Styles

United are still the best team in England.

I agree with you in the sense that the move doesn't make much sense now but it will in a year or two. And who knows if he would still have been available when we did need him for a first team role? Besides we've signed him at 18 so he will count as a homegrown player in the future. If we were ever going to sign him then it needed to be done this summer. I really hope he develops his technique and doesn't just rely on his size and athleticism.

I'm looking forward to that.

RIP.

Paulo is 3rd choice RB. He is hardly going to feature so what is the point of him taking up a space in the squad with little to no contribution from him?

This is excellent news and I hope it goes through. We have Ashley as first choice LB with PVA or Bertrand as backk up. We need a better player than Malouda or at least somebody to come in and provide serious competition for his spot, something Zhirkov doesn't do. Whatever you think of Malouda he contributes far more than Zhirkov does and that is a fact. Now to find buyers for Ferreira and Kalou next...

You are right in that there are always players available but unfortunately we don't have the scouts. We have the worst scouting department of any of the major European teams. We would never sign a player like Hernandez for 8m for example because we don't know they exist! Maybe that is changing with AVB who personally went after Oriol Romeu but I won't hold my breath.

It was only small because we had a silly coach who didn't want to use the likes of Sturridge.

The only plus point about not buying any new attackers is that next season we will have two spaces available in the squad (Anelka/Kalou both have just one year contracts) and there will be less competition from the likes of Barca, Man City etc who have already spent big on Sanchez, Aguero etc. So maybe we’re playing it smart and waiting for the summer when we will be the best option for the next group of talent.

The players we would want to sell nobody in their right mind would be interested in them, the Ferreira's and the Kalou' for example. And also nobody will pay them what they earn now so they are effectively our problem. Is somebody really going to pay Kalou £60k a week for his level of talent? Of course not. Is somebody really going to give a 33 year old Ferreira another two years on about £60-70k a week? Of course not. It's not that we won't sell it's more a case of we can't sell. Players only leave us once their contract is finished i.e. Joe Cole because nobody will pay a transfer for them + the wages they are on with Chelsea.

:mouthclosed:

Kalou is sponsered by Adidas and they tend to feature players who wear their boots more I think. Not many of our players wear Adidas do they? Can't think of that many.

Gourlay is Kenyon-lite so maybe he has the capacity to do both positions to a good standard? You have to say he has done a terrific job with this tour of Asia. The club is very well supported over there and with this commitment of going there every so often our fanbase will continue to grow.

Yeah that's what is happening and it's how it should work. The manager picks his targets (Modric for instance) and the club tries to buy them at a reasonable price. I'm glad we aren't paying crazy money for Modric and to be honest I doubt we're even interested in Pastore as all the noise is being made by that nutter of a chairman.

Villas-Boas does have a say actually. He has already signed Oriol Romeu, a player he tried to sign for Porto last year. His stance so far has been that he is assessing the squad and will make decisions once the tour of Asia is completed. I am almost certain the signings we will make will most definitely be based on what he feels we need with very little to no interference from the board. They tried it their way and we ended up with a 50m striker who is as likely to score as Paulo Ferreira. What you also failed to mention is that we no longer have a sporting-director as Arnesen left (or fired?). So who is making the transfer decisions if it isn’t the manager? Boas is taking his time which is fair enough. But it's boring for us transfer numpties who want to see some new blood

Mikel is worth £25m.

They 'can' meaning we have a say in the matter.

Very much agreed. If he can accept that he doesn't need to play every minute of every game then he can prolong his career a little bit longer.

I can't wait to see Aguero in the Premier League! Well done City, great signing for them and the league because it seems all the top stars were in Spain or heading there.

€42m = £37m That's far too much.

Gotcha!

Kalou is better anyway.

I'll offifically start worrying if we haven't signed a first team calibre player by the end of next week. So by 5pm Friday the 5th of August if we still haven't signed somebody that is not first team ready I will start the first 'AVB out' thread on this here forum.

I was thinking recently imagine if we didn't waste 50m on him how many options we would have this summer?

I really want to believe but I have no hope for him. I think he's finished.