Why is our Transfer Recruitment / Scouting so bad?

[MyOnlySolskjaer]

Is there genuinely no additional thinking from the backroom staff outside players the manager likes, or premier league proven names/has been players?

It's frustrating to see it now with the Cucurella/Reguilón links. Why is it that we're missing out on the Brighton type signings?

 

[BAMSOLA]

The footballing knowledge at our club is atrocious and will continue to be so long as we think it's best to employ people with links to the club (or guarantee not to rock the boat/potentially upset the manager) in key positions rather than qualified football personnel with recognised track records operating at europes highest levels in key positions such as Director of Football.

Honestly when I heard people touting the likes of Rio Ferdinand for this role I knew something was wrong with some of the fanbase as well as inside the club (based on who they actually appointed in the closest role we have to this).

The knowledge of modern world football at the highest level of our club is dire.

 

[Skills]

We have tried to sign those players (see Amad, Pellistri) but then the managers have frozen them out or have no interest in using them.

The managers in general have way too much power. Mourinho showed it - the club rightly turns down Harry Maguire and all Mourinho had to do was use his mouthpiece to wind up the fanbase. So i guess the board just want to avoid the aggro and just give the paying customers what they want - which is generally, back the manager.

 

[KjaAnd]

Scouting/recruitment is just another part of the club that has been neglected for decades. Quite frankly, it's unfathomable that a club of our size is so incompetent in so many aspects of running a football club.

There's just no reason not to sign young promising players on the cheap and loan them out.

 

[cyril C]

Apart from DDG (OK add Bruno), who has been our good recruitment in the past 20 years? Yes it was that bad, because even CR was recruited based on players recommendation, not the professional scouting channel.

Spending 60m-100m on established players don't require scouting network, you only need to watch TV.

If spending stupid money on players that don't fit in, lies solely with manager + directors, scouting wrong players type that never make it to the 1st team, must be the scouts fault.

IMO they went to the wrong pubs picking up wrong info, instead of doing real field work watching and rating young players at work.

 

[Annihilate Now!]

Apart from DDG (OK add Bruno), who has been our good recruitment in the past 20 years? Yes it was that bad, because even CR was recruited based on players recommendation, not the professional scouting channel.

Spending 60m-100m on established players don't require scouting network, you only need to watch TV.

If spending stupid money on players that don't fit in, lies solely with manager + directors, scouting wrong players type that never make it to the 1st team, must be the scouts fault.

IMO they went to the wrong pubs picking up wrong info, instead of doing real field work watching and rating young players at work.

Jesus...

Heinze?
Pique?
Park?
Nani?
Evra?
Vidic?
Hernandez?
Herrera?

 

[ROFLUTION]

Apart from DDG (OK add Bruno), who has been our good recruitment in the past 20 years? Yes it was that bad, because even CR was recruited based on players recommendation, not the professional scouting channel.

Spending 60m-100m on established players don't require scouting network, you only need to watch TV.

If spending stupid money on players that don't fit in, lies solely with manager + directors, scouting wrong players type that never make it to the 1st team, must be the scouts fault.

IMO they went to the wrong pubs picking up wrong info, instead of doing real field work watching and rating young players at work.

You also gotta look at some of the scouting/transfers with more nuances than just finding talented players.

Varane, Casemiro, etc. A club of United’s size needs a certain level of established players to both have experience but also to have stable high performances. We cant just go full Brighton - well we can, but we probably wouldnt finish top 4 if the balance is too shifted towards talents.

Its all about if you want short or long term succes. Imagine a team half full of Garnacho level of talent. It can work wonders, but in 3 years and in the meantime fans will grow impatient of no success/fluky results. Such an approach requires massive balls and alignment with sponsors too probably. On top of that, when talents are 2-3 years into their contract and have matured, they could also just want to move clubs and run their contract out.

In short: you gotta have some big players to bind it all together, and be attractive to both fans and players.

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

The entire transfer committee should be axed if we get new owners and the manager shouldn't get to pick his targets with full autonomy.

There's a part of me that worries we'll look back on ETH's reign and conclude loads of money was yet again wasted.

 

[Zed is not dead]

You also gotta look at some of the scouting/transfers with more nuances than just finding talented players.

Varane, Casemiro, etc. A club of United’s size needs a certain level of established players to both have experience but also to have stable high performances. We cant just go full Brighton - well we can, but we probably wouldnt finish top 4 if the balance is too shifted towards talents.

