Why are we spending so much energy on buying Sancho when so many other areas need addressed?

padzilla

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This to me looks like another Woodward special, signing a big name to please advertisers and sponsors while ignoring clear and obvious deficiencies that are more urgent but much less headline grabbing.
We need another midfielder closer to the level of Pogba and Fernandes than Fred and McTominay, we need a centre back who is not Lindelof/ Smalling / Jones / Rojo and will compliment Maguire to stop the panic every time a player ventures into our area or whips in a cross. The goalkeeping situation also needs addressed. There's a big argument we need better attacking full backs as well.
If we sign Sancho and don't tackle these issues we will end up with the same problems as the last few seasons which would raise questions about how the club is being run.
 

ti vu

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Attack potent of our right wing has been terrible for years. I would say even in SAF's final few years. It's a number one issue that needs a solution. Is it fair enough response?
 

EwanI Ted

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We’re past the point where buying three or four average players gets us anywhere. Everyone we bring in now should be the absolute best we can get. If that means it takes us two summers to build the team we want, then so be it, we just have to be patient. Even if that means we suffer a bit next season. You can’t replace quality with quantity.
 

YouOnlyLiveTwice

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I strongly disagree.

We really lack a creative winger who can do something out of the blue for us. Our forwards are strikers at the nature, but can do a job.
Sancho would give us a lot flair and creativity that we need. Not to mention that we could use some more depth to our attacking options.

Could we use a DM and a CB? Certainly. But it's not 1st priority for me.

Scoring goals is harder than defending in football.
 

padzilla

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I agree we need a right-sided attacker but not any cost and to the detriment of the rest of the squad, there are alternatives to Sancho out there as well. If he is our only signing this window we can settle in for another tilt at hopefully finishing top four again. We are being set up to be rinsed once again by the selling club. For all the money City have thrown around, they always seem to pay reasonable fees and get quality for it on the whole, same with Liverpool as much as it pains me to say it. I think it would do United to tell one of these clubs trying to take the piss out of us in transfer negotiations that we are taking our business elsewhere for once and won't be held to ransom.
 

cyril C

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After you have bought a CB, someone would say why are we spending so much energy on buying....

Right wing has been our deficiency since CR left, we made stop-gap replacement with Valencia, then a series of left winger whom we hope can play on the right, but never happen. I hope we won't end up with another winger prefer playing on the left. Getting it "right" is more important than getting it cheap or easy...
 

Raees

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After you have bought a CB, someone would say why are we spending so much energy on buying....

Right wing has been our deficiency since CR left, we made stop-gap replacement with Valencia, then a series of left winger whom we hope can play on the right, but never happen. I hope we won't end up with another winger prefer playing on the left. Getting it "right" is more important than getting it cheap or easy...
Sancho is someone who roams around.. he’s not someone who is going to stay fixed to the right flank.
 

pablotatt

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We conceded 3 more goals than Liverpool and 1 more than City in the league. We scored 19 fewer goals than Liverpool and 36 fewer than City. The points gap to Liverpool was 33 points whilst it was 15 to City. We need more goals over the season to win the league.
 

cyril C

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Sancho is someone who roams around.. he’s not someone who is going to stay fixed to the right flank.
So did CR and Nani. We just need someone who is comfortable playing on the right hand side 60% of the time, can cross from the RHS, and occasionally cut inside to shoot with his left foot. Swapping places with left winger is normal practise, Giggs played on the RHS sometime. Problem with Sanchez was that I thought he did play on the right before, and I hope Mourinho had instructed him to start on the right, but never happen. It end up with traffic jam on the left with Pogba, Rashford, or Martial on the left hand side.
 

padzilla

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We conceded 3 more goals than Liverpool and 1 more than City in the league. We scored 19 fewer goals than Liverpool and 36 fewer than City. The points gap to Liverpool was 33 points whilst it was 15 to City. We need more goals over the season to win the league.
We'll get more goals when the team has a better balance. Look at how Liverpool's attack improved when they signed Allison and Van Dijk. I would dearly love us to sign Sancho but not at any cost and it could be argued our attack is already our strongest part of the squad.
 

