Which United signing excited you the most before they played?

VivaObertan

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Solskjaer - Liked the name.
Hargreaves - His 2006 performances in the WC.
RVP - Really enjoyed watching him play.
Mata - Thought he'd transform our team.
Blind - As above.
Schweinsteiger - Also.
Depay - The winger we so desperately needed.
Falcao - World class finisher.
Zlatan - World class finisher.
Matic - Just made sense.
Cavani - One of my favourite strikers.

The rest of our signings over the past 25 years or so, I didn't really get excited.

PS. My tagline was given to me because I turned up at Carrington on Alexis signing day, but his actual signing I wasn't too bothered about. Just did it for the karma.
 

Oranges038

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Out of al the greats, the signing that excited you the most was forlan? Over Rooney? Haha no chance
"Which United signing excited you the most before they played?"

Yeah, for me it was Forlan, based on the brief highlight reel on TV, saw those goals and thought that this guy is going to be the sh!t. Sadly, he wasn't.

Rooney wasn't an unknown quantity, i didn't get excited about him, it was a protracted transfer, knew about him since he was 14, seen what he could do at Everton, knew he would continue on and he didn't disappoint.
 

The Brown Bull

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In order of importance.
1.Bryan Robson. Just knew he was gold.
2.Roy Keane. Wasn't quite as sure as I was about Robbo but I was wrong.
3.Andy Cole. Goal machine I thought.
4. Juan Sebastian Veron.
5. Wayne Rooney.
6. RUUD Van Nistlerooy.
7. Dmitar Berbatov.
8. RVP.
9. Juan Mata
10. Radamel Falcao.

Two signings that didn't happen but that I was very excited by,
Ronaldinho and Paul Gascoigne.
 

tenpoless

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Forgive me for this but in the past 5 years it has to be Sanchez

Because of his form at Arsenal, piano introduction, Jose ball and everything
 

Bertie Wooster

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The re-signing of Pogba. Because I'd watched him coming through the Academy and was so excited by the prospect of the kind of dynamic, box to box midfielder I'd been wanting us to sign for years. I was gutted when he left, and having to watch what he achieved with Juventus & France - and delighted when he came back.

Similarly, I watch a lot of the Summer youth tournaments on Eurosport, and had been a huge fan of Alexis Sanchez since seeing him as a teenager with Chile. I'd been eager for us to buy him from before he went to Barcelona and then Arsenal, so was delighted when he finally arrived - and in the same team as Pogba! It's a huge disappointment to me how badly it went (and it's a similar story with Angel Di Maria and the Argentina youth team).
 

DOTA

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Ji Sung Park!!! I know! But when we were getting schooled by Milan, he was schooling them!
I was really excited about Park. For the wrong reasons. I thought he was gonna score loads of goals for us. He was as good as I thought he'd be but very much not in the way I was imagining.
 

Chief123

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Lots to choose from, but for me it would be re-signing Mark Hughes. What an incredible footballer he was, a brilliant target man and hard as nails. Had it all really.

just been watching some classic matches from1990-91 and reminiscing. What a collection of players that was right through the spine Schmeichel - Pallister - Robson - Hughes
I was really excited when we signed Stam, Veron and Ruud. Rooney was pretty goosebumpy too!
 

Remember the geese

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Either Veron, Anderson or Ronaldo.

Veron because he represented just the type of player I'd yearned for as an impressionable kid. We were predominantly a very British/Irish side at the time with the odd noticeable exception. Schmeichel, Kanchelskis, Cantona. As an avid watcher of Serie A in the 90's, I always hoped for a Ronaldo, Vieri, Crespo, Salas, Batistuta, Rui Costa, Del Piero, Davids, Zidane, Totti, Cannavaro, Nesta, Maldini, Cafu, Thuram or Aldair etc. Like they were somehow sexier or something. Finally we had secured one.

Anderson because it came as a bit of a shock. I was aware of our interest in Nani, but I felt that signing Anderson was a real coup. I'd previously watched him light up an U17 World Championship tournament and was excited by his Samba flair and huge potential. Although nowhere near as proven, in my youthful naivety, it was almost like signing a young Ronaldinho.

