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For a player who started so many games. He is the worst ever. We may have had players who only played a couple of times who were very bad. But even those may have done a lot better if they were given a run of games like Weghorst did.
I’m a fan of Ten Hag. Everyone makes mistakes and this was one. Weghorst… nice guy, poor footballer. Should have got a decent/competent striker for the money they had available.
Sad thing is it likely cost the club at least double that when you factor in loan fee and the rumoured £2.5m compensation to Besiktas.
£6-8 mill including wages and Martial getting injured. Do you know who else we could’ve signed for a similar amount because if you can’t name anyone, then it’s a safe guess that Mbappe, Benzema, Kane, etc weren’t available at that price.
Nobody’s perfect, sure, but I think his persistence in playing WW (31 appearances!) long after it was clear to everyone else on the planet that he clearly wasn’t good enough points to a more general issue with ETH’s stubbornness.
Indeed. There were certainly better options. Like the man who replaced Weghorst at Besiktas as just one example. Aboubakar is comfortably better than him.
I usually agree with you, and certainly groaned whenever I saw Weghorst appearing but can you give some examples? Felix as an example of someone I wanted (wrongly) was 10mill and 250k a week. £16 mill in total.
This. That’s the guy I wanted for a short term deal. He’s limited but better than this so called striker
The spectrum of footballers between Joao Felix, a 126m signing for Atletico and Wout Weghorst is absolutely enormous. And it’s extremely far-fetched I think to suggest that we couldn’t have gotten anyone that lies within that huge gap.
I agree we could probably have signed someone better but not all of those were loans. Ings was a permanent deal for £15m, Cunha had an obligation to buy for £44m after playing 3 games and Wood was also the same for £15m.
who would he have played instead?
Ok. That's 3 out of the 8 players he named. The other 5 could have also offered much more than the waste of space we went for.
Great post.
All the times he moved Bruno to the wing to accommodate Weghorst are all the times he could have subbed in Pellestri.
I was hoping for Aboubaker at the time.
In the absence of Martial, Rashford up front, and any of various combinations on the wings depending on availability and the opposition ie two from Antony, Sancho, Garnacho, Bruno or Pellistri. In other words, basically what ETH eventually did once he realised WW wasn’t working.
Guedes and Ayoze aren’t really central players are they - and it was clear the plan was to get someone in who played CF, and potentially offers something different (a physical presence up front who presses etc). It’s debatable whether anyone knew Aboubakar would have been better (though having seen WW for Burnley, I’d have gone for Aboubakar myself), but he was definitely linked so probably someone we did consider/look at as a serious option.
Neither can you it seems, give me a list of who was available in January?
So you're saying the club realised that they couldn't sign Mbappe, Benzema or Kane so turned to Weghorst as he was the first name on the list that they could afford?
Yep and he came from the Saudi league which says it all really.
Weghorst started and came on in quite a few games in the no10 position.
I mean, my list was of course not exhaustive of all the possibilities that lay somewhere between Joao Felix and Wout Weghorst. You also have expiring contracts of players at lower tier clubs for example, like Marcus Thuram or Moussa Dembele, both who are now out of contract. I’m sure their clubs would have taken 3m for 6 months for either.Guedes and Ayoze aren’t really central players are they - and it was clear the plan was to get someone in who played CF, and potentially offers something different (a physical presence up front who presses etc). It’s debatable whether anyone knew Aboubakar would have been better (though having seen WW for Burnley, I’d have gone for Aboubakar myself), but he was definitely linked so probably someone we did consider/look at as a serious option.
Overall, I don’t disagree with @Rozay’s point. It was shoddy planning and an appalling signing (with hindsight we might add) but Ronaldo’s antics also forced our hand, with Martial becoming Phil Jones reincarnated more and more as time passes. Considering all these circumstances, & our budgetary constraints - we were essentially basement bargain shopping and it’s not a massive surprise that the manager ended up going with someone he knew and trusted (& who was on decent form in Turkey iirc).
But yeah, I don’t think ive ever seen a player so far out of his depth for us. That’s even taking Bebe, Taibi & Prunier into account
Yeah, like I said, I agree with your overall point but I also believe we were extremely hamstrung with finances, added in that the whole world knew we were fairly desperate, plus the minimal amount of business done during January and you’re in for a torrid time, irrespective.
Goals aside? He is apparently a striker.
I know I know. I just feel so bad for poor sad looking Wout. He's just so so so sad.
Nah, you must be able to list 15 players United could have signed, or you’re not allowed to hold that opinion. Weghorst is certainly the best player in the entirety of all the leagues across the world that the club could have gotten /s
Do we know for sure the scouting department were even involved with identifying him though?
Goals are ego thing.
Yeah that’s a very valid point. It was always frustrating to see Weghorst coming in when we needed a goal. He showed no signs in any matches of increasing our likelihood of scoring.
Is the left footed LCB preference a Dutch thing? I remember LVG had the exact same obsession, to the point where even Tyler Blackett got playing time.
He worked his socks off, pressing from the front which is an ETH requirement just as much as goals. Do I think he was the best? No he was a shit striker overall but he didn’t affect us negatively overall
I think ETH’s specific reason is that he wants his centre backs to fill in as a fullback on their side when the actual fullback is playing as a forward, so having a lefty on the left wing would be advantageous. I’m no tactical expert but I guess that would be in line with the Dutch total football approach.
I think he definitely did impact our attack negatively as a good few times, more talented players were moved out of position to accommodate him.
Well to be fair if we had had a striker that had the same work rate but also chipped in with 6-10 goals over 31 games I imagine that would have had a positive affect on our fortunes this season.
He did impact us negatively. Firstly, a non-scoring striker in and of itself is a huge negative for the team. Secondly, he’s ridiculously slow, and as a result limits our ability to stretch teams and threaten behind. He changed the way we attacked, and so many occasions I saw our attack have to reroute in real time because the most obvious and threatening pass could not be played, simply because the striker is Weghorst.
