Why is it so hard for Utd to get transfers done in and out?

wolvored

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Im saying this as we have chased De Jong all summer and still no closer to signing him. Chelsea now in for him and if they get a yes from him and close the deal in days, we will look right pricks. Antony as well. If hes going to cost £80 mill, surely we can find an equivalent for cheaper?
I appreciate we are not in the Champions League, but if we cant find 2 midfielders better than McFred for the money we offered for De Jong, then the scouts should all be sacked.
We need to stop paying ridiculous wages to a lot of our players as well. Telles going out only on loan is ridiculous. AWB cant move him on either. the list goes on.
I was hoping this new 'regime' of Arnold and Murtough would be different. Hopefully the penny drops after this window and next summer its different, but I wont hold my breath.
 

NLunited

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First of all, your statement is bs. We signed Malacia who was bound for Lyon and Eriksen who had other options as well. The Martinez deal was done quickly as well.

Secondly, some high profile targets are hard to get. Villa is not trying to sign Frenkie are they?
 

altodevil

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The reason for poor outgoings is probably because of the wages of the players we have on our books. Making loan moves more likely. It's the kind of issue that you can't fix overnight, you can only cut it off at the source - i.e at the signing stage.
 

UnitedSofa

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Because we have the least qualified/experienced people in the business.
no we don't and this whole other clubs get this done quicker than us is a myth

funny how the speed at which the martinez deal was completed is soon forgotten
 

DannyCAFC

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I don't think FDJ is a great example, if he goes to Chelsea and it's wrapped up quickly it's clear that he just doesn't want to play for this current iteration of United. Of course it's going to be difficult to get transfers done if the player never wanted to join you in the first place.

That said - overall - there does seem to be a lot of talk about United constantly monitoring players and being slow to advance talks, which is undoubtedly down to the lack of expertise involved amongst those negotiating these deals.

As far as transfers out - I think the issue is simply that being that United aren't looking very good at the moment, trying to convince other teams to sign players who can't even get regular games for this current side is pretty tricky. There also doesn't seem to be a willingness to budge on valuations and a tendency to extend contracts to 'retain sale value'.
 

OverratedOpinion

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We signed 3 players already.

I think we are bad at taking the message and moving on from targets sometimes. De Jong doesn't want to play for us, we should have moved on weeks ago.
 

RaddyRed

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As a fan it's frustrating but the reality is De Jong is a very complicated transfer that is being held up by circumstances out of our control and Anthony price tag is ridiculous. I would be more upset at signing him for an inflated fee than not. See Pepe and Arsenal.

The new regime will also struggle to get rid of players on inflated wages, just as anyone would.
 

Dannn411

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Mix of a few things. Some good,some bad.
1. Incompetent front office leading to stuff like terrible deals for players making it next to impossible to shift them when they underperform, not having a robust list of alternatives for target positions, disregarding scout recommendations in favour of commercial considerations.

2. Less firepower (cash) in relation to other major clubs than before due to combination of Glazers situation, Deep-pocketed rival owners, more equitable revenue sharing arrangement than other leagues, etc.

3. Significant decline in on-pitch performance and success over the last decade that has resulted in a dent to club reputation amongst younger players and has made us not as desirable as before to players.

4. Unwillingness to play dirty most of the time with things like under the table or ex-contract payments, tapping up, extra large agent fees etc.
 

Shinjch

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Because we don't have proper operators in the recruitment department, simple as that really.
 

Chief123

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Im saying this as we have chased De Jong all summer and still no closer to signing him. Chelsea now in for him and if they get a yes from him and close the deal in days, we will look right pricks. Antony as well. If hes going to cost £80 mill, surely we can find an equivalent for cheaper?
I appreciate we are not in the Champions League, but if we cant find 2 midfielders better than McFred for the money we offered for De Jong, then the scouts should all be sacked.
We need to stop paying ridiculous wages to a lot of our players as well. Telles going out only on loan is ridiculous. AWB cant move him on either. the list goes on.
I was hoping this new 'regime' of Arnold and Murtough would be different. Hopefully the penny drops after this window and next summer its different, but I wont hold my breath.
Every club chases transfers and has sagas.