EwanI Ted

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We'll get more goals when the team has a better balance. Look at how Liverpool's attack improved when they signed Allison and Van Dijk. I would dearly love us to sign Sancho but not at any cost and it could be argued our attack is already our strongest part of the squad.
No it didn’t. Liverpool got 78 goals in the season before VVD when they scraped in 4th with 76 points, they only scored 85 in winning the league with 99 points. And the main reason they scored more was signing Salah, not VVD.
 

eltigreFalcao

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Its clear to me that RW being neglected for so long is a priority but I also agree that we need to improve in more areas, and is not the best idea to trash all the money on just one signing. Sancho + 1, hopefully another first team starter, is as good as I can possibly imagine
 

Strelok

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Yeah we look basically dead on our right even in our best day yet we don't need no world class RW. Greenwood is no winger, he's just a striker who plays there.
 

devilish

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Quality strength in depth is as important if not more important then signing Sancho. Our reserves are basically crap and we are forced to run the first team to the ground.

The emergence of Greenwood should put things into a certain perspective. I wonder if we need a Lb more then a RW. Shaw is a crock and Williams is cack.
 

Castia

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Nah we’re a Greenwood injury away from playing with Mata or James on the right, we need a right winger/attacker for sure.
 

devilish

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Nah we’re a Greenwood injury away from playing with Mata or James on the right, we need a right winger/attacker for sure.
Do we need to blow our entire budget on it though?
 

theklr

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I dont understand, we have been heavily linked with all those positions you are mentioning.

The club have been looking at a CAM since last year, CB links are all over and Dean Henderson might be coming back...

We are spending energy on buying Sancho because its the most expensive signing overall in this transfer window, and small details about installments might affect what we can do in January.

EDIT: Most, but not all, of our budget will go on Sancho, but if we sell off some players we can afford more incomings as well.
 

Nickelodeon

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I’m not sure why we’ve made Sancho our be all and end all. Surely, there must be a back up target. I would want us to look for a left footed RW.
 

Castia

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Do we need to blow our entire budget on it though?
I think the team is at the stage where we need 1-2 top class players to take us to the next level. Sancho is a ridiculous amount of money but we’re talking about one of the best young players In the world, I just don’t think we’ll find a bargain anyway, if not Sancho we’ll probably end up paying 80m for some random squad player.
 

20Legend2020

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I strongly disagree as well. Like many people have pointed out already, our defense at its worst is very comparable to Liverpool and City. Our offense produces about 66% of the result that our rivals. We have a pretty good squad, but they will not be able to score more than 65-70 goals a season. They need to notch it up by 1/3rd.

There have been many thorough analysis of our games in this forum and they all lead to the same conclusion that our Right Wing is our most quite space.

I'm also paraphrasing the following sentence from some post I've see in here: If we don't get Sancho, we must go to our scout and asks if there's any Right Wingers worth pursuing. It's simply beyond your typical Caf user's ability to spot a hidden gem. So just because no body throws a name of a Right Winger that's convincing, doesn't mean we don't have other options.
 
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devilish

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I think the team is at the stage where we need 1-2 top class players to take us to the next level. Sancho is a ridiculous amount of money but we’re talking about one of the best young players In the world, I just don’t think we’ll find a bargain anyway, if not Sancho we’ll probably end up paying 80m for some random squad player.
I respectfully disagree. At first team level we need 3 first team players (Lb, Cb and DM). Lindelof is not good enough, Shaw is always injured and Matic is growing old

