Have any been bought by a PL team and gone on to achieve top honours out of interest?
(as in not come up with a team)
Why don't United look at Championship talent?
- Thread starter TheReligion
- Start date
(as in not come up with a team)
Sarr was a 30-million-pound signing made by a top flight club at the time. Hardly a lower league player.
Same goes for Grealish, who had made 30+ PL appearances by the time Villa went down. Though there's definitely an argument for saying he benefited from those three seasons in the Championship to develop.
Aren’t we looking at Max Aarons who’s playing in The Championship ? Weren't we in for Bellingham ? Also signed Dan James from Swansea too so it’s not like we do less business or scout less players below the Premier League than any of the other top teams do.
Also we probably bring through more players from the academy than any other team too as Henderson, Tuanzebe, Williams, Mengi, McTominay, Garner, Rashford and Greenwood have all come through over the past few seasons whilst Laird, Levitt and Mejbri aren’t far off.
Also we probably bring through more players from the academy than any other team too as Henderson, Tuanzebe, Williams, Mengi, McTominay, Garner, Rashford and Greenwood have all come through over the past few seasons whilst Laird, Levitt and Mejbri aren’t far off.
Andy Robertson probably the biggest success from Championship in recent years
Nothing wrong with buying players from the Championship, or even below - and we’ve done this occasionally.
there’s a bit of snobbery in this thread.
the biggest issue is the step up - and anyone we buy is unlikely go get much time in the first team, which in turn hampers their development. Zaha is a good example of this.
game time is important to players, which is why they will tend to go to clubs who are outside of the clubs fighting for Europe.
there’s a bit of snobbery in this thread.
the biggest issue is the step up - and anyone we buy is unlikely go get much time in the first team, which in turn hampers their development. Zaha is a good example of this.
game time is important to players, which is why they will tend to go to clubs who are outside of the clubs fighting for Europe.
None of those are United quality though, and well if we want to challenge for titles, we cant have patience with these types of "maybe-talents" - they usually develop in midtable clubs for years before they make it, which probably is also the logical way. You can mention Robertson as the one standout of many, but he also played in the premier league
Bellingham? Yes, but would too take nurturing time. Lets see where he lands before we lay judgement
he played in the PL, got relegated, then promoted, and relegated again. Liverpool bought him off the back of a season in the PL with Hull.
I wouldn’t call him a championship player.
We've got James, McT, Lingard, TFM, Jones and Rojo. That is enough championship talent
Someone looking for a tailor made high quality suit doesn't shop in TK Maxx.
It's already been mentioned but think it's worth saying again that I also was very impressed by Matty Cash's performance last night.
There is some quality business that can be done from that league. Max Aarons is probably the best piece of business a Premier League club could do right now in that regard.
There is some quality business that can be done from that league. Max Aarons is probably the best piece of business a Premier League club could do right now in that regard.
I know many here like to think "what are our scouts even doing?" but I'd highly doubt we don't already look closely at the football league. We made a serious move for Bellingham and he chose to go elsewhere. We've bought Dan James, Wilf Zaha, Nick Powell, Nathan Bishop, Regan Poole in the last few years. That's a decent hit rate on the football league, and I don't think we're lagging behind anyone else in scouting talent from those divisions.
There's plenty of talent in the Championship for sure, but how much of it is good enough to be a regular for a top 6 PL side? There have been plentiful players who have looked excellent in the Championship and ordinary in the PL. Will Hughes was very highly regarded at one point, and he turned out to be fairly ordinary. There was a couple of seasons when Ebanks-Blake was unstoppable in the Championship, got promoted with Wolves and looked hopeless. They went back down and he tore it up again.
I'm a big fan of Max Aarons, but I'm still dubious he's good enough for a team that wants to win the title and play in the CL. He may well be, but it's hard to judge. AWB was seriously impressive at Palace but he parts of his game are lacking for us. Henderson looked imperious at Sheffield Utd but he looks very nervous when he plays for us. Making that step up shouldn't be understated.
There's plenty of talent in the Championship for sure, but how much of it is good enough to be a regular for a top 6 PL side? There have been plentiful players who have looked excellent in the Championship and ordinary in the PL. Will Hughes was very highly regarded at one point, and he turned out to be fairly ordinary. There was a couple of seasons when Ebanks-Blake was unstoppable in the Championship, got promoted with Wolves and looked hopeless. They went back down and he tore it up again.
I'm a big fan of Max Aarons, but I'm still dubious he's good enough for a team that wants to win the title and play in the CL. He may well be, but it's hard to judge. AWB was seriously impressive at Palace but he parts of his game are lacking for us. Henderson looked imperious at Sheffield Utd but he looks very nervous when he plays for us. Making that step up shouldn't be understated.
