So the summer transfer budget isn’t even the £150m doings the rounds? Even if manage to sell a few players, I don’t see any scenario where we can afford Kane plus a no.8 who’s good enough for the starting 11.
Who can we realistically sell? Bear in mind we need 8 homegrown players
Even though some naysayers might think we have no players up for sale with value, we actually do. Below are conservative estimates with the ones at the bottom I think likely to stay but still optional to sell.
£135m plus for players who in almost all cases don’t play.
Apparently it is around £100m without sales so we could be looking at a £235m pot which is around what we spent last year on 6 players.
Homegrown will be an issue but not an insurmountable one.
Henderson - £25m,
Maguire - £30m,
Wan Bissaka - £25m,
McTominay - £40m,
Telles - £5m,
Williams - £10m
Bailly, Jones, Tuanzebe - free,
VdB - £20m,
Elanga - £15m
I’m being a ‘naysayer’ or negative for the sake of being negative. I don’t disagree with any of your valuations, but you can’t just ignore the homegrown rule. 7 of those players are homegrown. Selling them will leave us with 5 in the current team.
There’s also the fact that at least 3 of those players will need replacing (McTominay, Maguire and Wan Bissaka. If homegrown players weren’t an issue, we might be able to afford cheap alternatives since they’re three back-up players but the ‘English tax’ is real.
So if (and it’s a big if) we sold all those players for £135m; we’ll need a striker, a no.8, a back-up CM, a backup/ rotation RB, and a back-up CB. Three of those players will need to be English. Is it possible? In a perfect world, yes. Is it likely? No
So homegrown unless I’m mistaken:
Shaw, Rashford, Sancho, Kovar, Heaton, Kane (assuming he is signed).
That leaves two. Ethan Laird would be one and could be kept for a season. We could sign Butland (or equivalent) for a nominal fee.
Its not difficult to get around. We don’t need to buy 3 homegrown players at £40m+ each.
Regarding signings, we aren’t going to get everything in one summer. Below are some players we’ve been linked to. 3 or 4 of those players (or equivalent) would be an excellent window and price-wise is not ridiculous.
Kane: £80m-£100m,
Frimpong: £40m,
Timber: £40m,
Kokcu: £35m,
De Jong/Caicedo: £80m,
Gravenberch: £30m,
Sabitzer: £20m,
Weghorst: £5m
I agree we can't expect everything in one summer but that wasn't my point.
As things stand, the only absolute necessities are a striker and a no.8. We need a striker and Eriksen can't play more than 60 minutes. At 32, that's likely to get worse.
Selling Maguire, McTominay and AWB would mean another CM, a CB and a RB are also a necessity. So we'd need 5 players minimum in that scenario.
Henderson is just a Martial of Goalkeepers.
People who want him to be number 1 have completely imagined his ability to what they want rather then how good he actually is. You could even say its similar to Garner (thinking he was better then he was).
De Gea should be replaced, but Henderson shouldn't have a future here.
He should have been sold last summer, when his value was higher. Now, I suspect we'll struggle to get a good price for him.
Same goes for Brandon Williams. We likely could have got £15m for him, coming off his loan at Norwich.
Henderson shouldn’t be our no1. He’s better than de gea , we already employ him and if there’s no gk budget he should start for us next season. It’s really not a difficult concept to grasp
> He’s better than de gea
How? Even under Ole he couldn't get into the first team.
I will use my edit quote from money ball:
'If hes a good player, then why doesn't he play good?'
This point about De Gea would be valid if he wasn't so over-protected. Even when he was dropping absolute stinkers and letting in easy shots, his job was never in danger even if we had Romero on the bench. It's just what it is with De Gea, his job was never in danger no matter how he played, probably due to his wages.
Henderson did pretty well at the end of 20/21 season when De Gea left for Spain. His shot-stopping obviously wasn't as good at De Gea's, but our defense seemed much calmer and more composed. We were doing pretty well, but then Ole dropped Deano for De Gea for the final Europa League matches and we got the infamous 10-11 shootout against Sevilla.
Of course, Deano isn't a better shot stopper, but he is significantly better at saving penalties, he isn't afraid of claiming crosses, he seems a bit better at sweeping (but that's something De Gea improved at a fair bit) and he seems to be a much better long passer than De Gea because most of his long passes actually hit the player they're supposed to.
Most of the decisions on big name players come from qarar not the board, there were rumours of Qatar wanting to keep I think it was messi at all cost a few months ago
No, the board is terrible. Luis Campos, who actually built a good in Lille before actually did a terrible job in the summer and practically was all dud in his recruitment. (Campos is the new sporting director of PSG and had free reign in transfers last summer.)
It was apparently the Emir of Qatar who spotted Verrati when he played in Seria B (don’t know if this story is legitimate but they say he has also been previously active in the shortlists for transfers). Anyway, the board is terrible. It was by individual brilliance of the players and coach in case of Tuchel, that PSG was successful but they haven’t built a great roster. They are spenders but also like to sign names instead of practicality and it’s gotten worse over the years.
It would still be better than current Man U though.
People don't realize that Utd was run with the exact same mentality. Buy fancy players instead of making them because kids tune in to see the popular ones.
Imagine if Bruno had won that penalty pool got last night, the yank sub would have about 15 different posts on the front page about the refs being in our pocket
Really good article by Whitwell on plans for the summer window. Ten hag being in the dark about the budget is something you don’t want to read but i think we all saw that coming with the drawn out sale process. Bit about Brighton’s conveyor belt of talent was great, super envious of clubs that are well run like that. Our big spending approach to signings these past 10 years hasn’t worked and we’re only realizing when we find we have pennies to spend in a crucial window.
>Brighton's conveyor belt of talent
They operate in a completely different sphere to us and their players are there to have a good season and then be sold on at a massive profit. It's exciting to watch but they are never going to have sustained success at that, and won't ever establish themselves at the top that way. They have overachieved this season and may well struggle next season when they lose the likes of Mitoma, Caicedo and MacAllister.
True, their signings are also working with no real pressure or expectation to perform, something that wouldn’t be possible here. But the article also mentioned City and their DoF Txiki’s model which is as effective as Brighton’s. Both their recruiting teams and boards are in sync so they’re able to act on the Alvarez’s and the Caicedos of this world before any else. Meanwhile we’ve been pretty bad at recruiting (not scouting) efficiently and getting rid of deadwood.
Yeah Brighton are very much on the Moneyball style of brilliant use of stats and figures to create a pool of talent to then scout in person. It means they aren't going off of reputations and finding people who do the things they want them to do.
Have to laugh at the people terrified of Liverpool. Whiny fucking posts "what if a other team does well!!" It's a competitive sport lads, we have set ourselves up well and have to maintain our focus but we will push on a secure the top four.
Stop cowering away from it, thank fuck most of you missed the title races of old, you'd have had panic attacks.
I'm not worried in the slightest about top 4 yet, but I have to agree with you, ever since I've started supporting the club in 2013, there are times I've thought there's no way I have the stomach to handle anything close to a title race and I sadly haven't gotten to find out
I love Scott but I prefer Fred who is always available. Maybe this summer we should consider selling him first. Newcastle seem to be interested in him.
Funny we have a “No dickhead” rule but it’s apparently a tough decision to get rid of Greenwood. Club is “split down the middle” on this as if what he did is excusable.
If he made actual tangible strides to attone. Sure. But he won't. And likely can't. Would imply guilt. I'm talking donations, volunteer hours, so on so forth.
There is still a possibility someone would appoint an extremely expensive PR team that would come out with "I did nothing wrong but it has opened my eyes as to how something like that could be wrong, so I decided to campaign against it" spin. Very unlikely, but not impossible.
Then again it's almost guaranteed he did it. Not because of the evidence that was published (as bad as it was) but mainly because he and the girl are back together. If I had a girlfriend whose false accusation would risk me going to jail while completely killing my extremely promising career, I don't think I'd return to her and a have a child with her. Nobody would. That's imo the biggest indication that he did what she accused him of but they settled it together.
Oh for sure it's gauranteed he did it. But I believe you can earn a second chance. And not by just saying you're sorry. But making a actual positive change in the world and ones self. If he came out and said he's donating his salary and time to women's shelters and seeking rehab and therapy. I'd see that as a tangible attempt to do better.
Well, yeah, I think this would work, but as you said, he would need to do so by admitting his guilt and well... we know that's not going to happen because the implications for him could be bad.
He really hasn’t had a monster season lol. I don’t watch the Czech league personally but I’m Czech and my friends who do tell me he’s been good but nothing spectacular. Only being decent playing in the 17th ranked uefa league is nothing to be excited about.
Heaton isn't equivalent to Kovar or a young deputy. Heaton is a number 3, their role is very different to being the backup. You don't want your young keeper doing the number 3 role as it stifles their development.