Its all about if you want short or long term succes. Imagine a team half full of Garnacho level of talent. It can work wonders, but in 3 years and in the meantime fans will grow impatient of no success/fluky results. Such an approach requires massive balls and alignment with sponsors too probably. On top of that, when talents are 2-3 years into their contract and have matured, they could also just want to move clubs and run their contract out.

In short: you gotta have some big players to bind it all together, and be attractive to both fans and players.

But but but, look at Madrid and Vinicius!
Real Madrid took the huge gamble of allowing him to flourish in a team stacked with Ballon d’Or contenders that won 5 UCLs in the last 7 years, by managing his game time during at least 2 seasons of frustrating performances even though he was still scoring! Why can’t we do the same!!!

It’s also funny whenever I read « why don’t we buy young players and loan them out » when it’s exactly what we do. But when we loan them there’s an outcry « why don’t we give a chance in the first team!! »

I think people have this weird conviction that you if you buy a wonderkid he’ll turn out into a great player after 3 games, when in reality for 10 wonderkids you’ll buy, maybe 1 or 2 will make it to the top if you manage them well.

People ask why we can’t do these Brighton type players, but as far as I know Brighton and United don’t have the same ambitions at all, and we are yet to see what these players look like outside Brighton. So far, maybe Trossard you can say showed a high level after leaving Brighton but that’s it

 

[Tom Van Persie]

Apart from DDG (OK add Bruno), who has been our good recruitment in the past 20 years? Yes it was that bad, because even CR was recruited based on players recommendation, not the professional scouting channel.

Spending 60m-100m on established players don't require scouting network, you only need to watch TV.

If spending stupid money on players that don't fit in, lies solely with manager + directors, scouting wrong players type that never make it to the 1st team, must be the scouts fault.

IMO they went to the wrong pubs picking up wrong info, instead of doing real field work watching and rating young players at work.

What a bizarre post. We've signed loads of good players over the last 20 years.

 

[ROFLUTION]

We have tried to sign those players (see Amad, Pellistri) but then the managers have frozen them out or have no interest in using them.

The managers in general have way too much power. Mourinho showed it - the club rightly turns down Harry Maguire and all Mourinho had to do was use his mouthpiece to wind up the fanbase. So i guess the board just want to avoid the aggro and just give the paying customers what they want - which is generally, back the manager.

That's a conflict of interests really. A manager has to prove himself here and now short term to not get the sack.

In order to do so, the manager plays the current best players and have a little room for talents if they prove themselves worth it while on the field. It means there's not much room for playing players like Amad unless he starts out firing like Garnacho did. A loan makes a lot of sense in Amad's case if the manager doesn't feel he's ready. Was Amad or Pellistri really the desired level of United when we bought them? I'd clearly say no.

 

[Chairman Steve]

I don’t think it ever really changed since the Ferguson days for a long while. Glazers assumed everything would be the same and Woodward didn’t have a clue. I think it’s a combination of Glazers not wanting to spend money on getting a proper DoF and them being so money-centric that they actually don’t give a feck about the football, and Woodward’s ego thinking he could be the Fiorentino Perez of United.

One of the many reasons why the Glazers suck as owners and something to explain to outsiders who say ’Glazers do spend money though’. They’re terrible spenders and they spend it in the wrong places.

 

[Robbo*]

I don’t think it ever really changed since the Ferguson days for a long while. Glazers assumed everything would be the same and Woodward didn’t have a clue. I think it’s a combination of Glazers not wanting to spend money on getting a proper DoF and them being so money-centric that they actually don’t give a feck about the football, and Woodward’s ego thinking he could be the Fiorentino Perez of United.

One of the many reasons why the Glazers suck as owners and something to explain to outsiders who say ’Glazers do spend money though’. They’re terrible spenders and they spend it in the wrong places.

Using Mount as an example though, they won’t have known who he was or where he plays etc, so somebody is telling them that we should sign him and for how much. I take the point about a director of football being an investment that we should have made in order to seek to get more of them right.

 

[cyril C]

Jesus...

Heinze?
Pique?
Park?
Nani?
Evra?
Vidic?
Hernandez?
Herrera?

I accept your correction, even Herrera although more like average than good to me.

Haven't you noticed the age gap? what happened to the last 10 years.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

There’s a vaccum in the executive roles above the manager. Where other clubs have transfer committees or DoFs we have Murtough and Fletcher and hence defer everything to the manager. We need new ownership to hit the reset button.

