We need to make a big statement in the transfer market

[Smores]

Isn't this what we always do whenever we miss out on a top target? Make up some excuse thar it was our decision to talk tough. Everyone 100% buys it.

 

[The Original]

The real problem here is that Utd are not in a position of strength from which to make such a statement.

To call the bluff of other clubs in this manner, the player you want has to be desperate to leave, and that only happens when the club they are going to is presenting a once in a life time opportunity. Utd used to be that club but not at the moment, and to get back there requires success on the pitch. To get success on the pitch requires getting good players. So unfortunately, paying a bit too much will have to be the way for some time.

 

[Maticmaker]

This is an old story, almost in the 'chestnut' category!

United show interest a player, the price immediately rises, we try to haggle, they stick to, or even in Maguires case Leicester raised the ante after we baulked at their first figure, we finish up paying more or less what the seller wanted and we have wasted three months when we could have been preparing the player, to play 'the United way'.

Such an old story its got whiskers!

We have tried so many ploys;
feigned interest, then walked away at the mention of first price demanded by the seller, then swooped in late with even better offer;
Pretend to lose interest and go after other targets, sometimes finish up signing alternatives;
Tried to arrange swops or 'makeweight' offers, rarely succeeds, when it does its usually bad for us;
Try to get the player (legally of course) to rattle the cage of his current employer and demand they don't 'stand in his way';
Try to pacify agents, player family members, other hangers on who have influence with the player, promising 'finders fees' etc. of course this doesn't work with the selling club itself, but can tip the balance;

Why don't we say Yes when we mean yes (whatever the price) say No, when we mean No, (not when we mean 'not above a certain price)!

The bane of being a multi-billion pound organization means you will always be asked to pay top whack, find a way to make that work for you not against you in dealing with humans, not negotiating sponsorship deals... over to you Mr. Woodward!

 

[jem]

It’s pointless unless they can find someone of sufficient quality for cheaper. Walking away from Hazard resulted in Young

Pretty sure Young was the year before, no?

 

[jem]

I don't really see how a club like Dortmund putting a value on a player and being stead-fast in that is "bullying" us.

They have him, he has a contract with them, we want him, they set the price.



Yeah but they also sold Dembele for well over 100 million... and Pulisic wasn't putting up numbers anywhere near what Sancho does for them.

Yeah I don't see it either. It's up to us whether or not we want to meet their price. If anything, bullying would be expecting Dortmund to sell off their prized asset for a fee that benefits us more than it does them just because we are the so-called bigger club.

 

[Hammondo]

We need to stop over paying for players.

 

[Tel074]

Will we win the league with Sancho next season? No

Will we get top 4 without Sancho? Yes

Let BVB keep him for another season and invest the money in other positions

That's 2 complete guesses to be fair . We need a right winger more than anything else

 

[100]

I agree we need to do this at some point but Maguire was that point. I rate Maguire and think hes a good addition but Leicester absolutely took the piss and we went with it.

 

[-Supreme-]

That's 2 complete guesses to be fair . We need a right winger more than anything else

And expectations too.

 

[el3mel]

We have made a lot of big statements in recent years in transfer markets and it barely showed off on the pitch anyway. Football is won on the pitch not in summer.

Also, even if we don't get Sancho, it'll still be a good chance for us to play Greenwood as main player there and just buy a bench option.

For me, signing a top defensive midfielder to rotate with Matic is a bigger priority than Sancho.

 

[Jibbs]

And expectations too.

I think we need a DM, a RW, a CB, a CF, a LB. In the same order of priority.

 

[liamp]

Looking at the ridiculous schedule for next year, it probably makes sense to redistribute the Sancho money into a number of signings to bolster our depth if we have any desire of challenging in the league or CL. There's little chance we're going to be able to avoid injury to key players with how congested this fixture list is.

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[EwanI Ted]

Keeping a player you want to keep doesn't leave you dick in hand. The exact opposite is true. They want to keep Sancho, he'll be worth at least the same next year, he's on a decent long term contract, he isnt causing a fuss, they have no reason to want to sell. Fending us off, if anything, would be a major feather in their cap after a number of forced sales. It would increase their reputation for being a hard negotiator and make it easier for them to be strong in future sales.