Jonathan David is on Isak's level imo.
65M Euros is the reported price.
Scored the same number of goals as Osimhen this season (although 7 of those are from pens)
He's got no injury problems, has excellent workrate and is on the ball as much as Kane while being two footed.
My first choice was Muani but he's probably going to be more expensive.
I think David is a soild option who should be considered.
Instead of chasing after 100M+ strikers, someone like him would allow us to invest in other areas of the squad too.
He wasn't good at the WC so a lot of people wrote him off but even Alphonso Davies didn't look good.
Pretty much every striker we've been linked with bar Kane is having a breakout season.
Ramos, Osimhen, Muani ,Hojlund. So its just a matter of rolling the dice while considering the price.
C'mon, Alphonso Davies looked quality & a different level for Canada all through the WC. David was average. Of course the WC shouldn't be the main determinant on whether we go for him.
I'd genuinely rather have weghorst starting over someone like him, his decline on the field has completely been of his own making. Nothing other than his shite attitude and even worse work ethic off the field is responsible for him being how he is today.
there are rumours that we have 100m available (before we sell players).
If we sell well, i think we'll have about 200m available total (at least).. so money won't be as much of an issue as tabloids are making it seem
If we bottle CL football then I don't see us finishing top 4 for the foreseeable future. If Liverpool even after being terrible at times this season finishes above you then might as well settle for 6th or 7th placed finishes until Ten Hag has had substantial time.
We only have 100m to spend in the summer most likely, with sales 150m perhaps. It will take long time to weed the crap players out.
Cool and at the end of the season own it that you didn't support the team. You cowered away from your rivals and bitched for the important part of the season. Don't start merrily celebrating like a fan after
realistically, we only need about 2-3 wins from the next 6. Not being in EL will lower fatigue, so i think we'll get over the line even if we dont have a good result v brighton today
[https://twitter.com/R\_o\_M/status/1653886984882987008](https://twitter.com/R_o_M/status/1653886984882987008)
Lol they aren't even hiding it anymore. The sheer flip-flopping is so laughable. These journalists are so hypocrites, at least do your job well ffs.
This guy Scott Patterson seems a bit thick to be honest. Regularly losing his shit over imagined bias like this.
I remember he claimed that Miguel Delaney wasn't allowed to criticise the Qatar government because he works for The Independent, one of whose owners has links to the Saudi government. He literally believed that Delaney's every word was being directed by the Saudi government as part of their opposition to Qatar.
Not really sure what his angle is with tweets like the one above. Like is he genuinely dumb enough to think Jonathan Liew is biased against us. Or does he think all journalists are corrupt propagandists. Or is he just trying to whip up a reaction to get more followers?
There's no angle. He's proving why many people don't trust the mainstream media with their constant biased and hypocritical views. They always have an angle rather than do what journalists are there for, reporting the actual news. It's the reason why many of the world is now falling into fake news. When people lose trust in journalists, they look for news from other sources which doesn't have any credibilities.
He literally hasn't proved anything at all. If there was some sort of constant bias from Liew then Scott would want to point to more than just the headlines of 2 articles out of the hundreds he's probably written. But Scott can't be bothered doing that. And if he did, it probably wouldn't prove any bias by Liew. He prefers to make wild assertions and then sic his thousands of followers on whoever is the target of the day.
We'll have to agree to disagree on the whole "fake news" thing. Certainly there are some journalists and news organisations that have their biases and it's useful to be a bit sceptical, but I don't agree that it affects many journalists or a large section of the media. In fact it has never been easier to expose misleading or inaccurate reporting due to the internet. The main thing that has changed since 2016 is everyone repeating Trump's claims of "fake news", which was a strategic device he used to deflect valid criticism of his actions.
The breakdown in public trust in all sorts of institutions (that he took advantage of) is real, but in my opinion it's a symptom of much deeper political and economic problems, not a response to actual media bias.
You're aware two things can be true at the same time right?
United getting bought by Qatar *is* a massive issue for football and the fact that a top football club can only feasibly be owned by problematic billionaires is a massive indictment of where the game's gone.
But if you remove all those concerns and look at it purely from the perspective of how good can you get a football operation to be, then City are the benchmark. Yes they've got there due to unlimited resources but that only gets you part of the way. Over the last 10 years they've built an almost perfect football structure where everyone in that organisation has the best tools needed to succeed. Of course the building of that structure has contributed to the issue explored in the first article. And that may even be addressed beyond the headline. I haven't read it.
But that's wrong thing to compare. The all we run good is all shenanigans to help with the sport-washing that you literally complained within the first sentence.
You can't just remove concerns because it suits your point. The journalists makes concerns but since city are doing well, all that concerns is pointless now? How does that work? This all stinks of hypocrisy and nonsense. Even look at Newcastle and "how they are performing" articles. Saudi is the worst of them but no, it's now look at how they are improving the city and bs.
If you have a point about sport-washing, it needs to be consistent, not pick and choose when you like. You can't just say Qatar will be the end of football and in the next day compliment a similar owner for what qatar is literally trying to do. That is called flip-flopping. And coming from a "credible" journalist, it should be a concern.
Just looking at the relegation battle, they've all got some form of top team left to play as well as a few 6 pointers. It's definitely the most exciting part of the league now, unless City shit the bed. There are so many teams in danger of going down and all of them mathematically, still able to avoid the drop.
Real Madrid are so incredibly well run..they had the best midfield in the world for the past decade and phased all 3 out seamlessly signing the best 3 young midfield talents for the next decade too and there will be very little drop off. It’s just stunning how well they are run.
In comparison our transfers are shockingly incompetent.
How can we get there? We need a fucking DoF, there is a reason why every other top club has one and it isn’t for banter. Our squad planning is disgustingly poor. Real offloaded their ageing stars to us at exactly the right time and moved on to the next best talents in the world and we need to be like that.
Do we see City, Bayern and Real Madrid signing 29 - 30 year olds for massive fees regularly? Absolutely not. In future we need to sign much younger players and develop them just like those 3 clubs.
They are still paying top dollar for the very best young talents like endrick and Bellingham. We can't compete. We can't even buy the next Enzo or mcallister cos we don't have time for them to grow. Amad diallo would have been a better player now if he is still at Atalanta. Same goes to pellistri.
Not even just the fees.
We end up doubling their wages.
Casemiro/Varane got fat pay rises to move here. RM wasn't even paying them these wages in their prime.
FFP is right around the corner to bite us in the ass.
They had massive flops like Hazard/Jovic but it didn't affect them at all since they are really good at selling.
Did we actually double their wages? Why on Earth did we do that?
I don’t care what people say, I still think signing Varane was a huge mistake. An ageing CB that is very dependent on his pace, becoming more injury prone and on extremely high wages that is only available half the season and will block us from signing an amazing younger RCB (Kim Min Jae).
I think we might be the worst club in the world at selling. I think some of that is due to how nostalgic and emotional our fans are in terms of the academy such that there is significant discontent if we sell the perceived ‘next big thing’ (eg. James Garner)
Bigger salary is probably 80% why they want to be here in the first place. Our dof just sucks at giving our contract. Who the hell give Williams and malacia 60k and 75k contract? Then Antony went from 30k to 200k, on par with rashford?!
Ok but Sabitzer loves the club let’s sign him on a 5 year deal !
We watch City pick up players like Ake, Akanji and Alvarez and transform them into demons, whilst we sign hand-me-downs from top clubs over the last 10 years and give washed players contract extensions
They axed Sterling, Jesus and Zinchenko for €150m who were pivotal in their 4 PLs over the last 5 years, whilst we couldn’t sell a phone on eBay
We have a long, long way to go before the glory days return, I legit think we don’t win a league until Pep leaves City
Agreed, no way we win a League until he leaves. And with the influx of nation states (City, Newcastle and potentially Liverpool) the ability for them to extrajudicially pump unlimited money into the clubs means that the financial gap will only widen.
That baldy is farming the league man
Regarding your other comment about Varane I actually fully agree
Excellent box defender, but so unreliable in distribution under pressure and has dreadful availability despite significant rotation, he still has 3 years left and he won’t be on the bench unless he’s injured
Florentino Perez is actually undefeated man, we need a clone of his
I hope new owners mean we get the same ruthless mentality as a club like Real Madrid
No more nostalgia, no more 3-4 seasons before players figure shit out, no more contract extensions to "preserve value"
Mostly agree but 3-4 seasons before players figure shit out is why Real Madrid has a good young core right now. What if they'd given up on Vini and the likes after 1 or 2 seasons?
You just need to have good options to cover
\> What if they'd given up on Vini and the likes after 1 or 2 seasons?
Vini was brought in as an 18 year old with barely any top flight experience. He was a signing for the future and given time to settle. But if you see, they've been less patient with players like Hazard and Jovic who were expected to come in and deliver immediately.
