I'd have liked Mbappe over Lukaku, but that's about it.

Lukaku still have like 5-6 years of prime age left and he's proven in the PL, not at all a bad buy if it's happening!

I agree that I'd rather see Mbappe too.

What Lukaku offers in pure finishing, heading and strength is enough for me to be happy though.

He might never do the amazing passes and dribbles that Zlatan is capable of, but he can score goals and he can play the simple passes. To be fair, we need the goals more than passes.

We have enough creative players already, but we need someone who can put the ball in the net, and/or to draw enough attention of the defenders, in order to make the job easier for the rest of our players when they find themselves in good positions.

That can never be true IMO :).

IMO creativity is also about when and which runs to make and how to help your teammates by making runs to draw defenders away. Is Lukaku good at making decoy runs and creating space for his teammates? I'm not totally sure. I fear that during slower attacks he'll struggle to link play and that will hurt us. IMO his control and passing aren't up to the level we need from a top striker.

All in all I have my doubts about him. He might be good, but IMO he doesn't dominate games enough and I don't think it's a good deal at 75m.

I've heard that Rooney is asking United to pay him a kind of pay-off fee, in order to leave.

If this is true, it's not a nicest thing to do.

We are already sending him off to a free and after all the money he's earned at United and everything this club has given him, he really could have avoided asking for more money.

Is it your money?

He earned EVERY PENNY in club as goal recorder, captain and part of team which made United this big, fat, famous and rich. He did more for club than club for him, money is irrelevant, as you see now in era of monster transfers and week wage for passable players in PL. Why in hell would he forgive anything to the club!? Because they buy him, use him, squeeze him and spit him back to Everton? Love story by Manchester United as new plastic club practice.

End of story.

Dr_Koma wrote:

Is it your money?

He earned EVERY PENNY in club as goal recorder, captain and part of team which made United this big, fat, famous and rich. He did more for club than club for him, money is irrelevant, as you see now in era of monster transfers and week wage for passable players in PL. Why in hell would he forgive anything to the club!? Because they buy him, use him, squeeze him and spit him back to Everton? Love story by Manchester United as new plastic club practice.

End of story.

I don't even know if it's true, but if I was him, I wouldn't really ask the club for a pay-off fee of 5-6mil pounds, after earning tens (or hundreds) of millions. It would be classless, so I hope he didn't really do that.

Anyway, I guess it all depends on the circumstances in which he left. If it was him wanting to leave, then it's pointless to ask a goodbye fee, so frankly I think/hope it wasn't even the case.

However, I don't think he did more for the club than vice-versa and I don't even want to see it this way. Both gave a lot to each other, so maybe now is the time to end the story in the best possible way.

Edit: I almost forgot. Welcome :)

United was a greater club before Rooney than after.

Just saying.

Nemanja77 wrote:

I almost forgot. Welcome :)

See you in Skoplje :)

Lamba wrote:

United was a greater club before Rooney than after.

Just saying.

Greater maybe, for British fans... but famous, richer, bigger, with more trophies... no.

Time has been a greater factor for those things than Rooney.

United were already one of the largest, richest and most winning clubs in the world before him.

In my opinion there is nothing wrong with him doing what he does. He has a contract and his agent wants to get the best out of it for him. Why shouldn't he? Rooney is clearly not a huge United fan. He loves football and did great for us, but that's that. I don't think he thinks that he owes anything to United. He could've gone elsewhere to win trophies as well and probably would've fit in at any club in his early twenties. And if now he has a contract where he is to earn 15m per season, then it's not his fault if he doesn't want to get a much smaller paycheck if that's possible.

In the end this was a result of Moyes wanting to work with him and Gill leaving at the same time. I'm sure that Rooney would've been sold at the time if Fergie had continued. I don't know if Fergie was certain about how things would turn out, but he knew that this would be good for the long term of the club. And he was right. After that Rooney hasn't had a great season and that summer we would've got a lot of money for him for the time. Instead we committed to paying him huge wages and didn't really get a great return on the pitch. And it was a deal that was one or two years too long certainly. His agent did a good job for Rooney and took advantage of the club being weak at the time and now we're paying for it.

I don't think it has much to do with Rooney to be honest.

In my opinion there is nothing wrong with him doing what he does. He has a contract and his agent wants to get the best out of it for him. Why shouldn't he? Rooney is clearly not a huge United fan. He loves football and did great for us, but that's that. I don't think he thinks that he owes anything to United. He could've gone elsewhere to win trophies as well and probably would've fit in at any club in his early twenties. And if now he has a contract where he is to earn 15m per season, then it's not his fault if he doesn't want to get a much smaller paycheck if that's possible.

That's what I call sitting on two chairs at the same time...

