The North Remembers - Winter 2018/19 Transfer Thread

Keep the squad the same. I don't like January signings.

 

I’d still take Toby. Bailly, Lindelof and Tuanzebe would benefit greaty training and playing next to an established CB.

 

If there's any questioning of Jose's ability by the board, then he shouldn't be given any funds in January.

But again, if that's the case he should be sacked sooner so the new manager can come in, assess the squad, and maybe bring a player or two in during the January window.

 

Regardless of whether a new manager comes in or not, the needs of the team still haven't changed. Ie, a veteran central defender, a right sided forward and possibly a LB.
Whether those needs can seriously be addressed in January remains to be seen, but also, it stands to reason that any move we make can not be with Mourinho in mind, since there is a possibility he may not be around for much longer either.
Can't pass up on a good opportunity if one presents itself, however. Conversely, if there are no really good opportunities out there, the last thing that needs to happen is buying someone just for the sake of doing so either. Would rather save our funds for a really big summer in 2019.

 

Baily, Lindelof, Dalot, Pogba, have all been acquired in their low 20s or younger. Mou is correct in thinking that we need more experienced players to balance out the squad, he just has targeted the wrong players or Woody shot for the moon and suggested Varane. As you suggested though priority number one should be to install a DOF

 

Huge kistami to bring in a dof while jm is still here.

Who is ramseR? Someone mentioned him earlier.

 

Fcuk... Mistake and Ramsey.

This damn phone is making me look dumber than I really am.

 

Whethe we get a DoF by January or not, it really should not change the fact that we may want to keep tabs on and possibly make a move for Alderweireld in January.
All depends on how the defense looks by then and whether he still hasn't signed a new contract with Spurs. If the latter especially hasn't happened, that would all but confirm he has no intention of staying with the club. And eventhough dealing with Levy is no cakewalk, Woodward would be in a position of strength, if he actually tried for him (given he will be available for just £25mil by May-June).
Wonder how much Levy would have let him go for this past summer, if we had actually tried going after him. Since we now know that all the rumors on that front of negotiations between United and Tottenham were complete fabrication for the most part.

 

The window is pointless if we don't fire JM early enough to install a TD or DOF who can oversee the recruitment process.

We have enough talent to play much better football than we are playing. We however ARE short of talent to get better results than we've got. We are not title challengers or CL semi final worthy.

We need upgrades at FB and RW. We could use a CB, but honestly, I think there's enough talent to do better than we've shown. Remember, Fergie won the league with Smalling/Jones/Evans as our main CBs. The league wasn't as good as it is now, but Smalling/Jones/Bailly/Lindelof is in need of an upgrade but the situation isn't terminal and it shouldn't affect our ability to play good football and beat most teams in the league given our relative strength in other areas.

 

Fergie won but the competition did not have the quality like they do today. That's a fact.

 

Yeah, I addressed that. The point was we can achieve better football with the players we have and while the league wasn't great, we destroyed all the small teams almost as a rule at the end of Fergie's reign. It shouldn't be hard to destroy cannon fodder with our talent and then take a more pragmatic approach in the big games. It shouldn't be impossible, but apparently it is.

 

the new td will only be a middle man with no real power between woodward and mourinho. wake me up when woodward is fired (he'll never curtail his transfer responsibilities on his own, loves the spotlight too much).

 

We need a reliable finisher.

 

I’m not opposed to this. I think it is true. I also think Lukaku, Martial, Sanchez and Rashford is more than enough for the finishing standpoint. I think more than finishing,we need penetration,especially from the RW or RB spot.

 

We need a ********ing attacking system.

 

This is one of those arse-about-tit situations where we've spent the last 4 years creating as few chances as possible, giving players scant opportunities to focus their scoring instincts and ruthlessness as we can, and focussing all of our attacking efforts through a couple of players at a time. Harry Kane scores chances like that, appears ruthless, because he gets to take far more shots than that against other opposition. He cuts his teeth in games where he has lots of chances to celebrate in front of the crowd, and carries that imperiousness into the next game where he might have one chance.

It's plain as day that we need to get into a position where we can afford to be wasteful occasionally. We need to routinely generate far more good chances, much more so than we need to try and squeeze more blood from the stone.

 

Lukaku has zero goals and 2 or 3 missed sitters. I'm not counting him there. Martial wont play

 

Point stands, we have 2 or 3 finishers already but they're bollocksed by the way we've used them and/or are in a poor patch of form. We can certainly add another finisher to the list of finishers we've bollocksed up if that'd make people happy.

 

Lukaku has one goal out of two starts and was one of our best players last season. Talk of replacing him because of two misses is frankly silly. Would love to hear who these "clinical" strikers we should be going after are.

 

Wonder how many United fans wished we'd actually grabbed Lucas Moura, instead of Sanchez last January, if we had an inkling of what was to come and I'm not even talking about Sanchez's poor play since joining us either?
There were big and valid question marks about Lucas Moura, but Poch is proving he's got the touch: no Son, no problem with Lucas Moura there (that's 3 goals for him so far this season).
More importantly, had we not been seduced by Sanchez, there probably was a good chance we would have gotten Moura and irrespective of how his own play would have turned out with us, we never would have seen Martial become so marginalized and completely out of sorts as he's become in the past 7mos. And there's a good chance we at least could have gained an actual option on the right, as opposed to what we have now. At £25mil, there are worst gambles we could have taken.
It's interesting how things go in football (as in life)...

 

I dont want him replaced. I'm just upset and his miss (he missed a bunch last season too) made it worse.

We've needed a reliable back up striker anyway. Since Rashford is far from reliable.

 

Every striker misses a lot. Lukaku's goals historically have been completely fine compared to his xG. I agree that a depth striker is a good idea though although I worry about it further stunting Rashford's development. What we need more than anything however is a system that uses the attacking talent on hand to actually create chances.

We were at the very bottom of the top-6 in xG last season and we're off to a dismal start this year with 3.7 xG in 3 games (+2 penalties) despite playing two sides outside the top-6, and chasing two of those three games for long periods. Lukaku's misses were obviously immensely costly but over the course of the season those will mostly even out - for every fallow period there will be a time when he runs hot. On a macro scale the main issue is we're still just not creating nearly enough.