Us walking away now would make a statement alright; that we have a chump of a CEO who started talking to the press before the deal was done only to find he couldn't get it over the line.

 

[mu4c_20le]

Nobody knows what's going on behind the scenes. What's being said to the media is not a representation of the actual progress of the deal. Most of you know it's PR games being played, yet still take everything the media says as gospel.

 

[EwanI Ted]

Looking at the ridiculous schedule for next year, it probably makes sense to redistribute the Sancho money into a number of signings to bolster our depth if we have any desire of challenging in the league or CL. There's little chance we're going to be able to avoid injury to key players with how congested this fixture list is.

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Saw that earlier - once you reach Christmas, that is absolutely insane. That has seriously popped my optimism for next season.

 

[Offsideagain]

The issue is that the club in general has lost the respect and reputation in the murky world of football by poor decisions at board level, appointing Moyes too late in the season forcing a panic buy of Fellaini. It went downhill from there. I believe Bruno got a bit upset that his transfer took so long. That is what we need to buy, players that want to play for us not wage hunting prima donna’s. Time was when it was an ambition of good players to want to come to OT and that may still be the case but clubs, especially those dealing via agents, want to screw us for mediocre players never mind top quality. Don’t know what the answer us except, perhaps do as the guy said and tell them to stuff it. Scousers and City identify a player and go and buy him. Perhaps the published fees are not accurate though.

 

[SAFMUTD]

Good luck with that after overpaying for nearly every single player we signed in the last 7 years. We need to learn a thing or two from Bayern on how to negotiate & close a deal early.

We cant compare ourselves with Bayern, they basically get their players from bundesliga where they have the huge advantage of all players being fans and their childhood dream club it seems. Thats why they get the players for peanuts, but when they get players from aboard they pay as much as any other team.

80M for Lucas Hernandez, 41M for Tolisso, 40M for Javi Martinez way back in 12/13, 40M for Vidal, etc.

All their bargains come from the bundesliga, which to be honest couldnt be replied by any other team but them due to their special pull to german players.

 

[mu4c_20le]

I agree we need to do this at some point but Maguire was that point. I rate Maguire and think hes a good addition but Leicester absolutely took the piss and we went with it.

Because we lack alternatives. Whenever we publicly identify a top target like with Pogba, they know we are unlikely to change our minds. The best thing to do was to sign Ake for half the price last year. Maguire is good but not a must-have.. it would've sent a clear message that we can and will walk away, leaving you with a possibly discontent player.

 

[Uniquim]

It was reported that we passed on Dybala:

"United knew that a 25-year-old Argentina international who played for Juventus wouldn’t be cheap, but the demands staggered even a club with a wage bill of close to £300 million. Dybala wanted to be United’s second highest-paid player behind the widely ridiculed £500,000-a-week base salary of Alexis Sanchez; a demand so extreme it threatened to bust even United’s wage structure. Not only that, but Dybala’s representatives wanted £16 million for cutting the deal.

[...] United felt that he — or rather his agents — were more interested in the financial gains than the football reasons for moving to England. United walked away. They want players who are keen to play for the club, who will buy in to a long-term project. They don’t want to be stung. Again."

[source]

 

[Amerifan]

Will we win the league with Sancho next season? No

Will we get top 4 without Sancho? Yes

Let BVB keep him for another season and invest the money in other positions

Agreed. Our final position in the table won’t change significantly either way. If we can’t get who we want at the price we want/need I’d rather save the money for next window and try again. Clubs will be more likely to negotiate after another half year of no/partial gate and reduced TV receipts.

 

[mu4c_20le]

Let's make a £200m bid for Messi. Then wait for Barcelona to turn it down and stand firm.

The difference is Barca wont put a price on Messi because he's not for sale, so we're literally wasting our time. Dortmund did put a price on Sancho and were ready to sell, no matter what the hipsters say.

 

[pascell]

That only works if you have a good enough squad to fall back on.