I remember reading a lot about Ronaldo in WorldSoccer over the course of the season prior to us signing him. Along with Quaresma, he sounded like a really exciting talent. However, I had never seen him play until he lit up the place in that pre-season friendly against us for Sporting. I was in awe of how this young kid was tying up our full International, title winning defenders, in knots. He was electric and best represented my teenage fascination with technically gifted, young, continental players.
 

Grande

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Ronaldinho’s gotta be high up there ...

Bryan Robson was one of my favourite players already when United got him, so that was a buzz.

Eric Cantona, partly because of the way he arrived.

Juan Sebastian Veron was almost a perfect player to get. Argentine, Guevara tattoo, fantastic style of play, personality. Almost...

Wayne Rooney. He had that something extra extra. Debut lived up to it.

Mkhitarian and Zlatan.

No, I’m not gonna mention Amad Diallo.
 

Fingeredmouse

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Huh? Pogba was a world class star by 2017. He was fully established in the Juve and France squads.
Sure but I don't think he was as established as in reputation or consistency as Veron. Pogba was a clearly brilliant if inconsistent player whereas Veron was the best midfielder in a very strong Serie A.

It'd be like signing Busquets 10 years ago or somesuch.
 

amolbhatia50k

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Must have been Rooney. He was boy wonder. Freakishly good, gave you the feeling that anything was possible.
 

Bondi77

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Getting Sparky back was exciting and he was pure quality
When we brought in players like Pallister and Ince it was obvious we were going in the right direction and I was buzzing when we snared Keano
The biggest buzz was getting Rooney especially after his showing in the Euros.
 

Gazza

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Rooney
C Ronaldo
Rio

All obvious ones. But the momentous days when we signed Nani and Anderson were exciting. Erstwhile caf poster kanchelskis14 was memorably hyped about Anderson’s potential.
 

KD6-3.7

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I was genuinely excited when we signed Di Maria. Little did I know Van Gaal didn’t plan on playing him in the role Ancelotti had him in with Madrid.

His performances in the first couple of games when we played the diamond were good but the teams balance was all over the place and our defence was atrocious. But boy when he had enough of Manchester he certainly showed it with his performances towards the end because they were atrocious.
 

Glorio

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I was really excited about Park. For the wrong reasons. I thought he was gonna score loads of goals for us. He was as good as I thought he'd be but very much not in the way I was imagining.
Yep .... Thought he was going to be an amazing offensive dribbler on the wing (as he was in PSV), reinvented himself somewhat
 

pastyfool

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Cole
I remember I was playing pool (when I should have been at college). One of the girls in our group was listening to a radio, she shouted out, ‘Manchester United have just signed Andy Scholes for 7M'. We were all like, ‘Who the fu*k is Andy Scholes?’. She really didn't know much about football... and it never dawned on us that Newcastle would ever sell Cole. I had to wait until I got home to find out the proper news. Ah, the good old pre-internet days.

Veron
One of the best players in his prime. Such a shame it didn’t work out.
 

SirScholes

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"Which United signing excited you the most before they played?"

Yeah, for me it was Forlan, based on the brief highlight reel on TV, saw those goals and thought that this guy is going to be the sh!t. Sadly, he wasn't.

Rooney wasn't an unknown quantity, i didn't get excited about him, it was a protracted transfer, knew about him since he was 14, seen what he could do at Everton, knew he would continue on and he didn't disappoint.
So if we’d signed Messi you’d still of been more excited with forlan because messi would obviously be good ?

I know it’s just an opinion but some of these are just nostalgia surly, find it tough to believe, more curious yes, more excited absolutely not

forlan also scored some important goals for us I wouldn’t say he was shit
 

Oranges038

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So if we’d signed Messi you’d still of been more excited with forlan because messi would obviously be good ?

I know it’s just an opinion but some of these are just nostalgia surly, find it tough to believe, more curious yes, more excited absolutely not

forlan also scored some important goals for us I wouldn’t say he was shit
Would I have been excited by Messi? If he came in at any point in his career then surely I would have been.

It's just my opinion, there's been plenty of other signings that I was excited about Rio, Tevez, Ronaldo, Di Maria, VDS. But for me Forlan was the one I couldn't wait to see play, I was a lot younger then, it's nearly 20 years ago. But, like I said it was based off that one highlight reel.

