
Martial, Rashford and De Gea are not deserving of those wages either! Have you learned nothing from the mess the club is in?
Sticking another player on those wages without having genuinely proven themselves is asking for problems.
It's rewarding mediocrity.
This is just pointless discussion. There is no reason for him to take paycut.
I'm realistic to understand he won't but that is due to Barca making a mess of his transfer.
He's a very good player, but those wages are just silly to my mind as he's not really achieved much of anything in his career and in particular at Barca, just winning a domestic cup.
Only thing that matters is how much we are paying and how much money we are making, argument on individual player wages is silly considering no one knows exact number and what all should be achieved to get all the money.
Maybe this a mess, again the guy replacing Woodward should be cleaning up his mess.
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