Zidane Iqbal

Red00012

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I really don't trust Ten Hag with youth, even with Garnacho coming through. That's not really on him. Every manager in the world would play Garnacho regularly. He doesn't play Pellistri at all, despite being a starter for Uruguay's national team and he always offers something in the rare events he comes on as a sub.
:lol:
 

Gavinb33

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If he was good enough considering the fee we are selling him for more clubs would be interested and they aren't what does that tell you....that he is not really good enough to play for us or a lot of other teams either
 

jesperjaap

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£1m is a crazy low fee for anybody in the premiership....but what were people expecting him to be sold for? In the grand scheme of a asummer window, getting £1m or £6/7m for Iqbal really makes little difference to our budget.

I am just happy a player not going to be part of our plans is moved on and a space is freed up in the squad and wages of the books....For me Shoetire,Bailly, Telles, Williams can all move in a similar way, none of them hold any value that combined with Iqbal all of them godo case and bad case sales is probably £20/25m difference.

What is of more concern is that certain youngsters get oportunities....like Pellestri, Hannibal, Mainoo. People saying over hyping youngsters maybe noewhere near good enough....only saw that at all wih Oqbal in preseason. I dont think Pellestri is overhyped at all, look at what he is doing for Uruguay. Hannibal may or may not make it here, but he has obvious technical ability and heart....and Mainoo has everything to be a top player if he develops......potential understudy to Casemeiro.

The other concern is moving other players on and they should be ones to raise money....Henderson, Elanga, VDB, Maguire etc etc....there is a good £150m worth of sales we should be getting in this summer, Iqbal is literally irrelevant to that, always was
 

Lash

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Why do people care how much we sold him for? He's not making it here and couldn't couldn't get ahead of an 18 year old Mainoo.

Utrecht were the only team interested in him and they've only paid over 2m euros for a player twice.
 

Telsim

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Hopefully, this is a sign of things to come. For too long has this club thought every youth player is the next big thing when in truth most won't even make it to the Premier League or even the Championship. Shift early and often, if they are deemed not good enough. The fee is sad, but whatever.
 

Adnan

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Liverpool sold some kid called Jerome Sinclair (Nope, I've never heard of him either) for £4m in 2016. He owns a fecking fried chicken shop now. IF we can't get more than £1m for a fecking international footballer, there is something badly wrong.
Liverpool didn't sell Sinclair but rather the player didn’t want to stay at Liverpool and left on a free transfer. But because he was still young, Watford had to pay Liverpool a compensation fee.
 

Ekeke

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if he’s any good we will buy him back. Let him develop away from the pressure of our crazy fans
Given our overall record with midfielders, if he gets good we're unlikely to sign him just like all the others we didnt and stuck with Fred and McTom etc.
 

Grande

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I really don't trust Ten Hag with youth, even with Garnacho coming through. That's not really on him. Every manager in the world would play Garnacho regularly. He doesn't play Pellistri at all, despite being a starter for Uruguay's national team and he always offers something in the rare events he comes on as a sub.
Garnacho, Pellistri, Elanga, Mainoo, Iqbal together have got a fair few minuts. For a team that is aiming for the level of City in consistency, that is more than decent I think you’ll find.

What Ten Hag does say, is that the youth has to contribute. They have to bring something to the team when they play. I think that is the bar Ferguson set as well.

If one academy kid reaches the first team squad regularily every third year, that will be an impressive output for any team with said ambitions. We, or at least I, love for Man Utd to spearhead that tradition, while I also think it’s reasonable to prefer to use games to make the most of the best players at the club primarily.
 

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You mean the kid that has played exactly one game for Manchester United's senior team as an 89 min substitute. Some of the people on this board are delusional. What reason does any team have to spend $10 million on a player with no first team experience.
Well, first of all, I said £5m-£10m.

Second of all, the point was not really that Iqbal is worth £5m-£10m necessarily - the point was more that he is 20 and here we are selling him for £1m to FC Utrecht.

It strikes me, therefore, that something has gone wrong somewhere. If he's only worth £1m at the age of 20 and the highest ranking club that are interested are FC Utrecht, then how and why has he remained at the club for so long?

So the point really was either a) we have accepted a ridiculously low fee or b) he is only worth £1m and therefore is nowhere near the standard required and should have been allowed to leave before now.

