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

Yeah I was kinda dissapointed not to see Lacey. We needed change in attack so why not give him a try he couldn't have done any worse and maybe he catches everyone by surprise.

Whatever your Opinions on them. The Academy produced Garnacho (I know he was signed at 16) who went on to make nearly 100 first team appearances by age 21 and before being ostracised by Amorim was probably valued at £70m+

And also Kobbie Mainoo. A player who started a Euro’s final at age 18 and was valued well in excess of £100m at that stage

Both saw their careers at United stall out for whatever reason but will still combined bring in over £100m and likely go on to have top careers.

For an elite club where it’s incredibly difficult to blood young talent - that is absolutely insane output. Mainoo and Garnacho are 1 in 10 year academy prospects if you’re doing very well. Probably bigger talents than Liverpool City or Chelsea have produced between them in a decade.

Rock of Gibraltar?

I think you missed his point….which was that the academy is capable of producing players talented enough to make the grade at a high level.
Opinions on Garnachos attitude (and whether United were correct to sell him) is an entirely different debate.

From what I’ve seen he’s doing Ok at Chelsea. 2 goals and 2 assists in the PL and Champions league so far, and he doesn’t always start games. Plenty of competition for places in the wide areas there, so that’s to be expected. I think Chelsea are fairly satisfied, they got him at a price below his real market value.

Remains to be seen of course if he keeps the right attitude, but the talent is there.

Same reason as saying Mainoo was a "well in excess of £100m" player.

Sensationalism.

Whatever about 2025, but United would have laughed at a 100m offer Mainoo in the summer of 2023 after the Euros. When you see the likes of Baleba, Wharton & Anderson being talked about in that bracket it’s not remotely sensationalist. His stock back then was definitely higher than theirs now (and with good reason).

Nobody on this forum would have even for a second considered a 100m sale in 2023.

Different story now but still be surprised if he went for less than £50-70m unless contract is run down. And that’s despite his stock plummeting over the last two years

Precisely this. I hated Garnacho. Horrible character, glad he’s gone.
But he was absolutely sold below his market value because he was put into a ‘bomb squad’ and told to ‘get a good agent’ in a very public spat. He then just picked his destination (Chelsea) and refused any competing clubs knowing we had to sell anyway.

I don’t think Ineos had much room to maneuver on Garnacho. It became practically public knowledge that he was given 3 months to find another club.
And at the same time we needed to start another Summer rebuild and begin filling some big holes in the squad, without an unlimited chequebook.

A pity we didn’t cash in on him in a more substantial way, but it seems we always find ways to screw ourselves on transfer fees.

He's been decent, but I think people have gone over the top in their praise as well. He scored a late equaliser and suddenly he's the future captain.

I wouldn't trust him to keep a clean sheet. He is quite passive and doesn't have that crazy desire to prevent goals that great centre backs have. He is very good at having good moments in games. He is also good at not committing himself so that people can't blame him when we concede.

He might be good enough to be a third or fourth choice in a title winning team, but that's about it.

Too much of a coward. His biggest fear is to change things and that it would actually work.

What nonsense are you talking?

Subsequent World class players who leave the club with minimal appearances and low fees are evidence of how hard it is for top PL clubs to push talent through the pipeline. I don’t consider Alvaro Carreras a United product. We failed to deliver his potential.

In terms of local development. Only Foden, Trent & maybe Mount reached the peak of Garnacho and Mainoo (£50-£100m players) at United. The likes of Musiala and Rice are evidence of the failure of Chelsea’s academy process, not its success

But the point around Garnacho and Mainoo is BS to be honest - Chelsea have produced Conor Gallagher, Mason Mount - both sold in the last few years for serious money (in Mount's case probably over market value) as well as Maatsen, Livramento, Lewis Hall, Broja, Humphreys who all earned the club very good money in the last 18months and are academy products.

Add to that the first team players we've kept like Reece James, Chalobah, Colwill who would cost millions to replace and are England internationals with 2 of 3 certain to go to the WC and the other one likely to if fit then your argument as naming Chelsea for not producing players through the academy is defunct.

We also have Tyrique George and Josh Acheampong who have played a lot of minutes over the past year and a half in our matchday squads who, you could argue, would combined fetch close to 60/70 million (George was all but gone to Fulham for 35million on deadline day) as well as younger players like Mheuka, Antwi and Reggie Walsh who Maresca gives minutes to regularly enough - these are all local development from the club and are being used. United's pipeline when compared to this is really poor!