The Manchester United Thread

[Theatre of Dreams83]

Sancho. Koullibaly.

There’s some serious FF being played on these here pages today.

And it’s not even a transfer window! Impressive.

If we go all out for Koulibaly which was reported in Jan and still being reported. It will be him and 1 more signing tops which will equal close to our top spend ever of about 150+ not including a few sales. Non of this 3/4 players lol some seem to be talking about. The rest will be supplemented by promoting some youth.

 

[Scouseinthehouse]

Neithers Koulibaly leaving Naples z in all liklehood but yer know?

And certainly not if Utd aren’t in the CL next season.

 

[Scouseinthehouse]

Didn’t he just extend for another 5 years with Napoli this season anyway or did I imagine that?

 

[steveorobbo]

People need to be realistic with regards to the summer we ain’t gonna buy a top starting FB, CB, DM, RW. Absolutely living in cloud cuckoo land if you think that’s the case. Your looking and 200m+ right there lol.

Not saying we'll get all them players but spending £200m+ in the summer isnt out of the question considering nothing was spent in January and a relatively low spend in the summer compared to most top teams. We need top 4 first to guarentee the extra money, but if we keep OGS that saves a fair chunk from the cost of getting Poch and his backroom staff he brings. Then outgoing players we expect to leave like Rojo and Darmian. Possibly even Fred for the right price the way its going. If somebody is stupid enough to take Sanchez even better. The money is certainly there though.

 

[Legend Incredible]

As much as I hate to agree with scouse, he is right. OGS was given a tactical lecture yesterday. And one more concern moving forward is relying too much on Pogba. As PSG took him out of the game, we offered very little going forward. So every team moving forward will try to replicate the same tactics.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using Tapatalk

 

[Theatre of Dreams83]

If we spend 200m + I will where a Pool shirt for a whole year. Absolutely bob hope and no hope even after sales. Which we won’t get hardly anything for from the players likely to leave. We never spend in Jan and we’ve never spent 200m+ in the summer ever!

 

[steveorobbo]

If we spend 200m + I will where a Pool shirt for a whole year. Absolutely bob hope and no hope even after sales. Which we won’t get hardly anything for from the players likely to leave. We never spend in Jan and we’ve never spent 200m+ in the summer ever!

Not saying we will. Just saying the money is there. The market has never been this inflated to spend over £200m. It is now. Very soon it will be the norm for top teams.

Even Fulham spent over £100m in the summer and other mid to low end teams spent big (West Ham). And top teams are consistently spending ~£150m in summer windows and adding more in January.

 

[Mike.]

Didn’t he just extend for another 5 years with Napoli this season anyway or did I imagine that?

Yeah he did. I keep saying it, unless we want to make him the most expensive defender ever, it's not happening. We're talking 100m

 

[Theatre of Dreams83]

Yeah he did. I keep saying it, unless we want to make him the most expensive defender ever, it's not happening. We're talking 100m

For any top CB except Toby we’re gonna be looking at close to 100m Koulibaly, Skriniar etc.

 

[Theatre of Dreams83]

Not saying we will. Just saying the money is there. The market has never been this inflated to spend over £200m. It is now. Very soon it will be the norm for top teams.

Even Fulham spent over £100m in the summer and other mid to low end teams spent big (West Ham). And top teams are consistently spending ~£150m in summer windows and adding more in January.

We could sure. But the quality of player will drop the more players you want.

 

[wkdsoul]

Pogba was only really isolated massively once you had Martial and Lingard go off, no runners, no outball as long as Marquinos cut off the rashford direction, pog had no where to go but back on himself.

 

[steveorobbo]

For any top CB except Toby we’re gonna be looking at close to 100m Koulibaly, Skriniar etc.

That pretty much sums up what im saying. Even at the bare minimum we need a CB and possibly a RW. If the CB is costing upwards of £100m, what is a world class RW going to cost? Another £75-100m or more in this market? Theres your £200m there just on 2 players. Even one £100m CB and two £50m players is £200m. Really wouldn't surprise me if we spent that in the summer or more. Its not like we don't need to for the quality of players we need.

 

[Theatre of Dreams83]

That pretty much sums up what im saying. Even at the bare minimum we need a CB and possibly a RW. If the CB is costing upwards of £100m, what is a world class RW going to cost? Another £75-100m or more in this market? Theres your £200m there just on 2 players. Even one £100m CB and two £50m players is £200m. Really wouldn't surprise me if we spent that in the summer or more. Its not like we don't need to for the quality of players we need.