For me, it goes back to a point plenty of posters have made about us being too slow to determine a players' trajectory and potential. Liverpool get good money for youth prospects because they identify the lads who will fall short early and market them well. Only last season we took Iqbal on tour, we then basically wasted a season of his life with him sitting on the bench and playing u23s football and now we're selling him for £1m.

After pre-season we should have been able to determine he would fall short, get him a soft loan, allow his star to rise somewhat and then maximise his sell-on value.
 

Tarrou

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Does he only have a year left?

weird we didn’t loan him out or loan him next season, if he does well we could get a decent fee
 

Sauxees Moi Hui

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He's 20 years old, clearly had no future here, and (presumably) had a decent club willing to offer him a path to the first team. We get what we can for him and move on. It seems doubtful that there were dozens of clubs vying for his signature, so the price is what it is.
 

Varun1

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Oh really? I trust him quite a lot. Bought Garnacho through with a clear plan, Mainoo got a chance, Pellestri did get a chance (not many I grant you but we don’t see what happens in training), Amad loan worked out, Hannibal and Fernandez did well too. This is the most optimistic I’ve felt about youth at Utd in a long time. Think he’s an excellent judge of a player based on his team selections and signings so far.
Remember all the hype around Garner, then ETH sold him in his first transfer window. Garner hasn't done anything to prove that we should have held on to him.
 

OmarUnited4ever

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it is sad to see him go and I wish him all the best.

On the fee, it seems low, but I wonder, have any team ever managed to sell a youth player for a decent/big fee if said youth player never played any senior football at all either with parent team or on loan? the only ones I remember are Lavia and Livramento.
 

Faetheshire86

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Well, first of all, I said £5m-£10m.

Second of all, the point was not really that Iqbal is worth £5m-£10m necessarily - the point was more that he is 20 and here we are selling him for £1m to FC Utrecht.

It strikes me, therefore, that something has gone wrong somewhere. If he's only worth £1m at the age of 20 and the highest ranking club that are interested are FC Utrecht, then how and why has he remained at the club for so long?

So the point really was either a) we have accepted a ridiculously low fee or b) he is only worth £1m and therefore is nowhere near the standard required and should have been allowed to leave before now.

For me, it goes back to a point plenty of posters have made about us being too slow to determine a players' trajectory and potential. Liverpool get good money for youth prospects because they identify the lads who will fall short early and market them well. Only last season we took Iqbal on tour, we then basically wasted a season of his life with him sitting on the bench and playing u23s football and now we're selling him for £1m.

After pre-season we should have been able to determine he would fall short, get him a soft loan, allow his star to rise somewhat and then maximise his sell-on value.
I think you are spot on.

I'm not annoyed that we are selling Iqbal, I'm annoyed at how the situation has played out. Last season was a complete right-off for him. What was the plan? Why did we keep him around the first team squad? Did we think he could contribute? Did it really take an entire season (of no football) to decide he was a £1m player? What do we know now, that we didn't know 9 months ago... or even 4 months ago? Would we and potential buyers, have learned more if we had see him play men's football for an extended period of time?

Why not try and get him a loan to Sunderland next season and see if he can kick on? Does the million really mean that much to us that we don't want to gamble on it? I guess it does cover 3 months of the last 4 years of Phil Jones' contract.
 

Newstyle

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Supply and demand dictate the dynamics of a market. When the quality of a product or service falls short, it naturally affects the demand for it. If you believe that the price is too low, it raises the question as to why no other club was willing to make a higher offer.
 

L1nk

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People reading and reacting to the sensationalism of whats happened here instead of actually reading the situation for what it is

We should admit that there was some mismanagement on our behalf with this kid but the reason he is being sold is because the decision makers, including ETH, who see this kid everyday have obviously recognised he isn’t of the required standard, he’s also far too lightweight as well.

You’ve all built up in your heads the player you think Iqbal is, infact after those preason games there were some touting him as our answer to FDJ and don’t say that never happened because it did, you can find these posts in the forum search.

You’re outraged at the 1 million initial fee but you are failing to see the bigger picture, he’s part of the same agency as ETH, he’s going to one of ETH’s old clubs, this in my opinion is actually about helping the lad and ETH helping to put him in a good position to succeed, with success being relative,can he come good? Yes but clearly they don’t believe he’ll be United good, he seems to favour Mainoo. We sell him for a cheaper price to help him into a nicer situation, but we stand to gain much more financially off because we clearly believe enough in his success to chuck in a huge sell on clause that we think he’ll be sold on for a decent amount in the future.