We signed Malacia, Martinez and Eriksen fairly quickly. Chelsea chased Raphina and Kounde for weeks and failed. All clubs have wins and losses.
 

Massive Spanner

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Because we have a rotten structure from top to bottom. We go into every summer without being able to get decent fees for our own players when we sell them meaning we need to rely solely on the funds we have available so we probably have to bargain that little bit more and longer than other big clubs do.

I mean take Henderson for feck sake. At one point one of the highest rated young English GK's and we gave him an outrageous contract, left him in the reserves and then the best we could do was loan him out. We're about to loan Telles out too. It's mental.
 

wolvored

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We signed 3 players already.

I think we are bad at taking the message and moving on from targets sometimes. De Jong doesn't want to play for us, we should have moved on weeks ago.
I agree. We should have set a deadline to de jong and walked away once it passed.
 

Litch

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No harder than anywhere else, just it’s the lived experience of what happens in the goldfish bowl of your own club.
 
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As a fan it's frustrating but the reality is De Jong is a very complicated transfer that is being held up by circumstances out of our control and Anthony price tag is ridiculous. I would be more upset at signing him for an inflated fee than not. See Pepe and Arsenal.

The new regime will also struggle to get rid of players on inflated wages, just as anyone would.
Our biggest issue has always been NEVER putting the onus on players to find themselves new clubs. If we had a policy in which once player was told he has no future, he was put in the reserves and removed from ALL first team interactions and duty. They'd instruct their agents to find themselves a new club pretty quickly. To the extent of even seeking to take pay cuts to leave. We are way too soft on fringe and unwanted players
 

Pexbo

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Litch

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I agree. We should have set a deadline to de jong and walked away once it passed.
I think if we want players, I’d sooner we wait than go down the list of who else is available. That’s how we got ourselves in the mess. Can you imagine if Liverpool had done the with VD, the probably wouldn’t have won the league.
 

bringbackbebe

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I agree. We should have set a deadline to de jong and walked away once it passed.
It's actually hard to believe we don't have a stop loss strategy in place in case De Jong doesn't join us. Very often, when you want a specific type of player, the transfer market gets squeezed & an alternative is not always viable. This is where manager's ability kicks in to tweak his style based on the players available at his disposal. We've done that very well under SAF but struggled to do it under Moyes, LVG, Mourinho, Ole. Knowing ETH's style of working, I'd be very surprised if this has not been clearly planned out.
 

captaincantona

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First of all, your statement is bs. We signed Malacia who was bound for Lyon and Eriksen who had other options as well. The Martinez deal was done quickly as well.

Secondly, some high profile targets are hard to get. Villa is not trying to sign Frenkie are they?
We absolutely find it hard to get deals done. Martinez missed the pre season tour. We have known Eriksen would be available since January. Malacia - well - we were competing against the mighty Lyon. Considering we appointed an interim manager before Xmas last year to ensure we were ready for pre season and set up for the new manager to give him the best opportunity to succeed… we have been a shit show. This is without mentioning De Jong, Ronaldo’s future and the fact that we only seem to loan players…

if you think anything other than we are a shambles you are deluded.
 

laughtersassassin

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We are both incompetent and also not trying to actually improve.

We have no interest in competing at a high level in this sport.
 

Litch

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We’re basically a 44 year old, balding, former rock star front man with a Dad bod still trying to hook up with beautiful 20 year old stars.
Not sure we are former anything. The last 10 years doesn’t define who we are as a football club as if that’s the case, pull down the Munich clock at OT and replace it with an Apple one….
 

El Zoido

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Clubs like City and Chelsea grease the wheels. They pay whoever needs paying to get things done. A lot of money under the table.

We money grub because that’s what we are. It makes things drag.
 

Andycoleno9

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DoF. Clubs who are best on transfer market have excellent DoFs. It is unbelievable how Man Utd fans and Glazers underestimate DoF role.
We had Ed and now we had worse version of Ed. Nothing will change
 

AB_89

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I think this topic has become a bit of a fallacy over the last few years. Yes, there was a time when United seemed to be noticeably struggling with transfers 3-5 years ago however this is no longer the case. I'm sure every supporter believes their own club struggles to get in transfers as you are following every little rumour and detail, whereas from the outside you just focus on the deals done. It will always be difficult for top clubs to sign players as they are trying to sign some of the best and most highly sought after players in the world, with several top clubs all trying to sign the same players.

