Manchester United Thread 25/26 - Teamtalk/Transfers/Gossip Mod Note in OP 12.02.26

I would hope so too. Pretty well summed up.

Cunha and a top class striker will transform our attack but we need to prioritise that top class number 9 striker first.

Was at the game also, one thing I noticed was the warmup, players only came out about 25mins before kick off, they went through a fairly lacklustre warm up, a good portion was the attackers just spamming the ball at goal, thought it looked a bit unorganised and lacked intensity, honestly we go through a more vigorous warm up with our junior football team.

Would love if there was even a shred of truth in the Cunha story but if you put yourself in the position of the likes of him who probably has the choice of 10 top clubs to sign for…….

Why oh why would you join our shitshow!😥

And if the answer is because you are being offered crazy money…..well then INEOS may as well feck off!……

I say young I mean 25ish years.

Holy **** I just felt old typing that.

Not sure if posted...

Classic stuff for Harry's winner.

You could be right - none of us know.

My view is that it isn't as bleak as is being suggested - and in some ways the financial aspects need to be compartmentalised.

Jim did say we would be out of money by the end of the year - but that is the reality we have had for a number of years. that is why we had the credit facility; with the goal being to not use it/use it less going forward. So I don;t think he was lying, but it isn't a new situation. He simply doesn't want to be relying on that like the Glazers have.

The staff cuts are, imo, to bring the operational costs down below a certain percentage of revenue. Ie. we spend X on football (direct) and X on Operational - they want to reduce the operational which has increased massively in the last 5 years in comparison to Revenue - by reducing th eoperation we then reduce our losses and/or increase the money available for direct football use.

I personally look at the Wage/Revenue situation at the club and think it looks fine in terms of general budgeting - second or third lowest percentage in the league - so it doesn't scream like we need to be getting tens of millions from that each year. And the reality is that if we want to get back into the CL, we probably can't afford to.

The real issue with wages, imo, is the value we get.

Rasford doing nothing for us on 350k
Sancho doing nothing for us on 250k
Eriksen and Lindelof on 150-180k each?
Antony on 110-140k?

IMO if you move Rashford on and replace hiim with Osimhen you are saving no money but you are getting 25 extra goals a season.
IMO if you move sancho on and replace him with Chuna you are saving maybe a little, but you are probably getting 15 extra goals a season

Add 40 goals to this side like that - and we rocket up the table. Maybe not certainty for top 4, but we'd be in that conversation.

I do think we will need to see some relatively significant salels to provide the cash to make this summer a big one - but I don't think the general cost of the football side needs to reduce, we 'just' need to get value for that money.

I would fear having a CM pairing of Ugarte and Bruno. Teams would run / power through us. I've been a critic of Bruno but he has been excellent lately, and I know some of those performances have come when he has dropped deeper but I don't see him as a Plan A for CM, it suits to play him there when we're chasing a game or late on in games but I wouldn't be looking at him to play that position as a constant. Ugarte isn't good enough to take on the main defensive work, he would need more help than Bruno provides on the regular.

Osimhen(Another decent striker), Cunha and Bruno would be a very strong front 3.

It might be too much of a push to expect a CM signing on top of them. If so, I would hope that Amorim can prove his worth and make a solid CM pairing from Ugarte, Mainoo, Collyer, Casemiro, Mount… not ideal, but if he gets a very good striker and 10, I think we should expect that he can find some short term solution to get us to the next summer window.

It's a bleak picture but Jim it was in Ratcliffe's interest to be painting it as bleakly amid such staffing cuts, media attention etc. He also said something along that lines that we would be the most profitable club in the world in 5 years (iirc). So it can't be that bleak... I also think he said that there would be investment in the squad this summer (or something along the lines that Amorim will be backed this summer).

I can see us being active this summer but only because/if there's a fairly substantial clear out... Sancho, Rashford, Antony and maybe the likes of Garnacho.

Which club do you think Delap would pick over Utd?

I don't see him getting offers from the very top, maybe Chelsea

Newcastle and Chelsea are being linked.
Newcastle will probably be in the CL but if Isak stays then he is second choice.
Chelsea will likely have euro football, and are further in their project - decent chance of being first choice there. Worked with their coach at City I think.
I also wonder if Arsenal or Liverpool could end up being in for him - like if Arsenal can't get Gyokeres do they fall back to Delap? He might not be instant first choice at Arsenal but he'd have a good shout at it, and he'd have a much better platform than here.
Villa seemed happy to listen to an offer for Watkins in January, so maybe they sell him and look at Delap? They will have europe in some guise. More stable too.

At United he' be first choice, but he'd also be signing for a side that could finish 17th. There is no certainty we finish in Euro places next season either.

It will rumble for another while anyway, imo - cause we won't do anything til our outcome from the EL is known. So it could also be the case that Chelsea are saying we want you andd want you to sign now (next week for eg) and we are saying 'Wait til June cause we might want to sign someone better'.

Scott Carson's contract in 2022 was £30K a week. One source says Napoli's first choice Alex Meret whose out of contract this summer is on £3.1M a year.