 

[Cantonagotmehere]

I'm going to blame everything on the Glazers. Until they are gone it will all be crap with a lucky one here and there.

 

[luke511]

Ten Hag has Murtough on a leash, and he’s under qualified for the job. He learned his trade at Everton then here as an academy manager, how he’s ended up as DoF when he’s never been one before I’ll never know.

 

[NewGlory]

Related question:

how is Barcelona playing 16-18 year olds (like Lamine Yama today) in major games, without blinking an eye, and we still call our 19-22yo academy graduates and recruits "kids" who need to be nurtured with care?

And I am having hard time buying the "English football is tougher" thing, because we play these Spanish teams in Europe and they run circles around us, for the most part.

 

[foolsgold]

Related question:

how is Barcelona playing 16-18 year olds (like Lamine Yama today) in major games, without blinking an eye, and we still call our 19-22yo academy graduates and recruits "kids" who need to be nurtured with care?

And I am having hard time buying the "English football is tougher" thing, because we play these Spanish teams in Europe and they run circles around us, for the most part.

Because outside of the top 6, the general standard in Spain is less physically demanding.

 

[NewGlory]

Because outside of the top 6, the general standard in Spain is less physically demanding.

Villareal is top 6 in La Liga. They beat us in Europa League final and certainly didn't seem less physical than us.

Today, 16yo Lamine Yamal started against them, in Barcelona squad, and was the star of the game.

To be clear, I am not advocating for filling-up United with 16 year olds, but the contrast when we treat our 19-21yos as kids and Barca has younger players doing it at highest level, that contrast is too striking and odd.

 

[mu4c_20le]

If this kid played in the PL he wouldn't have legs by the end of the week.

 

[Teja]

Villareal is top 6 in La Liga. They beat us in Europa League final and certainly didn't seem less physical than us.

It's not really worth arguing the issue that the PL is more physical than the La Liga. I think it cane be proven objectively through data (# of turnovers, sprints, volume of work first teamers go through etc.)

 

[Rhyme Animal]

The entire transfer committee should be axed if we get new owners and the manager shouldn't get to pick his targets with full autonomy.

There's a part of me that worries we'll look back on ETH's reign and conclude loads of money was yet again wasted.

That seems fairly likely tbh, given ETH’s strength isn’t in the transfer market.

Hopefully he can still win trophies while wasting money, haha.

 

[Champ]

Our recruitment is fine. Our scouting department is also fine.
We buy/find a hell of a lot of youngsters who come through the academy, see Garnacho, Hannibal, Mainoo, Fernandez, McT, Rashford etc etc.
The issues lie in not recruiting the correct managers bar LVG and EtH.

 

[SAFMUTD]

Related question:

how is Barcelona playing 16-18 year olds (like Lamine Yama today) in major games, without blinking an eye, and we still call our 19-22yo academy graduates and recruits "kids" who need to be nurtured with care?

And I am having hard time buying the "English football is tougher" thing, because we play these Spanish teams in Europe and they run circles around us, for the most part.

They clearly have a way better academy than us, also Lamine is a special talent. It's not like they play any 16 year old.

 

[baskinginthesun]

Is there genuinely no additional thinking from the backroom staff outside players the manager likes, or premier league proven names/has been players?

It's frustrating to see it now with the Cucurella/Reguilón links. Why is it that we're missing out on the Brighton type signings?

We're not though. Garnacho, Pellestri, Amad are Brighton type signings. The difference is they bed them in quickly and hope to sell them on for huge profits in 3 or 4 seasons. Where as we want them to be a part of the first team in 3 or 4 seasons and become world class for us so we loan them out.

 

[NewGlory]

They clearly have a way better academy than us, also Lamine is a special talent. It's not like they play any 16 year old.

True. Lamine may be the next megastar, but Pedri and Gavi were also pretty young when they started playing as regulars for Barca. Much younger than anybody we typically introduce to our senior squad.

 

[NewGlory]

We're not though. Garnacho, Pellestri, Amad are Brighton type signings. The difference is they bed them in quickly and hope to sell them on for huge profits in 3 or 4 seasons. Where as we want them to be a part of the first team in 3 or 4 seasons and become world class for us so we loan them out.

I am not sure that logic makes much sense. How many of the young players we loaned became world class? Did anybody, actually? Most of them end-up leaving, as far as I can tell. And they don't necessarily shire wherever they leave, either.

