Lets hope Antony sees the riches of Saudi as well.
Transfer Tweets - Manchester United - 2023/24
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) and Jamie (@Vault Dweller) are here to talk about United's dreadful home defeat at the hands of Big Ange's Tottenham Hotspur. Should this have been the end of Ten Hag? How long does he actually have left? And does Nik finally want ETH out?!
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Right ok.
But are we to assume that he was a model pro right through the whole transfer window and then once the window was shut started acting like a prick and not training properly behind the scenes? No.
The Arsenal game was September 3rd and the window closed September 1st, so he'd obviously been already acting up in the weeks leading upto that game which is why Erik left him out. And he'd been so unprofessional that Ten Hag felt the need to make a public statement about his behaviour.
So that begs the question why wasn't he shipped out in the last few weeks of the window?
Tier 3:
Many reasons could explain this. Most likely being no clubs putting a proper offer down for him.
Nunez transfer fee can go up to 100m euros. What the hell?
He was available but no one wanted to bid. Now they're bidding for loans because his value has dropped.
I'm fairly confident we would have had no problem loaning him out over the summer window. That way he could have played regularly and retained some sell on value.
Why would we loan him out in the summer? Especially with the Greenwood issue and Amad being injured.
It really doesn't at all.
My reading is that he wasn't performing as well as others in training and needed to knuckle down and work harder to get back into the team.
Ten Hag was asked about it and gave a mildly critical answer. I didn't see it as throwing him under the bus at all. Sancho blew up his United career over it. It's a ridiculous over-reaction from him imo and turned a fairly mundane player performance issue into a get him out of the club asap situation.
That's not my reading of it at all. If his professionalism and training was so bad that the manager felt he had to not only leave him out of the squad (plus on the bench 3 previous games) but also make his behaviour public instead of just giving the usual stock answer (he's injured/ill/not match fit) then that situation didn't happen over night. He should have been shipped out before the window closed. It's poor on the clubs part to let a situation like that fester instead of taking action. Now we have an £80m winger that we'll be lucky getting £20-30m for because every club knows we're want him out asap.
I've seen a few "Sir Jim thinks X, Y and Z" about football matters. This is absoluytely terrifying. If he can only do one thing right it would be to put the right people in place and stay as well out of it as he can.
If he is surrounding himself with the right people and considering their advice then there is nothing wrong with this at all.
Yeah, it's better than having ETH be chief and nigh-sole decision maker regarding signings, with the only restriction being whether Glazers will authorize the payment.
How do think it would have gone if Ten Hag lied?
You don't think Sancho would have rushed to social media to proclaim he was fit and available to play?
Ten Hag obviously thought Sancho would turn it around and it was too early to give up on him or perhaps there was absolutely no chance the club were willing to sell/nobody was interested.
In saying that Sancho throwing his toys out of the pram over mild criticism is fairly unprecedented. I can't see how you can argue against the situation being Sancho's fault. Trying to paint it as something that could have been foreseen smacks of revisionism to me.
Exactly. A manager should be able to tell the truth in this circumstance that he picks a squad based on the best performers in training without anyone throwing their toys out. The standard response shouldn't be to have to lie about it and claim anyone that doesn't make a matchday squad is injured to protect snowflakes.
Hearing "Sir Jim Ratcliffe wants to clear 6 or 7 players out of the squad" or "Sir Jim Ratcliffe is happy to let Sancho leave" is not what we want to be hearing at all. He shouldn't be taking advice then deciding, he should be putting the right people in place, setting his expectations, giving them their operating constraints/rules and then letting them run the football side under those constraints where they are judged against the expectations. Well run, agile organizations don't operate by the head honcho sticking themselves in the way of every decision.
I don't actually think this is the case by the way, he's been around the block long enough to know how to structure a functional organization.
The same way it's went with him saying he's leaving Varane out for tactical reasons or when any other managers did it with hundreds of other players over the years I suspect.
It's good that I haven't done that then isn't it. I'm not absolving Sancho of blame for his behaviour, I'm simply saying if his attitude was that bad and he was training so poorly for a decent period of time that warranted him being left out of 3 starting line-ups despite having a full pre-season. One squad complately and then publicly criticised by his manager then he should have been moved on or loaned out before it became the problem it would inevitably become.
Why are you so adament the club deserve no criticism for their lack of action on this?
I mean if it had blown up in October or November fair enough, but the situation came to a head 48 hours after the window closed. I imagine it didn't start then so it had been bubbling over for weeks.
