As Man Utd prepare to face Tottenham in the Europa League final, it’s already clear who should not be there for a potential CL campaign.
Keep your mails coming to theeditor@footbal365.com
Nine Man Utd players who should leave this summer
Following the season United have had, where it’s honestly been such a drag watching some games, it makes you think how United have somehow gone from 8th place last year in the league with Ten Hag at the helm (which was deemed as disastrous), to 16th in the league this year. It proves some players are just rubbish and there for the paycheck. There isn’t really an excuse for it to be finishing not only in the lower half of the table, but to be finishing below 15th place, is brutally shite.
I have no idea how the team are somehow the only unbeaten side in Europe this season, but it looks like Amorim does have a few tricks up his sleeve in European competition, but has to improve drastically in the Premier League next season otherwise he will probably get sacked. Truth be told, I wish the whole board would just get sacked, with former United players and those who understand the standards of the club to take their place, but Ratcliffe and the Glazers are the ones in charge and it doesn’t look like that will change any time soon…
If the owners actually had some sense of responsibility and courage, and the manager must communicate this as well, they need to have a serious conversation with some of the players at the club and insist on putting them on the transfer list. And if United can’t sell them due to the ridiculous salaries they are on, at least loan them and agree a deal with another club to pay for 40-50% of their wage. The players who need to leave are the following.
Luke Shaw: This player is honestly so lucky to have been at United for the last 11 years. Yes its unfortunate how his leg injury ruined his potential and his fitness, but United should have gotten rid of Shaw years ago. Not reliable or good enough and did have a few good years, but it’s time to go.
Jonny Evans: Did we seriously just sign him to keep Tom Heaton some company? Pointless signing.
Victor Lindelof: Actually rate him quite a lot as a defender and player, and built a somewhat solid partnership with Maguire over the years, but should try and head back to somewhere like Benfica or a mid-table club in Italy/Spain.
Diogo Dalot: I think he had a great year last season, but very big downfall this year. If United can get 35-40 million for him, sell him as he isn’t good enough defensively, has headless chicken vibes.
Christian Eriksen: I thought he was excellent in his first year at United and was just as good as Casemiro in that first year under Ten Hag, but time for him to leave on a free and enjoy last few years at another club.
Jadon Sancho: No explanation needed, came for money and incredibly overrated. Loan him again if necessary.
Marcus Rashford: Looks like he needs a new start, and if United can sell him for a reasonable amount of money, they should sell him and it’s a big salary amount off the books too.
Antony: Has proven that United really were the problem, need to convince Real Betis to sign him for around 30 million and looks to suit La Liga much more than the Premier League.
Rasmus Hojlund: I do think the criticism of him has been somewhat unfair, but is he good enough to score 15-20 goals a season? He just looks so uncomfortable up front and should head back to Italy where the game seemed to suit him more. Would make a big loss on him given the price paid for, but should cash in and sign another striker.
I would arguably include Mason Mount as part of this list due to his injury issues, but only came in two seasons ago. Knowing United, they won’t even sell half of the players listed here, and it will be the same vicious circle of an ‘Average’ summer of transfers. 8-9 players must be sold/loaned out this summer, a large chunk of players need to leave the club before bringing in new blood. If the owners don’t realise that, then Amorim will eventually pay the price and the same thing will happen to United where they bring in a manager for 2 years max and change it up when the owners feel like it/are bored.
Good luck to the team, fans and manager, surely can only be upwards and onwards after the season the team have had.
Rami, Dubai
READ: Matheus Cunha ‘love’ gives Man Utd fading transfer advantage over Arsenal
There are some positives though…
So here we stand on the precipice of glory or failure. Win and the season will be marginally acceptable, lose and it will be confirmed a disastrous campaign. This goes for both teams, and the fact Spurs have got the better of us thrice this season makes me incredibly nervous (albeit the two under RA were close affairs). Which United will turn up – Ruby’s Euro diamonds or Ruben’s relegation-hunting rejects?
The league season was a write-off a good couple of months ago, so I can understand some sluggish league performances. We haven’t won since March but, Newcastle aside, most matches have been fairly evenly contested. But this doesn’t make it acceptable, and Ruben has said as much.
Of course the manager has to take some flak, that comes with the territory, but we have known for some time that the squad isn’t good enough regardless of what system is being played – this doesn’t necessarily mean they are all “bad” players individually, just as a collective it hasn’t worked, and changes were and are needed.
I like Hojlund, but he isn’t ready to lead the line for us every week and is still learning the game and how to deal with the pressure of being at one of the world’s biggest clubs – he needs to be a 1 in 2 striker, and it remains to be seen if he can hit those numbers.
Garnacho will be a fine player, but he isn’t a wingback or a #10, so doesn’t suit the system; he has improved but, again, is not ready to play there week in week out. I don’t want us to sell him but might be necessary.