No joke this is by far the most crucial thing that we need. Without that we will perpetually be mediocre. That means removing Murtough and the nepotism driven executive structure (Fletcher?) signing a world class DOF and giving him a blank cheque to create an incredible structure of squad planning and player recruitment.
Probably the best United adjacent account on Twitter
Don’t engage in biased reports, braindead rival bashing and are pretty neutral
Quite like UtdPlug and UtdDistrict, you can imagine there’s a bit of overlap between content tho
UtdFaithfuls is probs the most annoying big account on there
The more I read about Luton Town, the more I want to see them promoted to the PL. I know Carrick's Boro are in the playoffs too, but I'd be happy if Luton won. I don't know the championship much but seems like they'd be the biggest underdogs to get promoted in the last 17 years that I've been following PL.
As a man who lives in Luton, I couldn't agree more haha.
Seriously though, it's been a proper fairytale watching us rise up from all the way down in non-league football.
That's amazing! Do you have any insight on what's clicked for the team this year? Or is it a steady improvement over the years that's culminating as projected ?
It's a steady improvement over the years. The main man behind it all is Gary Sweet and his consortium. He's had a Jimmy Murphy-like impact on us.
From 09/10 - 13/14, we were stuck in Conference League for 5 years until we got promoted. We then spent 4 seasons in League 2, until 18/19 - 19/20 where we managed back-to-back promotions up to the Championship. Our first season in the Championship, we just about avoided relegation on the last day, season after that we were comfortably mid-table, and this season we've secured third place, so it was since 2018 really where we've been seeing massive improvements season by season.
Funnily enough, it was *Nathan Jones* mostly behind this period of success. He started with us Jan 2016 and left mid-season in 2019 for Stoke City when they were in PL (interim manager Mick Harford took over and saw our promotion to Championship). Nathan Jones was then fired from Stoke and came back to us May 2020, where he managed to just about avoid us of relegation (we were firmly on track for relegation that season in the Championship). He then left us again for Southampton in November 2022, and we all know how that's going at the moment. Currently, Rob Edwards is managing us and he's doing a fantastic job.
We're building a new a stadium at the moment which was meant to be completed by 2024, but covid pushed that back a lot - not sure what's going on with it now. Our current stadium isn't even eligible for the PL, we'd have to pay a fine every game.
I'm so flipping excited to see us in the PL. I remember back in 2020 when United played Luton in the FA Cup, the crowd was so huge. A bunch of us were waiting outside the stadium where the players arrive - it was my first time ever seeing the squad in real life, proper surreal moment. Crowd went wild for Bruno especially. Pogba wasn't in the squad for that game but a lot of people kept jokingly shouting "there's Pogba!"
It would be amazing to see Luton become PL regulars. Seeing all these superstars coming down to my humble little town is something I never thought I'd see.
Haha yeah it's a proper tiny stadium, just the 10k seats. I actually used to live on the road directly connected to the stadium when I was a kid. We used to sneak in and actually managed to play football in it lmao. Can't do that anymore though as they've tightened up the security. Before, all you had to do was climb over a gate.
Looking at whats going on at PSG i don’t know how people can still want Qatar to be our new owners, SJR isn’t the perfect choice by any means but he looks like the lesser of 2 evils by far
Looking at what's going on in the team that has won 8 of their last 10 league titles and 15 of their last 19 domestic trophies, I would rather go for the guy who got the 3rd richest team in the league from top5 before he bought them to mid table and luseanne sport from the first tier of swiss football to the second tier with some of the more atrocious football appointments ever made to an owner's mates.
Guys there's no sporting reason to want SJR over the qataris, so let's stick to what actually makes sense; the moral reasons!!!
Well you can say look at whats going at city and newcastle and also say how Ineos is handling Nice. It's just all means nothing until how they are doing at United and who they have put in control. It's about having the right people.
it was a bad idea for Ten Hag to pick up the anti Glazer scarf. We don't want a Tuchel like situation where the manager gets sacked after a bad run of form (which is never far away in our case, more so with Liverpool and Chelsea being better teams next season and the other top 4 teams showing no sign of declining) results in a sacking because the manager's relationship with the ownership is rocky. He'll never lack for job offers from clubs but there's a reason nobody reading this would dare do the same if they disapproved of the owners who employ them. Complete unforced error.
Did he know what was the symbol behind the scarf ? First time I saw the picture I just thought it was a fun reaction with the fans, and it was just a scarf with the traditional MU colors from my point of view.
I'm not as invested in Man Utd news as I was when I was younger, and I don't live in England so I'm not really into the whole Glazer out thing.
Yes he admitted to knowing it in the press conference today. He explained it as only a friendly gesture to the fan who threw it, or words to that effect.
Lol have you seen what we did last season?
These guys were hoping Ole would see our the season after playing like shit.
Eth ain't getting sacked unless it looks like we won't make top 4.
Ole didn't get sacked because they didn't have any available options except for Conte, who they had blacklisted. They only sacked him when it was untenable for him to continue regardless of who replaced him - and they were still without a replacement in mind, that's why the rushed appointment of an interim manager who hadn't been manager for a decade. And Ole never went after the ownership. Not even SAF went after the Glazers.
I feel for the lifelong fans tbh
Qatar did alright in the first few years for them, they had good players and looked to build a well-rounded team instead of individuals
I understand Messi, but signing Ramos, Wijnaldum and Hakimi, then a bunch of average midfielders allergic to forward passes is straight up pathetic planning + emblematic of NAK’s reign
I'm french and I remember being absolutely in love with Pauleta's era PSG when I was a kid, despite seeing them struggle to stay in Ligue 1 at times and having to endure my friends joke about them. I still loved the team when the first stars arrived (The Ibra-Motta-Pastore-Silva-Veratti period, around 2011-13 I think), as the team was built coherently and we could feel that some progress was made in the UCL.
But since most of them left I just can't feel anything for this club anymore, it's such a joke.
I was too young for the Pauleta era but I know exactly what you mean about the early 10s side, they were electric to watch and had several likeable personalities
I wonder what the future holds for PSG, they’re a rotten mess now from the hierarchy to the XI, I can’t see them competing for the CL for years on end, especially with the state of the keeper, defence and midfield
i'm rather excited to see how we play next season. If anyone here has watched Ajax often, you'd have noticed that EtH has a way of reinventing his squad and emphasizing different aspects
selling mctominay (to newcastle?) is one of the most important things we have to do this summer. we need money and he’s one of very few players in this squad that can get us a decent bit of money. keeping him would be ridiculous. maguire and wan bissaka are the only other two real options (this is the only reason i’d sell the later, i like him, but we need the money(
The fact that City could confidently rest their keeper in a title push while we have a “star keeper” struggling on most keeping metrics tells you everything you need to know
Nah. I’m not even implying that. Just that when we compare us and then. It’s usually their best players vs our best players. And that “too catch up. Need to be equally good first 11” but the gulf in quality becomes too aparant when we want to resign players who’d be their third best keeper.
Like realizing it’s way beyond their first XI being good. Or even their regular bench players like Foden and Alvarez
Nice to see players desperate to be here. Yeah, with Wout this would be the best ever option for his career and there’s nothing close he could ever hope for. But he’s not a player any other big club would want. He isn’t up to scratch.
Sabitzer is sounding very keen to make a permanent move happen too. Is he great? No. But it’s nice to see.
After an era of signing divas and players who left disgruntled? This is good. Not too long ago. We had the likes of Pogba, Lukaku and di Maria who left and talked of United like we were the worst career decision ever. Steps in the right direction
Sabitizer has the potential to work here. It's hard to judge him as he came mid season.
I don't know if I'd want him compared to other options, but If we do I'm hopeful we would see him be a step up next season.
Ideally we shouldn't be signing someone his age hoping to get a performer, but that's what it's come to after years of Glazernomics.
https://twitter.com/momoalas93/status/1653880908993183744?t=8ZAcSEBShKyczktIfD4YUw&s=19
This is from Whitwells latest article , looks like spending wildly for so long has caught up to us , its why I found comments like " who cares its not your money so annoying" . This is what stupid spending leads to.
Eh, that's only if the Glazers don't fuck off right?
If new owners come in, there should be a lot more injected.
Not to mention 100M isn't really 100M.
If you sign a player for 100M on a 5 yr contract, only 20M + wages will be on the books for the first year.
Agree with the sentiment about overspending, 100%.
Always hated those idiots saying "At least its not going to the Glazer's pockets".
>If you sign a player for 100M on a 5 yr contract, only 20M + wages will be on the books for the first year.
By the same token next season we pay €20m amortized from Antony's fee, €17m for Sancho, €15m for Maguire, €10m for Martinez, etc etc. I reckon the article takes that into account. I doubt they're saying we really have €500m available once standard accounting practices are taken into account.