The reserves are a mess. We lack quality strength in depth in most areas
 

antsmithmk

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This to me looks like another Woodward special, signing a big name to please advertisers and sponsors while ignoring clear and obvious deficiencies that are more urgent but much less headline grabbing.
We need another midfielder closer to the level of Pogba and Fernandes than Fred and McTominay, we need a centre back who is not Lindelof/ Smalling / Jones / Rojo and will compliment Maguire to stop the panic every time a player ventures into our area or whips in a cross. The goalkeeping situation also needs addressed. There's a big argument we need better attacking full backs as well.
If we sign Sancho and don't tackle these issues we will end up with the same problems as the last few seasons which would raise questions about how the club is being run.
So basically a new GK, new LB, new RB, new CB, new CDM... Right? You do understand the catastrophic impact that would have on cohesion if we were to sign those players? What we have at the moment is a very decent top 3/4 prem team and a latter stages of the Europa league team. Players like Sancho will add the squad depth need to push on from where we are with CL quality. Yes we need other players, but we don't need half a new starting 11.
 

Godfather

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I'm not happy with AWB. Going forward he doesn't do nearly enough. Can't go out and buy another RB though I guess.
 

ABTEK

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Unless United get attack oriented fullbacks in both flanks, it is still going to be pointless having Sancho. United's current set of fullbacks don't add any value going forward.
 

GBBQ

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Do we need to blow our entire budget on it though?
Yes, but only for Sancho. He's a rare talent with huge potential and you can't turn down the chance to sign players like that. Having him Martial Rashford and Greenwood means our attack is pretty much sorted for the next 5+ years so its a great investment. Also the reason we're looking to negotiate the up front fee is exactly so we will have more funds to spend on other players so i don't really see that Sancho would be our only signing in any situation.
 

Gambit

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No idea what's going on behind the scenes. We've so far been linked to numerous players this summer. Just the Sancho one is a headline grabber and traffic magnet.
 

Hawks2008

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- Best young talent not named Mbappe
- Fills the most glaring whole in our 11

Even if he were the only signing we made it would still be one of the best windows we've had post-SAF.
 

Castia

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I respectfully disagree. At first team level we need 3 first team players (Lb, Cb and DM). Lindelof is not good enough, Shaw is always injured and Matic is growing old

The reserves are a mess. We lack quality strength in depth in most areas
We need cover/competition for the front 3 for sure imo, If any of those get injured we’re in big trouble the drop from Greenwood to James or Rashford to Mata is too much. Ighalo goes back in January too that’s even less options.

Id like an attacker and centre back this summer if possible.
 

padzilla

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I don't understand why Sancho doesn't hand in a transfer request either if he wants to join us. But I think there is value to be had this summer above all others and we seem to be putting all our eggs on one signing - if we sign Sancho for north of 100 million, realistically we won't be in for too many others. A solid squad is key because we are one or two injuries away from having Fred and McTominay back starting in the middle and the likes of Jones at the back.
 

devilish

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Yes. Because if we sign a cheap alternative, they won't be an upgrade on Mata , Lingard or James.
You'll find plenty of players that are way better then Championship, jlingz and former player
 

Skåre Willoch

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Because we need him and he’s one of the absolute biggest talents in the world. “Generational” or something.

Everything fits. He’s perfect for us, we’re perfect for him.
 

buckooo1978

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Its a valid question but it shouldn't be

Sancho would add quality and depth to the attack which is probably the most important part of the pitch for us in most games when we are trying to break teams down.

We really could use four or five 30m players to improve the overall team and squad too.

with the right scouting I don't see why we shouldn't be bringing in both*

*Glazernomics the main factor
 

Joel - Man utd

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Well we don’t need a new CB. We need RW. If we cant get sancho, maybe we can get demebele or similar player.
 

redshaw

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We clearly need to bolster our attack to get scoring 80+ goals like we used to and Rashford does have back problems. He can play across the front.

I get what you're saying though. We see teams now and the recent past getting very good players for around 60 million, we got one ourselves in Bruno. We could do with 3 more shrewd buys but these take a lot of planning.

If Sancho can help us maintain top 3 and CL runs over the years while adding more it could look cheap. His age and talent and for me a good drive to move and succeed at that age shows a special player and top teams tend to have one.
 
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