Last season we brought in Sancho, Varane and Ronaldo, which at the time was being celebrated as a big step forward for the club. This season so far we have brought in Malacia, Eriksen and are actively working on other deals. Lets see how the window ends before judging.

Outgoings have been an issue due to the high salaries previously given and a lack of game time for youngsters meaning they had no sale value. This has progressed with us loaning out Garner, Laird, Williams, Pereira last season, we have sold James and Pereira for good fees and we have cleared a load of wages with Pogba, Lingard, Cavani, Mata and Matic.

It seems like people want to blame the Glazers and how the club is run without considering the reality of the situation.
 

Litch

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We absolutely find it hard to get deals done. Martinez missed the pre season tour. We have known Eriksen would be available since January. Malacia - well - we were competing against the mighty Lyon. Considering we appointed an interim manager before Xmas last year to ensure we were ready for pre season and set up for the new manager to give him the best opportunity to succeed… we have been a shit show. This is without mentioning De Jong, Ronaldo’s future and the fact that we only seem to loan players…

if you think anything other than we are a shambles you are deluded.
If I hand my notice in today, I can’t leave my org for 3 months so I’ll be exiting one job whilst trying to put things in place for another one. That doesn’t include references and all the other BS that comes from moving jobs. Whilst it’s no comparison to this, context is important. We are no longer in the EU so that created some problems with the Martinez signing and we watched Eriksen nearly die in front of us, that’s going to have massive medical and insurance implications.

So what if the new manager wanted something if than what we had planned?

You know you can only control the things Man Utd are accountable for, not the things Ajax, Barca or De Jong and Ronaldo want ?
 

Pogue Mahone

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Because we have a rotten structure from top to bottom. We go into every summer without being able to get decent fees for our own players when we sell them meaning we need to rely solely on the funds we have available so we probably have to bargain that little bit more and longer than other big clubs do.

I mean take Henderson for feck sake. At one point one of the highest rated young English GK's and we gave him an outrageous contract, left him in the reserves and then the best we could do was loan him out. We're about to loan Telles out too. It's mental.
Harsh but fair.

The Lingard thing is beyond ridiculous too. He literally could not have done more to inflate his fee at exactly the right time to move him on. And yet we still end up losing him for zero money. Catastrophic financial mismanagement.
 

Azhar88

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This is quite simple in my opinion.

Attracting top players is difficult because we haven't won anything for five years and we are not in the 2022/23 Champions League.

We overpay players and we have to because we are not always in the Champions League. Once they are on the payroll, if they are not as good as we hoped, we can't move them on: nobody will pay us what we paid in the first place (and the accountants running the club just can't sign off on a massive loss making deal) and nobody will match the wages we gave, so the player will prefer to 'fight for their place' than take a cut. This issue has been made worse by the pandemic, some top (non-oil) clubs have really been hit hard by that so are not looking to buy Man Utd's second rate players for big transfer costs & massive wage deals.

Sometimes the club ends up sending a player on loan hoping that will increase their value, but the problem is - a season loan means the player is a year older, so even if they have played well for their loan club, their value has diminished on age grounds.

Occasionally I blame indecision - the classic case here is Lingard. His loan at West Ham was massively successful, so the club had two choices: i) sell him for decent money (probably to West Ham) or ii) bring him back to Man Utd. play him regularly and watch him continue his good form, back with us. Instead they chose option iii) to bring him back to the club and not play him, then see him leave on a free to Nottingham Forest instead of getting £10-15 million from WH!

Finally, some players are just greedy. If Ronaldo really is a King he could easily buy out his own contract, take a pay-cut and join a club that is in the CL where he can add to his own personal appearance and goal scoring stats. This would a) save us money and b) solve a big headache for the new manager who will have every Ronaldo-related issue scrutinised, until he does go.
 