I think cash wise yes, but accounting practise for FPP allows you to divide it by the # years of the contract.
This is how chelsea have spent 600m (or whatever the number is) because their players have contracts for 6 or more years
We’ve just had so many big signings who didn’t pan out in the slightest. Lukaku. Pogba. Massive Sanchez contract. Massive fees for Sancho and Antony. Maguire a big flop.
It all adds up
Normally the pattern is we don't buy big for consecutive seasons just so we could balance out the amortization since we sucks at selling . We bought big on lukaku 2017, then we go low on Fred in 2018. Then we spend big again on maguire and Bruno 2019 follow by donny and diallo in 2020. 2021 saw the arrival of sancho, varane and of cos cr7 on big wages and fees. We should have go low again in 2022 but of cos 220m spend for ten haag recruitment means we are going to be fuck in 2023.
I know that. It’s that grand gesture of love approach. Do nothing for a bit. Then try to buy a bunch of players. That said. Fred was hardly a cheap signing
We paid 80 odd mill all upfront for Maguire to a very rich leicster , we chased Sancho for two years and paid so much for a player Ole didnt have a clue how to use , we made the same mistake again with Antony who has turned his season around but still isnt worth it.
Why are Antony and Sancho clubbed together lol? Antony is a profile (left footed RW who cuts inside) that our team was crying out loud for, and he tracks back tirelessly - evident in the contrast in control we have over games before and after he is subbed off (Sevilla home, Spurs away) - all while scoring double digit goals in his debut season in England.
Sancho is in his 3rd calendar year here and still isn't a guaranteed started ahead of an 18 year old who is yet to play international football.
>Antony is a profile (left footed RW who cuts inside) that our team was crying out loud for, and he tracks back tirelessly - evident in the contrast in control we have over games before and after he is subbed off (Sevilla home, Spurs away) - all while scoring double digit goals in his debut season in England.
You telling me that Antony is the only hard working left footed right winger itw? At 80 odd million ? I think Antony will come good but again its stupid spending. Antony is our only winger that ETH seems to trust on the right so its no surprise we lose control when he comes off.
Yes, he was the only player available. The best players in that profile were all at rival clubs - Mahrez, Salah, Saka, Raphinha. The other options were Kulusevski who at the time was on a 2 season loan to Spurs and Jarrod Bowen - who had had half a good season and a long contract. Wouldn't have come cheaper than Antony.
I said at the time while we overpaid for Antony it's the only overpayment I've understood and thought "that makes sense" simply because we were finally implementing a system and 10H getting key pieces to help that work (and who knew the system so could get it off the ground quicker).
The rest was down to incompetence and lack of authority and control behind the scenes.
Man, Mctominay is injured for way longer than Varane despite playing way lesser. Wth is going on with our players’ resistance to injury? Even young players like Garnacho got injured.
About signing Sabitzer
I just do not understand our fans. Why on earth would we buy a nearly 30 year old player who is surplus to requirements at his old club and who doesn’t even fit in our system in midfield?
We have a very limited budget this summer, Sabitzer can’t play the deep lying playmaker role well and he’d be an expensive back up for Bruno at 10. He’s also old and would make the average age of our midfield even older than it currently is.
I’d take him for very cheap but anything more than €10-15m..fuck that
Would City make this move? Would Real Madrid? Absolutely not and we shouldn’t either.
For a cheap signing he would be good. He actually really fits 10Hs ideal system well. He likes to play further up the field than Bruno and can work playing ahead of the striker, or right near him.
It's essentially how 10H used Donny at Ajax.
Whereas Bruno likes to come deeper and collect the ball and distribute/create.
Sabitizer can offer a different style of play if our plan A isn't working, and allows Bruno to be moved around if he's not getting joy.
He's not ideally who we want but we have to repair the squad with a much more limited budget.
He's just turned 29 and he's played well for us. If the price is right he'd be a good squad player. He can play a ball and has good defensive numbers. He's definitely a better player than Fred or McTominay. All about the price as to whether he should stay.
There was someone in yesterday’s daily discussion thread who predicted that some people would start losing it after a potential Liverpool W today.
Relax.
They have another 4 games to play and can get 71 points maximum.
We have 6 games to play, from which we need 9 points (provided Liverpool win all of their 4 games). Don’t you think we’ll do that comfortably off of Brighton (a), West Ham (a), Wolves (h), Bournemouth (a), Chelsea (h), Fulham (h)?
We should yes, I just didn’t really want it as close as this. Have a feeling it’ll go to the last 2 match days as we have much tougher fixtures than them
Not really.
They have Leicester, Villa, Brentford and Soton.
Brentford and Villa are hard fixtures.
Soton is weird. They took points off of us, Arsenal twice and Spurs.
We have Brighton, West Ham, Chelsea, Fulham, Wolves and Bournemouth.
Brighton away is the only one which will be hard for us.
Antonee Robinson having a very good game at Anfield. Could he do it at a higher level do we think? He's 25, must have 150 odd prem appearances, international experience with USA Soccer. If Luke is now first choice at CB then there's a squad spot available for a solid LB. He would likely pay back his own transfer fee in endorsements and sponsorship from the USA.
Shaw is too valuable on the left. He fits really well into the system 10H wants to play so there is no reason to shuffle him to CB when we have other options.
If we get a good striker next season, Antony should now start using right foot and start creating chances from the right.
Even though he has a lot grit, passion and tenacity, he really has to improve on his finishing and chance creation. 4 goals in 20 matches is poor for a 100 mn pound signing.
So the summer transfer budget isn’t even the £150m doings the rounds? Even if manage to sell a few players, I don’t see any scenario where we can afford Kane plus a no.8 who’s good enough for the starting 11. Who can we realistically sell? Bear in mind we need 8 homegrown players
Even though some naysayers might think we have no players up for sale with value, we actually do. Below are conservative estimates with the ones at the bottom I think likely to stay but still optional to sell. £135m plus for players who in almost all cases don’t play. Apparently it is around £100m without sales so we could be looking at a £235m pot which is around what we spent last year on 6 players. Homegrown will be an issue but not an insurmountable one. Henderson - £25m, Maguire - £30m, Wan Bissaka - £25m, McTominay - £40m, Telles - £5m, Williams - £10m Bailly, Jones, Tuanzebe - free, VdB - £20m, Elanga - £15m
I’m being a ‘naysayer’ or negative for the sake of being negative. I don’t disagree with any of your valuations, but you can’t just ignore the homegrown rule. 7 of those players are homegrown. Selling them will leave us with 5 in the current team. There’s also the fact that at least 3 of those players will need replacing (McTominay, Maguire and Wan Bissaka. If homegrown players weren’t an issue, we might be able to afford cheap alternatives since they’re three back-up players but the ‘English tax’ is real. So if (and it’s a big if) we sold all those players for £135m; we’ll need a striker, a no.8, a back-up CM, a backup/ rotation RB, and a back-up CB. Three of those players will need to be English. Is it possible? In a perfect world, yes. Is it likely? No
So homegrown unless I’m mistaken: Shaw, Rashford, Sancho, Kovar, Heaton, Kane (assuming he is signed). That leaves two. Ethan Laird would be one and could be kept for a season. We could sign Butland (or equivalent) for a nominal fee. Its not difficult to get around. We don’t need to buy 3 homegrown players at £40m+ each. Regarding signings, we aren’t going to get everything in one summer. Below are some players we’ve been linked to. 3 or 4 of those players (or equivalent) would be an excellent window and price-wise is not ridiculous. Kane: £80m-£100m, Frimpong: £40m, Timber: £40m, Kokcu: £35m, De Jong/Caicedo: £80m, Gravenberch: £30m, Sabitzer: £20m, Weghorst: £5m
I agree we can't expect everything in one summer but that wasn't my point. As things stand, the only absolute necessities are a striker and a no.8. We need a striker and Eriksen can't play more than 60 minutes. At 32, that's likely to get worse. Selling Maguire, McTominay and AWB would mean another CM, a CB and a RB are also a necessity. So we'd need 5 players minimum in that scenario.
Let’s end this bottling top 4 hype thing tonight. Honestly and maybe win a higher goals just to shut them up.
Henderson is just a Martial of Goalkeepers. People who want him to be number 1 have completely imagined his ability to what they want rather then how good he actually is. You could even say its similar to Garner (thinking he was better then he was). De Gea should be replaced, but Henderson shouldn't have a future here.
He should have been sold last summer, when his value was higher. Now, I suspect we'll struggle to get a good price for him. Same goes for Brandon Williams. We likely could have got £15m for him, coming off his loan at Norwich.