I get it everyone is frustrated because our summer is looking dogged again currently but the sensationalism is ridiculous. Not every academy graduate is world class and not every academy graduate is going to get a chance, and as big clubs go we’re still one of the top ones for giving academy graduates a chance. People been saying well they’ll look at Zidane and think twice now! Okay well on the flip side maybe they’ll look at Garnacho and think the opposite. If you’re good enougu you’ll get your chance.
 

roonster09

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Good luck to him, much better option for his career to make this move.
 

KikiDaKats

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He is a very good player but a young central midfielder at a club like United is career suicide. Not saying he is a better player than Garnacho but it’s always far easier for forward player to breakthrough.
Generally the ones that get to be in the team usual start in less central positions till they’re mature enough. Unluckily for him, I don’t think he is versatile enough to force his way into the team at this stage in his career.

I think the fee was reasonable and was done right by the player. If the manager doesn’t think he has room for him in his team, there was no need keeping him around and asking for unjustified fees. Now if develops to the level he believes he can, we’ll get the money we deserve and Utrecht get paid for their effort.

I have a problem with how ETH has managed him recently, he should have allowed him to play in the U20 WC. These are things you don’t take away from young players because he might never get to experience one at the senior level. The added pressure of responsibility in representing a nation at this age should be used to better effect by the club to mature young players.
 

zaafi

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What an incredibly insightful post. You must be a joy to have a discussion with in real life, to show such broad point of views.

Ten Hag is a great manager, but he got shit for the exact same thing at Ajax. Developing youth really isn't his strongest side.
 

roonster09

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What an incredibly insightful post. You must be a joy to have a discussion with in real life, to show such broad point of views.

Ten Hag is a great manager, but he got shit for the exact same thing at Ajax. Developing youth really isn't his strongest side.
Tbf people have unrealistic expectations on integrating youth, maybe something to do with Football manager game.
 

Golden Nugget

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From what I gather, the lads (probably Jlingz and PP) were screwing around and using the footballs as basketballs, so Eric told them to keep the ball on the floor.

Zinedine arrives to our training and Eric is excited and says hi.

He previously borrowed a football off Eric, but forgot to return it, but Eric was gracious enough to allow him to keep it.

The dirty side then comes out of Eric as he suddenly has an urge to have sexual intercourse with rubbish
 

kundalini

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I really don't trust Ten Hag with youth, even with Garnacho coming through. That's not really on him. Every manager in the world would play Garnacho regularly. He doesn't play Pellistri at all, despite being a starter for Uruguay's national team and he always offers something in the rare events he comes on as a sub.
Ten Hag's decisions to date do seem to indicate a strong preference for experience over youth. Rubbish experienced players such as Weghorst and VDB were given opportunities their performances certainly didn't merit.

I'm completely bewildered by the decision to sell Zidane Iqbal at this stage. His salary will be very low by United standards, the fee we are getting is so low as to be almost irrelevant, we don't know if he is any good or not because he hasn't been exposed to men's football apart from starting for Iraq.

Zidane should have either been getting mins in Europa League and domestic Cup competitions or been out on loan, after his promising performances in pre-season.
 
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Bondi77

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Erik has had a look at him for the whole season so do we trust his judgement or what?
 

zaafi

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Tbf people have unrealistic expectations on integrating youth, maybe something to do with Football manager game.
That is probably true, but similarly to his odd subs frequently, I also think Ten Hag makes some strange decisions when it comes to integrating youth players into the team. Kobbie Mainoo looked really composed and decent the 87 minutes he's played this season, but for some reason Ten Hag stopped giving him cameos.
As for Iqbal, he never really got the chance, unless pre-season counts (where he actually did decent).

It may be a bit odd, but I always prefer to give the youth a chance in competitive matches. Of course this doesn't apply to every youth player, but the highly rated ones. But I guess there is probably a reason why most managers want to see how they do in training before giving them match appearances. I think that's got more to do with how they want to see their work rate, mentality and reactions to tough challenges/tackles as opposed to actual ability.

I genuinely believe Mainoo or even Iqbal could have proved to be a better option than McTominay in some matches because of their ability to evade press and because they're quite composed, Mainoo in particular. The downside with playing them is that if they make a mistake in a game, the pitchforks will be out.
However, they'll never be ready if we barely play them during critical developmental phase.
 

kundalini

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Erik has had a look at him for the whole season so do we trust his judgement or what?
Personally I don't trust Ten Hag's judgement as he has made too many obviously poor decisions regarding Weghorst, Antony, Sancho and so on, as well as other short term gain, long term pain decisions.