We clearly keep an eye on it, as James and the pursuit of Bellingham demonstrate. But not one of those players you mention has proved good enough to be strong targets for us even now, having adapted (some of them at least) quite well to PL pace. So they would not have been good acquisitions for us at all.
You simply have to accept that the best way to look at lower-league domestic talent is to let smaller PL clubs take the risk and then pay bigger money to get these players off them if and when they become worthwhile targets.
You simply have to accept that the best way to look at lower-league domestic talent is to let smaller PL clubs take the risk and then pay bigger money to get these players off them if and when they become worthwhile targets.
Do Bayern, Real, Barca etc look at Championship talent? Ffs we’re Man United, the biggest club in the world. Unless there’s a 17 year old wonder kid breaking through that we can snap up we really need to aim higher.
Remember when we signed a League One player and brought him on to try win a CL game? The last 8 years have been wild.
Was hardly his fault though, Nick Powell was a Fergie/club signing and the original plan was likely to loan him to a Championship/lower PL club for a few years to develop, like how we did with Welbeck/Lingard. For some reasons LvG decided to work on him at the club instead.
I know but the point is we do buy from the lower leagues. We’ve bought at least two since Ole has been here.
Have you seen Dan James getting flogged mercilessly?
I will say, I remember when Spurs were close to signing Grealish when he was still in the Championship and it just seemed like a good signing to me. I think we have done in the past with Dan James and Zaha but realistically we could probably benefit from taking a risk on more players as it is clearly a very good league. Olise looks very talented from the 2 times I have seen him and I knew Ronaldo was a decent player after that pre season game in 03 so I am basically a professional scout.
The amount of people mentioning Dan James just shows how few read the actual OP and just post based on the title..
I think the point I'm making is, and many of you seem to agree, that there's plenty of excellent talent and potential in the Championship these days and with it being so competitive to sign players there's good value to be had.
This season for instance players like Cash, Lewis and Robinson all look capable full backs (a position we need competition for) and someone like Eze is showing enough to suggest he would be worthy of a place in our squad out wide.
I think the point I'm making is, and many of you seem to agree, that there's plenty of excellent talent and potential in the Championship these days and with it being so competitive to sign players there's good value to be had.
This season for instance players like Cash, Lewis and Robinson all look capable full backs (a position we need competition for) and someone like Eze is showing enough to suggest he would be worthy of a place in our squad out wide.
Because we would much rather pay 80m for Maguire from Leicester than buy him from Hull for 20m...
And I remember talking about it and suggesting that we should sign Grealish. Man did that ever get rubbished quickly. United supporters don't want players unless they cost 50m plus and then when we do sign them they put unrealistic expectations on them to live up to that price tag and moan when they don't...
Grealish was pretty decent when Villa were in the Championship, Spurs tried very hard to get him, I'm glad they failed. Ollie Watkins is having a good season. Dele Ali, Maddison and Joe Gomez, all stepped up quickly. Plenty are advocating signing Aarons.
Well Bayern bought Davis from Vancouver after he was offered to United 20times by scouts.
Don't forget a Powell as well. Hardly played a game for us. And a Miller from Scottish league, and a Bebe from Portugal. We have tried many early picks, need to sack all the scouts first if you want to re-new the argument.
BTW, Diallo is as good as Championship grade player picked for his talent,. hope we have better scouts in Italy.
BTW, Diallo is as good as Championship grade player picked for his talent,. hope we have better scouts in Italy.
what a silly comment. There are some diamonds to be found at times, so to dismiss an entire league is really silly, and the way you’ve put it comes across as elitist.
there are lots of good players who come through from the championship and the lower leagues.
not advocating concentrating on buying lads from there, and buying half a dozen each year - but to dismiss it completely based solely on snobbery is poor form.
I like that leeds keeper Meslier, he has an error in him occasionally but he pulls off top saves every game. With better coaches he could become a top keeper for a better club im sure.
The first part was a pretty straight forward and logical question. Do you see those clubs shopping around their second tiers for 1st team players? I clearly implied that deals for the likes of emerging young/academy talents akin to Bellingham should be encouraged. But if you’re looking at players like Sarr then it only shows how far we’ve fallen.
Powell is a good example of why shopping in the lower leagues in the modern era is generally a bad idea. Diallo is a world class talent, that’s why we’re paying so much for him.
In the past 2 seasons we signed 2 players from the premier league and 1 from the championship, out of the 9 permanent signings we made
So just 3 of 9 domestic
So we were clearly looking abroad for players this summer, with Bellingham and Sancho the English options and we failed with them
We'll probably sign more domestic players next summer now we went with the foreign players
So just 3 of 9 domestic
So we were clearly looking abroad for players this summer, with Bellingham and Sancho the English options and we failed with them
We'll probably sign more domestic players next summer now we went with the foreign players
I love it when people come out with “standards” and “how far we’ve fallen”. Such rubbish mate.
where a player comes from doesn’t matter. I couldn’t care less, and I don’t know why you should.