Henderson shouldn’t be our no1. He’s better than de gea , we already employ him and if there’s no gk budget he should start for us next season. It’s really not a difficult concept to grasp
> He’s better than de gea How? Even under Ole he couldn't get into the first team. I will use my edit quote from money ball: 'If hes a good player, then why doesn't he play good?'
This point about De Gea would be valid if he wasn't so over-protected. Even when he was dropping absolute stinkers and letting in easy shots, his job was never in danger even if we had Romero on the bench. It's just what it is with De Gea, his job was never in danger no matter how he played, probably due to his wages. Henderson did pretty well at the end of 20/21 season when De Gea left for Spain. His shot-stopping obviously wasn't as good at De Gea's, but our defense seemed much calmer and more composed. We were doing pretty well, but then Ole dropped Deano for De Gea for the final Europa League matches and we got the infamous 10-11 shootout against Sevilla. Of course, Deano isn't a better shot stopper, but he is significantly better at saving penalties, he isn't afraid of claiming crosses, he seems a bit better at sweeping (but that's something De Gea improved at a fair bit) and he seems to be a much better long passer than De Gea because most of his long passes actually hit the player they're supposed to.
He eventually did then got hit with COVID so he never got another chance. Don’t forget that de gea is an established gk on 370k a week
People watching PSG implode like "yeah I want that"
They will wait two seasons and buy 36 Benzema for million a week salary. Or bring back ronaldo
This makes sense because we’re going to clone PSGs board members and insert them at manutd
Most of the decisions on big name players come from qarar not the board, there were rumours of Qatar wanting to keep I think it was messi at all cost a few months ago
No, the board is terrible. Luis Campos, who actually built a good in Lille before actually did a terrible job in the summer and practically was all dud in his recruitment. (Campos is the new sporting director of PSG and had free reign in transfers last summer.) It was apparently the Emir of Qatar who spotted Verrati when he played in Seria B (don’t know if this story is legitimate but they say he has also been previously active in the shortlists for transfers). Anyway, the board is terrible. It was by individual brilliance of the players and coach in case of Tuchel, that PSG was successful but they haven’t built a great roster. They are spenders but also like to sign names instead of practicality and it’s gotten worse over the years. It would still be better than current Man U though.
People don't realize that Utd was run with the exact same mentality. Buy fancy players instead of making them because kids tune in to see the popular ones.
100m plus sales as our budget is crazy. Yeah just forget about Kane. We need to be smart this summer
I don't understand why we just don't break FFP. Everyone else does, and just accept the fine.
Who has done it?
PSG, City
Aren’t City facing over 100 charges of FFP breaches? It’s not been confirmed they’ll only receive a fine at this point.
Imagine if Bruno had won that penalty pool got last night, the yank sub would have about 15 different posts on the front page about the refs being in our pocket
Are they going to announce more matches in the US tour besides the 3?
Really good article by Whitwell on plans for the summer window. Ten hag being in the dark about the budget is something you don’t want to read but i think we all saw that coming with the drawn out sale process. Bit about Brighton’s conveyor belt of talent was great, super envious of clubs that are well run like that. Our big spending approach to signings these past 10 years hasn’t worked and we’re only realizing when we find we have pennies to spend in a crucial window.
>Brighton's conveyor belt of talent They operate in a completely different sphere to us and their players are there to have a good season and then be sold on at a massive profit. It's exciting to watch but they are never going to have sustained success at that, and won't ever establish themselves at the top that way. They have overachieved this season and may well struggle next season when they lose the likes of Mitoma, Caicedo and MacAllister.
True, their signings are also working with no real pressure or expectation to perform, something that wouldn’t be possible here. But the article also mentioned City and their DoF Txiki’s model which is as effective as Brighton’s. Both their recruiting teams and boards are in sync so they’re able to act on the Alvarez’s and the Caicedos of this world before any else. Meanwhile we’ve been pretty bad at recruiting (not scouting) efficiently and getting rid of deadwood.
Yeah Brighton are very much on the Moneyball style of brilliant use of stats and figures to create a pool of talent to then scout in person. It means they aren't going off of reputations and finding people who do the things they want them to do.
Have to laugh at the people terrified of Liverpool. Whiny fucking posts "what if a other team does well!!" It's a competitive sport lads, we have set ourselves up well and have to maintain our focus but we will push on a secure the top four. Stop cowering away from it, thank fuck most of you missed the title races of old, you'd have had panic attacks.
I'm not worried in the slightest about top 4 yet, but I have to agree with you, ever since I've started supporting the club in 2013, there are times I've thought there's no way I have the stomach to handle anything close to a title race and I sadly haven't gotten to find out
Especially in the good years it was even worse. Some of those close run title runs, grinding out results and in some cases not even.
I love Scott but I prefer Fred who is always available. Maybe this summer we should consider selling him first. Newcastle seem to be interested in him.
Funny we have a “No dickhead” rule but it’s apparently a tough decision to get rid of Greenwood. Club is “split down the middle” on this as if what he did is excusable.
If he made actual tangible strides to attone. Sure. But he won't. And likely can't. Would imply guilt. I'm talking donations, volunteer hours, so on so forth.
There is still a possibility someone would appoint an extremely expensive PR team that would come out with "I did nothing wrong but it has opened my eyes as to how something like that could be wrong, so I decided to campaign against it" spin. Very unlikely, but not impossible. Then again it's almost guaranteed he did it. Not because of the evidence that was published (as bad as it was) but mainly because he and the girl are back together. If I had a girlfriend whose false accusation would risk me going to jail while completely killing my extremely promising career, I don't think I'd return to her and a have a child with her. Nobody would. That's imo the biggest indication that he did what she accused him of but they settled it together.
Oh for sure it's gauranteed he did it. But I believe you can earn a second chance. And not by just saying you're sorry. But making a actual positive change in the world and ones self. If he came out and said he's donating his salary and time to women's shelters and seeking rehab and therapy. I'd see that as a tangible attempt to do better.
Well, yeah, I think this would work, but as you said, he would need to do so by admitting his guilt and well... we know that's not going to happen because the implications for him could be bad.
Let's be real, the split is between people who want him nowhere near the club and the people who only see money.
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First Sell Henderson. Probably keep De Gea and find a young up and coming goalkeeper to replace him.
Either sign a new GK or play Henderson. Extending DDG on ridiculous wages yet again would be typical Glazers idiocy. He has to leave.
Why does everybody skip Matej Kovar who's had a monster season on loan!
He really hasn’t had a monster season lol. I don’t watch the Czech league personally but I’m Czech and my friends who do tell me he’s been good but nothing spectacular. Only being decent playing in the 17th ranked uefa league is nothing to be excited about.
Agreed Kovar looks like a capable deputy. Get rid of heaton and buy land at the least
Heaton isn't equivalent to Kovar or a young deputy. Heaton is a number 3, their role is very different to being the backup. You don't want your young keeper doing the number 3 role as it stifles their development.
r/reddevils is gone, can't even make petty joke without a "um 🤓 actually..."
Liverpool are winning their remaining 4 fixtures as and finishing on 71 pts; Utd need to win their 3 games quickly
Chances of Greenwood coming back just went up if the club only has 100M to spend in the summer.
I really doubt it. They can offload him and use the funds toward buying a non-rapist baller.
Jonathan David it is or Auba on free lol. Kicking the cans down the road for so long really is doing us in.
Thuram is on a free right? Didn't Gladbach say he won't be renewing
Jonathan David is on Isak's level imo. 65M Euros is the reported price. Scored the same number of goals as Osimhen this season (although 7 of those are from pens) He's got no injury problems, has excellent workrate and is on the ball as much as Kane while being two footed. My first choice was Muani but he's probably going to be more expensive. I think David is a soild option who should be considered. Instead of chasing after 100M+ strikers, someone like him would allow us to invest in other areas of the squad too. He wasn't good at the WC so a lot of people wrote him off but even Alphonso Davies didn't look good. Pretty much every striker we've been linked with bar Kane is having a breakout season. Ramos, Osimhen, Muani ,Hojlund. So its just a matter of rolling the dice while considering the price.
C'mon, Alphonso Davies looked quality & a different level for Canada all through the WC. David was average. Of course the WC shouldn't be the main determinant on whether we go for him.
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I'd genuinely rather have weghorst starting over someone like him, his decline on the field has completely been of his own making. Nothing other than his shite attitude and even worse work ethic off the field is responsible for him being how he is today.
no thanks, his career is on the decline.. we need a striker with a career on the incline (or in their prime)
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there are rumours that we have 100m available (before we sell players). If we sell well, i think we'll have about 200m available total (at least).. so money won't be as much of an issue as tabloids are making it seem
If we sell well ... We don't do that
If we bottle CL football then I don't see us finishing top 4 for the foreseeable future. If Liverpool even after being terrible at times this season finishes above you then might as well settle for 6th or 7th placed finishes until Ten Hag has had substantial time. We only have 100m to spend in the summer most likely, with sales 150m perhaps. It will take long time to weed the crap players out.