Right now we aren't in that position, but we are close.

Missing out on Sancho will only spite us in the long run, Dortmund won't be worried.

This.

Soon as we've got our primary targets, it's then a case of cherry picking replacements for one or two positions.

 

[devips]

We don't need to make a statement. Buckle down, buy young players with grit and promise and make the real statement in the League and CL standings.

 

[AltiUn]

What kinda gets me about the Sancho deal is that he’s the final piece of the puzzle for me, after him it’ll be a very long time before we have to overpay on a star player due the age of our squad. The more reasonable side of me thinks though that due to the financial cost of the pandemic, and not knowing how long it will last, we should be hesitant to pay it. At the end of the day whatever decision we make I hope it’s the right one, and when the window closes in October we can look at our squad and think it’s actually improved.

 

[OleTheGreat]

This is an old story, almost in the 'chestnut' category!

United show interest a player, the price immediately rises, we try to haggle, they stick to, or even in Maguires case Leicester raised the ante after we baulked at their first figure, we finish up paying more or less what the seller wanted and we have wasted three months when we could have been preparing the player, to play 'the United way'.

Such an old story its got whiskers!

We have tried so many ploys;
feigned interest, then walked away at the mention of first price demanded by the seller, then swooped in late with even better offer;
Pretend to lose interest and go after other targets, sometimes finish up signing alternatives;
Tried to arrange swops or 'makeweight' offers, rarely succeeds, when it does its usually bad for us;
Try to get the player (legally of course) to rattle the cage of his current employer and demand they don't 'stand in his way';
Try to pacify agents, player family members, other hangers on who have influence with the player, promising 'finders fees' etc. of course this doesn't work with the selling club itself, but can tip the balance;

Why don't we say Yes when we mean yes (whatever the price) say No, when we mean No, (not when we mean 'not above a certain price)!

The bane of being a multi-billion pound organization means you will always be asked to pay top whack, find a way to make that work for you not against you in dealing with humans, not negotiating sponsorship deals... over to you Mr. Woodward!

well said!!!

 

[Ali Dia]

Football transfers don’t work in the way that buying from a shop does. There will always be a different price for different teams. As one of the wealthiest teams in the world we get rinsed. I honestly couldn’t care less other than if the price affects the players confidence.
Unfortunately, Barca and Real Madrid and Bayern use their allure and prestige more effectively. Bayern can convince young Germans to sign on a free. The Spanish two seem to attract players who ‘dream’ of playing for them.
We need to get players to kick up a fuss more I think if we want to pay less.

thats a vicious circle. we need to be successful on and off the pitch for players to want to kick up a fuss about wanting to join us but we still need better players to achieve that in the first place. when it comes to someone like sancho we have to just take the cost on the chin. be decisive and massively improve the team with as sure of a bet as there is out there. we also need another approach than signing players that dortmund have developed for a few seasons. I have a feeling we will eventually be back in for bellingham and haaland in the future and thats just way too predictable! if we need to pay more wages, promise high profile loans or significant game time here then so be it but we should be as attractive to young players as we were when we were signing the likes of ronaldo and rooney. between sancho bellingham and haaland thats at least 200 million (and it could end up being a lot more) in fees we could have saved on players that we could have used straight away. we need to be a lot more proactive about this when other top youth break through. At least we are back in the discussion for these types of players again.

this summer we just need to get in and out while we are on a high. thats it. I have a sinking a feeling we will be slow and we will end up settling for underwhelming options after holding out for better deals that dont come off. I hope for Oles sake thats not the case but he wouldn't be the first manager who wasn't fully backed at the end of the day. Im not saying we aren't currently spending enough money, we are, but its on average players a lot of the time. the decision making and negotiating is just too slow. it lets selling clubs dig in and demand even more when we eventually come with an unrealistic opening offer and then the media portray us as slow to act when we just dont want to get ripped off. getting back to my original point if our team had a few more good players/we were more successful we would be able to walk away from deals that didn't suit and then the player would then be much more likely to agitate to come here

 

