I did a 'missed opportunities in the market' a few months ago and after Antony's performance in particular today, I couldn't help but review that. Sorry this will be long!
Antony's showing today must be one of the worst performances I've seen from a United player. The stats tell part of the story, but watching it was a ham shambles:
Antony’s game by numbers vs. Fulham: https://twitter.com/StatmanDave/status/1720812279883518159
By comparison, a player I touted on here ad tedium was Mohammed Kudus, who signed for West Ham for £38m - less than half of what we paid for Antony. He got another goal for West Ham today - an absolute worldie as well. That's 5 goals in 13 games so far for West Ham to add to the 4 goals in 3 games he'd scored for Ajax at the start of the season before his move (9 goals in 16 games this season).
Mohammed Kudus’ first half by numbers vs. Brentford:
https://twitter.com/StatmanDave/status/1720832629610520734
Which brings us nicely on to other players available both last summer and this:
Speaking of stark illustrations of our recruitment... Joao Paulinha at £20m last summer versus £70m for Casemiro looks a massive blunder by comparison. At their respective best, I don't think anyone could argue that Casemiro isn't the superior player, but there's really not much in it and when you factor in the cost and the age, I think it's safe to say Fulham got the better deal. I'm not sure our man-for-man midfield marking system would necessarily suit either of them, but it would surely have suited the slightly more mobile, young player of the two more so.
I'm happy with what I've seen from Hojlund, though he's the victim of some terrible attacking play in general as far as chance creation goes:
"Manchester United have failed to create a chance for Rasmus Hojlund for the last 160 minutes of Premier League football:
8 mins vs. Sheffield United
73 mins vs. Manchester City
79 mins vs. Fulham"
https://twitter.com/StatmanDave/status/1720811771433283625
But we needed to bring in someone else to both compete and rotate with Hojlund given Martial cannot be depended on for fitness or form and Hojlund as a young player will take time finding his feet in the PL, especially having had no preseason. There were two good options in my view; one more obvious, the other a little more left-field:
Marcus Thuram - available on a FREE. Has scored 5 and assisted 7 in 13 games for Inter Milan so far this season. Reasonable though unpsectacular scoring record in Germany but would have represented shrewd business in adding a quality option to the forward line on the cheap. Wasn't on my own radar as mentioned but was on plenty of other peoples'.
Viktor Gyokeres - a more "creative" pick from the Championship, but he'd registered 22 goals & 12 assists last season for Coventry, and 18/5 GA the season before. He signed for Sporting in the summer for just over £17m, and has 11/2 GA in 12 games at his new club. Again, as cheap punt on a player with both a goal scoring record to point to and potential to fulfil, he would have been pretty risk-free.
The combined cost of Kudus, Paulinha, Thuram & Gyokeres would have totalled £75.5m (I'm not arguing we should have signed all of them!). That's £10m less than for Antony alone and would have meant there was plenty of money left over to address other areas such as RB, CB, CM & GK.
When you consider the relatively cheap fees paid for the likes of Timber, Kim Min-jae, Pavard and so on, and how we really struggled to address certain positions this summer due to budgetary constraints, I think it just goes to show how truly woeful our recruitment has been. We could have signed better players for significantly less, and none of the players listed above (Gyokeres aside maybe) could really be classed as unknowns.
Signing Paulinha and Kudus + Thuram instead of Casemiro, Antony & no additional CF would have saved us £97m in fees (not to mention Casemiro's wages), and we'd be better off for it in both depth, quality & age profile. We'd have been able to go after two or three other positions or even go big on someone of real quality (Rice, for example).
Feel free to add your own examples of what we could have had or done differently over the windows so far.
***Side note; I've deliberately excluded Onana & Mount from consideration here. Onana has been on a bit of a redemption arc over the last 3 or 4 games, and I want to see Mount get a run of matches in whatever role he was signed to play before drawing any conclusions. I accept that on current evidence, better business could have been done.
Here's what we could have had...
posted on 5/11/23
comment by Striketeam7 - There used to be a football club over there (U18109)
posted 52 minutes ago
comment by Tomkins (U1116)
posted 40 minutes ago
You could have got Lucas Paqueta for what you paid for Mount
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Which would have been great until his impending 9/10 month betting ban
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Which would have still made him more effective than mount
posted on 5/11/23
There is an almost endless list of midfielders we should’ve signed instead of Mount this summer.
posted on 5/11/23
You could have got Lucas Paqueta for what you paid for Mount
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Which would have been great until his impending 9/10 month betting ban
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It wouldn't have been great because we needed an actual central midfielder to play in midfield, not Paqueta or Maddison or anyone similar.
posted on 5/11/23
The Antony deal is looking like the worst piece of business we've ever done
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Sancho has got him beat there
posted on 5/11/23
Good, if not depressing, article!