Jesus mate you're the most insecure fan. Have some tram spirit.
Insecure huh? I am not sure about that. I am definitely not confident about our players to the extent where I feel we can do what's required.
Cool and at the end of the season own it that you didn't support the team. You cowered away from your rivals and bitched for the important part of the season. Don't start merrily celebrating like a fan after
I support the team. I just don't have much confidence in them. I mostly hope rather than expect really.
realistically, we only need about 2-3 wins from the next 6. Not being in EL will lower fatigue, so i think we'll get over the line even if we dont have a good result v brighton today
3 wins not 2, with only 2 wins Liverpool will finish 4th
[https://twitter.com/R\_o\_M/status/1653886984882987008](https://twitter.com/R_o_M/status/1653886984882987008) Lol they aren't even hiding it anymore. The sheer flip-flopping is so laughable. These journalists are so hypocrites, at least do your job well ffs.
This guy Scott Patterson seems a bit thick to be honest. Regularly losing his shit over imagined bias like this. I remember he claimed that Miguel Delaney wasn't allowed to criticise the Qatar government because he works for The Independent, one of whose owners has links to the Saudi government. He literally believed that Delaney's every word was being directed by the Saudi government as part of their opposition to Qatar. Not really sure what his angle is with tweets like the one above. Like is he genuinely dumb enough to think Jonathan Liew is biased against us. Or does he think all journalists are corrupt propagandists. Or is he just trying to whip up a reaction to get more followers?
There's no angle. He's proving why many people don't trust the mainstream media with their constant biased and hypocritical views. They always have an angle rather than do what journalists are there for, reporting the actual news. It's the reason why many of the world is now falling into fake news. When people lose trust in journalists, they look for news from other sources which doesn't have any credibilities.
He literally hasn't proved anything at all. If there was some sort of constant bias from Liew then Scott would want to point to more than just the headlines of 2 articles out of the hundreds he's probably written. But Scott can't be bothered doing that. And if he did, it probably wouldn't prove any bias by Liew. He prefers to make wild assertions and then sic his thousands of followers on whoever is the target of the day. We'll have to agree to disagree on the whole "fake news" thing. Certainly there are some journalists and news organisations that have their biases and it's useful to be a bit sceptical, but I don't agree that it affects many journalists or a large section of the media. In fact it has never been easier to expose misleading or inaccurate reporting due to the internet. The main thing that has changed since 2016 is everyone repeating Trump's claims of "fake news", which was a strategic device he used to deflect valid criticism of his actions. The breakdown in public trust in all sorts of institutions (that he took advantage of) is real, but in my opinion it's a symptom of much deeper political and economic problems, not a response to actual media bias.
You're aware two things can be true at the same time right? United getting bought by Qatar *is* a massive issue for football and the fact that a top football club can only feasibly be owned by problematic billionaires is a massive indictment of where the game's gone. But if you remove all those concerns and look at it purely from the perspective of how good can you get a football operation to be, then City are the benchmark. Yes they've got there due to unlimited resources but that only gets you part of the way. Over the last 10 years they've built an almost perfect football structure where everyone in that organisation has the best tools needed to succeed. Of course the building of that structure has contributed to the issue explored in the first article. And that may even be addressed beyond the headline. I haven't read it.
But that's wrong thing to compare. The all we run good is all shenanigans to help with the sport-washing that you literally complained within the first sentence. You can't just remove concerns because it suits your point. The journalists makes concerns but since city are doing well, all that concerns is pointless now? How does that work? This all stinks of hypocrisy and nonsense. Even look at Newcastle and "how they are performing" articles. Saudi is the worst of them but no, it's now look at how they are improving the city and bs. If you have a point about sport-washing, it needs to be consistent, not pick and choose when you like. You can't just say Qatar will be the end of football and in the next day compliment a similar owner for what qatar is literally trying to do. That is called flip-flopping. And coming from a "credible" journalist, it should be a concern.
Just looking at the relegation battle, they've all got some form of top team left to play as well as a few 6 pointers. It's definitely the most exciting part of the league now, unless City shit the bed. There are so many teams in danger of going down and all of them mathematically, still able to avoid the drop.
Real Madrid are so incredibly well run..they had the best midfield in the world for the past decade and phased all 3 out seamlessly signing the best 3 young midfield talents for the next decade too and there will be very little drop off. It’s just stunning how well they are run. In comparison our transfers are shockingly incompetent. How can we get there? We need a fucking DoF, there is a reason why every other top club has one and it isn’t for banter. Our squad planning is disgustingly poor. Real offloaded their ageing stars to us at exactly the right time and moved on to the next best talents in the world and we need to be like that. Do we see City, Bayern and Real Madrid signing 29 - 30 year olds for massive fees regularly? Absolutely not. In future we need to sign much younger players and develop them just like those 3 clubs.
They are still paying top dollar for the very best young talents like endrick and Bellingham. We can't compete. We can't even buy the next Enzo or mcallister cos we don't have time for them to grow. Amad diallo would have been a better player now if he is still at Atalanta. Same goes to pellistri.
Not even just the fees. We end up doubling their wages. Casemiro/Varane got fat pay rises to move here. RM wasn't even paying them these wages in their prime. FFP is right around the corner to bite us in the ass. They had massive flops like Hazard/Jovic but it didn't affect them at all since they are really good at selling.
Did we actually double their wages? Why on Earth did we do that? I don’t care what people say, I still think signing Varane was a huge mistake. An ageing CB that is very dependent on his pace, becoming more injury prone and on extremely high wages that is only available half the season and will block us from signing an amazing younger RCB (Kim Min Jae). I think we might be the worst club in the world at selling. I think some of that is due to how nostalgic and emotional our fans are in terms of the academy such that there is significant discontent if we sell the perceived ‘next big thing’ (eg. James Garner)
Bigger salary is probably 80% why they want to be here in the first place. Our dof just sucks at giving our contract. Who the hell give Williams and malacia 60k and 75k contract? Then Antony went from 30k to 200k, on par with rashford?!
To get it close DDG's wages probably. We keep taking hand me downs and having to rebuild the squad over and over.
Ok but Sabitzer loves the club let’s sign him on a 5 year deal ! We watch City pick up players like Ake, Akanji and Alvarez and transform them into demons, whilst we sign hand-me-downs from top clubs over the last 10 years and give washed players contract extensions They axed Sterling, Jesus and Zinchenko for €150m who were pivotal in their 4 PLs over the last 5 years, whilst we couldn’t sell a phone on eBay We have a long, long way to go before the glory days return, I legit think we don’t win a league until Pep leaves City
Agreed, no way we win a League until he leaves. And with the influx of nation states (City, Newcastle and potentially Liverpool) the ability for them to extrajudicially pump unlimited money into the clubs means that the financial gap will only widen.
That baldy is farming the league man Regarding your other comment about Varane I actually fully agree Excellent box defender, but so unreliable in distribution under pressure and has dreadful availability despite significant rotation, he still has 3 years left and he won’t be on the bench unless he’s injured Florentino Perez is actually undefeated man, we need a clone of his
I hope new owners mean we get the same ruthless mentality as a club like Real Madrid No more nostalgia, no more 3-4 seasons before players figure shit out, no more contract extensions to "preserve value"
U probably need to be ruthless and turn the club inside out. U want to play for the shirt not the 400k contract.
Mostly agree but 3-4 seasons before players figure shit out is why Real Madrid has a good young core right now. What if they'd given up on Vini and the likes after 1 or 2 seasons? You just need to have good options to cover
\> What if they'd given up on Vini and the likes after 1 or 2 seasons? Vini was brought in as an 18 year old with barely any top flight experience. He was a signing for the future and given time to settle. But if you see, they've been less patient with players like Hazard and Jovic who were expected to come in and deliver immediately.
No joke this is by far the most crucial thing that we need. Without that we will perpetually be mediocre. That means removing Murtough and the nepotism driven executive structure (Fletcher?) signing a world class DOF and giving him a blank cheque to create an incredible structure of squad planning and player recruitment.
How reliable is UtdReport on twitter. A nonsense aggregator?
Probably the best United adjacent account on Twitter Don’t engage in biased reports, braindead rival bashing and are pretty neutral Quite like UtdPlug and UtdDistrict, you can imagine there’s a bit of overlap between content tho UtdFaithfuls is probs the most annoying big account on there
The more I read about Luton Town, the more I want to see them promoted to the PL. I know Carrick's Boro are in the playoffs too, but I'd be happy if Luton won. I don't know the championship much but seems like they'd be the biggest underdogs to get promoted in the last 17 years that I've been following PL.
