What do we still need? Aka The never ending story

LCB: Olivier Boscagli free
RWB: Frimpong 33m
DM: Franck Anguissa free
CM: Hugo Larsson 33m
CM: Angel Gomes free
CF: Osimhen 55m

Sign bunch of free players and play Bruno as a 10 again.

Is 33m his release clause? If so, definitely worth looking into.

Anguissa - if 2-3 year contract and wages not more than 150k, could be a good way to add some depth to our MF.
 
Yeah I’ve said since pre-Amorim that we needed at least two QUALITY attackers. Right now you have Amad… and that’s it. Garnachos overall game is still very spotty, Rashford is gone, Antony is gone, Hojlund and Zirkzee offer almost nothing, and that’s it. Then you have Mount who’s a sicknote, and Bruno who honestly doesn’t fit well as an inside 10 given his lack of dribbling ability and pace if we’re honest.

I’m not delusional enough to think we’ll get a couple guaranteed top level goalscorers this summer, but bare minimum they have to be quality players that elevate the floor of the attack drastically. Cunha would be ideal. Gyokeres is an obvious target. Dibling or Quenda would be great additions. There’s other names out there.

But yeah the team is going no where until we completely rework that forward line. Right now it’s genuine relegation quality barring Amad (who’s just broken through himself this season)

Dibling would be cheaper as Southampton will be relegated whereas Wolves stay up and Cunha signing a new deal raises price too.
 
Honestly I don't see the hype with him. Whenever I've seen him play he doesn't look all that? If there's anyone I'd get from Lille, it would be Angel on a free.

I just think he could be a shrewd deal, if it doesn't work out think we can still move him on
 
Just watching the 50 passes before that arsenal goal against city, my god our players are brutal. We need technical players, comfortable on the ball, able to hold it up, not panic when a player presses them. We are actually awful. We need possibly a new team bar Diallo and marinez who are comfortable on the ball.
Agree, was watching that match and also Brugges Vs City, thinking we are shocking, how comfortable all 3 teams are on the ball makes us look like amateurs in comparison.

Like you said we only have very few plays who can do that.
 
Honestly I don't see the hype with him. Whenever I've seen him play he doesn't look all that? If there's anyone I'd get from Lille, it would be Angel on a free.
Completely agree on David, if he was that good someone would of taken him.

Does Angel move the needle or are we mentioning him as he used to play here, I am not convinced feels like an Eriksen replacement of great technically lacking physically.

If I was looking at anyone from Lille it would be Ayyoub Bouaddi, only 17 but looks like he has a huge future, wouldn't be an immediate starter but someone to buy and loan back and let him develop.
 
Here’s the thing, we only need £80-90m
Combined for Garnaucho and Rashford providing they are sold before 1st July , then add Mctominay and Greenwood and you have 4 academy players that all represent 100% academy profit of £140m in this Accounting period which means we could spend £300-£350m in the summer easily.


The club needs to reinvest all the money they would receive. We need 3/4 attacking options and Zirkzee will easily fetch £30-35m as he has a fantastic reputation in Serie A, if we don’t get Gykores he’ll be used as a makeweight in a cash plus swap deal for Osimhen with Napoli.

SJR needs to prove what he said that he’s looking to make us successful on the field first, well to do that Jim you need to buy at least 6/7 Elite PL proven players this summer!

I don't think this is true to be honest. Given United's Q1 2025 numbers are already out there and the summer player sales are reflected in this, if the fee brought in from the likes of McT, Greenwood etc made an impact on future spending they would have made more moves in January and done so earlier IMO - the fact that only Dorgu came in and only after they made a couple of moves with Antony and Maguire is testament to the situation that - as both the club and reputable journalistic sources have often repeated - any future purchasing is relying on future sales also.

I think even selling Garnacho and Rashford they'd struggle to spend £200m personally based on my projections, but we really don't know where United are at the moment at least until we get a look at Q2 numbers, I'll be interested to see where it looks like net interest is going to land because what's certain is United can't afford to be posting a £60m loss on this line item again and expect to spend big in the summer.

I've mentioned elsewhere I think but there is a situation where United could go big in the summer and I think they will still be fine for the next cycle of PSR, but the one after - when they lose the £12m net profit year in 2022/23 from calculations - is going to be the one that stings. Spending above their means this summer will mean needing to scramble around and balance the books down-the-line and I just don't think that's going to be the INEOS way.
 
Is 33m his release clause? If so, definitely worth looking into.

Anguissa - if 2-3 year contract and wages not more than 150k, could be a good way to add some depth to our MF.
I think he doesn't have a release clause, but our team has been good at negotiating the recent transfers, so I do believe something around 33m plus bonus could be possible.
But maybe he'll cost a lot more. He'd be worth paying up to 50m imo.
 
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Anyone else thinking we need to look within the Premier League for a few players now?
Would anyone be upset with signing Mateta, Bowen, Antonee Robinson, and Liam Delap? All of those have played better football than the players we have. They'd be Ferguson-esque signings. Also sort of weaken the teams around us that are uh, beating us regularly at this point.

Realise that there's a Premier League tax but if any of them are realistic I'd snap your hand off for any of them.

There's also Cunha to consider, Borja Sainz at Norwich, and a few buyback clause's around on some players we have had like Gomes, Fernandez etc.
 
Completely agree on David, if he was that good someone would of taken him.

Does Angel move the needle or are we mentioning him as he used to play here, I am not convinced feels like an Eriksen replacement of great technically lacking physically.

If I was looking at anyone from Lille it would be Ayyoub Bouaddi, only 17 but looks like he has a huge future, wouldn't be an immediate starter but someone to buy and loan back and let him develop.
His progressed leaps and bounds in terms of his development and that too playing deeper in midfield. Very good technically and on the ball, and he's very tenacious off the ball. Would be a free transfer and I don't think his wages would be that high too.

Anyone else thinking we need to look within the Premier League for a few players now?
Would anyone be upset with signing Mateta, Bowen, Antonee Robinson, and Liam Delap? All of those have played better football than the players we have. They'd be Ferguson-esque signings. Also sort of weaken the teams around us that are uh, beating us regularly at this point.

Realise that there's a Premier League tax but if any of them are realistic I'd snap your hand off for any of them.

There's also Cunha to consider, Borja Sainz at Norwich, and a few buyback clause's around on some players we have had like Gomes, Fernandez etc.
Don't think anyone would be upset, it's just the price we'd have to pay. Neither of those would be available for at least 40-50m.
 
I don't think this is true to be honest. Given United's Q1 2025 numbers are already out there and the summer player sales are reflected in this, if the fee brought in from the likes of McT, Greenwood etc made an impact on future spending they would have made more moves in January and done so earlier IMO - the fact that only Dorgu came in and only after they made a couple of moves with Antony and Maguire is testament to the situation that - as both the club and reputable journalistic sources have often repeated - any future purchasing is relying on future sales also.

I think even selling Garnacho and Rashford they'd struggle to spend £200m personally based on my projections, but we really don't know where United are at the moment at least until we get a look at Q2 numbers, I'll be interested to see where it looks like net interest is going to land because what's certain is United can't afford to be posting a £60m loss on this line item again and expect to spend big in the summer.

I've mentioned elsewhere I think but there is a situation where United could go big in the summer and I think they will still be fine for the next cycle of PSR, but the one after - when they lose the £12m net profit year in 2022/23 from calculations - is going to be the one that stings. Spending above their means this summer will mean needing to scramble around and balance the books down-the-line and I just don't think that's going to be the INEOS way.
Surely a lot depends on whether we get CL or EL football next season or no Europe at all ?
 
Midfield along with attack is the biggest concern for me .

Ugarte while being decent player has serious Limitations and similar can be said about Bruno .

Its too porous and lacks athleticism while quite easy to play against , maybe it gets mitigated to an extent with better attackers but against any half decent team it would still get exposed regularly .
Our best performances under amorim have come against quality teams with them in midfield and they haven't been exposed at all
 
Reports that Shaw is out for another 4-5 weeks with another injury so with no Martinez til Christmas and Shaw surely being released in the summer we’ll need a left sided centre back unless Kukonki and Heaven are called up immediately
 
Reports that Shaw is out for another 4-5 weeks with another injury so with no Martinez til Christmas and Shaw surely being released in the summer we’ll need a left sided centre back unless Kukonki and Heaven are called up immediately
Wow, unbelievable if true.
 
We can't release Shaw
We’d be better off releasing him with mutual agreement than keep paying him £150K a week to keep the physios busy and I say that as a massive fan of Shaw as when fit and on form he’s one of the best around but unfortunately he’s never fit.
 
