Transfer Roundup: Longstaff, James, Dybala, Dembele, De Ligt

So, after a hugely disappointing season, this is proving to be easily the most intriguing transfer window since Sir Alex left in 2013.

It looks like the aim of transforming the team is being taken seriously after a major pushback from the fans. The board are listening, appear to have taken on board the criticism, and are making offers for exactly the types of players that United need and have been badly lacking in recent years.

The only unfortunate thing in all of this mess is how the side has been allowed to decline so much, and the fact that we are not able to offer Champion's League football, which puts us at a huge disadvantage compared to the likes of Liverpool, City, Real, Barca, and so on.

If that means we have to throw money at the problem in order to secure players, that is what we are going to have to do, in transfer fees, agent fees, and player wages. This is the problem with not investing on the pitch - we now have to pay a premium for our failure to invest in the past, just to catch up.

Anyway, here's a round up of some of the big reports and rumours I have seen in the past few days.....

Moussa Dembele

Lyon forward Demele is on United's radar. The player has experience of playing in the UK, having played in the Scottish PL for Celtic, and at 22, is a great age to join the team long term. He's scored 23 goals in 51 appearances for the French side, which is a decent return.

Daniel James

Welsh winger Daniel James is a name that has been talked about for a couple of weeks now. The 21 year old Swansea player is said to be the subject of a £15 million offer, and it is this type of player, that is young, not the finished article, but could bring hunger and enthusiasm, that tells me United are doing the right things.

They can't base their transfer strategy around just buying big name players, so looking in the Championship and lower down the league for quality young players is a good way to go. Meanwhile, Robbie Savage reckons we should move heaven and earth to sign Aston Villa's Jack Grealish ahead of him.

Sean Longstaff

Longstaff is another player whose name has been doing the rounds for the past couple of weeks. But it's now looking like both the club and the player want him to stay put. He's only made 13 appearances, putting the midfielder on the edge of the first team, with United said to be on the verge of a £25 million bid. Whether or not he becomes the player that we need remains to be seen, but it's good that we're going for this type of player.

Paulo Dybala

The Paulo Dybala transfer saga continues. The Argentinian striker would be a great addition to the team, and he's been heavily linked with us. However, his has said he is going to stay.

“Juventus must make its choices with the coach that will come. But society knows it, next year I want to stay here.I have a lot of respect for this shirt and for these fans, and because of this I will only talk about Juventus, not about other teams, because that seems to me a lack of respect.”

However his brother reckons he is likely to leave Juve, although it's not clear where he will go.

De Ligt

This is one of the transfers I'm most excited about. United have offered the 19 year old defender a huge contract to draw him from Ajax. De Ligt has got the world at his feet one of the best defenders in the world at such a young age - he could serve United for a decade. 

They've bid £236,000 a week, which is a whopping sum such a young player, but that's the market we are currently in. Got to hope we can draw him, following a rich tradition of Dutch players that we've had over the years, including Stam, Van Nistelrooy, and Van Der Sar. 

Things That Have Gone Wrong at United : Ed Woodward

Ed Woodward. The chief executive of Manchester United has become something of a hate figure, particularly in recent weeks, as the 18/19 reached a bitter end. But is all the hate justified?

We've already look at some of the problems on the pitch, but the man who is effectively head of operations at United has a background, is not as a football man, but a former accountant and investment banker, who worked at PriceWaterHouseCoopers and then JP Morgan. Big names in the world of finance, but not the traineeship required to run a football club.

The previous occupant, David Gill, ran a good stewardship of the club, and had a similar background in the world of corporate finance, but he had the support of one Alex Ferguson, to manage the footballing decisions.

Wage Structure

He did make a better job of managing the wage structure at the club, and that is now clearly out of control, with the likes of Alex Sanchez on bumper contracts despite performing incredibly poorly.

The wage structure issue is the reason that De Gea is off to PSG. It's also behind Herrera's move, as they were unwilling to meet his demands. If they hadn't overpaid Sanchez, it wouldn't have caused these issues.

Bad Buys

There are a catalogue of bad buys under Woodward's leadership. Di Maria, Falcao, Sanchez, were all poor buys. Fred seemed a pointless buy at £50 million for a guy who hardly kicked the ball for the first half of the season, when there were more urgent and pressing issues in defence, for example.

The buys were haphazard, and reactive. Some of them seemed to come towards the end of the transfer window, as if he was panicking, and just buying for the sake of appearing to have taken some action.

They weren't strategic, carefully planned, etc., otherwise the defence wouldn't be as threadbare as it is, with players like Smalling and Jones still in the side for many years, despite not being to the standard that a team like United deserves. Where is our Virgil van Dijk, for example?

Not Backing Managers

The board's failure to back Mourinho last summer was the nail in the coffin for the manager. But who on that board had the authority to overrule that manager? Mourinho, for all his faults, is still a highly experienced manager, and he should have been given the backing to improve the side.

Infrastructure

The overall set up at United is now leagues behind City. The lack of a director of football, and facilities that pail in comparison to those enjoyed by City's Academy side, show there is a huge gulf now (pun unintended). City have put in place a system that could see them dominate football for the next decade at least. Meanwhile, United seem lost, and there is no clear indicator where their next major trophy is coming from.

