Probably operating with his hands behind his back and as well as that, there's a good chance he's not up to the task in any case. Not necessarily mutually exclusive.
The John Murtough Era
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Well he got there in the end....
The club needs to be much better going forward, we got the players but it's taken far too long and feck knows who would have signed if we beat Brighton/Brentford because it obviously wouldn't have been Casamiro and Antony given the players we were bidding for.
Needs to spend this year working with ETH on scouting and identifying players for next summer.
The club needs to be much better going forward, we got the players but it's taken far too long and feck knows who would have signed if we beat Brighton/Brentford because it obviously wouldn't have been Casamiro and Antony given the players we were bidding for.
Needs to spend this year working with ETH on scouting and identifying players for next summer.
Narrator: they weren't.
So…. How are people feeling about this now?
Malacia
Eriksen
Martinez
Casemiro
Antony
Still strong rumours we will do more before deadline day too.
Given the new recruitment team is only just up and running, and to my knowledge we still have key scouting roles to fill, this window was always going to be tricky.
Thoughts for a first window?
Malacia
Eriksen
Martinez
Casemiro
Antony
Still strong rumours we will do more before deadline day too.
Given the new recruitment team is only just up and running, and to my knowledge we still have key scouting roles to fill, this window was always going to be tricky.
Thoughts for a first window?
With respect if we assessed summers by just listing names in that fashion Woodward would have a strong A+ every year. Last summer for example. The quality of the business is everything around the planning and project. The Casemiro signing for example is a strong D- despite the actual player being class and just what we need on paper. We shouldn't have had to sign him and we shouldn't need to be signing Antony for 100m because we dallied. We are just extremely lucky to be filthy rich enough to use money to cover mistakes.
Thing is though we’ve needed a DM for how long now? And we’ve finally addressed it and got pretty much the best available.
The fee for Antony is fair compared to say Nunez, Fofana etc. It’s market plus a touch.
Very weird to describe these firefighting transfers given the ages of Malacia, Martinez and Antony.
Playing a team of youngsters very rarely works with Eriksen and Casemiro adding the same as Varane to out mentally fragile side.
If these deals would have been done earlier in the window it’s a 9/10
The deals dragging on especially the FdJ ‘saga’ and those weird 2 weeks in which we bid for every random mediocre player in Europe brought it down.
Theres lots of question marks on how we went from Arnaotovic to Antony and why the likes of Antony wasn’t signed in June.
Let’s hope they all learn from this summer.
Exactly.
Just because we end up getting a few good players =/= good in the market. Clear lack of planning, very amateur. However it's the first window and the bigger problem are the glazers.
It's weird to say because I never said it. Not sure where you picked that from. That portion of the post was a comment on the Casemiro and Antony rating; Almost like I knew it would end up misconstrued, that's why the latest version had it edited out. I also said we needed a DM on paper and Casemiro is class. That's not the point contested . The post acknowledges that but goes on to describe circumstances that made it a firefighting situation. The firefighting circumstances are the concern not the player per se. These are touched upon.
edit I also don't know where the stuff about youngsters came from. Who has an issue with the Eriksen transfer? Eriksen was excellent business. I even have him benching Bruno eventually. This goes against my other point that every transfer has its own merits and circumstance to be judged on. I think you replied the tone of the post rather than the actual post. Like a template compilation of things you've read from others. Casemiro not being our natural preference has nothing to do with only wanting to sign youngsters. That's a massive leap addressing a totally different topic. Actually really confused here.
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Let's praise Murtough for paying 100m euro on a player who managed 12 goal involvements in Eredivisie last season. No thanks.
Should have got Martinez and Antony for that at the start of June with maybe add ons involved.
Should have got Martinez and Antony for that at the start of June with maybe add ons involved.
As phase one goes on paper and in recent games I’d say that’s an 8/10 window. And if you swap Eriksen for Malacia at the top it also reads well in terms of overpaying in a difficult window from the top name to bottom. FDJ would make it a 10/10 for me because you can’t realistically expect every position to be rectified immediately. A GK we need but he’s given his best years to us in what unfortunately was a poor team so I’m happy to give him another season just as perhaps the team is facing the right direction. Not saying we owe him anything but in terms of priorities I think RB and striker comes first for me. Hopefully they will be next up with a FDJ type in the centre if not the man himself…as seems now likely.
I think it’s been a shambles, only salvaged due to the amount of money we’ve been able to spend.