Our wingbacks, key positions in this system, have not delivered consistently – injuries explain some of this but, regardless, we need players there who can defend, attack and stay fit! Dorgu looks a good buy but is still raw, not sure Amass will make it with us but we’ll see. Malacia who? Dalot gives 100% but isn’t consistent in attack, he should stick to the edge of the box cutbacks as they are his most effective deliveries, and Mazraoui looks more at home as the right CB. Most of our quality in MF is aging and our GK loves a mistake. So other than that, it’s all good.
It’s not all doom and gloom, Maguire continues to look good in a 3, Yoro looks a player, Diallo has come back as sharp, Zirkzee has shown some flashes and Bruno is Bruno. Mount has even stayed fit for longer than 3 matches. We will add to the squad in the summer (Cunha would be perfect, would love Mbeumo but can’t see it), there are some promising youth players to come through and the players we keep will have more of an idea of what is expected of them.
The point being, talk of getting rid of Amorim at this stage is madness. He will know that next season brings less patience, and his methods have to be seen to be working in the league as that is our bread and butter. A trophy and CL place would, however, be a start and buy him some further support.
Garey (come on United!!) Vance, MUFC
READ: Ruben Amorim worse than Marsch, Ljungberg, Jewell, Warnock and other sacked or relegated managers
This Liverpool fan is Team Man Utd
With the Premier League safely tucked away in Liverpool’s arm, we now turn our attention to the next big’un – Europa League. All those ridiculing this trophy *cough Arsenal fans cough*, please leave football. This game’s not for you, your trophy cabinet as empty as your head.
This is a mega European trophy featuring 2 English giants of the game and it’ll be glorious to behold the carnage of Wednesday night. There’ll be suicidal high-lines, goalkeepers who think they are footballers, the missing of barn doors, the passes that discovers new zip codes. In the end, there’ll be a winner and for the joy of all other fans, a loser.
Who do I want to win? As a Liverpool fan, while I want to see Ange deliver on his “second season win things” boast, I must concede I need Man Utd to win this. I need Amorim’s underperformers to climb back to where they belong (8th place) and the Champions League money can only help.
See, every yin needs a yang, every Barcelona needs a Real Madrid, every Batman needs a Joker. Rivalries make competitions better. Liverpool against Man Utd IS English football, anything else is just tofu burger – not the real thing. Arsenal fans are empty vessels, City has no fans, Chelsea is a punchline these days. So c’mon United, win the damn ting, for the start of true rivalry and for the glory of English football.
Vinnie Pee
MAILBOX: Man Utd fans fear defeat to ‘serial chokers and jokers’ if Hojlund starts
One of those Arsenal fans writes…
The only appropriate outcome for Wednesday’s game is penalties after a mind numbingly boring scoreless draw, with the winning spot kick being an own goal after it cannons off the post and in via the goalkeeper’s arse. Anything more would reflect far too positively than either club deserves.
Matt Wright, Gunner in Aus
Is Frimpong that odd of a potential signing?
Youth development is never linear; as good as Bradley has been, he isn’t consistent. Defensively he was excellent against Mbappe and bloody terrible against Martinelli. He’s been Cafu incarnate going forward, whilst also showing the inadequacies of Abel Xavier in some moments.
For every youth prospect that excels, like a Gravenberch, there’s a youth prospect that excels and then stalls, like Bajcetic. Both may well thrive, but relying on one was foolhardy and didn’t work and relying on the other did work – though entirely out of luck rather than judgement.
There is a difference between giving youth a chance with an opportunity that’s still safe to fail, and relying on youth and then their struggles hamper the whole team, the compounding pressure of that then destroys their career.
Gravenberch saved the day this season but it was a forced gamble, rather than a plan that should be scaled. Beyond that, perpetually play a kid in every game, and you’ll break them as LFC did with Owen and Arteta may well do with Saka.
The interesting thing about Frimpong is, if he is signed, it’d obviously provide competition for Connor Bradley, but given his attacking output, it’d not be out of the question for both to play on the right hand side. Frimpong strikes me as another potential Riise, who can play on the wing or as full back.
And to that end, Salah has rightly earned a new contract, but this season has indicated a degree of burnout by April. If a season is 50+ games long, with minutes available at right wing and right back, then 40+ starts for Frimpong across both roles, and 20 + sub appearances for Connor at full back is still good squad management, and that’s discounting injuries. I’m likely mis-remembering but I recall Arsenal playing Eboue as a winger, and didn’t Saka start out as a full back before moving forward? I’m sure it’s been done before, it’s just my memory is failing me.
Not everyone’s career ends up like Gareth Bale’s but the prospect of playing an attacking full back further forward isn’t entirely new, and not entirely unsuccessful. Riise was instrumental in Istanbul after all.
Final thing would be that at circa thirty million, in today’s world of utterly ludicrous prices, that’s not too extravagant, and albeit losing Trent for buttons is a huge dropped-bollock, having two people replace him for an all-in cost of 30 million does repair that damage somewhat.