Why would he agree to that?
There’s no saying he would but we need to start being ruthless with the playing squad and instil a fear factor for them to perform or do better with their fitness, was it Rooney who said a year or two ago that players weren’t really injured and could play if they wanted to ?

When fit I don’t think there’s many around better than Shaw but he’s played twice this season and I think 10 times last season yet was fine to go to the Euro’s with England, we should at least attempt to mutually part as what’s the odds he plays 20 games between now and June 2027 when his contract ends ?
 
if the club sells well, then we have a chance to stack the team with more quality players, preferably on the younger side, especially in attack which is our weakest area, only Amad is good, the rest are turd, I'll only keep Garna and sell the rest in the attacking dept.
 
Anyone else thinking we need to look within the Premier League for a few players now?
Would anyone be upset with signing Mateta, Bowen, Antonee Robinson, and Liam Delap? All of those have played better football than the players we have. They'd be Ferguson-esque signings. Also sort of weaken the teams around us that are uh, beating us regularly at this point.

Realise that there's a Premier League tax but if any of them are realistic I'd snap your hand off for any of them.

There's also Cunha to consider, Borja Sainz at Norwich, and a few buyback clause's around on some players we have had like Gomes, Fernandez etc.
That would be an awful use of 200m on 4 players, Jesus.
 
We’d be better off releasing him with mutual agreement than keep paying him £150K a week to keep the physios busy and I say that as a massive fan of Shaw as when fit and on form he’s one of the best around but unfortunately he’s never fit.

This isn't football manager!

You can't just click a button to release a player from their contract!
 
His progressed leaps and bounds in terms of his development and that too playing deeper in midfield. Very good technically and on the ball, and he's very tenacious off the ball. Would be a free transfer and I don't think his wages would be that high too.


Don't think anyone would be upset, it's just the price we'd have to pay. Neither of those would be available for at least 40-50m.
Perfect Thank You, just very dubious will smaller frame players as we get physically bullied a lot atm.

Particularly shit at Set pieces so need more height.
 
Realistically, we won't be generating £150 million in sales and we won't be spending £250 million.

If we can purchase a top CM, one attacker and then RWB that would be great progress. A new starting goalkeeper will need to be looked at sooner rather than later also.
Just to be clear you understand that most of our player sales including Mctominay and Greenwood were both made after the 1st of July 2024 so add that to the £25m of Sancho and you have £75m of player sales already in this seasons accounts plus AWB and more.

What we do between July 1st 2024 and 30th June 2025 will all affect what we spend in summer of 2025.

Selling Garnaucho or Rashford for £60m or £40m before July 1st would be added to this and allow us to easily spend £350m let alone £250m as we will not be paying all of that £250m out in the summer, more like £100m maximum including instalments and Agents fees. Now should we have now European football, because the needs is so obvious they might spend £150m because of a lack of European TV Revenue.
 
Just to be clear you understand that most of our player sales including Mctominay and Greenwood were both made after the 1st of July 2024 so add that to the £25m of Sancho and you have £75m of player sales already in this seasons accounts plus AWB and more.

What we do between July 1st 2024 and 30th June 2025 will all affect what we spend in summer of 2025.

Selling Garnaucho or Rashford for £60m or £40m before July 1st would be added to this and allow us to easily spend £350m let alone £250m as we will not be paying all of that £250m out in the summer, more like £100m maximum including instalments and Agents fees. Now should we have now European football, because the needs is so obvious they might spend £150m because of a lack of European TV Revenue.

If true why did United only post £35.6m in player profits in their Q1 accounts? Do you have any explanation for this?
 
It seems like we're already targeting Quenda in the summer, so with that in mind..

LCB - Huijsen (release clause this summer)
RWB - Quenda
CM - Ederson
L10 - Cunha (has release clause this summer)
ST - Osimhen/Gyokeres

That's what we need, but whether we can do all that in a single summer, probably not
 
I don't think this is true to be honest. Given United's Q1 2025 numbers are already out there and the summer player sales are reflected in this, if the fee brought in from the likes of McT, Greenwood etc made an impact on future spending they would have made more moves in January and done so earlier IMO - the fact that only Dorgu came in and only after they made a couple of moves with Antony and Maguire is testament to the situation that - as both the club and reputable journalistic sources have often repeated - any future purchasing is relying on future sales also.