 

[Abraxas]

I remain to be convinced the actual scouting is bad. That argument reminds of the people that said McKenna and Carrick were poor coaches. The fact is the view of the quality of the underlings can be completely and utterly compromised if the management structure is failing.

Man Utd has scouts all over the world. They have expertise, you wouldn't employ know nothing scouts, but how many are being utilised? How many of our South American scouts reccomendations are actually being pursued, for example? We don't really see it and I think that goes for a lot of our worldwide scouting. We tend to land on relatively known targets (which is to some extent explainable by the fact we're Man Utd not a team that can punt every signing) or the manager's targets. The fact is maintaining a scouting presence is small fry for a club with our turnover so they don't really feel compelled to use it at every instance.

The thing is you have to have a decision making structure and ethos that is backing the scouting according to a way of playing and following it up with detailed data analysis. If the manager is able to circumvent that process and there is no real joined up thinking between the way the football director organises his recruitment departments then it doesn't really matter how good the scouting is or was. At that point we have a leadership issue and we are just defaulting to what the manager says goes because we're either too afraid to upset him, don't actually have a plan, or simply place too much faith in the manager's ability to be across everything in the modern game when he should primarily be a coach.

It wouldn't surprise me if many of the scouts are as disillusioned with the recruitment as any of us. Do we really think they've been scouting Mason Mount all year, a completely known quantity? Of course not, they will be providing bucket loads of reports but is it going anywhere?

 

[NewGlory]

I remain to be convinced the actual scouting is bad. That argument reminds of the people that said McKenna and Carrick were poor coaches. The fact is the quality of the underlings can be completely and utterly compromised if the management structure is failing.

Man Utd has scouts all over the world. They have expertise, you wouldn't employ know nothing scouts, but how many are being utilised? How many of our South American scouts reccomendations are actually being pursued, for example? We don't really see it and I think that goes for a lot of our worldwide scouting. We tend to land on relatively known targets (which is to some extent explainable by the fact we're Man Utd not a team that can punt every signing) or the manager's targets. The fact is maintaining a scouting presence is small fry for a club with our turnover so they don't really feel compelled to use it at every instance.

The thing is you have to have a decision making structure and ethos that is backing the scouting according to a way of playing and following it up with detailed data analysis. If the manager is able to circumvent that process and there is no real joined up thinking between the way the football director organises his recruitment departments then it doesn't really matter how good the scouting is or was. At that point we have a leadership issue and we are just defaulting to what the manager says goes because we're either too afraid to upset him, don't actually have a plan, or simply place too much faith in the manager's ability to be across everything in the modern game when he should primarily be a coach.

What you are saying is - we don't necessarily know if on-the-ground scouts are shite. Fair enough, but with the same token, we also don't know that they are not shite, because there're zero outcomes of what they do or do not do.

However, the conversation here is not about some scout in Argentina, this is about overall United scouting which involves its leadership and United's management's utilization, or lack thereof of its scouting department.

Bottomline: we buy people Ten Hag knows, or are obvious targets. We pay double for them, and we rarely if ever get anybody unknown at the brink of breaking out as a star. Other teams, most notably Brighton do. Hard to argue that they have better "scouting".

 

[bringbackbebe]

Related question:

how is Barcelona playing 16-18 year olds (like Lamine Yama today) in major games, without blinking an eye, and we still call our 19-22yo academy graduates and recruits "kids" who need to be nurtured with care?

And I am having hard time buying the "English football is tougher" thing, because we play these Spanish teams in Europe and they run circles around us, for the most part.

Two words: Bojan Krkic

 

[Abraxas]

What you are saying is - we don't necessarily know if on-the-ground scouts are shite. Fair enough, but with the same token, we also don't know that they are not shite, because there're zero outcomes of what they do or do not do.

However, the conversation here is not about some scout in Argentina, this is about overall United scouting which involves its leadership and United's management's utilization, or lack thereof of its scouting department.

Bottomline: we buy people Ten Hag knows, or are obvious targets. We pay double for them, and we rarely if ever get anybody unknown at the brink of breaking out as a star. Other teams, most notably Brighton do. Hard to argue that they have better "scouting".