I suspect Real or Barca don’t look at the Championship because it’s in England, rather than in Spain, just like we are less likely to look at the Spanish second division rather the championship.
In terms of strength, the championship is easily the best 2nd tier in Europe.
Somebody like Benrahma or Watkins probably wouldn't look totally out of place with us but they weren't cheap by any means and they certainly wouldn't find it easy to nail down a starting spot. I just think most Championship talent is overpriced for what it is. Last one we might have really had some regrets about would be Alli probably? Could have developed differently with us maybe. Bellingham we tried for and he didn't want to come, one of those things. Grealish I suppose was available but I don't think he was ready for the step to a big club when Villa were in the Championship.
I don’t really care about which nations’ second tier is better than what. There are no championship players that are capable of playing in our team, a team that should be competing for every trophy. These lower league purchases seem to be at least partially driven by football nationalism rather than buying the best players we can. We can bully Serie A, La Liga sides etc financiall. We can buy players from anywhere in the world and I couldn’t give two shits where they’re from,
Benrahma and Watkins are both struggling a bit in the Premier League, I’m sure they’ll improve, but being at a club at United wouldn’t work for them right now. Max Aarons has already had a full season in the Premier League, so it’s not a great example.
Like someone else said, they’re championship players for a reason and the only ones worth looking at would be academy grads like Bellingham was. Not many players down there that would instantly improve us, and there’s so much money in the championship too that they wouldn’t exactly be cheap.
point missed. The championship is a strong league in its own right.
it’s got nothing to do with nationalism, seems that’s the default argument with some posters.
we don’t need and can’t have world class players in every position.
Any PL club would be doing a brilliant business by getting Buendia.
Sort of like a budget Grealish, but playing from the right hand side. They share many qualities, but Grealish is obviously the better player.
If we're not getting Grealish, I'd love for us to go for Buendia.
Sort of like a budget Grealish, but playing from the right hand side. They share many qualities, but Grealish is obviously the better player.
If we're not getting Grealish, I'd love for us to go for Buendia.
I get your point and it would be silly to ignore talent in the championship but all of the players you mention in the OP are not good enough for us in any more than a squad role. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t look at them at a cheap price but I think more often than not they won’t be good enough.
For his first season in the Premier League Watkins is doing pretty decent IMHO end of the day he has scored a few and is contributing in every game.
Benrahma has the misfortune of going to Wet Spam and being managed by a moron who for some reason decides to play him in the middle. All his best performances have been as a wide player for us but Moyes obviously knows better
Yeah I don’t disagree in a sense that they will go onto be a success in the Premier League. I just don’t think they’d be any use at United, given the pressure that comes with it.For his first season in the Premier League Watkins is doing pretty decent IMHO end of the day he has scored a few and is contributing in every game.
Benrahma has the misfortune of going to Wet Spam and being managed by a moron who for some reason decides to play him in the middle. All his best performances have been as a wide player for us but Moyes obviously knows better
Players like Martial and Rashford are doubted as to whether they are good enough, let alone Watkins.
We should always keep an eye out for talent and maybe we have missed some good opportunities over the years but there's always hindsight. It's not like we haven't invested in young talent whether that's within the squad or from Europe more generally but you'd hope we do have scouts looking at the Championship.
That said as others have said there is an issue with game time, unless someone comes in strongly they're going to find it harder to get game time here than elsewhere. Although I don't think James is quite up to scratch I wonder if the jump to the PL, certainly to a club of our size, came to early for him and he wouldn't have been better somewhere he'd get more game time. Got VDB who can't get in the team, Greenwood is probably 5th choice in our attack currently.
We also shouldn't forget how defensive a lot of teams are against us and other big teams compared to other PL games between the lower ranked teams which tend to be more open. That extra space makes a big difference particularly for players who are still learning/getting up to speed at this level. That's part of the challenge in particular for strikers at clubs lower down the table moving up to a bigger team, you generally have less space to work with and you'll need to be at a higher level with your movement, touch and finishing.
That said as others have said there is an issue with game time, unless someone comes in strongly they're going to find it harder to get game time here than elsewhere. Although I don't think James is quite up to scratch I wonder if the jump to the PL, certainly to a club of our size, came to early for him and he wouldn't have been better somewhere he'd get more game time. Got VDB who can't get in the team, Greenwood is probably 5th choice in our attack currently.
We also shouldn't forget how defensive a lot of teams are against us and other big teams compared to other PL games between the lower ranked teams which tend to be more open. That extra space makes a big difference particularly for players who are still learning/getting up to speed at this level. That's part of the challenge in particular for strikers at clubs lower down the table moving up to a bigger team, you generally have less space to work with and you'll need to be at a higher level with your movement, touch and finishing.