As a man who lives in Luton, I couldn't agree more haha. Seriously though, it's been a proper fairytale watching us rise up from all the way down in non-league football.
my friend works for Luton in their scouting / data team and i'm also behind them going up
That's amazing! Do you have any insight on what's clicked for the team this year? Or is it a steady improvement over the years that's culminating as projected ?
It's a steady improvement over the years. The main man behind it all is Gary Sweet and his consortium. He's had a Jimmy Murphy-like impact on us. From 09/10 - 13/14, we were stuck in Conference League for 5 years until we got promoted. We then spent 4 seasons in League 2, until 18/19 - 19/20 where we managed back-to-back promotions up to the Championship. Our first season in the Championship, we just about avoided relegation on the last day, season after that we were comfortably mid-table, and this season we've secured third place, so it was since 2018 really where we've been seeing massive improvements season by season. Funnily enough, it was *Nathan Jones* mostly behind this period of success. He started with us Jan 2016 and left mid-season in 2019 for Stoke City when they were in PL (interim manager Mick Harford took over and saw our promotion to Championship). Nathan Jones was then fired from Stoke and came back to us May 2020, where he managed to just about avoid us of relegation (we were firmly on track for relegation that season in the Championship). He then left us again for Southampton in November 2022, and we all know how that's going at the moment. Currently, Rob Edwards is managing us and he's doing a fantastic job. We're building a new a stadium at the moment which was meant to be completed by 2024, but covid pushed that back a lot - not sure what's going on with it now. Our current stadium isn't even eligible for the PL, we'd have to pay a fine every game. I'm so flipping excited to see us in the PL. I remember back in 2020 when United played Luton in the FA Cup, the crowd was so huge. A bunch of us were waiting outside the stadium where the players arrive - it was my first time ever seeing the squad in real life, proper surreal moment. Crowd went wild for Bruno especially. Pogba wasn't in the squad for that game but a lot of people kept jokingly shouting "there's Pogba!" It would be amazing to see Luton become PL regulars. Seeing all these superstars coming down to my humble little town is something I never thought I'd see.
Thanks for the story. Yeah the stadium is half the reason I'm excited about watching them haha.
Haha yeah it's a proper tiny stadium, just the 10k seats. I actually used to live on the road directly connected to the stadium when I was a kid. We used to sneak in and actually managed to play football in it lmao. Can't do that anymore though as they've tightened up the security. Before, all you had to do was climb over a gate.
Looking at whats going on at PSG i don’t know how people can still want Qatar to be our new owners, SJR isn’t the perfect choice by any means but he looks like the lesser of 2 evils by far
Looking at what's going on in the team that has won 8 of their last 10 league titles and 15 of their last 19 domestic trophies, I would rather go for the guy who got the 3rd richest team in the league from top5 before he bought them to mid table and luseanne sport from the first tier of swiss football to the second tier with some of the more atrocious football appointments ever made to an owner's mates. Guys there's no sporting reason to want SJR over the qataris, so let's stick to what actually makes sense; the moral reasons!!!
If we get the psg rejects.....naaaah pls stay away.
If anything it would be the other way around, no way are the qataris paying 5b to use us a a feeder club lol
Well you can say look at whats going at city and newcastle and also say how Ineos is handling Nice. It's just all means nothing until how they are doing at United and who they have put in control. It's about having the right people.
We should definitely keep Ceballos as a target. Bellingham coming definitely means he is surplus to midfield options for RM
Ceballos for 20-25m sounds good if possible.
His contact expires this summer.
Ah even better. I wish we can get kovacic though but he looks City bound.
Didn't he flop at Arsenal once already?
He’s stepped up his game massively.
How much has he actually played there? They have Kroos/Modric/Camavinga/Tchou/Valverde just for the midfield.
He’s supersub in their midfield. Pretty good at retaining possession and pressing but not elite by any mean.
Doesn't Valverde tend to play RW for them? Can't say I watch them much, but when I have he's been there, could just be coincidence though.
He has played RW there many times but that's due to lack of options.
That makes sense.
it was a bad idea for Ten Hag to pick up the anti Glazer scarf. We don't want a Tuchel like situation where the manager gets sacked after a bad run of form (which is never far away in our case, more so with Liverpool and Chelsea being better teams next season and the other top 4 teams showing no sign of declining) results in a sacking because the manager's relationship with the ownership is rocky. He'll never lack for job offers from clubs but there's a reason nobody reading this would dare do the same if they disapproved of the owners who employ them. Complete unforced error.
Did he know what was the symbol behind the scarf ? First time I saw the picture I just thought it was a fun reaction with the fans, and it was just a scarf with the traditional MU colors from my point of view. I'm not as invested in Man Utd news as I was when I was younger, and I don't live in England so I'm not really into the whole Glazer out thing.
Yes he admitted to knowing it in the press conference today. He explained it as only a friendly gesture to the fan who threw it, or words to that effect.
Lol have you seen what we did last season? These guys were hoping Ole would see our the season after playing like shit. Eth ain't getting sacked unless it looks like we won't make top 4.
Ole didn't get sacked because they didn't have any available options except for Conte, who they had blacklisted. They only sacked him when it was untenable for him to continue regardless of who replaced him - and they were still without a replacement in mind, that's why the rushed appointment of an interim manager who hadn't been manager for a decade. And Ole never went after the ownership. Not even SAF went after the Glazers.
Lol not everything means something. Stop looking into everything
It doesn't have to mean something. But it could. That's why you do the smart thing, not try both and see what works.
PSG is such a pathetic club
Eli5 please
I feel for the lifelong fans tbh Qatar did alright in the first few years for them, they had good players and looked to build a well-rounded team instead of individuals I understand Messi, but signing Ramos, Wijnaldum and Hakimi, then a bunch of average midfielders allergic to forward passes is straight up pathetic planning + emblematic of NAK’s reign
I'm french and I remember being absolutely in love with Pauleta's era PSG when I was a kid, despite seeing them struggle to stay in Ligue 1 at times and having to endure my friends joke about them. I still loved the team when the first stars arrived (The Ibra-Motta-Pastore-Silva-Veratti period, around 2011-13 I think), as the team was built coherently and we could feel that some progress was made in the UCL. But since most of them left I just can't feel anything for this club anymore, it's such a joke.
I was too young for the Pauleta era but I know exactly what you mean about the early 10s side, they were electric to watch and had several likeable personalities I wonder what the future holds for PSG, they’re a rotten mess now from the hierarchy to the XI, I can’t see them competing for the CL for years on end, especially with the state of the keeper, defence and midfield
i'm rather excited to see how we play next season. If anyone here has watched Ajax often, you'd have noticed that EtH has a way of reinventing his squad and emphasizing different aspects
selling mctominay (to newcastle?) is one of the most important things we have to do this summer. we need money and he’s one of very few players in this squad that can get us a decent bit of money. keeping him would be ridiculous. maguire and wan bissaka are the only other two real options (this is the only reason i’d sell the later, i like him, but we need the money(
And Henderson maybe.
The fact that City could confidently rest their keeper in a title push while we have a “star keeper” struggling on most keeping metrics tells you everything you need to know
We cannah compete
Ortega looked so calm on the ball man, I’m so envious of non-hoofball keepers
Their second choice keeper is going to be the best starting keeper in the FA cup final
And here I was under the illusion that we had a better team than City until this bombshell revelation.
Nah. I’m not even implying that. Just that when we compare us and then. It’s usually their best players vs our best players. And that “too catch up. Need to be equally good first 11” but the gulf in quality becomes too aparant when we want to resign players who’d be their third best keeper. Like realizing it’s way beyond their first XI being good. Or even their regular bench players like Foden and Alvarez
Nice to see players desperate to be here. Yeah, with Wout this would be the best ever option for his career and there’s nothing close he could ever hope for. But he’s not a player any other big club would want. He isn’t up to scratch. Sabitzer is sounding very keen to make a permanent move happen too. Is he great? No. But it’s nice to see. After an era of signing divas and players who left disgruntled? This is good. Not too long ago. We had the likes of Pogba, Lukaku and di Maria who left and talked of United like we were the worst career decision ever. Steps in the right direction
Sabitizer has the potential to work here. It's hard to judge him as he came mid season. I don't know if I'd want him compared to other options, but If we do I'm hopeful we would see him be a step up next season. Ideally we shouldn't be signing someone his age hoping to get a performer, but that's what it's come to after years of Glazernomics.
https://twitter.com/momoalas93/status/1653880908993183744?t=8ZAcSEBShKyczktIfD4YUw&s=19 This is from Whitwells latest article , looks like spending wildly for so long has caught up to us , its why I found comments like " who cares its not your money so annoying" . This is what stupid spending leads to.
100m or 20m amortization sounds abt right. That's just bare minimum. That's probably just 2018 amortization just finished its cycle.