I'd rather not think of it now though as I don't want to spoil my Sunday.
I don't think the players we've signed are terrible though. I just don't think the fit is right. It still seems a mish mash. I happen to think Antony would do well at City as would a lot of our other players. We won't see the best of any of our players until they complement each other in style of play etc.
You could argue that Casemrio was worth the money last season to help us into top four to get the CL place but hindsight probably states we'd have been better off getting two for midfield that complemented each other.
Ah well...
posted on 5/11/23
Good, if not depressing, article!
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But we’ve got you to counter that!
posted on 5/11/23
comment by Glazers Out (SE85) (U21241)
posted 11 hours, 50 minutes ago
Forget the price tag.....what I find worrying is that he spent two years coaching him and he thinks he's good enough for the PL.
I genuinely don't think Fulham, Everton or Brentford would want him.
This is the biggest black mark against ETH for me. The longer he continues to play him the more likely it will be he gets sacked. He's just awful.
He also signed Mount for 55+5m, gave him the number 7 shirt and barely plays him.
I genuinely wouldn't give him another penny to spend. Can't be trusted with it.
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The Antony deal is a club failure, not an ETH one. If we had a competent squad building and talent identification department, they would have overruled a deal for Antony over both the price of the deal, as well as due to questions over his suitability.
There was a rumour, which increasingly looks credible, that people at United (scouts I assume), had concerns about Antony's dribbling style in the PL. It's an organisational failure for a club with the resources of United to be leaning on recommendations from the coach over player recruitment.
I think we have to be a bit patient with the Mount signing. Due to results and performances ETH has reverted to last season's set up more or less, which differs from how we played most of preseason and in the first couple of games of the season. I think Mount has been a victim to that (+ his injury). I remain unconvinced he was the right signing all the same, but I want to see him operating in the position he was signed for in the system we seemed to be transitioning towards before drawing conclusions.
posted on 5/11/23
comment by Busby (U19985)
posted 1 hour, 43 minutes ago
Antony’s numbers with Ajax were superior to Kudos.
I’m sure if we’d signed Kudus we’d be having the same conversation.
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The season before we signed Antony he registered 12 goals and 10 assists.
Last season Kudus got 18 goals and 7 assists, and he's got 9 goals in 16 games already this season between Ajax & West Ham. He's just a better player, which he demonstrated on the world stage in Qatar also and his game and physical attributes (pace, power, strength) are clearly superior and more PL-ready than Antony's.
West Ham would not want Antony.
posted on 5/11/23
The Antony deal is a club failure, not an ETH one. If we had a competent squad building and talent identification department, they would have overruled a deal for Antony over both the price of the deal, as well as due to questions over his suitability.
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Whilst that’s true, it’s ETH that wanted him so I don’t know how you can divorce him of his major part in all this
posted on 5/11/23
comment by >💲Baz tard🦍+❄️=? (U19119)
posted 42 minutes ago
The Antony deal is a club failure, not an ETH one. If we had a competent squad building and talent identification department, they would have overruled a deal for Antony over both the price of the deal, as well as due to questions over his suitability.
—
Whilst that’s true, it’s ETH that wanted him so I don’t know how you can divorce him of his major part in all this
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Because we didn't sign ETH to be head of recruitment or for his scouting talents. He wasn't brought in as a transfer negotiator. We signed him to coach the team.
I don't mind our manager wanting or suggesting any player - good or bad really (within reason). What should have happened is the recruitment team said no, and have already identified better targets for a problem position (and done so before ETH was ever on our radar).
So the failure is giving the manager too much grace or weight on the recruitment side. ETH wanting a player that he knew and who, frankly, had done very well for him in a position we needed, shouldn't come as any great shock. ETH also didn't write the cheque for £85m, nor did he choose to delay the signing until the price had gone through the roof late in the window.
I take the same view (but from the opposite way around!) over Martinez, too. Terrific player I think and happy we have him, but I'd be surprised if he was one we wanted to go for before appointing ETH. So I don't really credit ETH for that suggestion either in much the same way I don't really blame him for Antony. I'm more concerned that our poor structure means we lean heavily on a manager's ideas in the market.