Why Do Some of our Most Talented Players Spend Their Primes Playing Abroad? Why Do We Buy Other Teams 'Sloppy Seconds' (Players Out of their Prime)

[Eli Zee]

What the title says.


it seems many of our most talented players over the years spend their primes playing for other teams.

it seems we like to buy old players that are not in their prime anymore (varane, casemiro).

Shouldn't it be the opposite? What's wrong with us? Are we a non-desirable club?

 

[Florida Man]

One word. EdWoodward

 

[Bright_Eyes]

What the title says.


it seems many of our most talented players over the years spend their primes playing for other teams.

it seems we like to buy old players that are not in their prime anymore (varane, casemiro).

Shouldn't it be the opposite? What's wrong with us? Are we a non-desirable club?

We've never really been a big buyer of players in their prime. When SAF reigned we used to mostly buy up and coming players who had yet to take the next step to being considered one of the best in their position. Since he retired, we've been shit so top players in their prime have had better options elsewhere.

Part of the reason we've been shit is because we've entered this death spiral where short term thinking, bad planning, panic buying, lack of strategy, focus on profit and marketing etc have led us to buy players past their peak which has led us to be even more shit and look for more short term fixes. The squad has not had much stability because too many players have needed replacing at the same time too often due to age profiles and poor recruitment and the managers have inherited mismatched squads. It's all been said before on here and it's really a case of just all round poor running of a club. Buying aging players past their prime is just a part of it.

So uh yes we've been an undesirable club. Top players in their prime have avoided us if they're sensible.

 

[TheRedDevil'sAdvocate]

Who are these players who are killing it abroad?

 

[Oranges038]

Who are these players who are killing it abroad?

Ronaldo, obviously.

At his peak and absolutely smashing it in the dessert.

 

[Lemon Moon]

Are we a non-desirable club?

Not exactly however our stock certainly has fallen over the last decade. We should be both shouting for the best players and attracting the best. Especially the best English players. The last two up for grabs (Bellingham + Rice) I imagine took one look at us and ran. It's all fault of the clubs ownership, for example the sorry state of the facilities and stadium and them being neglected for so long. Players surely want to train & play in the best place they can?
Manchester United hasn't been anywhere near the best for some time nevertheless things hopefully are looking to change in the near future.

 

[Red Regista]

I can't speak for Eli Zee, as I can't read his mind, but I think he might be referring to the likes of Pereira, Elanga, Gomes, Pellistri, Tuanzebe, etc. who have all become decent in Pereira's case even good players.

I know that most of the United community doesn't rate these players much, but I think they're better and cheaper than the expensive crap we've bought to replace them.
Elanga for example is a better PL player than Antony, Pereira is better than Eriksen (at this stage of his career) and arguably having a better season than Bruno, Tuanzebe is no worse than Lindelof, Gomes would be a nice option off the bench as an AM in a modern system etc.

 

[fe33er]

No adequate scouting system and a structure without long, medium or even short term planning, a very reactive structure is why we are a complete mess.

 

[simplyared]

What the title says.


it seems many of our most talented players over the years spend their primes playing for other teams.

it seems we like to buy old players that are not in their prime anymore (varane, casemiro).

Shouldn't it be the opposite? What's wrong with us? Are we a non-desirable club?

Like when we bought Ted McDougall who was bangin em in for Bournemouth. Not exactly old (25 yrs) when we bought him in 1972. He'd chalked up 126 goals in 165 apps for his former club. The fact he scored the majority of them in the 4th division had obviously no bearing at all. We paid £200,000 (a hell of a lot of money then). After only 18 apps and 5 goals the Doc offloaded him to WestHam for £150,000. Happened a long time ago. I was at OT for his debut. The hype was enormous and like so many others who have followed he will be remembered as a flop.

Just thought I'd mention it

 

[Grande]

Like when we bought Ted McDougall who was bangin em in for Bournemouth. Not exactly old (25 yrs) when we bought him in 1972. He'd chalked up 126 goals in 165 apps for his former club. The fact he scored the majority of them in the 4th division had obviously no bearing at all. We paid £200,000 (a hell of a lot of money then). After only 18 apps and 5 goals the Doc offloaded him to WestHam for £150,000. Happened a long time ago. I was at OT for his debut. The hype was enormous and like so many others who have followed he will be remembered as a flop.