But hey, if United was ready to let him walk on a free and also pay him a goodbye fee, then it was only his conscience and class (or lack of it) to decide.
I like Rooney much more than Zlatan, but remember that the latter had our offer on the table before he got injured. He was still in time to sign/accept it and stay at United for one more year with huge wages, just recovering from a bad injury. However, he had the decency and common sense not to use such opportunity, as it would be a dirty thing to do. That's what I am talking about here - you already have millions and millions, your grandchildren's children are settled for life, so you don't really need those extra 5 or 10.

Said that, I just want to underline that I still think/hope this isn't true and that Rooney didn't really ask United for a "goodbye fee".

In the end this was a result of Moyes wanting to work with him and Gill leaving at the same time. I'm sure that Rooney would've been sold at the time if Fergie had continued. I don't know if Fergie was certain about how things would turn out, but he knew that this would be good for the long term of the club. And he was right. After that Rooney hasn't had a great season and that summer we would've got a lot of money for him for the time. Instead we committed to paying him huge wages and didn't really get a great return on the pitch. And it was a deal that was one or two years too long certainly. His agent did a good job for Rooney and took advantage of the club being weak at the time and now we're paying for it.

I agree with this - more/less my thoughts as well.

Old Fergus knew exactly when to sell a player. Maybe the only example of his mistake was Jaap Stam, who was sold too early.

I don't think it has much to do with Rooney to be honest.

I think it does with his agent first of all, but Rooney himself also got half of brains as well and he can at least tell right from wrong.
Anyway, I don't care if we did pay him extra couple of millions, at least he'll be able to buy some extra Everton pyjamas, given that he's been using them a lot in the last 15 years or so :)

Fantasy EPL is on again.

Whoever wants to join, here you can find the details:

(17112643.1)

José Mourinho seems very interested in Serge Aurier, all the more so Paris SG want to let the ivorian right back go. Aurier is young (24) and one of the best right backs even if his level seemed to decrease last season in Ligue 1. The deal for Aurier would cost around 25 millions euros.

Mourinho made fun of the LA Galaxy squad after the 5-2 victory over the californian side for our fisrt game of the US summe tour, saying that it was a good training game ! Typical Mourinho ! Our scorers were : Rashford (twice), Fellaini, Mkhitaryan and Martial.
Our portuguese manager made no less than eleven substitutions at half time, when the Red Devils were leading 5-0.

Jonselis wrote:

José Mourinho seems very interested in Serge Aurier, all the more so Paris SG want to let the ivorian right back go. Aurier is young (24) and one of the best right backs even if his level seemed to decrease last season in Ligue 1. The deal for Aurier would cost around 25 millions euros.

Mourinho made fun of the LA Galaxy squad after the 5-2 victory over the californian side for our fisrt game of the US summe tour, saying that it was a good training game ! Typical Mourinho ! Our scorers were : Rashford (twice), Fellaini, Mkhitaryan and Martial.
Our portuguese manager made no less than eleven substitutions at half time, when the Red Devils were leading 5-0.

It was 3-0 half time leading

So, Matic is our third signing. I think we're probably overpaying, which means I'm not a fan of the deal. But I guess Matic is a good player. It's getting late in the window and we had to get something done ASAP and he is not a Fellaini type of a panic buy. He'll improve the midfield, where we don't really have that many players(as Blind isn't in consideration there it seems).

All in all I'm satisfied but not excessively happy about the transfer. It's good that it didn't drag on any longer. I guess we're pretty much set for the season in terms of transfers now.

Defender, midfielder and central forward.
Who said Brian Clough? :D

He's a good, but not excellent, player and I'm sure he will fit the need of a defensive midfielder. He has experience but his age and price are bit high. I would have preferred Dier or maybe look further to someone younger and talented like William Carvalho, but other hand it is august already and the need of a defensive midfielder was there.

I think it's a very good signing, it releases Pogba to play further forward in a more attacking role without having to worry about what's behind him. I have a feeling we'll see a much more improved and influential Pogba this year as a result.

I guess we'll see how things are working. I do agree that it might unleash both Pogba and Herrera. Both would like to play the 'number 8' role in the team - midfielders but with license to move forward but not burdened with having to be the main creator like a number 10. I think this allows us to play a very strong 4-1-4-1 line-up with:
De Gea
Valencia-Bailly-Smalling-Shaw
Matic
Mkhitaryan-Herrera-Pogba-Rashford
Lukaku

The midfield should be strong and we have a lot of pace and energy to press high up the pitch as well as all five players there are younger and will be able to press well when needed.

The disappointing part of the transfer is that Matic will be good for 3-4 years, but then he'll fade. I don't think he has the quality of someone like Scholes/Giggs/Carrick to play until he is 40 and soon enough we'll have to replace him. Assuming he succeeds(which is not certain) we will soon need to replace him. I can live with that type of a transfer because most of Jose's transfers at United have been younger players - Bailly, Pogba, Lindelöf and Lukaku could all play for the next decade at United. Adding a few experienced players to the mix to raise our level to the required standards is not too bad.