I don't think we're really disagreeing as a whole, and yes, that's exactly what I'm saying because one aspect of the thread as presented is whether the scouting is bad. It is literally there in the thread title even if you have decided what the conversation is limited to. It's there and I decided to respond to that. We have follow ups about "atrocious knowledge" at the club which is quite general, and again it's not neccessarily that we lack staff with knowledge from my viewpoint. We made this exact mistake before of criticising or questioning the wrong fecking people at the club with little information about the work they do and incorrect assumptions so I wouldn't aim a broadside at the entire club staff on the recruitment side either.

Bottom line is the guy in charge is where all the ire should be directed. Scouting doesn't even come into it when the targets are "obvious" or ones "Ten Hag knows" which you have identified yourself. We could have the most immaculate and detailed reports but if the manager throws a wobbly and we target Tyrell Malacia instead of consulting all our data on worldwide left backs it really doesn't matter. So the premise that is more to the point for me is what the ethos of the decision makers is. Do they have an idea about the way we're trying to play, the profiles we need for that, do they use the scouting and data to its full capacity, do they have an efficient decision making structure that isn't heavily manager reliant, can they actually move on transfers quickly when those things do align? It's there in the job title, Director of Football, you're supposed to direct and when you are in a position of responsibility there is full transparency in relation to the outcomes - you are absolutely responsible for what we see delivered for that area of the business.

It's the same concept as with the owners really when we look at the club decline, the overall state of the club comes back to them as they have that responsibility. They appoint the managers, the director of football etc, so when we appoint responsibility for the club's state we'd logically look to them. But if we're limiting it to transfers and just seeing them as cheque writers within that context then I believe all the responsibility falls to Murtough and possibly/probably Arnold for what is happening in recent windows.

 

[Sky1981]

We are still torn between SAF way where the manager has all the power and continental way where the manager is just a coach.

Both has it's pro and cont

 

[NewGlory]

I don't think we're really disagreeing as a whole, and yes, that's exactly what I'm saying because one aspect of the thread as presented is whether the scouting is bad. It is literally there in the thread title even if you have decided what the conversation is limited to. It's there and I decided to respond to that. We have follow ups about "atrocious knowledge" at the club which is quite general, and again it's not neccessarily that we lack staff with knowledge from my viewpoint. We made this exact mistake before of criticising or questioning the wrong fecking people at the club with little information about the work they do and incorrect assumptions so I wouldn't aim a broadside at the entire club staff on the recruitment side either.

Bottom line is the guy in charge is where all the ire should be directed. Scouting doesn't even come into it when the targets are "obvious" or ones "Ten Hag knows" which you have identified yourself. We could have the most immaculate and detailed reports but if the manager throws a wobbly and we target Tyrell Malacia instead of consulting all our data on worldwide left backs it really doesn't matter. So the premise that is more to the point for me is what the ethos of the decision makers is. Do they have an idea about the way we're trying to play, the profiles we need for that, do they use the scouting and data to its full capacity, do they have an efficient decision making structure that isn't heavily manager reliant, can they actually move on transfers quickly when those things do align? It's there in the job title, Director of Football, you're supposed to direct and when you are in a position of responsibility there is full transparency in relation to the outcomes - you are absolutely responsible for what we see delivered for that area of the business.

It's the same concept as with the owners really when we look at the club decline, the overall state of the club comes back to them as they have that responsibility. They appoint the managers, the director of football etc, so when we appoint responsibility for the club's state we'd logically look to them. But if we're limiting it to transfers and just seeing them as cheque writers within that context then I believe all the responsibility falls to Murtough and possibly/probably Arnold for what is happening in recent windows.

100%

 

[RedRonaldo]

Villareal is top 6 in La Liga. They beat us in Europa League final and certainly didn't seem less physical than us.

Today, 16yo Lamine Yamal started against them, in Barcelona squad, and was the star of the game.

To be clear, I am not advocating for filling-up United with 16 year olds, but the contrast when we treat our 19-21yos as kids and Barca has younger players doing it at highest level, that contrast is too striking and odd.

I actually agree with this. They are not afraid to start 18 years old like Pedro and Gavi and they won La Liga last season with these youngsters playing 40+ games each. I never understand why we can’t at least try do something similar too.

Instead, we are spending huge amount of money on players like Maguire, Sancho, Antony or giving insane wage, and missing out on signings like Enzo for 15m last summer, or Haaland for 4m from Molde, or Hojlund for 1.5m from Copenhagen, because they were rather unknown back then, despite our reported interest. Maybe we should be investing more on scouting department to unearthing those raw talents instead.

