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

Kepa is not an immediate upgrade on Onana.

People are going way too over the top on the Onana criticism in my opinion. It's getting to Harry Maguire levels at this stage. He'd be 5th or 6th in terms of position on my list to replace and I suspect the club feels the same way given what we've heard so far.

True. I don't see us replacing him this summer. I think our next signing will be Mbeumo or a striker.

has been great for us over a few years now. if the reports are true, ineos should be offering payrise (maybe some sort of promotion) to keep hold of him.

Arsenal, City, Chelsea in the first 5 games.....Amorims sacked 😂

Sooner we get signings in the better - need a really good pre-season and hit the ground running.

The Chelsea and City games could be ok to be fair, as they are going to be coming off a really long season and a really poor pre-season with the CWC (or at least they might be, if the players take their holidays). So we could be catching them at a good time fitness wise in the opening games.

It's a very difficult start but December and the beginning of January are about as favourable as you can get, which is good because it's the only period next season when we'll have a congested fixture list.

Yes but momentum is huge in sport. If the team lose the first 3 games. They will already know they are not going anywhere and it could get worse. With 5 easy games, that we managed to win. The confidence would be really high and players would believe we can challenge for top 4 etc.

I don;t thinkk we can get all in for the start of pre-season, but I absolutely think we should get Mbeumo sorted well before then, and we should have deals in decent disucssion for other players, pending sales.

The thing is, we can't really on the one hand demand that they stop overpaying in the market but on the other hand get deals done asap (which often means overpaying!). We all recognise that we've burned through a lot of cash over the last decade, so we need some discipline in the market. I would prefer to see them move quickly to #2 and #3 targets if they can't get their #1 targets at a value they deem reasonable.

I don't care who comes in. It was supposed to be about getting time with the players on the training field and improving performance in the system. Heard that plenty.

Well, here is a full pre season, loads of time for training. So let's see the improvement.

Win or lose those early games against City/Chelsea/Liverpool doesn't really matter. To me it's about whether the shape and performance has improved or not. I want to see evidence of that right from the start.

Would anyone be happy with 2 wins and a draw from the first 5 games?

Rudy Galetti (no idea how respected he is) reporting that Spurs have given up on Mbeumo because his mind is made up and he's going to United.

So just a matter of time on that one and if true that he's not interested in other offers then that helps us in negotiations.

Tough start? That's an understatement. The only way it could be tougher is if you swapped Liverpool and Newcastle for Burnley and Fulham.

To be honest, given how poor we have been this season, I'd happily take two comfortable wins against Fulham and Burnley, and three single goal loss to City, and two draws against Arsenal and Chelsea. Or 8 points form 15. Not a great start by any means, but a solid one given the teams we're facing. And solid is something we need right now, be difficult to beat, don't lose at home and beat the teams we should be beating well (basically the opposite of this season).

One thing we can't afford to do is lose 4 of the first five, and lose heavily. The next 5 games after that are Brentford, Sunderland, Liverpool, Brighton and Forest. Obviously Sunderland are just up and an unknown quality (although likely poor), but we've been poor against the other four for a while now. The Premier league is getting to a point where all games bar the promoted sides are tough games, and a poor start, well then the following five games become no easy task either.

Amorim really needs to hit the ground running next season. If he doesn't, then quite literally, our league season could be done by Halloween.

If that doesn't focus the board into getting a few more proven signings, I don't know what will. We're going to have to step it up a bit in the transfer market, and get the signings in early to prepare as much as possible. This dragging out of the Mbuemo signing stinks of past transfer windows, we need to have our ducks in a row as quickly as possible if we want to start the season with some results.

I don't think people are harsh enough in their criticism of Onana to be honest, maybe a Summer with Amorim changes that but he is categorially the worst keeper I've seen at United in my time watching them.

He cost us getting knocked out of the Champions League last season. He nearly got us knocked out of the Europa League this season in the quarter final v Lyon after his stupid comments pre match. He has given up plenty of soft goals in the league, especially last season - Brighton, Ipswich, Forest perfect examples.

He'd be up there with Hojlund as main priorities to replace this season. The fact that Inter sold him for £50million and replaced him with Sommer for £5million shows there is value in the market. Sommer is nothing special but he is absolutely an upgrade on Onana.