If Ten Hag doesn't rate Zidane Iqbal then send him out on loan, see how he performs and perhaps the next United manager will want to use him.
 
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cyberman

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Personally I don't trust Ten Hag's judgement as he has made too many obviously poor decisions regarding Weghorst, Antony, Sancho and so on, as well as other short term gain, long term pain decisions.

If Ten Hag doesn't rate Zidane Iqbal then send him out on loan, see how he performs and perhaps the next United manager will want to use him.
And so on?
 

cyberman

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What an incredibly insightful post. You must be a joy to have a discussion with in real life, to show such broad point of views.

Ten Hag is a great manager, but he got shit for the exact same thing at Ajax. Developing youth really isn't his strongest side.
Just going through his list here
Noussair Mazraoui
Gravenberch
Dest
Timber
Devyne Rensch

And had 2/3 make their debut and be integrated in just before he left.
The you got the likes of Antony who joined at 19 so should really be included as youth as well if we’re making a point here.
What the feck more do you want from him?
If you can provide some links to these criticism it would help to make some sense of it
 

zaafi

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Erik has had a look at him for the whole season so do we trust his judgement or what?
He's also had the whole season to look at Pellistri, denied him a loan and then proceed to not play him despite being highly rated by everyone else. It probably is because he insists on being right with Antony after spending so much on him, but how has he not been subbed on more often? Ten Hag subbed Antony with Weghorst at times instead of Pellistri which is absolutely mind boggling.
 

Bondi77

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Just going through his list here
Noussair Mazraoui
Gravenberch
Dest
Timber
Devyne Rensch

And had 2/3 make their debut and be integrated in just before he left.
The you got the likes of Antony who joined at 19 so should really be included as youth as well if we’re making a point here.
What the feck more do you want from him?
If you can provide some links to these criticism it would help to make some sense of it
And I an sure that he has had a lot to do with Alejandro realising what it takes to step up to the top level mentally and physically as well.
 

roonster09

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That is probably true, but similarly to his odd subs frequently, I also think Ten Hag makes some strange decisions when it comes to integrating youth players into the team. Kobbie Mainoo looked really composed and decent the 87 minutes he's played this season, but for some reason Ten Hag stopped giving him cameos.
As for Iqbal, he never really got the chance, unless pre-season counts (where he actually did decent).

It may be a bit odd, but I always prefer to give the youth a chance in competitive matches. Of course this doesn't apply to every youth player, but the highly rated ones. But I guess there is probably a reason why most managers want to see how they do in training before giving them match appearances. I think that's got more to do with how they want to see their work rate, mentality and reactions to tough challenges/tackles as opposed to actual ability.

I genuinely believe Mainoo or even Iqbal could have proved to be a better option than McTominay in some matches because of their ability to evade press and because they're quite composed, Mainoo in particular. The downside with playing them is that if they make a mistake in a game, the pitchforks will be out.
However, they'll never be ready if we barely play them during critical developmental phase.
Not every young player gets chances, it's not realistic. That's why we have coaches, managers who works with them and rates them.

We have big enough squad and you can't play young player few mins here and there, we also have lot of senior players who needs mins.

It's easy to say "well feck them they are not good anyways" but reality is different. You need dressing room harmony also and manager should win trust of the players just like players should win trust. You can't have a civil war in the dressing room all the time, mins should be managed. Over the time we should trim the squad and retain only good players but we are too far from that.

As it is, top 6-7 in PL is very competitive. You need strong squad to qualify for CL. Some young players will be unlucky not to get chances in this process but it is what it is. You can't try every young player.

For better integration you need smaller squad and everyone in the club with same vision, you can't change manager and expect him to integrate young players from first season when he can barely given chances to his full squad.
 

roonster09

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He's also had the whole season to look at Pellistri, denied him a loan and then proceed to not play him despite being highly rated by everyone else. It probably is because he insists on being right with Antony after spending so much on him, but how has he not been subbed on more often? Ten Hag subbed Antony with Weghorst at times instead of Pellistri which is absolutely mind boggling.
So eth is worried about proving everyone that he is right about Antony rather than what's best for the team and what's best team to win the game?

Some of you are such a drama queens :lol: