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sigma said:
Are 3-4 decent additions realistic though? Surely not. Especially if they're going to be tight around funds. It's going to be the MUFC tax again. That's £200-250m surely? At least?

So I guess we have to brace for finishing 10th or there abouts next season?

Better than relegation, I guess :p
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I imagine we will spend £150-200m this summer. With the outgoings we will have the funds. We will obviously have slightly different plans based on whether we are in the CL or not. And unless its a disaster, I think that we should still be competing for top 6 even if we don't get 4 top class players in. As I said, we are massively underperforming our xPts largely because we don't put the ball in the net enough. Sort that and we will be fine. If we were hitting average this season we would be about 12pts off top 6. You would hope that we aren't just hitting average next season and that we are also pushing that average up.

I'm not particularly concerned at this point. We will just have to wait and see. Hopefully we get Cunha sorted out early and then sort out a good striker. Then the rest is just a bonus.
 
I don't see how next season will be massively different to this season with just two players.

Unless we get someone world class up front? Top 3 in world? 5?
 
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It's almost impossible for me to comprehend how absolute tosh Manchester United are now compared to when I was a teenager watching them in the 90s.

I watched First Vienna last night and it reminded me of a modern United performance eg basically hopeless.
 
Lopéz said:
It's almost impossible for me to comprehend how absolute tosh Manchester United are now compared to when I was a teenager watching them in the 90s.

I watched First Vienna last night and it reminded me of a modern United performance eg basically hopeless.
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Pretty much how tosh they were in the 80s
 
Started going to watch Utd in the 80s and most of it was pants.
Watching class forwards as Garry Birtles and Talksport legend Alan Brazil :)
Hojlund is in that group of striker not going to be good enough and off in the summer for a fraction of the fee
 
I had high hopes for Hojlund at the start, and was patient for a while as I felt there were some qualities there (pace/strength for example). However, PL CBs deal with him comfortably and that patience has now disappeared - he would be better off heading back to Italy this summer.
 
His goal scoring record is garbage everywhere he's been apart from Sturm Graz in the Austrian league, hardly a surprise, just a terrible waste of money.
 
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It really isn't garbage, he scored almost a goal every other game in Italy and slightly less in his first season here. Pretty respectable for a young player in a new league.
 
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spudbynight said:
Pretty much how tosh they were in the 80s
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Hmm at least in the 80's we were entertaining at times.

For the summer I think the two areas the club needs to address urgently are both boxes.

Competent GK. In his final season at Inter, Onana was in line for the Lev Yashin Golden Glove but he really hasn't kicked on. Despite being a 'footballing' GK he is pretty average at everything. He has the uncanny knack of when we are under pressure, parrying the ball out the danger area. Rather than getting both hands on it, take the sting out of the game. I have an element of sympathy as he has had three different goal keeping coaches in two season. For a top level keeper though you would expect he should be able to adapt

Decent CF: I genuinely don't know if we have been sold an absolute dud in Hojlund. My view is that the move was either too soon to be a first choice striker in a big team going through a LOT of changes. Or he should have moved if there was a player coming towards the end of his career and he could learn the game as an impact sub. End of the day he didnt dictate the transfer fee. Apparently his record is better than players like Lewandoski at the same age. That said, a CF with movement, a bit of pace and some goals could be transformative for us and allow the likes of Amad, Garnacho etc to improve their creativity or bring them into the game so they can score themselves. Not entirely convinced on Liam Delap but if the budget is that tight the additions of Cuhna and Delap at £30m seems good business. If it doesnt work out for Delap (If he comes that is) there is a good chance you recoup the vast majority of that money.
 
So, before our biggest game in recent memory - where do people stand on Amorim? He's been in charge for 40 games now.

If we win the Europa League I think he's got to be given the first quarter of next season. That said, we probably shouldn't sign specialised players like expensive wingbacks and #10's as they aren't useful in every system. A goalkeeper and striker always will be.

If we lose on Wednesday, the argument for keeping him becomes much more difficult. It's a complex picture but by almost every measure he's underperformed to a worrying degree. There isn't much evidence of the players taking on his instructions, nor his tactics really being clear.

... and before anyone mentions Ten Hag, he had much longer and spent a fortune on players he wanted, and it was still garbage. He was no good either.

Amorim is still a relatively young and inexperienced manager, and I do like him a lot, but his charisma is keeping the wolves from the door. If he was a David Moyes character we'd all want him sacked...
 
I am firmly in the Amorim in side of the fence. The way I look at it, he is a manager who plays in a system that requires players to have a specific skill set in key positions and sadly we lack in those. We have been through Premier Proven (Dithering Dave), The School Master (LVG), The Iron Fist Pragmatist (Jose), One of our own (Ole), Did well there so will do well here (ETH) It gets to the point where you cannot keep changing managers because ultimately it's not a managerial issue that is at the hear of the problem.

I firmly believe that transfers have been at the heart of our problem for many years. The Glazers, while utter parasites, surrounded themselves with yes people, none worse than Woodward. Some of the transfers should be investigated for fraud. Nobody did their due diligence on players like Sancho, Schweinsteiger, Di Maria, Hojlund, Sanchez, Onana, Donny Van De Beek. Add on top of that paying OVER the odds for players like Felliaini, Cassemiro, Anthony. So from that we have wasted an absolute bucket load of cash on players not fit for the club. Because we have been awful at buying players, this compounds the problems even further as we do not generate anywhere near enough income from sales and or future sales. At least this summer we should start to see a couple of green shoots with some youngsters sold recently will generate some sell on income. A footballing structure is starting to embed with data driven decisions.

Back to Amorim. Defensively we look solid (keeper aside) when you got De Ligt, Mazroui and Yoro playing. Bruno and Amad are decent enough and I dare say you could add Mainoo and Garnacho to that list. So the question for me, is it Amorim who has underperformed or is it historic under performance from those running the club.
 
Robbo said:
If we lose on Wednesday, the argument for keeping him becomes much more difficult.
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It’s a miracle we even got to the final. I don’t see why this argument stands. He should be given a proper stab at it with a proper transfer window in the summer. If we win Europa, even better.

What is firing him and going with yet another manager going to achieve? It’s the players and the environment.

Patience is needed. You even said so yourself that we’ve all been round this discussion a million times already.
 
I like Amorim and think he should be given another season to prove his worth, that being said I was in favour of EtH staying at the end of last season.
If we lose the final will Ratcliffe have the patience to allow Amorim time? I’m not confident he will.
 
He needs another season. We must see progress but he must also be allowed to implement his vision. At least 10 players will leave. Realistically we need to bring in between 4 and 6 new faces.
Progress at this point would be
1. Scoring in matches in the league
2. Top Ten as a minimum by Christmas
3. Some semblance of entertaining play

We don't get played through or concede the chances that we did when EtH was the coach. The flip side is that we score even less than we did. We have some decent players to build with but not enough.

Mazraoui is a talented footballer
Amad has shown he can excite and has the correct work ethic
Yoro will be a great centre back
Bruno is Bruno

Beyond that we are well short of players that look like they could be in a top six team. That's the size of the task. Massive.
It will be all the harder if we lose on Wednesday but I don't think we will.
 
I agree, but think we will lose Europa. It would be just our luck after going unbeaten to lose to Spurs. I’m already nervous about it and the ensuing media coverage! :cry:
 
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