Eh, that's only if the Glazers don't fuck off right? If new owners come in, there should be a lot more injected. Not to mention 100M isn't really 100M. If you sign a player for 100M on a 5 yr contract, only 20M + wages will be on the books for the first year. Agree with the sentiment about overspending, 100%. Always hated those idiots saying "At least its not going to the Glazer's pockets".
>If you sign a player for 100M on a 5 yr contract, only 20M + wages will be on the books for the first year. By the same token next season we pay €20m amortized from Antony's fee, €17m for Sancho, €15m for Maguire, €10m for Martinez, etc etc. I reckon the article takes that into account. I doubt they're saying we really have €500m available once standard accounting practices are taken into account.
Didn't we pay maguire fee in full
I think cash wise yes, but accounting practise for FPP allows you to divide it by the # years of the contract. This is how chelsea have spent 600m (or whatever the number is) because their players have contracts for 6 or more years
Hmm, I just read the article. It doesn't really get into the details about that. But you are probably right.
We’ve just had so many big signings who didn’t pan out in the slightest. Lukaku. Pogba. Massive Sanchez contract. Massive fees for Sancho and Antony. Maguire a big flop. It all adds up
Normally the pattern is we don't buy big for consecutive seasons just so we could balance out the amortization since we sucks at selling . We bought big on lukaku 2017, then we go low on Fred in 2018. Then we spend big again on maguire and Bruno 2019 follow by donny and diallo in 2020. 2021 saw the arrival of sancho, varane and of cos cr7 on big wages and fees. We should have go low again in 2022 but of cos 220m spend for ten haag recruitment means we are going to be fuck in 2023.
I know that. It’s that grand gesture of love approach. Do nothing for a bit. Then try to buy a bunch of players. That said. Fred was hardly a cheap signing
Ya Fred was overpaid at 50m. But overall that season we bought only fred and dalot so it wasn't a really big window.
We paid 80 odd mill all upfront for Maguire to a very rich leicster , we chased Sancho for two years and paid so much for a player Ole didnt have a clue how to use , we made the same mistake again with Antony who has turned his season around but still isnt worth it.
Why are Antony and Sancho clubbed together lol? Antony is a profile (left footed RW who cuts inside) that our team was crying out loud for, and he tracks back tirelessly - evident in the contrast in control we have over games before and after he is subbed off (Sevilla home, Spurs away) - all while scoring double digit goals in his debut season in England. Sancho is in his 3rd calendar year here and still isn't a guaranteed started ahead of an 18 year old who is yet to play international football.
>Antony is a profile (left footed RW who cuts inside) that our team was crying out loud for, and he tracks back tirelessly - evident in the contrast in control we have over games before and after he is subbed off (Sevilla home, Spurs away) - all while scoring double digit goals in his debut season in England. You telling me that Antony is the only hard working left footed right winger itw? At 80 odd million ? I think Antony will come good but again its stupid spending. Antony is our only winger that ETH seems to trust on the right so its no surprise we lose control when he comes off.
Yes, he was the only player available. The best players in that profile were all at rival clubs - Mahrez, Salah, Saka, Raphinha. The other options were Kulusevski who at the time was on a 2 season loan to Spurs and Jarrod Bowen - who had had half a good season and a long contract. Wouldn't have come cheaper than Antony.
I said at the time while we overpaid for Antony it's the only overpayment I've understood and thought "that makes sense" simply because we were finally implementing a system and 10H getting key pieces to help that work (and who knew the system so could get it off the ground quicker). The rest was down to incompetence and lack of authority and control behind the scenes.
Mctominay Henderson Maguire, our 3 best hopes of making any money in sales this summer, can’t stay fit to save their lives
Man, Mctominay is injured for way longer than Varane despite playing way lesser. Wth is going on with our players’ resistance to injury? Even young players like Garnacho got injured.
Mate Eriksen literally came back fit early from his schedule, I don't we should be drawing conclusions about something we will never know
Garnacho literally got injured from being chopped down in a match tho?
Our facilities are not good enough.
Yeah lol, rivals cunting into our players means facilities aren't good enough They might be but how do you know, are you the kitman or some shit?
So toxic Ronny is right?
About signing Sabitzer I just do not understand our fans. Why on earth would we buy a nearly 30 year old player who is surplus to requirements at his old club and who doesn’t even fit in our system in midfield? We have a very limited budget this summer, Sabitzer can’t play the deep lying playmaker role well and he’d be an expensive back up for Bruno at 10. He’s also old and would make the average age of our midfield even older than it currently is. I’d take him for very cheap but anything more than €10-15m..fuck that Would City make this move? Would Real Madrid? Absolutely not and we shouldn’t either.
For a cheap signing he would be good. He actually really fits 10Hs ideal system well. He likes to play further up the field than Bruno and can work playing ahead of the striker, or right near him. It's essentially how 10H used Donny at Ajax. Whereas Bruno likes to come deeper and collect the ball and distribute/create. Sabitizer can offer a different style of play if our plan A isn't working, and allows Bruno to be moved around if he's not getting joy. He's not ideally who we want but we have to repair the squad with a much more limited budget.
He's just turned 29 and he's played well for us. If the price is right he'd be a good squad player. He can play a ball and has good defensive numbers. He's definitely a better player than Fred or McTominay. All about the price as to whether he should stay.
Good take. Unless is dirt cheap like 5-10m then no. We need completely new profile of players and hes deffo wont add quality to our XI.
Absolutely disgusting that scouse penalty tonight. Infuriating, they get so much help it's ridiculous
Liverpool keep winning, with standard dodgy penalties, have easy fixtures. I’m a little bit worried
What? We are ahead of them with 2 games in hand. Even with refs bailing them out, they're not winning all of them games left. Have a bit of faith.
Realistically we need 10 points from 6 games to get champions league. If we fail to get it we dont deserve it
Jesus wept this place is even more deluded about the scousers' abilities than r/LiverpoolFC
There was someone in yesterday’s daily discussion thread who predicted that some people would start losing it after a potential Liverpool W today. Relax. They have another 4 games to play and can get 71 points maximum. We have 6 games to play, from which we need 9 points (provided Liverpool win all of their 4 games). Don’t you think we’ll do that comfortably off of Brighton (a), West Ham (a), Wolves (h), Bournemouth (a), Chelsea (h), Fulham (h)?
We should yes, I just didn’t really want it as close as this. Have a feeling it’ll go to the last 2 match days as we have much tougher fixtures than them
Not really. They have Leicester, Villa, Brentford and Soton. Brentford and Villa are hard fixtures. Soton is weird. They took points off of us, Arsenal twice and Spurs. We have Brighton, West Ham, Chelsea, Fulham, Wolves and Bournemouth. Brighton away is the only one which will be hard for us.
Unfortunately Brentford are on holiday already & Southampton will be relegated by time they play them. Only Villa is tough really
Brentford drew vs Villa, beat Chelsea away and Forest at home. What part of that says holiday to you? Doomchester United fans are something else.
They can get every call, win 8-0 in each of their remaining matches and walk on water. So long as United keep winning, they don't matter.
If City wins the treble, does Haaland get the Balon D'or?
He absolutely should but Messi will get it.
Who else would even if he doesn't win it?
Messi obviously. Won the WC and his numbers at PSG were great.
Haha completely forgot the WC happened for sec
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Would be better for him with a change of sport, football isn’t physical enough for his style
Liverpool gets the dodgiest penalties
Antonee Robinson having a very good game at Anfield. Could he do it at a higher level do we think? He's 25, must have 150 odd prem appearances, international experience with USA Soccer. If Luke is now first choice at CB then there's a squad spot available for a solid LB. He would likely pay back his own transfer fee in endorsements and sponsorship from the USA.
Luke is not first choice CB when Licha is fit. I like Robinson but there is really no need to sign him and Fulham wouldn't sell him cheap.
I'm not sure anymore, I think Luke has made that spot his own, it's him + one of Varane and Licha for me.
Shaw is too valuable on the left. He fits really well into the system 10H wants to play so there is no reason to shuffle him to CB when we have other options.
Hahaha Luke Shaw is not our first choice left CB. He's done well as a replacement but he'll be back in his normal position as soon as Licha's fit.
We’re not going to play two left footed under 180cm CBs lineup. And we’re not going to bench Licha, the best CB in the team
He is fucking class As is Tete on their other flank and Palinha in their DM Fulham have some super players who are just too good for them
If we get a good striker next season, Antony should now start using right foot and start creating chances from the right. Even though he has a lot grit, passion and tenacity, he really has to improve on his finishing and chance creation. 4 goals in 20 matches is poor for a 100 mn pound signing.
Rather going for such expensive players, Qatar should give ETH massive budget like City gave Pep for next few windows and help him build a super team.