Summer Transfer Window 2018

[MDK]

5 minutes ago, DavidMarrio said:

Also I play centre back and I am available. 

Yes but I have more mass than you.

[Matt]

7 hours ago, Jimmy said:

Yeah, I really rate Marco Silva and a bunch of those signings looks really decent. 

Still kinda can't get my head around us not signing anyone. Really hoping a few youngsters, especially Onomah, get a chance to impress this year. We've still got a great starting XI and I think Lucas will have a big impact this season. I also think Aurier will be better this year & of course I'm backing Lamela to score at least 15 in the league and have a stormer. Like I have for the last five years. 

Did you really need anyone? You've not lost anyone so all you could add would be strength in depth, with the fees going around at the minute I don't think that would've been great business. Sessegnon would've been a good addition but I don't think I'd have been great business for him personally... Maybe a playmaking centre midfielder but there aren't too many going and you'd be paying through the nose. In the current market, i think you've done well by standing still. You should still get top 4 and you'd be talking hundreds of millions to make you competitive for the title or Europe

I'm reasonably content with our business. I think we're a centre half short and ideally we could do with another holding midfielder and another striker but hopefully Pep or Poch will do Bielsa a favour in the loan market for those positions

[Lineker]

40 minutes ago, Matt said:

Did you really need anyone? You've not lost anyone so all you could add would be strength in depth, with the fees going around at the minute I don't think that would've been great business. Sessegnon would've been a good addition but I don't think I'd have been great business for him personally... Maybe a playmaking centre midfielder but there aren't too many going and you'd be paying through the nose. In the current market, i think you've done well by standing still. You should still get top 4 and you'd be talking hundreds of millions to make you competitive for the title or Europe

I'm reasonably content with our business. I think we're a centre half short and ideally we could do with another holding midfielder and another striker but hopefully Pep or Poch will do Bielsa a favour in the loan market for those positions

Totally agree.

New quotes from Poch, who wanted Spurs to "be brave and take risks" in May, says the club have shown bravery by declining to sign any players this summer and focusing instead on retaining their top stars while investing heavily in their infrastructure.

[Jimmy]

6 hours ago, Matt said:

Did you really need anyone? You've not lost anyone so all you could add would be strength in depth, with the fees going around at the minute I don't think that would've been great business. Sessegnon would've been a good addition but I don't think I'd have been great business for him personally... Maybe a playmaking centre midfielder but there aren't too many going and you'd be paying through the nose. In the current market, i think you've done well by standing still. You should still get top 4 and you'd be talking hundreds of millions to make you competitive for the title or Europe

I'm reasonably content with our business. I think we're a centre half short and ideally we could do with another holding midfielder and another striker but hopefully Pep or Poch will do Bielsa a favour in the loan market for those positions

I definitely think we could've done with centre midfield player or potentially a left back. I'm totally behind not buying for the sake of it - and ecstatic about the lack of players leaving - but I don't believe there wasn't a few targets we wanted. Like, we clearly wanted Grealish, so I'm disappointed that didn't happen. 

I really hope Onomah gets a shot in centre midfrield this season, especially with question marks over Dembele, Wanyama and Winks' fitness. A fully fit Harry Winks would be great too. 

That said, I think the lack of central midfield signing (something I felt we could do with) might suggest that Eriksen is going to play deeper this season, which is something we started to see more last year. That's potentially very exciting as it allows a spot for Lucas or Lamlea to play up top with Alli, Son & Kane. 

[The Lusophone]

If Spurs wanted to win the league, they needed at least one signing, even if only for cover. Their squad is good - probably the best in the league outside of Man City - but that squad was good enough last season for third place and 23 points behind the champions. As much as he's got heaps of potential, Onomah's not making up those 23 points or even a decent amount of them.

And United are in the same boat. Fred isn't going to be worth 19 points on his own and United inability to bring in a winger and another defender mean that, even if Man City have a worse season than last time out, I can't see anyone overhauling them.

[Baddar]

Injuries might mean Fred and Andreas start tonight so it's something to look forward to, at least. 

[DavidMarrio]

Mike Ashley's Sports Direct has agreed to buy the House of Fraser department store chain for £90m.

Meant to be good up front him

 

[King Ellis]

2 hours ago, DavidMarrio said:

Mike Ashley's Sports Direct has agreed to buy the House of Fraser department store chain for £90m.

Meant to be good up front him

 

Is that a foreign name, like Vennegoor of Hesselink? 

[Lineker]

Michy Batshuayi had gone to Valencia on loan.

[Adam]

Kurt Zouma has signed for Everton on loan.

[The Lusophone]

Everton have a better squad than we do. 

[9 to 5]

18 hours ago, MexicoJack said:

Everton have a better squad than we do. 

Agreed. Everton do have a stronger squad than Plymouth this season.

[Matt]

37 minutes ago, 9 to 5 said:

Agreed. Everton do have a stronger squad than Plymouth this season.

Don't be silly, Plymouth have no chance of promotion this year

[The Lusophone]

44 minutes ago, 9 to 5 said:

Agreed. Everton do have a stronger squad than Plymouth this season.

Obviously.

5 minutes ago, Matt said:

Don't be silly, Plymouth have no chance of promotion this year

This entirely depends on how well the new signings settle and whether they can replace the likes of Sonny Bradley. Probably mid table but the game against Southend today will be a better indicator of where Plymouth are than the loss against Walsall was.