And he was shit. After he left he was good, but at Utd he was shit. Macheda scored an important goal too, but he was still shit.
 

2 man midfield

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Van Persie I think. Most of our signings were either young players, from foreign leagues etc, and you weren’t sure what to expect until they got on the pitch.

With van Persie, you just knew you’d signed a 30 goal striker that would win you the league, even before he’d kicked a ball.
 

Lay

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Yorkie - was one of my favourite players outside of United at the time and I was shocked we signed him because despite being one of my favourites, I didn’t think he would be on our radar.

Tevez - followed his career for so long and I was so damn happy he signed. I was willing him to score every game

Anderson - I knew little about Nani but my Porto fan friend had hyped up Anderson a year before we signed him, he was gutted and claimed we had gotten the future best player in the world
 

Schmeichel's Cartwheel

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Nani & Anderson. I remember them being Gods on FM the year before & honestly thought we had signed another Ronaldo & the new Ronaldinho.

Neither really hit their potential, Nani in spates I suppose. Anderson got nowhere near expectations.
 

CM10

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Possibly Falcao, which made it all the more disappointing when things turned out as they did.
 

U.N.C.L.E

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Signing Cole got me excited. Especially when the local press ran an article about a Geordie fan who’d literally just gotten a full back tattoo of “Cole 17” in Newcastle colours.
 

Spaghetti

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Andy Cole. It came out of the blue and I couldn’t wait for him to play. It seemed an age before he got his first goal.
It was his 3rd game if I remember rightly, against Villa and I think we won 1-0.

I was also mega excited about Cole and he remained one of my favourites throughout his stay at United.

Other players that got me excited before playing were: Cantona, Cruyff, di Maria, Verón, Barthez, Ibrahimovic.

I think the OPs answer of “Hughes re-signing” isn’t even really answering his own question, as Hughes had already played for United before.
 

Josh 76

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He played more than 3 months for leeds. He was part if their league winning team and I wouldn't say he was unproven as he was probably the best player in the league when we signed him.

But yeah it was definitely a shock for sure.
He signed for Leeds in mid Febuary and played only 3 months of the the title wining season for Leeds. Scored 9 goals.
He then scored a hatrick in the Charity shield against the Scousers at the start of the next season. He didn't hit the ground running after that. Leeds struggled for the next couple of months and Utd signed him in November.
 

bsCallout

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No way depay excited you the most? Rooney? CR7? RVP?
I didn't like the idea of getting an Arsenal player who had an injury.

The other two I wasnt following football to the extent that I was following transfers or watching them at other clubs. The internet wasn't the same then.

CR7 was the one I was most excited about when I first saw him in a United shirt.

But Depay had all the YouTube videos, the hype, the swagger, so I guess I bought into all that.
 

Caesar2290

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Rooney - after that Euro 2004 I was blown away how good he was. Thought all summer about how great it would be if we signed him. Boy oh boy was I blown away when we signed him. I was buzzing for days. It felt like one of those euphoric dreams that actually came true

VDS- not a lot of love defenders and goalkeepers on here. After the complete fiasco with the whole Caroll and Howard in the previous years and me being a goalkeeper myself in my highschool, I was really buzzing when we finally signed Edwin. I didn't know much about him at the time, aside the fact the he used to play for Ajax. And then came his debut against Everton. We were 2-0 up at Goodison and their CF lost his marker and had a free header from 5 yards out. While Edwin had a momentum that was carrying him in the opposite direction, he managed to readjust the body and pull an insane save. That was the moment that I knew that for the first time since Schmeichel we had finally sorted our GK position for the next couple of years. Tbh, I didn't expect Edwin to go this strong up until he was 40.

Park Ji Sung - I remember watching the CL semifinal tie between AC Milan and PSV back in 2004/2005. Milan had a 2-0 home advantage going into this game and at the time looked like a dead cert for the CL final. I remember certain Park running up and down the pitch, harassing the AC Milan defenders and scoring the openers. Despite PSV missing out on the final, Park really stood out for me in that match. His workrate and his positional sense impressed me. So I was really surprised but super giddy when we signed him out of the blue. I was expecting him to lead out line with Rooney and RVN. He eventually had a different role, but since that day I always had a soft spot for park.

Here is the match for those of you interested.