[sparx99]

thats a vicious circle. we need to be successful on and off the pitch for players to want to kick up a fuss about wanting to join us but we still need better players to achieve that in the first place. when it comes to someone like sancho we have to just take the cost on the chin. be decisive and massively improve the team with as sure of a bet as there is out there. we also need another approach than signing players that dortmund have developed for a few seasons. I have a feeling we will eventually be back in for bellingham and haaland in the future and thats just way too predictable! if we need to pay more wages, promise high profile loans or significant game time here then so be it but we should be as attractive to young players as we were when we were signing the likes of ronaldo and rooney. between sancho bellingham and haaland thats at least 200 million (and it could end up being a lot more) in fees we could have saved on players that we could have used straight away. we need to be a lot more proactive about this when other top youth break through. At least we are back in the discussion for these types of players again.

this summer we just need to get in and out while we are on a high. thats it. I have a sinking a feeling we will be slow and we will end up settling for underwhelming options after holding out for better deals that dont come off. I hope for Oles sake thats not the case but he wouldn't be the first manager who wasn't fully backed at the end of the day. Im not saying we aren't currently spending enough money, we are, but its on average players a lot of the time. the decision making and negotiating is just too slow. it lets selling clubs dig in and demand even more when we come with an unrealistic opening offer and then the media portray us as slow to act when we just dont want to get always get ripped off. getting back to my original point if our team had a few more good players/we were more successful we would be able to walk away from deals that didn't suit and then the player would then be more likely kick up a fuss.

Yeah, I think we have changed in that way already. We are overinvesting into our youth acquisitions again and if Mejbri and others like him can make it then it saves us huge cash. We seem to announce a lot of high profile youth signings nowadays.

 

[Ali Dia]

Yeah, I think we have changed in that way already. We are overinvesting into our youth acquisitions again and if Mejbri and others like him can make it then it saves us huge cash. We seem to announce a lot of high profile youth signings nowadays.

I would say more of the 17- 21 year old players who’ve broken through at other teams though rather than strictly U18s but the lads we are signing now do look like the more impressive (read expensive) kind of youth who would’ve broken through anyway. It seems like we are going to back to the winning formula. Ole is taking notes from the Fergie playbook.

 

[golden_blunder]

I don’t see why it’s so difficult to say 80m upfront, 20m following season and 20m 3rd season if we qualify for CL

 

[golden_blunder]

Isn't this what led to Jose being sacked? We missed out on key targets and left the squad a mess so Jose cried and it all fell apart.

There’s a huge difference. Jose wanted old over priced players

 

[kidbob]

I'm more and more convinced that we need to abandon Sancho for this summer and instead bring in Reguilon, Partey and a good centre half (Upemecano, Konate etc) and try bring in Dembele with no obligation to buy. Try to emulate what Liverpool did with Coutinho and accept that Sancho will have to wait until we are sure we have the money so lets strengthen a number of positions instead.

Sancho would be excellent of course but I reckon attacking threat from full back and steel in midfield are more important than RW if it means spending our entire budget on it. If Dembele is a success then that's an extra bonus.

 

[r3idy]

...and no I’m not saying we need to spaff a massive war chest.


At some point we need to say no and miss out on a primary target to send a message that we’re not desperate and we’re not going to be bullied. It’s all well and good saying that we have 3 targets for each position but it seems a bit pointless when we always get tunnel vision and end up pursuing our primary target all summer, eventually paying close to if not the asking price.

We need to call a selling clubs bluff once or twice and leave them with their dick in their hand. I realise that means missing out on a key player or two but our scouting department should ensure that we have a suitable alternative. We should be working much harder to get a reputation of tough negotiators who walk away if they believe the asking price is not reasonable.

The club never release a 3 target position list, at best it's media speculation based on half baked ideas of where some hack thinks we need strengthening.

Moreover Dortmund don't need to sell. Unless Sancho is an utter crock this season, he will hold roughly the same value this time next year.

On the point of being a tough negotiator, that will take time. Situation really not helped with Woody coming out a few years back claiming we can do things in the transfer market other clubs dream of (or words to that effect). Moreover people are quick to forget we walked away from a deal last summer for Dybala when the terms clearly didn't favour Utd.