IF we get a CB and a RW for about 80m each that still only 160m before sales. So your still only going to be close to our ever top spend anyway. People talking about Neves and a top FB on top of that are dreaming imo.

I can see us starting to go down the route of buy potential players that have enough experience and still have plenty of development in them.

 

[steveorobbo]

Even for a player with potential your looking at £50m in this market. It will only get even more stupid of Bayern pay ridiculous money for Hudson-Odoi. Its not like years ago where you could cherry pick from the smaller clubs for a half decent fee. There's that much money now even Fulham can spend £100m in one window and West Ham/Everton sign players for getting on £40-50m.

 

[Theatre of Dreams83]

Even for a player with potential your looking at £50m in this market. It will only get even more stupid of Bayern pay ridiculous money for Hudson-Odoi. Its not like years ago where you could cherry pick from the smaller clubs for a half decent fee. There's that much money now even Fulham can spend £100m in one window and West Ham/Everton sign players for getting on £40-50m.

You get a FB, CM, CB that’s 150m before sales. Really don’t see how anyone can say seriously we are gonna spend 200m+ especially with these owners who tbh I don’t think have been to bad. But that’s another discussion. We will get imo 2 top players or 3 potential to be top players. With no more spend of around 130-150m.

 

[Scouseinthehouse]

Top quality bargains are still there to be had if your set-up is right robbo.

We’ve a team packed out with them.

 

[steveorobbo]

Im not saying the owners will spend. Im just saying that with the way the market is going, and what smaller clubs can now spend, its all relative. If Fulham, a newly promoted team can spend £100m, there is no way we can't spend £200m if need be. Even over this season on both windows we have a net spend of around £40m which is nothing. If players are available in the summer we need to sign them.

 

[Theatre of Dreams83]

Top quality bargains are still there to be had if your set-up is right robbo.

We’ve a team packed out with them.

Look at Paredes to PSG 35m absolute bargain I n today’s market. Reports in Italy that Roma would let Pellegrini go for around 45m. Even less for Cengiz Under. Fiorentina want a fee of around 50m euros for Milenkovic. These are the sort of signings I expect us to make. Serge Bander fee rumoured to be around 25-30m. Chiesa for around 50m.

Not Koulibaly or Skriniar for 80-100m. Then people saying Neves on top of that which your looking at what between 60-70m maybe more. Alex Sandro for about the same. Then a Odoi who Chelsea will absolutely have our pants down and shafted 10 times over. To much gaming going on lately me thinks.

 

[RhQQ]

Look at Paredes to PSG 35m absolute bargain I n today’s market. Reports in Italy that Roma would let Pellegrini go for around 45m. Even less for Cengiz Under. Fiorentina want a fee of around 50m euros for Milenkovic. These are the sort of signings I expect us to make. Serge Bander fee rumoured to be around 25-30m. Chiesa for around 50m.

Not Koulibaly or Skriniar for 80-100m. Then people saying Neves on top of that which your looking at what between 60-70m maybe more. Alex Sandro for about the same. Then a Odoi who Chelsea will absolutely have our pants down and shafted 10 times over. To much gaming going on lately me thinks.

None of these guys bring us to the next level, whereas the likes of Koulibaly/Skriniar do significantly improve us - that's why they're 2x the fee, and that's who we need to sign. Majority of the bolded players are who you'd expect the Everton, West Ham's to target.

I appreciate most people's wishlists are 200/300M and that may seem FM-esque, but that's what we need to spend to continue to progress/jump to the next level. We only spent around 20-25% of our total turnover the last few seasons I read somewhere, so even though to the naked eye our investment looks heavy, there's a lot more room for it & it's sustainable at a club/franchise like Manchester United... the Glazers need to ******* dip their hands in. Liverpool spent close to 50% of their turnover on players, and look where they are now from that investment.

We are a football club. That money is for our football club. We can easily challenge the PSG's, Madrid's etc. for world fees in this inflated market, so why not ******* flex it?

 

[Theatre of Dreams83]

Mitten has posted an update on DOF: Doesn't look like it's Paul Mitchell



It's not just a new first-team manager that Manchester United will be making a decision on this summer. If Ole Gunnar Solskjaer keeps winning games and manager of the month awards as he did for January, United won't have far to look. Yet the search for their first sporting director, someone independent of any manager, is different and will be far from straightforward.

For a start, United's eventual sporting director won't be a buffer between Ed Woodward, United's executive vice chairman, and the manager, but rather someone who will work alongside any manager and Woodward. Various names and options have been looked at internally and externally, though ESPN understands that the sporting director is unlikely to be Paul Mitchell, the Mancunian who was at Tottenham and who has been linked to the job.