AB_89

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Our biggest issue has always been NEVER putting the onus on players to find themselves new clubs. If we had a policy in which once player was told he has no future, he was put in the reserves and removed from ALL first team interactions and duty. They'd instruct their agents to find themselves a new club pretty quickly. To the extent of even seeking to take pay cuts to leave. We are way too soft on fringe and unwanted players
Winston Bogarde stayed at Chelsea for 4 years simply turning up for training and getting paid, so it's not as clear cut as you are making out.
 

NoLogo

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Totally agree with you. When Klopp came to Liverpool they couldn't chase the absolute top targets on the market but they got in players who clearly fit his philosophy and looked like they had the grit to make the next step up. Not everyone of those transfers came good, but a lot did and now they have one of the best teams in Europe. We need to realize that we are at this point where Liverpool was when Klopp came in and chase similar players like they did, just to fit into ten Hags style of course. Instead we still seem to think our past and the wages we are able to pay will make sure players want to come to us, which clearly isn't the case without CL football and about a decade of mismanagement and a squad that is clearly a very large work in progress.
 

Litch

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This is quite simple in my opinion.

Attracting top players is difficult because we haven't won anything for five years and we are not in the 2022/23 Champions League.

We overpay players and we have to because we are not always in the Champions League. Once they are on the payroll, if they are not as good as we hoped, we can't move them on: nobody will pay us what we paid in the first place (and the accountants running the club just can't sign off on a massive loss making deal) and nobody will match the wages we gave, so the player will prefer to 'fight for their place' than take a cut. This issue has been made worse by the pandemic, some top (non-oil) clubs have really been hit hard by that so are not looking to buy Man Utd's second rate players for big transfer costs & massive wage deals.

Sometimes the club ends up sending a player on loan hoping that will increase their value, but the problem is - a season loan means the player is a year older, so even if they have played well for their loan club, their value has diminished on age grounds.

Occasionally I blame indecision - the classic case here is Lingard. His loan at West Ham was massively successful, so the club had two choices: i) sell him for decent money (probably to West Ham) or ii) bring him back to Man Utd. play him regularly and watch him continue his good form, back with us. Instead they chose option iii) to bring him back to the club and not play him, then see him leave on a free to Nottingham Forest instead of getting £10-15 million from WH!

Finally, some players are just greedy. If Ronaldo really is a King he could easily buy out his own contract, take a pay-cut and join a club that is in the CL where he can add to his own personal appearance and goal scoring stats. This would a) save us money and b) solve a big headache for the new manager who will have every Ronaldo-related issue scrutinised, until he does go.
You have just described in principle any football club, it’s not unique to Utd but feels it cause it’s our own lived experience
 

Idxomer

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Totally agree with you. When Klopp came to Liverpool they couldn't chase the absolute top targets on the market but they got in players who clearly fit his philosophy and looked like they had the grit to make the next step up. Not everyone of those transfers came good, but a lot did and now they have one of the best teams in Europe. We need to realize that we are at this point where Liverpool was when Klopp came in and chase similar players like they did, just to fit into ten Hags style of course. Instead we still seem to think our past and the wages we are able to pay will make sure players want to come to us, which clearly isn't the case without CL football and about a decade of mismanagement and a squad that is clearly a very large work in progress.
Chasing players at big clubs with CL football was always going to be a bad idea this season.

Ten Hag's system and football weren't obscure before his appointment, realistic targets suited for his system should've been drawn months ago and acted upon the moment the season ended.
 

Litch

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Totally agree with you. When Klopp came to Liverpool they couldn't chase the absolute top targets on the market but they got in players who clearly fit his philosophy and looked like they had the grit to make the next step up. Not everyone of those transfers came good, but a lot did and now they have one of the best teams in Europe. We need to realize that we are at this point where Liverpool was when Klopp came in and chase similar players like they did, just to fit into ten Hags style of course. Instead we still seem to think our past and the wages we are able to pay will make sure players want to come to us, which clearly isn't the case without CL football and about a decade of mismanagement and a squad that is clearly a very large work in progress.
Why do you think CL is important to players?
 

Lecland07

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I do not really get the problem with our approach this summer: the club seem to only want to sign players they deem good enough. What is the problem with that? Do you want the club to sign any old alternative to De Jong just because you want a midfield signing? More than likely, we will just end up with another average midfielder that people will end up complaining about.

