Manchester United Thread 25/26 - Teamtalk/Transfers/Gossip Mod Note in OP 26.09.24

Don't disagree we need a new keeper but I think he is more limiting to a title push than a top 4/5 push so I'd prioritise money elsewhere this summer - if we do get a keeper I think it will be 1 in 1 out with the out funding in the in.

Dorgu is predominately left footed no? He seems comfortable on his right in fairness but I’m pretty sure he’s a left footed player.

Is it what he likes or is it just a case that the player who ends up performing best there is left footed?

Amad and Quenda would be right wingers / forwards in most systems and I guess the closest position to that in Amorim's system is at the the right wing role.

If the best option was a right footer I don't think he'd be against it.

I have to admit I'm not a fan. When there is just 1 player on the wing then I think they should be holding width and be on their favored foot to cross as there is no overlap when they go inside but there are plenty of players already taking up positions inside.

If you had a fit Mount moving from central to overlap an inverting player on that side it might work better.

I wonder will the club try to bring Gomes back for midfield?

Was a fair bit of chatter about the possibility earlier in the season, but not much lately. He's on a free so will likely have plenty of offers, and is likely to look for high wages.

Him and an experienced backup should bolster the midfield nicely for little outlay

Maybe he has been unlucky, but as it stands Martinez has started 91 games for United but missed 72 games with injury. He has a fresh ACL injury so by the time he returns he will have missed more games than he has played.

He will return a 27/28 year old CB approaching the final year of his 120k a week contract who will have missed huge chunks of the previous 3 years, there has to be huge doubts about how he performs when he returns. I'd consider him a candidate for another niggling injury after his return, if we see much of him next season at all I'll be surprised.

Maybe not a crock, but certainly crocked with injuries.

A case could be made that he has been unlucky with major injuries but I think there's an argument to be made that his playing style leads to them.

Yes. Very.

Credit ratings watchdogs are downgrading them. Basically, their earnings have fallen off a cliff and some of their companies are in massive debt, which is being covered by the successful companies, and the successful companies are propping the whole thing overall, but may lose their ability to do so if the companies losing money continue to do so.

Basically, if you can imagine this, it's like some lads decided to own a football club where they run it into the ground and have it heavily in debt, and then there's another part of the club that's using money to cover the debt run by one part to keep the share prices and value of the whole club up, but the lads covering the debt are running out of money and know they're running out of money, so no actual money is being invested in the club as it goes to paying the debt, so they're cutting everything they can, but don't seem to know how to sort it other than throw what little money you have at it and hope the market keeps the stock price high while you gut the business instead of investing in it.

Or to put it in more graphic terms, there's one lad sticking leeches on a body to suck as much blood out of it before it drains it completely, and there's another lad after coming in who's role is clearing hair on the body and make a few nicks to the skin so the first lads leeches can drain more blood.

You know, if you can imagine this. I mean, if that were to happen, I think that football club would be in serious financial bother in the not too distant future, up to going bust if the tide isn't stemmed, as covering debt with debt tends to cause a collapse at some stage.

But surely no football club could let that happen? Could they.

Yes, but their centre halves have some level of pace and movement to cover the space. He have McGuire and Yoro, who won't be competing in the Olympics sprints any time soon.

The also has a midfield than can cover. Or midfield can barely cover the centre circle, never mind their own half.

And their forwarded press hard. Ours don't.

That feckin Horse caused this!

Should be legal for the FA/Premier League to be able to force a shite owner out! Disgrace they were allowed carry out what they did!

Sickening…but we've know this for so long. What I find more concerning is that it seems as if Ineos were somewhat blindsided by just how bad a state the club was in!? Even more concerning if Ineos themselves are now in trouble.

The many onfield problems pale into insignificance.

In general I am never comfortable with people making statements like "They are no fools, he knows what he is doing" etc etc, and we heard a lot of that during the days before the INEOS deal was done. Lots of rich and smart people can be very foolish at times so I wasn't prepared to assume that Radcliffe and INEOS were definitely the be-all and end-all.

Then the deal itself was incredibly drawn out. I think I made a point at the time that even Musk's 43 billion Twitter purchase happened quicker than the United sale, and that included a legal fight in the middle of it when Musk tried to back out. It was incredibly drawn out and at the end of it they didn't even buy the club, they paid into it and ended up running it on behalf of the Glazers, which has always been bizarre to me.

So if after that long drawn out process we were to find out that INEOS still didn't do their full due diligence and still didn't know the full extent of the financial mess? If that were to actually be true then it would be astonishing.

I do sincerely hope that they do know all of this and it is baked into their long term plans.

The part I will never really understand is why the Glazers didn't take a couple of billion for the club and run. They will never make that amount of money through ownership, so I wonder if all the bidders actually did know the state of the finances and those £3/4/5 billion offers were never there to begin with.