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

I had a pair of cocker spaniels called Dolly and Daisy!

Soft spot for Tony Valencia - seemed like a great guy from a tough background and that one season where he was an assist machine for Rooney was gold!

Edited to add: the attitude/professionalism difference between Valencia & Sancho for example is night and day - and Sancho probably had more natural ability.

As is Ronaldo up top 🤣

During his entire time at the club he was the best right back in the team. He played left back, but he was undoubtably the best right back. That he could seamlessly switch from playing left back at United, to right back for Ireland when paired with Staunton / Harte, was remarkable.

They ate it up when they got going though.

Valencia at right back shows the issues at right back since Fergie!

Also highlights our midfield issues since signing Carrick!

Surely there is some love for Paul Parker.

Was my favourite United player when I was a kid (no idea why). Gutted when he joined Derby.

''Amorim is understood to be unhappy that Onana suffered a hamstring tear on his second day of pre-season after returning from Cameroon where a video emerged of him playing outfield on a muddy makeshift pitch with friends.

The United boss, who was also wary of Onana’s omission becoming a distraction for Lammens as the Belgian settles in, reached the decision to move him on with director of football Jason Wilcox.''

https://archive.ph/o4D5j

Honestly, Lammens doesn't even need to be ace imo for now. Just solid, consistent, dependable, who defenders know/trust will do the basics ok -if he doesn't make many world class saves but can regularly handle most normal corners /shots - that'll do me!

I don't know what their thinking was behind their GK decisions. Whitwell said that it was only Monaco that were interested in Onana throughout the Summer and it was clear early on that they couldn't afford him. I think it was always likely that Onana could only go to Saudi or Turkey and there was a merry go round with regards GKs and the Turkish clubs that maybe had to play out before Onana could be picked up.

Making it clear they wanted rid of Onana also would've reduced their bargaining power in negotiations for a new GK and Onana wasn't seen as a troublemaker in the squad.

I think the rumour about wanting Martinez in a swap deal for Sancho might explain some things. It's possible they thought Martinez was financially unviable in a standalone transaction but if they could've pressured Sancho to join Villa permanently in a swap deal, it would've been their first choice. Or if they somehow managed to persuade Villa to loan Martinez. Plan B was Lammens.

I’d say there was PSR shenanigans planned with Sancho and Martinez.

Artifically the fees of both and you create wiggle room for both sides. You recognise the sale price day 1. You spread the purchase price over contract length. Chelsea have done it plenty from memory.

I’d say in the end Sancho and Villa couldn’t agree on a long term deal so it fell through. Still happy to see Sancho out the door for 0 to remove his wages.

Ah, it must be because Sancho isn't actually gone - so he still has a 15m hit on our squad costs via amortization. Without getting rid of that, we must not have felt comfortable with the 150k or so a week more Martinez would be over Lammens. Not a fee issue, but that Martinez wages weren't being covered by removing the Sancho amortization cost.

Is the reason not likely to be Martinez's wage demands... That's what we were told during the summer.

Ineos are doing a serious job of reducing a ridiculous wage bill, as much as I wanted an experienced keeper, if they thought signing Martinez went against that work, then I'm ok with that. If you're taking a (much needed) hard line then there can't be any exceptions really.

I think it was the wages that turned us off, plus he's not top drawer. Likewise Donnarumma's wages were something like 300k per week - the market wasn't huge for decent keepers this summer.