I believe the club is actually going about this correctly. They have tried to sign a quality midfielder in De Jong, which is complicated for known reasons. They have also stated that there are alternatives to sign, but have also stated that a potential alternative is looking to within the club (academy). In this way, we will not waste money signing lesser players that people will want rid of in the near future. In the end, whether it is a new signing or from youth, we are going to end up with some new midfielders in this season.

We have also signed players, anyway. Eriksen is a smart signing for free, who can play CM and AM. Martinez is capable of playing DM and CB. Malacia is a promising looking, and relatively cheap, player who could add a lot more to the team than people are thinking. We have also seen youth players like Zidane and Savage for midfield positions. We seem to be going about the transfers more patiently and trying to ensure we end up with what we actually need, rather than a short-term, lesser solution. I can think of many of the latter signings in the last decade.

I think this season is more about getting some our existing players back to the standard they can play at. They were terrible last season, no doubt, but some of these players are much better than what they showed. Rashford, Sancho (playing on the right as he should be), Fernandes, Maguire, Martial, and many other players. Ten Hag can get more out of these players.

Also, I really don't get why people think the De Jong thing is embarrassing? It is weird. We put in a bid that was accepted, and that is literally it. What is embarrassing about that? Are people imagining that Murtough and Arnold are on the phone every day, harassing Barcelona and De Jong to make the move to sign for the club?
 

JuriM

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Im saying this as we have chased De Jong all summer and still no closer to signing him. Chelsea now in for him and if they get a yes from him and close the deal in days, we will look right pricks. Antony as well. If hes going to cost £80 mill, surely we can find an equivalent for cheaper?
I appreciate we are not in the Champions League, but if we cant find 2 midfielders better than McFred for the money we offered for De Jong, then the scouts should all be sacked.
We need to stop paying ridiculous wages to a lot of our players as well. Telles going out only on loan is ridiculous. AWB cant move him on either. the list goes on.
I was hoping this new 'regime' of Arnold and Murtough would be different. Hopefully the penny drops after this window and next summer its different, but I wont hold my breath.
It really isn't. Some transfers are just complicated and some players have preferred countries or clubs they want to join, despite some other's interest and there is just nothing we can do about it.

All clubs have had the similar problems as such - Real Madrid chasing Mbappe for ages and failing.

City not getting Cucurella*

Chelsea missing out on several targets and not getting the right players or being forced to pay way above the odds on secondary targets.

And you can keep on naming and "shaming" all over the place.

Blaming United on Frenkie or Antony is just weird and agenda-setting, especially if you are a club supporter. Giving the knowledge of how we restricted the whole scouting and managerial department also.
 

Litch

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I do not really get the problem with our approach this summer: the club seem to only want to sign players they deem good enough. What is the problem with that? Do you want the club to sign any old alternative to De Jong just because you want a midfield signing? More than likely, we will just end up with another average midfielder that people will end up complaining about.

I believe the club is actually going about this correctly. They have tried to sign a quality midfielder in De Jong, which is complicated for known reasons. They have also stated that there are alternatives to sign, but have also stated that a potential alternative is looking to within the club (academy). In this way, we will not waste money signing lesser players that people will want rid of in the near future. In the end, whether it is a new signing or from youth, we are going to end up with some new midfielders in this season.

We have also signed players, anyway. Eriksen is a smart signing for free, who can play CM and AM. Martinez is capable of playing DM and CB. Malacia is a promising looking, and relatively cheap, player who could add a lot more to the team than people are thinking. We have also seen youth players like Zidane and Savage for midfield positions. We seem to be going about the transfers more patiently and trying to ensure we end up with what we actually need, rather than a short-term, lesser solution. I can think of many of the latter signings in the last decade.

I think this season is more about getting some our existing players back to the standard they can play at. They were terrible last season, no doubt, but some of these players are much better than what they showed. Rashford, Sancho (playing on the right as he should be), Fernandes, Maguire, Martial, and many other players. Ten Hag can get more out of these players.
Agree
 

Offside

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Ed Woodward. Overpaying. Mouthing off about our power in the market. Shit negotiations. Now everyone wants to play us for every penny and no player wants to join us.