I think even selling Garnacho and Rashford they'd struggle to spend £200m personally based on my projections, but we really don't know where United are at the moment at least until we get a look at Q2 numbers, I'll be interested to see where it looks like net interest is going to land because what's certain is United can't afford to be posting a £60m loss on this line item again and expect to spend big in the summer.

I've mentioned elsewhere I think but there is a situation where United could go big in the summer and I think they will still be fine for the next cycle of PSR, but the one after - when they lose the £12m net profit year in 2022/23 from calculations - is going to be the one that stings. Spending above their means this summer will mean needing to scramble around and balance the books down-the-line and I just don't think that's going to be the INEOS way.
The issue is the loses and the interest payments which significantly affect the loses, last year 23/24 season includes £41m of Commission fees paid to the Raine group and interest on top of that of £60m.

This is the last year of PSR, all 20 PL clubs are voting to tend that this spring and then we enter 25/26 Squad ratio rule anchored to the lowest PL teams media revenue factored at 4.5/5.

The PSR rolling three year will be from 22/23 year, 23/24 year and 24/25 year and also needs to account for Cash backs.

SJR investment was carefully staggered with one Payment in 23/24 season and the latest this Christmas of $100m paid in this seasons accounts of 24/25, this money is used to offset the loses by investment into youth, stadium, Ladies and Carrington being modernised.

The real issue is working capital, the club is not very liquid right now, so they are trying to sell players like Mainoo, Garnaucho, Rashford, more to generate a lot of cash so they can go big in the summer. The club said last summer we had a maximum of £35/50m for the summer budget then it went up to £80/100m then we spent over £200m.

We spent - £52m Lenny Yoro, MDL - £42m,
N Mazraoui - £15m, J Zirkzee - £36m,
M Ugarte - £42m, P Dorgu - £25m

That’s a total - £212m
However we’ve probably only paid about £70m in first instalment and £30m of agent fees so we may have facilitated all those sales on £100m of investment and then received as much as £30m back from instalments of player sales from players sold in the summer. The harsh reality is we may not even have £50-60m of working cash right now to facilitate summer transfers so we need to generate more cash by selling players.
 
I genuinely think Stiller is essential. He'd change our midfield pairing dynamic so much. Him and Ugarte would be immense together.
 
A midfielder with some athleticism
A striker who can score goals
A keeper who is not a liability
A long term Bruno replacement. He cant bail us out forever
Probably a new CB now Martinez is out long term
 
Our best performances under amorim have come against quality teams with them in midfield and they haven't been exposed at all
What would be those "best performances" then? I'll give you Liverpool but one game isn't a lot. Against Arsenal we fought bravely but were pretty defensive and spent of the time in a defensive shape. Games like that fuel the legends of Bruno and Eriksen as CMs and what a fantastic CB Maguire can be. Issue is, this is not how we want to play going into the future. And even when, we've seen how this plays out, opponents will react and not give us the comfort of surrendering the ball. We've seen what drilled teams like CP and Brighton did, they hit us where it hurts. Its bad enough, that we have next to no ability to not play Bruno there for the next couple of weeks as we have no midfielders available that have anything above average passing range. But we are paying a price for affording ourselves the luxury of playing lightweight AMs in the heart of the midfield. There is a reason that many teams don't do that. Celebrating it against Bukarest is nice but I guess we have to forge something that is functional enough against better teams than that.
 
It seems like we're already targeting Quenda in the summer, so with that in mind..

LCB - Huijsen (release clause this summer)
RWB - Quenda
CM - Ederson
L10 - Cunha (has release clause this summer)
ST - Osimhen/Gyokeres

That's what we need, but whether we can do all that in a single summer, probably not

This would be ideal but as you rightly point out, would require something like 325-350m. It would strengthen us tremendously though.
 
Yeah Arsenal are probably front runners
Yeah for sure, although I do think it's a bit tricky to fit him into many teams. He's not an out and out striker, which Arsenal need, neither is he a left winger. Falls somewhere in between.
 
So if you had to pick say three of those?

Yes, I would do Ederson, Gyokerez and Cunha this summer if we had to prioritize.

Find someone on a free to fill LCB with either of Kukonki or Heaven as a backup. Amad and Dalot as RWB.