[Lineker]

Slimani to Fenerbahce on a season-long loan.

[Noah]

Quote

 

New Manchester United midfielder Fred could have gone somewhere other than Old Trafford when he left Shakhtar Donetsk this summer.

"There were options in England and in Europe," Fred told me in Miami during United's preseason tour. "Manchester City, PSG, but I chose United. I spoke to my agent Gilberto Silva, who played for Arsenal. He told me that United was a huge club. I spoke to my family and friends. When I said United, I saw their faces. I'm sure that I made the right choice. I want to play in and win the Premier League, the best league in the world. I had a proposal from China too, but I didn't want to go there because I wanted to join United."

In the face of interest from better teams, United scouted and contacted Fred, completing his signing on June 21. The credit for that goes to executive vice-president Ed Woodward, head of corporate development Matt Judge and manager Jose Mourinho. Maybe Fred will become a world-beater; maybe he will underwhelm as much as other Brazilian midfielders to have played for United. What is certain, though, is that his transfer, like that of Marouane Fellaini in 2013, will be viewed as part of a window in which his new club failed to get the other players they wanted.

That failure dominated the build-up to the new Premier League season. Mourinho spoke continually about his frustration in preseason, while United sent a different message. Paul Pogba, who was made captain on Friday for the win against Leicester City, said something else entirely. United is not a club at which everyone sings from the same hymn sheet and that is far from ideal, but each of the parties involved have their own -- valid -- points of view.

Mourinho did not get the players he wanted. The club feel that they have backed him strongly since he arrived in 2016 and maintained that top money was available to sign a young, world-class defender who would have improved the current team. What they would not do was break transfer records for players only marginally better than those already on the books, which is fair enough.

The relationships between Mourinho and Woodward and Mourinho and Pogba could be better. Maybe, one day, they will. Maybe, as Mourinho suggested on Friday, managers will become more like coaches who work with a sporting director, a model Manchester City or Barcelona have found successful. United have long been advocates of the manager having all the power. During the days of Sir Alex Ferguson, he was very much in charge, though he relied on trusted assistants like his brother Martin or assistant manager Mike Phelan to watch potential targets and offer a second opinion.

"We didn't want to do that (director of football)," Woodward told me in 2013, soon after taking his current role. "We have a manager who we want to give our full support to make his decisions about the players and the decisions about the academy. [David Moyes] has the same power that [Sir Alex Ferguson] did."

Five years on, things have changed and the club is looking to appoint a director of football, who has responsibility for continuity of playing style and recruitment. In the best cases, a DoF brings outstanding talent to a club and works closely with its managers. Txiki Begiristain, for example, has worked with Pep Guardiola at Barcelona and Manchester City. Monchi, now at Roma, set the template for a whole club when at Sevilla, where he spotted players like Dani Alves and Ivan Rakitic. Such people know football and can not only evaluate a prospective signing based on ability but also assess whether or not he can fit into a system. What is more, those players might not necessarily be the biggest names; a tactic United have often used with patchy results.

For the DoF model to work, there would need to be compromise on all sides; when a manager and director of football do not work together, it can be negative and destabilizing at a club. When they do, they can help each other do their job better. It remains to be seen how Mourinho would work with a DoF -- at Real Madrid he fell out with Jorge Valdano, who left his job as sporting director -- or whether he will have any say in who takes the role, though both will have a say in transfers. There would also be input from Woodward, as there is now. But it is better to bow to, say, Edwin van der Sar's knowledge than that of Woodward in the inexact science of football recruitment.

A good DoF is adept at identifying talent and negotiating transfers and would know if player X at Barcelona or Real Madrid was genuinely seeking a move, as opposed to using any "interest" in United to get himself a better deal at his current club. Knowledge and contacts are vital in DoF role and ideally, in these days of managers' ever-shorter stays in one place, they can look to the longer term. United is a club still undergoing significant change, with senior positions -- including a new director of communications -- to be filled. That pales when the team are playing well and winning but, when they are not, supporters justifiably ask questions.

A director of football will not be a panacea for every transfer market issue. However having a skilled, respected operator, who works and cares for the club, could be a significant asset.

 

Andy Mitten, ESPN.

[Baddar]

If he wants to win the Premier League, he might not have made the "right choice". 

[stokeriño]

Tiemoue Bakayoko has joined AC Milan on a loan-with-option-to-buy. The agreed fee is rumoured to be about 35m euros which, if you add on a couple of mill in loan fee, is about as close to breakeven from the 45m euros we bought him for that we're going to get (considering he spent that one year being largely shit).

Alternatively they may just send him back next summer, which would be annoying.

[The Lusophone]

Quote

But it is better to bow to, say, Edwin van der Sar's knowledge than that of Woodward in the inexact science of football recruitment.

I agree with the piece but not this line. Edwin van der Sar is a very skilled managing and marketing director, hence his promotion from that role to CEO of Ajax. But he is not, nor has he ever been a director of football. He has never negotiated a transfer for Ajax since taking a director role in 2012. The role of buying players for Ajax falls to Technical Director Marc Overmars.

There are clear reasons for United to have a Director of Football, and good candidates out there, but Edwin isn't the right choice.

[Gazz]

I'll do it.