OK, we've done this at the end of the last season or two and I figured it was time for this season's version. You are Sir Alex Ferguson. The Glazer's have given you (the reported) £20mn to spend on transfers, with additional transfer funds to be raised by the sale of players. You have been warned not to bloat the wage budget to much, and if at all possible to bring it down a bit. If you can bring the wage budget down, however much you lessen it by adds to your transfer budget. So for example, shave £40,000 off the total wage budget and you get £2.08mn extra to speend (£40,000/wk x 52 weeks = £2.08mn). You can not exceed the transfer budget, and don't have incoming transfer at unrealistic prices (e.g. Diarra for £12mn). Go.
Hey Billy, will you please delete any posts that contain the following sentence, "I did this is Championship Manager", or anything related to that? (Except for this post, of course.) For me, I really don't mind if the entire (alleged) £20MM is spent on one quality midfielder, if one exists.
First of all, it's clearance time. O'Shea: OUT Fortune:OUT Miller:OUT Silvestre:OUT I promote Rossi, Pique, Jones and Spector into the first team permanently. Selling those players should at the very LEAST give me 10 million pounds more, that's 30 million at the least, plus the shaved wages should gimme a little more space to exceed the transfer budget if need be. I'll give Lyon what they want for Diarra, which will be about 24 million pounds. I dont give a damn if it's too much. BOO HOO IT'S TOO MUCH MONEY FOR ESSIEN!!! Well where's Essien now? That's right, he's in Chelsea blue tearing it up. No messing around this time, it's do or die. That leaves like 6 million to spend, which we can spend on an unproven young defensive minded midfielder. None comes to mind right now. That's all I'll do for the summer. 2 central midfield players.
Fortune is leaving on a free and Miller won't cost much more. How much would O'Shea and Silvestre generate?
There will be very little in this thread then... I agree. A mess of transfers is not needed. The current squad is rather solid...
Yanno, I've never got past the first five minutes of any management related game? Suprisingly enough as it may seem to some of you, I absolutely loathe the FM or any kind of management game. Is this a revelation?
OUT Howard -2Mil Silvestre- 3Mil So that gives me 25m to spend IN Richardson + 8m for Lennon Mascherano 13M Kevin Nolan 4M
On second thought I'd buy Morten Gamst Pedersen as well, to get back that great ball distribution, as well as another source of brilliant goals.
*fires up FIFA 2006* My moves... OUT- Fletcher-2-3 mil IN- Mascherano-15 mil I move Evra up as a left winger for the bench, keep O'Shea in the role as the back up for Mascherano, move Giggs back out wide for the bench, move CRon to the left (assuming he is still here), Park on the right, Scholes comes back and I bring Jones back to be his backup, then I look at bringing in a cheap right-winger if one is available.
Remember we were linked with Pederson and then didn't make a move. Probably explains his motivation against us.
Before I get going on this one, let me say that it is FAR from the mass overhaul it looks like. Of the 7 players out, only 2 have been regular first-teamers this season (O'Shea & Silvestre) and another two are peripheral (Richardson & Howard). One has been out all season, and with all due respect to him nobody has missed him too much (Fortune). The final 2 (Bellion, Miller) will probably never make a senior start for the rest of their United careers. OUT Fortune (already announced... free, est. £30k/wk wages) Bellion (already announced... free, est. £15k/wk wages) Miller (est. 500k transfer, est. £40k/wk wages) Silvestre (est. £3.5mn transfer, est. £60k wages) Richardson (est. £5mn transfer, est. £15k/wk wages) Howard (est. £3mn transfer, est. £30k/wk wages) O'Shea (est. £3mn wages, est. £30k/wk wages) Total: £20mn + £15mn (transfers) + £11.44mn (wages) = £46.44mn IN Mahamadou Diarra (£24mn transfer, £80k/wk wages) - The best guy I can think of for the job, right now. Is pretty young, offers good passing and a lot of physical presence. Very good defending, but can also lead the attack from the backline. Seems like he would fit in very well. Much of what can be said about him, already has. If he is unobtainable, Fernando Gago & Scott Parker are other vialbe options and similar players. Morten Gamst Pedersen (£13mn transfer, £60k/wk wages - Would be a perfect fit on our flanks. Whereas Ronaldo is unpredictable, plays with his heart more than his head at times and incredibly dynamic, Pedersen is offers something completely different: he is a thinking man's player with a sweet left foot (as well as a good right one). His crossing is consistent, and he can score from midfield. His freekicks are often cheeky shots under or behind the wall, as well as curling ones just over them. He is a good dribbler, albeit not on Ronaldo's level. With him & Ronaldo (of the last few months) on the flanks, we would have just about about everything a team could want out wide. We would also have a quality free-kick taker in Pedersen, as well as an inconsistent but sometimes mind-blowing one in Ronaldo. There is nobody that can offer quite what Pedersen can for us imo, and after we get a proper defensive-minded CM, there is nobody I would prefer to get than him. Total: £27mn (transfers) + £7.28mn (wages) = £34.28mn This would leave us with £12.4mn on the side. With a fraction of that money I wouldn't mind seeing us get a decent, experienced backup GK on a free or cheap transfer if the right one comes available, as an insurance measure. The rest we could hold onto until January or the following summer for if we needed that little extra 'oomph'. PROMOTED Foster (or if he remains loaned to Watford then) Steele Spector Jones Rossi For anybody worried about a lack of depth in the team after this, the team would afterwards look like this: GK: VDS, Foster/Steele, [new guy?] LB: Heinze, Evra, Spector CB: Rio, Vidic, Brown, Pique, *McShane, (Heinze, Neville, Bardsley, Spector) RB: Neville, Brown, Bardsley, (Spector) LW: Pedersen, Ronaldo, Park, Giggs, CM (defensive-minded): Diarra, Fletcher/Smith, (Rio) CM(attacking-minded): Scholes, Jones, Giggs, Fletcher, (Rooney) RW: Ronaldo, Park, Giggs, Solskjaer, *Neumayr, (Smith, Fletcher) SS: Rooney, Rossi, Solskjaer, Smith CF: Ruud, Saha, Solskjaer * = youth-teamer who could be good enough to fill in, in case of emergency. (___) = player playing where they rarely do for us, but have shown ability to do so before.
This has been discussed before and I agree with the side that thinks we don't need Vincente. I would rather have a good player that is already a fit in the league and fills a good space for us for alot cheaper, than a nancy Spaniard (sarcasm) who is Ronaldo on the other side (sarcasm). He would probably cost alot more as well.. On billy's analysis, if that happens.. I can smell a double or triple in the next 5 years... (praying)
I had started doing this a few times, but deleted it. There are some things causing problems in my mind. The first is that I'm still not sure who the best option for central midfield is. While everyone else has settled on Diarra, I'm not convinced and would be loathed to give Lyon that amount of money for him. Aside from that, if we are looking to offload the likes of O'Shea then we will need to sign another midfielder to act as back-up to Diarra. In terms of another wing option, while Pederson is doing the business I would never pay the amount that Billy has for him. Then I don't know if we should wait on Ricardson and Fletcher to develop, or use them to get additional transfer money. Finally, I don't know how I want us to play.