Conclusion

Woodward is very reactive, the signing of Solskjaer was just another example of this. He reacted to fan and media pressure, rather than having a clear plan and following his own, strongly considered ideas. He's a weak person, not sure of what to do outside of his own fifedom, which is financial.

This need not be completely bad, though. It seems the criticism from the outside world, and the likes of Gary Neville, is filtering into the club. The buys that have been made this summer, and those that have been touted, show a club that is reacting to criticism, and taking a different tack.

Solskjaer has been backed, and it looks like he is aiming to build a young, hungry team, to emulate the success the club enjoyed in the 90s, If he can hire a director of football, and leave the footballing decisions to football people, then the damaging effects of his directorship can be limited. Here's to hoping.

Things That Went Wrong for Man Utd 18 / 19 Season : Attitude

The slow motion car crash of the past 6 years since Alex Ferguson retired as Manchester United manager has continued with another disappointing season in 18/19

Pogba has become a symbol of
everything that is wrong
at United in 18/19

After the club won the Europa League in 2017, and the club ending 2nd last season, there was some hope that we could kick on and fight for first place this season. But things never felt quite right under Mourinho, and conflict between him and the team was ongoing. The board's failure to back him last summer was the final nail in the coffin in retrospect.

Gary Neville has said, more than once, that, with the team we have, that second place result last year increasingly looks like a great achievement, given the group of player that he had at his disposal:

"It’s a really average team for what Manchester United needs to be. As a group of players I don’t like them. ‘Jose Mourinho at the time told us that it was his greatest ever achievement finishing second with that team. ‘We all laughed, we all thought: ‘It’s Jose just playing’. Maybe he was right, maybe it was a great achievement."

But quality aside, the underlying issue has been player power, and the virus of a bad attitude that has grown and grown in the changing room, and was the reason Jose was eventually forced out.

The board did not back Jose, and then the players smelled weakness and turned on the manager, as Neville said.

“It comes to a point where this would be the fourth manager in six years,” Neville said. “You have to look at who is bringing them in. The dressing room is leading what is happening. The tail is wagging the dog.

“Get some control back. Get some leadership. Undermining Jose on the eve of the season on why he couldn’t sign those centre-backs - who is qualified in that football club to tell Mourinho he cannot get them?"

And when it comes to a bad attitude that has caused all these problems, there's one name that keeps coming up : it's Paul Pogba. This is the player that said, after the Jose sacking, that "He fucked with the wrong baller".

Once Jose left, for 10 glorious weeks, with got a Pogba that actually put 100% effort in. Why? My believe is that he wanted to show people that he was not a lazy player. Once OGS was confirmed as permanent manager, Pogba returned back to the part timer, mercenary, inconsistent player he was at United before that.

It's the attitude of players like this, I believe, that has filtered from the most influential players, right through the squad. The fact it even began to affect hugely De Gea, a player who has been defined by consistency for 5 or 6 years, shows how it spread through the squad.

The last few games in particular showed a level of form that looked like a team that had given up, even if there were some bright sparks in the form of McTominay and Mason Greenwood.

I've no doubt that the attitude of OGS could be a panacea for some of the problems in the team. It worked, for a while. But how do you root out a problem of attitude in a team? The problem of players that don't care?

Getting rid of players like Herrera, who actually talks and behaves like someone does genuinely care, is not the way to do it. His wage demands may have seemed greater than his ability, but his contract renewal was poorly managed in the first place. It should never have come to this.

There is some hope in the attitude of players like Dalot, McTominay, and the academy players are hungry - they haven't been poisoned yet. Forging a young, hungry team is the way out of this mess.

What we need to do now is cut as much of the dead wood as possible, and let OGS fashion a team in his own image - one that is passionate, fights to the last minute, for each other and genuinely care about playing for the team, more than driving sports cars and sleeping with models.

Man United 0 - 2 Cardiff City : Bitter End to 18/19 Season

So this is how it ends. Not with a bang, but a whimper. Fans may have been expecting a response to a depressing run of results including the Huddersfield game, but we managed to lose the last game of the season to already relegated Cardiff City.

17 year old Mason Greenwood featured got a start, as did Pereira, Diogo Dalot and Lingard. Nathaniel Mendez-Laing scored a brace for Neil Warnock's team with a goal in each half. It was a disappointing end to the season, as we finish on 66 points, in 6th place, and there is definitely some bad feeling around the club. The fans want some serious investment, but it's how much backing the manager is going to get.

Some cheeky wags are already saying it's Ole has finally managed to get Cardiff to win, 5 years late. Others are bantering with Liverpool for not winning the league, but this is all a distraction. Man United are a million miles from where they are supposed to be, and it's 100% down to Ed Woodward and the Glazers. Terrible management in the boardroom has finally come home to roost.

It's certainly going to be a big summer at the club. Some are even saying OGS needs to go now. Over at The United Stand fan channel they were venting about the fact they don't feel he's good enough. 

