Yeah but my point is/was that the club were lambasted at the time for not signing Bissouma when he went to Spurs. There are also pages and pages on this forum of fans screaming for Neves and Ndidi. Yet I never see any of those people pop-up and apologise/acknowledge when they get it wrong - which is frequently!
My point is also, and I have said this all along, that Bissouma is not good enough. I don't need to watch him play 50 times to see the 'red flags'. The game we played against Brighton last season was enough for me, he looked clumsy and awkward on the ball several times to the point where it's not a 'bad game' it's that his fundamentals are not sound enough to be a world-class player.
And therein lies the point...when I say 'not good enough'...the full sentence is 'Bissouma is a very good player...but he's not good enough for the level we should aspire too'.
That's the key point, and neither are Ndidi, McGinn or Neves, which means it is actually quite hard for a club like United to find the right quality in the centre of the pitch. It's not as easy as some think
I think, you misunderstood some(!) of the wishes maybe. Because, in my perception, it very rarely was something like "Neves is soooo good" or "Bissouma is soooo good" - it was about "feck me our midfield is so dire, why aren't we bringing in somebody half decent" . And it wasn't just about missing quality, it was about missing quantity as well. I would agree with your statement if people were hyping up mediocre players only to trash the club with it. But I didn't feel that this was the case.
And to finish that, I agree again, it is difficult to find players with the right mind and quality to play for United. It is difficult and we missed many many things which could have made this difficult task a little easier for us. Principles make sense as long as you aren't getting screwed over by them. And I think, that was absolutely the case: for the last 10 years we mostly were operated and we played like a midtable team. We had to face reality and that should have meant that bringing in functional players that were better than existing ones or players who would have filled gaping holes in our squad would have been a better decision than trying to bring in big names deluding ourselves that only those would be able to elevate the "top club Manchester United".
The question is whether it was worth not adressing the midfield for a long long time becaue we couldn't get "world class" player. Personally I think we neglected it for far too long, what started under SAF ("no value in the market") and continued until Ten Hag brought Casemiro and Eriksen.
I am of the opinion you can't build a team without a midfield core, you can't provide the base for the attackers. This is the reason we have been so reliant on moments of magic in previous years. We really nedeed a DM to settle our midfield and give others more freedom.
Amen.
Yeah but it's not a choice between 'do nothing for five years' or 'sign a world-class player' is it?
The point of my post is to highlight the (literally) hundreds of players this forum clamours for and hammers the club for not signing...only for that all to be quickly forgotten when they fade into mediocrity shortly afterwards.
Also to highlight the difficulty in identifying and signing top talent. Yes, we have recruited poorly but the answer is never to just start signing 7.5/10 players as you put it. That's what Tottenham do and what Liverpool did pre-Michael Edwards. See also...LvG and Morgan Schneiderlin
At least about Liverpool, that isn't correct. What Liverpool did was moving to an approach where the fullbacks become the chance creators which "enabled" them to "get by" quite fine with having a more functional midfield. It isn't the same.
I think buying the finished articles in Eriksen and Casemiro was the right approach. Both essentially come at a cost of £70 million plus wages and have instantly transformed our midfield and style of play. I think ten Hag ultimately sees bright futures for Mainoo, Iqbal and possibly Charlie savage that buying 30 year old proven world class talents made sense for the short-term.
Thats plausible and a legit stance. I think though, it more what you wish to see than what you are seeing. None of the younglings even had a look in until now and you're calculation only sounds good because Eriksen came for free. Again, I am not saying you are wrong, only that there isn't a lot substantial backing it up.