 

[OmarUnited4ever]

It is really hard to fix issues that lasted the better part of 10-15 years, EtH & Mortough are limited in the choices they make since the they still need to build a stable and performing squad of 13-14 players , compared to City or Madrid or even Bayern, who are very settled and have a strong core of players, and all they need to do is add pieces to keep it going, for example, City can scour the market for a young talent and take a risk, like Doku, because they have strength in the existing squad, as for United, it will take time to build a strong main unit of players, that has a strong starting XI coupled with quality options from the bench, with a style of play that is sustainable and flexible, and for United to reach that, it will require serious time and a lot of work to undo the issues that has been plaquing the club for a decade.

 

[RedRonaldo]

It is really hard to fix issues that lasted the better part of 10-15 years, EtH & Mortough are limited in the choices they make since the they still need to build a stable and performing squad of 13-14 players , compared to City or Madrid or even Bayern, who are very settled and have a strong core of players, and all they need to do is add pieces to keep it going, for example, City can scour the market for a young talent and take a risk, like Doku, because they have strength in the existing squad, as for United, it will take time to build a strong main unit of players, that has a strong starting XI coupled with quality options from the bench, with a style of play that is sustainable and flexible, and for United to reach that, it will require serious time and a lot of work to undo the issues that has been plaquing the club for a decade.

We have been spending over a decade of time and over a billion to rebuild. Yet we are still rebuilding today. If our past approach didn’t work at all, maybe we should try another approach, maybe putting more faith on youngster to build for future, instead on spending multiple millions on established player who doesn’t fit.

 

[garelo]

Our recruitment is fine. Our scouting department is also fine.
We buy/find a hell of a lot of youngsters who come through the academy, see Garnacho, Hannibal, Mainoo, Fernandez, McT, Rashford etc etc.
The issues lie in not recruiting the correct managers bar LVG and EtH.

the same LvG who sold our players for pennies and signed loads of rubbish for big money? what is it with revisionism here? anyway the problem lies not on manager but in the structure of our club. we let managers to decide which player they want to buy, why is that? i used to say it's due to woodward's cluelessness but now we have DoF who has been with us for 3 transfer windows, our modus operandi still hasnt changed at all. question should be asked toward john murtough, what is he doing as Manchester United first ever DoF? Merely a fixer for Erik Ten Haag when he's supposed to be his boss? we should do a moratorium in transfer until we sack Murtough and get a more experienced DoF with wider networks and more expertise into the club.

 

[bringbackbebe]

i used to say it's due to woodward's cluelessness but now we have DoF who has been with us for 3 transfer windows, our modus operandi still hasnt changed at all. question should be asked toward john murtough, what is he doing as Manchester United first ever DoF? Merely a fixer for Erik Ten Haag when he's supposed to be his boss? we should do a moratorium in transfer until we sack Murtough and get a more experienced DoF with wider networks and more expertise into the club.

I'd refrain from making assumptions about club staff based on publicly available information about them. We do not have an understanding of the inner workings of the club. We had a full shift from Woodward-Judge-Ole to Arnold-Murtough-ETH and it's not possible to have an improvement in structure without all the three working together in sync. Our transfer strategy since last summer window has been pretty good bar maybe the over payment on Antony. If anything, the onus is now on ETH to show performance on the field, given the backing he's received spending 400m+.

 

[OmarUnited4ever]

We have been spending over a decade of time and over a billion to rebuild. Yet we are still rebuilding today. If our past approach didn’t work at all, maybe we should try another approach, maybe putting more faith on youngster to build for future, instead on spending multiple millions on established player who doesn’t fit.

The approach has been changed, but for it to bear results, it will take time and some mistakes along the line, but what matters is that the type of players and how EtH utilizes them, and this is what I am hoping to see with EtH & Mortough, so far they together have brought in some quality players like Cas & Martinez, who are actually contributing to the starting XI alongside our key players like Varane, Bruno, Shaw and Rashford, Eriksen was quite good with his composure and passing ability, while Malacia did well as Shaw's deputy, the jury is still out on Antony, and as for this season, Onana is already showing that he has the quality to be a top GK, Mount did not show much so far but it is only a start and Hojlund is injured.

As for young players, I am not against the idea of integrating them into the team, we see that with Garnacho and maybe Mainoo this season, but it is much easier to introduce young players into a stable squad that is already performing because if they bomb on the day the good players around them will bail them out, we are not there yet but we still get to have Garnacho who is already an option in the main squad.