Fans wants 10 players in and 10 out. But who wants to play for United now? The Glazers famously mismanaged the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and bled them dry, and it looks like they just don't care, as long as the commercial revenues keep rolling in for United.

It was Herrera's last game for the club, as he is set to join PSG for better money, better prospects and a better club. I can't blame him. The fans cheered him on during the game. It's also Tony Valencia's last game for the club, and he also got a lot of love from the fans after 10 years at United. The Ecuadorian will be a free agent this summer as his contract expires. 

Transfer Roundup

Paulo Dybala might on his way in 86 million deal. 

One thing is for sure, this is going to be the most important summer of transfers since Alex Ferguson left 6 years ago.

With a major cleanout needed, and a host of new players being mentioned and rumoured already, there is some cause for hope - but also for concern. with Ed Woodward and the Glazers still holding the purse strings, It's hard to know if the frustration of supporters is going to reach the boardroom, and they are going to listen.

In fact, it's interesting to notice that there a campaign to get our opinions as fans to the boardroom seems to be gathering pace. #unfollowManUnited is getting stronger and stronger on Twitter and elsewhere. It's aimed at the likes of Ed Woodward, and given that he sign pointless players like Fred, and expensive flops like Sanchez, he has to take some of the responsibility for results on the field.

As for specific players, Pogba is a player that a lot of fans, quite rightly, want to see the back of, given his poor attitude this season. For 10 glorious weeks, we saw the footballer that won the world cup with France last summer, but before and after that, we saw someone who just wasn't giving 100%. Zinedine Zidane has refused to rule out interest in him. Let's hope he goes to Real this summer.

The conflict is that Woodward, being the company man that he is, wants Pogba to stay, while Solskjaer wants him out, due to his poor attitude. Surely, footballing considerations should come first, because, as people have pointed out, eventually, if United keeps listening to the money men, the wins will dry up and the money will run out.

Meanwhile, Martial, due to his ridiculous attitude when he was recently caught with his hands in his pockets, daydreaming, in training, is looking at the boot, as OGS doesn't like his attitude.

In terms of good news, the club are in the running to sign De Ligt from Ajax.  The 19 year old has had a great season at the club, and is on track to become a world class defender. ESPN FC pundit Steve Nicol reckons whether he signs or not is dependent upon what the player wants - money or Champions League football. United are going to have to splash the cash to attract the best talent, as, due to the laziness of squad, they aren't in the top competition.

In terms of other good news, United have agreed a deal in principle for Juventus forward Paulo Dybala for £86 million. While it's good we have another forward, the most pressing areas for replacements are surely midfield and defence, so we have to hope more work is done there.

Fingers crossed, there will be more good news to come....

Reaction: Huddersfield 1 - 1 Manchester United

Mbenza on target

Well, it comes as no surprise, but a major disappointment, that United seem to be ending the season
as they began it.

A disappointing run of form that has been going since Ole was confirmed as manager continues. A Mbenza strike cancelled out the McTominay goal, and, despite Pogba hitting the bar a couple of times, the team was not able to get ahead, against one of the weakest teams in the league.

The game extinguished any chances we have of staying in contention for a Champions's League place. The annoying and depressing thing about this is that this team of players, who seem to lack drive, desire and ambition, are responsible for ensuring we don't have top european football next year, but several of them want to league so they can go and get it elsewhere.

Juan Mata, Paul Pogba and Alexis Sánchez did cut through the Huddersfield defence in the first half hour, before McTominay scored with a casual attempt on goal, which Jonas Lössl failed to keep out.

The disappointing thing was how Pogba and Sánchez didn't do more to convert our domination into more goals to confirm victory. No surprise there, given how week we have been for the past couple of months. Sanchez eventually hobbled off, and there are calls from fans for him to never play for us again, and I can't blame them.

When Isaac Mbenza went ahead, it boyed the stadium, who got behind their team. We had three chances towards the end, with Pogba hitting the bar, and Chong and Rashford going close.

We just lacked the quality to finish, which, given the players we have, is simply not good enough. Whether it's confidence or effort, something is not connecting, and we need to do take action to do something about it this summer.

A major clearout of players is in order, with Pogba and Sanchez at the top of the list. Pog has been a really bad influence on the team, and this virus of no effort, has infected even loyal, good players like De Gea, who has been a rock for six seasons.

Sanchez seem more interested in chasing girls and enjoying his money than actually playing football. We will never be able to go back to the nineties, but it would be good to see guys who actually care about the shirt and are willing to fight for it.

As it stands, Gary Neville's conclusion it was“A group of players that looked like individuals, nothing there, no real spirit and he dismantled it piece by piece and Ole needs to dismantle this piece by piece." We have to agree.

The younger players like Rashford, McTominay and Dalot can still be part of something special if we can get in Chong, Greenwood, and Gomes onboard, we can get a spine of young, hungry players to build something special at United.

It's such a shame we got rid of Ibrahimovic, because he represented and old school approach of passionate, aggressive players like Cantona and Roy Keane. Guys would fought for the shirt, leaders on the pitch who actually care, and drove others to do the same.

Everything depends on what players go in an out this summer. Let's hope the board actually make some good decisions for once.