 

[Redlyn]

I am sure we and others have walked away from deals plenty of times and it hasnt sent any shockwaves. Selling club don't always need to sell and they will happily see us walk away. They won't sell for less than what they value the player if they dont have to and the player has at least 2 years to go. Walking away from that type of deal does not help us at all in the long run or make any big statement. It just makes us lose our key target.

 

[Sandikan]

You buy Sancho, and combine that with our surge to 3rd at the end of last season, and it's a real sign we mean business.

That would give us an attack on paper as good as anyone in the league, and when you have a superb attack, you always have a chance in games.

 

[lex talionis]

The problem under Van Gaal and Mourinho is that they chose targets poorly, with a few exceptions such as Pogba. The names are too long to list. I'm encouraged that Ole is picking better targets. I'm much less concerned about spending too much on proven talent than I am spending the right amount on mediocre talent.

Just one example: 15m for Daniel James. In all seriousness, what's the better buy...15m for James or 100m for Sancho? Not even a close call for me.

We're not that far off from being able to compete with Liverpool, but we're not going to get there with adding solid mediocrity. We need to add outstanding talent and rely on the squad we have already for their cover.

 

[Mickeza]

We’ve done this before though. We didn’t meet the Perisic asking price under Jose, we didn’t meet Bruno’s last summer, we didn’t meet Bale’s the number of times we wanted him and we didn’t meet Maguire’s in Jose’s last season. The unfortunate fact is that we go after the best players at clubs who don’t need to sell, which means ultimately if we want those players you have to pay a premium. It isn’t a negotiating problem.

 

[RonaldoVII]

There’s a huge difference. Jose wanted old over priced players

Over priced for their age I guess. Although one was Maguire for cheaper than what we paid a year later.

 

[Gopher Brown]

What kinda gets me about the Sancho deal is that he’s the final piece of the puzzle for me, after him it’ll be a very long time before we have to overpay on a star player due the age of our squad. The more reasonable side of me thinks though that due to the financial cost of the pandemic, and not knowing how long it will last, we should be hesitant to pay it. At the end of the day whatever decision we make I hope it’s the right one, and when the window closes in October we can look at our squad and think it’s actually improved.

There’s never a ‘final piece of the puzzle’ - and that’s a good thing because it keeps us pushing to refresh the team.

 

[sparx99]

We’ve done this before though. We didn’t meet the Perisic asking price under Jose, we didn’t meet Bruno’s last summer, we didn’t meet Bale’s the number of times we wanted him and we didn’t meet Maguire’s in Jose’s last season. The unfortunate fact is that we go after the best players at clubs who don’t need to sell, which means ultimately if we want those players you have to pay a premium. It isn’t a negotiating problem.

We did offer more for Bale before he left Tottenham. Supposedly we offer £5m more than Madrid but Bale was set on moving to them anyway.

Maguire was funny one. Clearly things were strained between Mourinho and management. Maguire was only 1 year removed from something like a £12m move from Hull so I can understand our board turning up their nose to some extent.

Perisic was a good call from the board. We already had Rashford and Martial playing wide left. To potentially sell Martial to make way for a winger in his late 20’s is a bad decision.

Bruno was frustrating, I agree. However a lot of scouting reports seemed concerned with his wastefulness (I understand he tries a lot of killer balls). We also had a weird summer where there were the Dybala chat going on so maybe we weren’t always locked into Bruno.

 

[Okey]

The best thing we can do is sign Sancho regardless. Thats a statement. He will have more impact on the pitch than us posturing or making a point in the transfer window to other clubs.

Plus if we move on to alternatives every team in Europe knows we were willing to spend big on Sancho so that will artifically inflate the values of Costa etc anyway.

Sometimes you just need to bite the bullet and get the job done regardless. We all laughed at Liverpool getting caught tapping up Van Dijk and then spending what a lot of us thought was insane money at the time on him but that worked out pretty well in the end for them. I dont think any Liverpool fan cares about that now somehow.

My opinion too. Every word of it.