Just thought I'd mention it

Just yesterday I was cheering like a madman for Gary Birtles solitary goal in his first season as supposed top scorer (28 games).

 

[witchtrials]

Admirable Commitment to English Title Case

 

[Grande]

I can't speak for Eli Zee, as I can't read his mind, but I think he might be referring to the likes of Pereira, Elanga, Gomes, Pellistri, Tuanzebe, etc. who have all become decent in Pereira's case even good players.

I know that most of the United community doesn't rate these players much, but I think they're better and cheaper than the expensive crap we've bought to replace them.
Elanga for example is a better PL player than Antony, Pereira is better than Eriksen (at this stage of his career) and arguably having a better season than Bruno, Tuanzebe is no worse than Lindelof, Gomes would be a nice option off the bench as an AM in a modern system etc.

I like our own players, and particularily Andreas, though I don’t think he was better than Eriksen last season. This season yea deffo. But would he have developped into that quality with the game time he’d deserve at Man United in between? Erikson was on a free, Pereira wouldn’t be if he came last season.

Elanga would possibly be better than a normal Antony for Forest or Rangnik, but hardly for a Ten Hag, De Zerbi or Guardiola, IMO.

Pellistri wil be interesting to follow. I think he’ll need a few years to be a better option than Garnacho, Antony and Amad here.

Gones and Tuanzebe, how are they doing?

 

[RedDevil@84]

What do you mean by "our" most talented? Academy is not producing world class players in bulk.

 

[miked99]

Grass is always greener on the other side on here.

For example, Rashford scored 30 goals last season, as well as getting into double figures for assists and it's casually dismissed as if it was nothing and anyone could do it.

Meanwhile, people see Elanga play well in a couple of games for Forest, or Pereira score a free kick, or Gomes play once and that's all that's needed to declare selling them as a mistake because they're so much better than the players we have in their positions.

These players had chances and showed they weren't up to the task of playing for us. Doesn't matter if they do well at other clubs. If playing well at a smaller club was all that was needed to be good enough for United, transfers would be easy.

 

[tomaldinho1]

I assume OP means the players have signed, not specifically our academy players.

So Pogba obviously being better in Juve, Mkhi, Sancho - Dortmund, Depay - PSV, Antony - Ajax etc.

Mostly I'd say we clearly used to buy players based more on the name than their profile. We'd need a CM but there'd be no thought as to what type of player that would be, we'd just sign someone like Pogba and essentially fall back on the whole 'good players can play with other good players'. It's still going on to this day, we got linked to FDJ and ended up with Case... the only similarity is on paper they normally both get called a DM but they couldn't have more different skillsets. How is it possible to have 1st option FDJ and 2nd option Case? It makes no sense whatsoever.

We needed a wide attacker, we sign Mkhi because he's had an insane season in the BL where he got 10 goals and 20 assists with no thought to if he'll suit the PL or how we play. We then make the exact same mistake again with Sancho. There's just no understanding/thought to how a player plays or how we play, with the big issue being the latter because no one really knows how we play because we keep changing managers with seemingly no real long term plan.

 

[Scandi Red]

Ronaldo, obviously.

At his peak and absolutely smashing it in the dessert.

Reminder to not visit Ronaldo's future restaurant chain.

 

[QuietOn Fortune]

Also UK is a less environmentally attractive place than spain or Italy.

I think we sae this with Di Maria.

 

[Oranges038]

Reminder to not visit Ronaldo's future restaurant chain.

He can smash it wherever he wants and you'll eat it and pay for the privilege.

 

[SouthMancRed]

The title's not really clear. It needs another couple of lines.

 

[Captmfla]

Actually, it's mostly dependent on the player's desires to win.

SAF actually manages to persuade Ronaldo to stay one more year and he knew Ronaldo was good but how he evolved entirely depended on him.

You see, Chelsea also made the decision to sell Eden Hazard to Real Madrid at high price but he turned out to be a flop even though he did tried to stay fit and relevant.

There are also so many players who went to Real Madrid from Man Utd: Beckham, Van Nistelrooy, Heinze, Chicharito and not all were successful.

In the other direction, I think Casemiro has shown some hunger and has played decently well.

Varane has also played well when he's playing. So both of these players can be good assets for the team. They can very well win more trophies if their teammates were better.