Yeah he looked mint. Right up until someone from Atletico ran into the back of him and he realised he didn’t actually fancy playing in a league where he might face sudden acts of violence. From that point onwards it was back to Martial we all remember well from the last few seasons.
Our squad was already bloated, I don't consider Lingard or Cavani as first teamers off the back of last year. Or even Pogba for that matter. What value did they add anyway?
We signed Eriksen who is better than any of our midfielders last year and that's before considering Frenkie's arrival (whenever the feck that is).
Might be misled in which case I apologize, but if thats a thinly veiled jibe at my view you probably need to revisit what I'm saying. I agree we need a forward, I think we'll get a forward. But I think 3 out of our potential 5 signings through the door a week before the season starts isn't exactly poor.
Eriksen is not a better player than Pogba, and even with De Jong we still need a a proper Matic replacement or a more defensive minded midfielder.
This is one of the issues I find quite odd. Murtough was appointed as football director 10 March 2021, over 16 months ago. Solskjaer was sacked 21 Nov 2021. Richard Arnold began his job 1 February 2022. The departure of two of the most senior people on the scouting/recruitment side was reported 20 April 2022. ETH was announced the following day, 21 April 2022. Rangnick's consultancy was formally announced as having been 'cancelled' 30 May 2022, but he had been telling anyone who would listen, both within the club and out, what needed to change for months. Tom Keane was brought on as a consultant 24 June 2022.
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Pogba was not a good signing for us. Eriksen is shown immensely more than Pogba did for us, and is comfortably a more suitable signing.
Im not saying Pogba was a good signing, but the rest of your post is far fetched.
Which bit? That Eriksen is an upgrade on our midfield than the inconsistent bar Pogba set?
Could have done all of that way earlier. And now we seem to rely on our manager to deliver the main input on who to get. Reeks of really really bad planning. The negtiations with FdJ are slow and not working well either and we seem to have no clue who to get for the much needed forward positions. This has been a huge dissapointment of what should have been a huge window. The three players we got are all nice but no priority at all. The glaring holes in our squad have not been adressed at all for the start of this season and we simply have no, I repeat, absolutely NO justification for that
Eriksen has shown immensily more than Pogba (he has not)
Of course he has. The impact Eriksen had on Spurs is far greater than the relative impact Pogba had on United. For starters he was consistent in back to back seasons, which I know, is a low bar for comparing top midfielders but hey - it's something Pogba never did for us.
But he did for Juve. Eriksens last season at Spurs was poor and he was a bench player at Inter.
The process is not appearing smooth for sure. I think @Adnan is the best person to provide context on the approach and at least keep me honest on my interpretation of the situation.
I don't care what Pogba did for Juve - he did it when it was a one horse league and Juve would walk the league by almost 20 points in a season. He did it in a league where the football is slower and by the way, he wasn't even amazingly consistent then either.
Important
thats a good summary.
Transfers aren't his only remit.
His choice. He could have done it before the window and replaced. Or after the window.
Exactly. As I said above, getting rid of our head of scouting and head of negotiations looks none too clever when the subsequent transfer window (a window that basically everyone agrees presents the biggest challenge/opportunity since Fergie retired) is characterised by unimaginative scouting and unimpressive negotiating.
Judge is not involved in this window is he? His job was to negotiate contracts and he left before any of the negotiations with any signings (or new contract renewals) started.
Judge is reported to have been involved in Eriksen and Martinez contracts. Reported, I don’t know if he was but thats been reported.
Which reports?
Murtough has become the DoF this year and before then he was brought into a structure that was led by the manager and the scouting heads at first team level. And those scouting heads were brought to the club by Fergie and LVG. And when Murtough became the de facto DoF post Solskjaer and Woodward, he got rid of both the scouting heads. So i'm assuming he got rid of both Bout and Lawlor due to poor performance after their performance was reviewed. So I don't expect Murtough to rely on compiled scouting reports from the sacked heads of scouting for the current window, for the reason stated above. And you don't bring in a head of scouting near the tail end of the season because it doesn't work like that.
You would've bought FDJ somehow? You should write to Murtough and Arnold to let them know your secret of persuading him and Barcelona to make the deal happen.
The whole point which yet again has whistled over your head was there’s feck tons of alternatives out there - I’m just one person and have named some - the club with it’s apparent massive scouts and huge database can surely find even more. You also understand that you saying “not for me” has zero impact on MY list right? Oddly enough you aren’t the oracle. Thanks for your feedback though. I’ll pick out two which I found especially perplexing - SMS being a definite no-no with our current CM options is hilarious. He’d be absolutely brilliant in the advanced CM role Mctominay is currently playing and is at least twice the player DVB is there. And 20 year old Olise not being a “Manchester United player” - whatever the feck that means these days - I’d love to know what he lacks at 20 that stops him - a left footed right winger who has pace, skill and works very hard at 20 for Crystal Palace with a 35m buyout has the following stats:
Pretty difficult to say the club has shifted to placing more emphasis on utilising analytics as part of recruitment when we have spent all summer chasing players our manager previously worked with.
Its not, because the benefits of this shift would take longer to see. The window came too early.
I advise you read Adnans post, hes only really had the proper reigns since Feb this year.
I still think being in post from February (ignoring the fact he was probably doing the role in advance of feb) is sufficient time to work with the scouting department to develop a shortlist of targets that are suited to ETHs style of football. If that isn't possible because he sacked key members of the scouting department prior to summer then I am going to suggest that was a mistake and should have waited until after summer.
Yep. In addition, we also have Baily and Jones sitting on the sidelines not going anywhere because their wages are too big and will simply be left either with disadvantageous loans or allowed to leave for nothing while subsidising the wages. Without even really discussing Tuanzebe whose market value has gone through the floor in recent seasons.
I want the club to back the manager. Whoever we are linked to is irrelevant, unless it is genuine and the club is truly interested. How long the actual list of players on our radar is something you and I know nothing about.
Kinda have to agree with this. I never understood people saying that knowingly going into the summer with no scouting infrastructure (not even a provisional one) was a rational explanation for the issue of having no scouting. It's like, yeah, no shit, that's the problem being cited in the first place, it doesn't make any more sense that it was done on purpose.