United made the decision to seek and appoint a sporting director while Jose Mourinho was in charge. He never warmed to the idea while at United, but his view obviously no longer counts. Initially, the club wanted to appoint a director of football who would take into account the increasing administration needs, handling club operations, but that role was not going to have any say in transfers and would be more focused on governing body regulations, registrations and general day-to-day business. The new appointment will have greater involvement in this and several other areas.

The club are calm about the search as they look at what they want from this position, one that, as Arsene Wenger pointed out last year, is without any clear job description. United will look at how these operate at different clubs, as well as what kinds of remits and roles they have. United will scan the available talent beyond the club but there already are well-respected football people at Old Trafford like Tony Whelan or John Murtagh, who've been involved coaching, recruitment and admin, while Matt Judge is the man who negotiates United's player contracts.

Just as they brought Solskjaer in as someone who fits in with the culture, they want someone who understands Manchester United's DNA. Jordi Cruyff, someone with experience of being a sporting director, was in Manchester with his former teammate Solskjaer on Thursday. The pair joined United in 1996 and became close friends. Cruyff is currently managing in China's Premier League, but he twice turned down the chance to be Barcelona's sporting director, in 2017 and 2018.

I met him recently in Barcelona and asked him what being a sporting director entails.

"A good sporting director should identify who you are as a club, the type of people you need, what the fans want and what type of football should be played. Everyone wants offensive football, but that's not always possible," he said.

Cruyff even talked through me the DNA of several clubs.

"Atletico Madrid's DNA is about character. It's [Diego] Simeone now. At Barcelona, everything is with the ball," he explained. "Size [of the players] doesn't matter; it's all about top-quality talent. Barca are obliged to play a certain way, to occupy spaces, to be neat and tidy. And when you have [Lionel] Messi, the best player in the world, you adapt a little for him.

"Barca should also give youth players a chance. Man United used to have that ... That has been quiet for a while. Sometimes you need to be lucky with the generation of players coming through; sometimes you need the person in place who gives young players a platform like [Sir Alex] Ferguson did.

"Man United was about winning and they had such a good reputation that if both Manchester clubs wanted a player five years ago, players would go to United. Now that has changed, but football clubs always go through good and bad spells and United are capable of getting back to the best. They've got the ingredients, the huge fan base and now with Ole in charge, it looks like they're trying to become the real Man United once again."

Ed Woodward, left, and club owners like Avram Glazer, right, are determined to sort the structure above the manager but are still figuring out what the director of football will do. Craig Mercer/MB Media/Getty Images
Solskjaer is now part of the decision-making process at Old Trafford, but at most clubs, the sporting director helps recruit a manager.

"Some guys are called sporting directors but they're glorified head of recruitment officers -- in other words, the CEO still does the negotiating of the player contracts," one leading agent, who deals regularly with sporting directors, told ESPN. "A true sporting director will do 90 percent of the contracts, though the biggest may need the CEO.

"The sporting director should be putting a recruitment team [structure for scouting future signings] in place. A well-run club will have a head of recruitment reporting to the sports director, something the first-team coach should do. He would also have the head of academy reporting into him."

"It wouldn't be wise for Man United to promote from within," opined the agent. "Clearly they've made a lot of mistakes over the last few years, so all they will be doing is perpetuating those mistakes. At United, a giant club, you need the right cultural fit.

"Look at Monchi, the most famous sporting director now with Roma but formerly with Sevilla. Would he fit into a situation at United with Judge and Woodward, plus the American owners? I don't think so. [Txiki] Begiristain does well at City because of the mix of him Pep [Guardiola] and Ferran [Soriano, Manchester City CEO]. Why, at Arsenal, did Raul Sanllehi recently get rid of Sven Mislintat? Perhaps because he was on a different wavelength to him and [Unai] Emery.

"For me, someone like Michael Zorc [at Borussia Dortmund] would be excellent for United. He's bought well and sold superbly. He picked a team up from a club that was in financial ruin."

That said, a sporting director isn't just about recruitment.

"While the sporting director doesn't need to be the coach's guy, a sporting director should be responsible for having a large input into who should be coach, because a coach should report to a sporting director," the agent explained.

"United should do it properly or not do it at all. You can't be half-committed. You either make a sporting director in charge of all on-field things including the contracts, which Judge could execute. But a sporting director should have good experience negotiating contracts too."

United will take their time. After all, it's a major change for a club that has always given all the power to their manager. But it's a change that, given the experience of the past seven years after Ferguson, United badly need to bring them up to date as the role of an all-encompassing manager becomes all but impossible.