Times: Finding buyers for the dead wood is Manchester United’s biggest challenge this window

#07

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Vault Dweller

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That's the biggest concern I have this window too. Trying to make clubs buy the likes of Sanchez, Lingard, Pereira, Rojo, Jones amongst others will be bloody difficult.
 

AltiUn

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Solskjaer has seven centre backs and is considering signing another one if the price is right — Pau Torres and Nathan Aké are among his targets — so Rojo and Phil Jones are expected to be put up for sale. If United cannot get either Torres or Aké on the cheap, Smalling, 30, is likely to return after a successful year with Roma.
Thought it was interesting that we'd be willing to take Smalling back.
 

Judas

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We'll end up selling for cheap just to at least save on wages. Every little helps. We'll struggle to get good money as they're mostly crap, it's that simple.
 

SirAnderson

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Not as big as getting and getting the RIGHT players to consolidate and ensure we take another step up.
I understand letting these guys go, but if we can't, then we can't, its a very tough market. Just don't play them.
And before people cry wage bill, unfortunately it is what it is, and until we can get a decent fee for them, we stuck with it.
 

Riz

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Agree to be honest.

If the price isn’t right for Smalling I’d be more than happy to have him back in the squad - a far far better option than Jones, Rojo or Bailly (would try to sell first 2 and keep Bailly as back up).

As for Sanchez, Lingard, Pereira I think it’ll be tough to shift them let alone for good prices. Lingard could fetch some money from a mid table side, £15-20m or so would be fine. Pereira no idea who would even be interested, Spanish team maybe. Hopefully us, Inter and Sanchez can come to some agreement but I’m not optimistic.
 

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That's the biggest concern I have this window too. Trying to make clubs buy the likes of Sanchez, Lingard, Pereira, Rojo, Jones amongst others will be bloody difficult.
Not if you listen to some of the geniuses on here. Apparently Lingard's 'huge social media following' means we can expect clubs to bid up to 30m for him.
 

Lash

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Surely we could get creative with swaps to appease everyone.

Inter love giving away their youth players. There's probably someone we can get off Roma as well.
 

RORY65

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Us qualify for the Champions League adds another £100k a week to Sanchez's salary which presumably makes a deal with Inter even trickier, they do seem keen though so if we can get rid of him on a permanent deal even if for no or a minimal fee that would be excellent. Jones will be really hard to get any money for, he's always injured and just a bit crap generally but I could see us potentially getting £15-20m for Lingard from a team like Everton or West Ham. I don't know what market there would be for Pereira and Dalot and then there's Rojo who I doubt anyone would want on a permanent deal (how much is he actually being paid? I've seen £80k from a lot of sources but then just as many saying he's on £160k, either way he will be difficult to shift even for no fee).

We've obviously seen that our squad is limited and we don't want to leave ourselves too short but Ole has no trust in any of these guys and if we can clear their wages and recoup any sort of money that would be really useful.
 

EwanI Ted

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From the article

Lingard, 27, is a popular figure within the dressing room and scored an important goal against Leicester City on Sunday, but he did not start a league game after New Year’s Day. His future is a sensitive topic. During an online press conference organised by his sponsor American Pistachio Growers last Thursday, the organisers blocked questions from the media about his lack of game time and whether he would remain at his boyhood club next season.
Wot?
 

romufc

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Not if you listen to some of the geniuses on here. Apparently Lingard's 'huge social media following' means we can expect clubs to bid up to 30m for him.
I would say you can negotiate Lingard for £25m, we would be mad to sell anything cheaper.

Just have a look at the fees paid. Iwobi, Perez, Joelinton, Solanke, Haller and alot more.

Lingard is a good player. .

Rojo is probably going to stay in Argentina.

Jones and Perreira we should be happy with anything we get.

Sanchez - Here is me hoping his post lockdown form has convinced Inter to sign him
 

Falcow

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Not if you listen to some of the geniuses on here. Apparently Lingard's 'huge social media following' means we can expect clubs to bid up to 30m for him.
I'm certainly not Lingards biggest fan but I dont think 25m is unreasonable for him and I'm sure plenty of clubs in prem would pay it....West Ham and Everton spring to mind.

Perhaps however his high wages will make a high fee difficult.....same for jones.
 

Posh Red

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I would say you can negotiate Lingard for £25m, we would be mad to sell anything cheaper.