I can empathise with the argument F365 are making about saving your transfer kitty till you know if a target is available. The inverse to that logic though is your main target’s price tag could/would swell to fill your entire budget if you wait forever, as your negotiating position is reduced: folks will know how much money you have.
If LFC kept their powder dry, then Newcastle could argue they want the whole fee for Isaak up front. If LFC bring in two fullbacks relatively quickly, they could make the case to Newcastle that they’d be ‘happy’ adding extra onto the fee, but need to defer the installments across 18 months or longer etc – basically negotiating. (notwithstanding that i don’t think Isaak will move this window, just using him as an example as you did).
I’d hope that with the sales of Darwin, Chiesa, Tsimikas, Kellegher, and Jota, and the departure of Trent, and the rumours of an exit for Endo and Elliot, that the club would have budget and wage bill capacity to do what they need to. If the signing of an ‘extra’ full back negates that, then as much as I really can’t be arsed with the manic fringe of the FSG-out brigade, some questions would realistically need to be asked as to where the money is. And Frimpong looks a decent buy if the club can get it sorted.
Tom
On Joel Ward. Or why Palace are 12th
Yes, I’m still overwhelmed by the FA Cup Final. Details keep coming back to me, like seeing Paddy McCarthy from the 2010 survival side squaring up to one of Manchester City’s medical team, or the fact that victory was secured with two important players (Marc Guehi and Adam Wharton) requiring substitution due to head injuries.
However, the dominant memory at the moment is what happened immediately before the cup presentation. Last week it was announced that Joel Ward, the longest-serving member of the current Crystal Palace squad, would be leaving the club when he contract expires in the summer.
Clearly we all missed a memo because we didn’t plaster Selhurst with posters calling him a Judas, forcing him to pick “loyalty or lolly”, sending death threats to him and his family on social media and demanding the Joel Ward mural be painted over – that’s what you’re supposed to do when a long-serving right-back announces they’re leaving at the end of their contract, isn’t it?
Ward joined the club from Portsmouth in 2012, leaving a side that had been relegated from the Championship for one that had finished 17th, for a fee of £400,000. The following season he made 25 appearances as Palace were promoted to the Premier League, and prior to this campaign made that many or more appearances in nine out of eleven seasons. Arguably the dictionary definition of a reliable if unspectacular full back, there is no denying that he has been one of the best value for money signings of the past 15 years – particularly as his arrival, with Palace just a year or so out of administration, meant they had to sell players in order to fund his acquisition.
In a way, he’s a good example of why Palace finish roughly 12th every year. A more ruthless club would have cut Ward loose a long time ago, replaced him with someone younger, cheaper and with personal ambition in abundance that can be translated into ambition for the team. And yet, he’s still here, because as Steve Parish has said in interviews about other players, he wants to do right by the person behind the player; he knows that Ward, like Paddy McCarthy or Damien Delaney before him, still has leadership and experience to contribute to the group and its younger members even if he isn’t playing every week.
Some clubs, or at least the very online people among their supporters, will see this as excessive sentimentality that holds Palace back, but it isn’t, it’s just humans being considerate to each other.
And then we get to Saturday, when Ward and Guehi get to lift the FA Cup together, the first people to ever do that in Crystal Palace colours. It was a fantastic moment and something so richly deserved for someone who has done so much for the club for so long. Not being someone to actively seek the spotlight made it all the better that he got to be front and centre at the greatest moment in the club’s history – the greatest moment in the club’s history so far. Go well, Wardy.
Ed Quoththeraven
Giving the promoted clubs a chance
Simple solution, currently Premier League teams can only loan two Premier League players, what if say newly promoted sides were allowed up to 6 (then 4 in their second season and back to the default 2 in their third)? On the face of it wouldn’t it be a win-win? Newly promoted clubs get access to more Premier League level talent without the cost of transfer fees or locking in long-term expensive contracts, bigger clubs have more scope to give league minutes to players who need them (so currently all the promoted teams can only lend 6 between them, under this system you’d open up 24 more slots).
You’d be less likely to end up with scenarios where players who desperately need the minutes, like Evan Ferguson end up going on loan to clubs who are taking them on as a spare rather than as a core part of their starting line up. I also would have an option for special appeal, wherein a club could make a case for exception circumstance on going over the set limit, this would leave the door open to late window options that turn up (like say a scenario where a player gets dramatically left out of the squad after a huge falling out and has nowhere to go).
I’m aware that the sight of a team taking the field with majority players they don’t ‘own’ might be weird at first (and of course they don’t have to fill all their slots either), but surely it’d be preferable to the predictable churn of promoted sides in giving them a better fighting chance, and with more league teams in Europe than ever before and so needing deeper squads i can see how something like this could serve as a halfway house for players on the verge of the first team of higher tier sides to bridge the gap.
Thanks.
Seanán
Ps. Have a lovely Summer and please be a bit nicer to Arteta.