So he knew Antony wanted to leave in March, but instead of starting negotiations in March, decided to wait until late August? That's weapons grade incompetence.
it’s almost as if you didn’t explain yourself very well in the first place isn’t it?
So you don’t rate any of the players brought in? interesting
There really aren't. It's called the Glazers running scared they might lose the club. I am surprised this is not transparent for most, if not all, United fans, especially the ones posting on this forum.
No one is praising anyone, simply asked how we rate the signings this window?
Bayern Munich got Gravenberch and the right back Mazrouai from Ajax even before previous season ended for relative pennies on the dollar we are now paying for Martinez and Antony.
You can't blame it on articulation when you read in things that weren't even part of the post. A total fictitious misread. Like where did you you see anything about having a problem with Eriksen or only signing young players? The point is stated there in the plainest of terms for even the most illiterate of persons.
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Really good window after all but also super strange and random. We really need to get the house in order when it comes to targets and selling players. We are still useless at that. I guess the proof will be when the time to renew more contracts is upon us. If we keep up the old way we are going to be treading water for a long time yet
Just articulate yourself better in future and it should prevent such misunderstandings.
Both were in the final years of their contract.
Ah I get you, enjoy the discussion.
I'll try my best but you also have to promise me you'll work hard on your general reading. Do well.
It's been a poor summer irrespective of who's been signed. Reactive and no strategic planning. The manager stated to have everything done during pre season and if was a far cry in reality. Future windows / seasons will determine much but Murtough is off to the worst possible start imaginable. Everything everyone resented in Woodward has come into fruition despite Ed no longer being employed.
We need that RB and FDJ though.
Fully agreed. The signed players came from the managers. From his team, no real options or actions came
Fair enough. I still think we could have knocked a few million quid off both fees if we started negotiating early enough and not dicking around Arnautovic, Frenkie, Rabiot and other assorted dead ends.
We’ll it’s a 160m swing in favour of signing Casamiro and Antony. They’ve completely took the piss out of the manager if they’ve told him to look for budget signings whilst having this money available.
Of course it is. Earlier in the summer we were waiting to see how much budget we'll have after signing De Jong and two days after Ratcliffe comes out and says he wants to buy the club, they release enough funds to buy both De Jong and Antony if we were buying him in June (about €80m based on speculation).
Murtough is just a lapdog that follows his master Joel's wishes.
I do feel reading between the lines there is a narrative here that fits.
- RR says Utd need 10 new players
- ETH joins, RR is kicked out and ETH briefs the press saying "the team isn't that bad - they finished 2nd season before". Clearly at interview ETH said he could coach the team to improve
- board think they can flap about and take their time believing they can get a good deal on FDJ. Also as per previous seasons they like taking their time for the media clicks
- season starts - awful performances. ETH realises RR was right
- seen as desperate and everyone wants to fleece us for mediocre talent
- in the end united have to pay too dollar for useful/quality targets cos they cant get any up and coming ones
Murtough is no better than Woodward, we've overpaid this transfer window heavily. The only thing that really seems to have changed is that the board/club have really stuck with what the manager wants this time, and that's credit to them, they have backed ETH a lot in his targets.
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His bending over backwards to Ajax's officials and their whims was quite remarkable.
You know we only signed Antony because the manager wanted him right?
We've overpaid for sure but with the exception of Casemiro, the profile of player is different, albeit players the manager wanted from his own club mostly. Mitten has said since the start of the window that clubs and agents have been taking the piss all summer with what they're asking for when United come knocking so they've rejected a lot of negotiations based on that. It would be interesting to hear numbers and names come out at some point.
An excellent job paying €100m?
I did say that, the club mindset has been different (they've backed the manager heavily this time), but the competence is still in question (overpaying, late transfer window deals, dragged out transfer sagas).
We've been negotiating all summer. That's why some are upset. If we were gonna pay up eventually we should have done so when the price was 80 weeks ago.
Considering how utterly dogshit we were last season, he was on a hiding to nothing, almost impossible to sell anyone after that shit show. Attracting players and getting clubs to sell in our desperate state has been a killer too.
He’ll have a much easier Summer 2023 if we do well this season, that much is obvious.
Especially delighted he and the club told Rabiot to get to feck with his demands
He’ll have a much easier Summer 2023 if we do well this season, that much is obvious.
Especially delighted he and the club told Rabiot to get to feck with his demands
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