There are decisions which need to be based upon ongoing and longer-term assessments, sure. But before everything's embedded in terms of new staff and 1-2 new positions, without setting up sales of the most disposable players (and a purchase or two) now in advance - based of course upon pre-acquisition assessments and feedback from the incoming SD - we could be looking at the Summer to make squad improvements. There seemingly isn't much money to negotiate with, plus senior players on the periphery of the squad can be disruptive, so it makes sense to look at moving out the likes of Sancho, potentially Varane as well as ( provided a replacement is lined up, Martial) in order to strengthen quickly at CB and possibly an adaptable RFW/CF. A CM would be good too, if we can revive the McT deal - as discussed, someone like Thuram would be a good profile in terms of mobility and strength and less possession-averse compared to Scott, before we look at bringing in a proper long-term deep playmaker in the summer.
Because it's only a nuclear situation due to an unprecedented childish and quite outrageous response from a supposed professional footballer to mild criticism.
By the way I don't know what you do for a living but you don't get rid of every under-performing employee immediately.
Plenty of players are left out of squads and a sequence of games, only to fight for their place and gain it back or have you never heard of this phenomenon? Again it seems like revisionism on your part based on the current situation. I'm not saying the club handled it perfectly or absolving them of blame as we aren't privy to all of the facts but on the face of it it wasn't a particularly unusual situation in football until Sancho made it one.
EDIT: Varane could well have been tactical but you're assuming it wasn't. Maguire is the progressive passer and he wants him on the right. I don't think he's ever played Varane on the left has he?
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So Sir Jim has kept his mouth shut for basically 12 months over buying United but now deal nearly there he’s leaking to the press who he likes and doesn’t like at the club. I really hope his leadership team is in place and working away in the background but it’s a huge push to think he’s also saying who leaves and who comes in And even bigger push to leak this.
But we would lose out on an opportunity to call up on him if we faced a crisis of injury.
Well no I haven't but I would be much more trigger happy about getting rid of employees if there were limited windows in which I could do so and waiting until the window had passed could cost my company millions.
It wasn't a case of Sancho just not training well for a week, there were obviously very serious behaviour problems behind the scenes for probably weeks if Erik felt the need to go public with it. Had it been a very recent thing and not a big deal I doubt he'd have even left him out of the squad vs Arsenal.
Yes Harry Maguire the player he tried to force out all summer. Yeah of course he now prefers him to World Cup and multiple Champions League winner Varane for purely tactical reasons. Like him being a better progressive passer than Varane. Seems plausible.
But yet we've ended up having to play the likes of Fernandes, Rashford and Mount out of position on the right wing anyway.
If his behaviour behind the scenes was so bad in the final weeks of the window for his manager to call him out on it publicly the weekend the window closed then the writing should have been on the wall. And the club should have been proactive about the situation instead of letting it fester.
Varane wasn't the passer and proved he couldn't be that player in the games he has played. Martinez was the one playing the ball forward in the partnership but sure we don't and won't agree so I'll talk to you later.
Another sporting director gets linked to United (Tier 1):
Thats becsuse his pathetic outburst after the window closed was the final nail on his coffin. No one saw that coming, even if he was on a thin line.
Loaning him does nothing by the way, his wages are so high we'd have to pay most of them anyway.
Well he's a better passer than Maguire was my point.
Erik left him out of a squad completely on the weekend the window closed, knowing he would be asked about it and knowing he felt the need to publicly criticize his behaviour and attitude. So of course the manager and the club knew there was a problem festering there. If we add to that, that he'd already been at the club 2 years on a huge wage yet hadn't cemented a place in the side and clearly wasn't first choice on the right wing as ETH prefers Antony. The even without the attitude problems the smart move would have been for the club to move him on last summer anyway.
Let me ask you this if we'd loaned him in August and he'd had a few decent months playing regularly somewhere do you think his value would be higher now in that scenario or the current one where he hasn't played in months, is frozen out of the squad and every other club knows we are desperate to offload him?
Loaning players out isn't only about wages.
Varane?
He really isn't. Have you watched him at all this year. He's been way off when he's been in the team.
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I've been watching both of them for years. Varane is a better passer of the ball than Maguire. I doubt many people would disagree with me on that.
A lot of people would. But don't think that's a debate for this thread.
I'd agree.
More sporting directors get linked to United (Tier 1):
- Atalanta's Lee Congerton
- Paolo Maldini & Ricky Massara as a pairing
- Atletico Madrid's Andrea Berta
- Dougie Freedman of Crystal Palace is a long-time ally of Sir Alex's.
Get any person from Brightons scouting-team - that will fix the problem
Fergie hardly has his finger on the pulse anymore. His last recommendation and comments on Ronaldo suggest Ratcliffe shouldn't pay any heed to what he thinks.
Besides, like @Chesterlestreet mentioned, now's not the time to engage him heavily for his personal reasons.
Leave the poor man alone, he hardly needs the stress. Besides, football has changed a lot.
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