Just have a look at the fees paid. Iwobi, Perez, Joelinton, Solanke, Haller and alot more.

Lingard is a good player. .

Rojo is probably going to stay in Argentina.

Jones and Perreira we should be happy with anything we get.

Sanchez - Here is me hoping his post lockdown form has convinced Inter to sign him
So we should expect 25m for Lingard, but you will be surprised if we get anything at all for Pereira? Seems strange as it's not as if Lingard has been any better than Pereira this season in my opinion. Especially not 25m better thats for sure.
 

romufc

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So we should expect 25m for Lingard, but you will be surprised if we get anything at all for Pereira? Seems strange as it's not as if Lingard has been any better than Pereira this season in my opinion. Especially not 25m better thats for sure.
Yep, thats right. Lingard whatever we think has had very good moments over the past for us. Perreira hasnt.

This season he hasn't doesnt mean Lingard is alot more proven than Perreira. Plus English player tax adds £10m to any transfer fee to an English club.

He also has Mino Railoa as an agent.
 

André Dominguez

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We'll end up selling for cheap just to at least save on wages. Every little helps. We'll struggle to get good money as they're mostly crap, it's that simple.
It's the only choice we have, because clubs outside EPL can't afford the same wages, because realistically a transfer costs wages + transfer money + signature prize for players and agents.
It's a mather of math, by balancing money and wages. We may even end up selling but paying a monthly fee to the player for the remaning of his contract, as it happens in many deals.
 

#07

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Honestly, I'd be willing to consider free transfer or nominal fees for a lot of our players. Who is going to pay real money for someone like Marcos Rojo? The only purpose players like him are serving right now is stopping us from allocating our wage bill to players we might actually want.

Its United's fault for giving long contracts to so many players who were clearly not up to snuff. In the last couple of years we have been daft enough to give new deals to Jones, Rojo, Andreas and others who were only ever going to be a wage sink for us. So not only can we not shift them, we're stuck with them for the foreseeable future.

Its like we don't learn: No matter how much you re-paint and clean your robin reliant nobody wants it. Nobody gives a toss about what you paid for it. They see its a banger and aren't going to be tricked into spending money on scrap. We waited and waited and waited for someone dumb enough to pay us over £10m for Darmian and, in the end, had to finally accept (what everyone could see) that nobody was going to pay that for someone who wouldn't be starting for a mid-table team.

Any or all of the following players could leave the club without weakening the squad in any way:

  • Romero
  • Pereira
  • Jones
  • Smalling
  • Rojo
  • Dalot
  • Mata
  • Lingard
  • Andreas
  • Alexis
I'd be happy to see the bulk of those to go. If we could sell all of them for around what we sold Darmian, which was £3.5m, that'd be £35m in incoming fees. Add another £35m to that and you're reaching the kind of sums you need to buy an elite centre back or defensive midfielder.

Woodward and Judge just have to get them out of the club.
 

Goku23

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Honestly, I'd be willing to consider free transfer or nominal fees for a lot of our players. Who is going to pay real money for someone like Marcos Rojo? The only purpose players like him are serving right now is stopping us from allocating our wage bill to players we might actually want.

Its United's fault for giving long contracts to so many players who were clearly not up to snuff. In the last couple of years we have been daft enough to give new deals to Jones, Rojo, Andreas and others who were only ever going to be a wage sink for us. So not only can we not shift them, we're stuck with them for the foreseeable future.

Its like we don't learn: No matter how much you re-paint and clean your robin reliant nobody wants it. Nobody gives a toss about what you paid for it. They see its a banger and aren't going to be tricked into spending money on scrap. We waited and waited and waited for someone dumb enough to pay us over £10m for Darmian and, in the end, had to finally accept (what everyone could see) that nobody was going to pay that for someone who wouldn't be starting for a mid-table team.

Any or all of the following players could leave the club without weakening the squad in any way:

  • Romero
  • Pereira
  • Jones
  • Smalling
  • Rojo
  • Dalot
  • Mata
  • Lingard
  • Andreas
  • Alexis
I'd be happy to see the bulk of those to go. If we could sell all of them for around what we sold Darmian, which was £3.5m, that'd be £35m in incoming fees. Add another £35m to that and you're reaching the kind of sums you need to buy an elite centre back or defensive midfielder.

Woodward and Judge just have to get them out of the club.
Romero is a quality back up keeper we shouldnt be selling him
 

LoneStar

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Yeah but the best thing we can do is learn from this, and stop handing out long term huge contracts to players.

Hypothetically if we have a player who is 33, and has been amazing, does it not make sense to give him good money, but based on appearances or performance? I suppose players won’t be willing to accept such contracts.
 

#07

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Romero is a quality back up keeper we shouldnt be selling him
How is he quality? I keep seeing this but its not true at all. He gets clean sheets against the likes of Tranmere and Astana. Any of our goalkeepers is capable of that.

Where was his quality when Cantwell was smashing one past him in the FA Cup quarter final from range? Where was his quality when he was caught in no man's land in Bruges? Romero almost always has a rick in him and has been hyped beyond all reason by simply being the alternative to De Gea. When LVG actually dropped De Gea for Romero we all saw Romero has no business playing regularly against quality opposition. There's nothing Romero offers that's worth what we're paying him for it.
 

Ali Dia

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I have a strong feeling lingard keeps buying himself more time here. He doesn’t sound like a fella who’s leaving and neither does Andreas. I’ll be raging if we end up giving Jesse a new deal because his wages are already much too high for what he offered and he isn’t going to take a wage cut either. I don’t particularly care if he stays as a squad option but not for 125 plus thousand a week. That would just be stupid. I’m also starting to panic a bit about us in the market. Last summer we turned down Bruno. Wanted longstaff. Didn’t buy a striker. Picked up James for our glaring RW hole. Maguire a year later than expected for the exact same price. I’m all about the current feelgood factor but I think we may have just got very lucky with eventually signing Bruno and Covid keeping Pogba here making the higher ups at the club look like they are doing a much better job than they are all of a sudden.

Of the deadwood Smalling and Lingard (sigh) could still play a role here. Sánchez Jones and Rojo should just be taken off the books either way as they will continue to contribute nothing.
 

Cassidy

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An article like this was written last summer...
 

croadyman

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Yeah selling the deadwood is only way we can fund moves for a VDB/Grealish/CB. Have to admit this is the first article that has made me think if we only get Sancho and no cover for Pogba/Bruno it's going to feel a bit underwhelming after all the positivity since Sunday.
 
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#07

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An article like this was written last summer...
And will be written next summer if the trend continues as certain players continue stealing a living at Old Trafford, as our manager tears his hair out awaiting replacements that never come.
 

joedirt87

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Yeah and look how long that took!
that was (reportedly) because the club was holding out for their evaluation price. Very stupid as he ended up going dirt cheap anyways, so we paid him an extra 2 seasons worth of wages to never play. Par for the course from a club where Phil Jones and Ashley Young are/were almost in Testimonial range.
 

limerickcitykid

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Honestly, I'd be willing to consider free transfer or nominal fees for a lot of our players. Who is going to pay real money for someone like Marcos Rojo? The only purpose players like him are serving right now is stopping us from allocating our wage bill to players we might actually want.

Its United's fault for giving long contracts to so many players who were clearly not up to snuff. In the last couple of years we have been daft enough to give new deals to Jones, Rojo, Andreas and others who were only ever going to be a wage sink for us. So not only can we not shift them, we're stuck with them for the foreseeable future.

Its like we don't learn: No matter how much you re-paint and clean your robin reliant nobody wants it. Nobody gives a toss about what you paid for it. They see its a banger and aren't going to be tricked into spending money on scrap. We waited and waited and waited for someone dumb enough to pay us over £10m for Darmian and, in the end, had to finally accept (what everyone could see) that nobody was going to pay that for someone who wouldn't be starting for a mid-table team.

Any or all of the following players could leave the club without weakening the squad in any way:

  • Romero
  • Pereira
  • Jones
  • Smalling
  • Rojo
  • Dalot
  • Mata
  • Lingard
  • Andreas
  • Alexis
I'd be happy to see the bulk of those to go. If we could sell all of them for around what we sold Darmian, which was £3.5m, that'd be £35m in incoming fees. Add another £35m to that and you're reaching the kind of sums you need to buy an elite centre back or defensive midfielder.

Woodward and Judge just have to get them out of the club.
Thank feck you have nothing to do with the clubs finances.