We're moaning about paying top whack for players.....

could be worse and you'd have to pay £71m for an overweight player who is vastly overrated.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/manchester-united-transfers-gonzalo-higuain-5899515

i'm certainly not worried about paying top whack, it is the caliber of player that matters more.  I get a sense of dread, when I see us letting players go & then linked to players who are not even as good as the ones we let go.

Who are we letting go who is better than what we are going after?

blueboy wrote:Who are we letting go who is better than what we are going after?

Milner and Fabian Delph?

But we're not letting Milner go! We wanted him to stay. He chose not to. We can't make him stay.

So we're hardly letting go of any player who is worthy of a place.

Lampard has a contract with NYC FC.

Milner chose to go.

The ones we let go:

Richards or Zaba?

Sinclair or Sterling?

Boyata or DeM/Mangagal/Vinny/Denayer?

City had no choice with Lampard or Milner...that's my point.

I think it's more of seasons gone by where we got rid of Nige and replaced with Garcia etc..

but we did let milner go by allowing him to run down his contract, By not offering Richards a new 1 year deal,Richards had the ability to play centre back right back even defensive mid so it was not a question of 1 right back over another it was a decent utility player. Yes we had to let Lampard go as per the deal with New York but my point is the players we are linked with to guarantee home grown, we are going to have to pay top wack, and if that is the case then the likes of delph for 25mill should be totally ignored, not worth a half empty packet of crisps. Last year it was Barry & Lescott, we should at least be looking at home grown then, Now we have dug a hole for ourselves. I agree about Boyata, Sinclair was a mistake to begin with, but there is no guarantee we get Sterling to sign, so not a good example.

skyblueoz wrote:but we did let milner go by allowing him to run down his contract, By not offering Richards a new 1 year deal,Richards had the ability to play centre back right back even defensive mid so it was not a question of 1 right back over another it was a decent utility player. Yes we had to let Lampard go as per the deal with New York but my point is the players we are linked with to guarantee home grown, we are going to have to pay top wack, and if that is the case then the likes of delph for 25mill should be totally ignored, not worth a half empty packet of crisps. Last year it was Barry & Lescott, we should at least be looking at home grown then, Now we have dug a hole for ourselves. I agree about Boyata, Sinclair was a mistake to begin with, but there is no guarantee we get Sterling to sign, so not a good example.

We didn't let Milner or Richards run down their contracts,both of them chose not to sign extensions to their contracts.
Don't really see what more the club could do

Agree. As I said, we can't force them to stay.

Milner was offered a contract last year as was Micah. He said he didn't want to be a 2nd choice RB and wanted more game time, so he went on loan.

For me the only disappointing things about them leaving is the HG loss, as players i ain't too bothered tbh.

Iheanacho Denayer Pozo Ambrose Lopes Rekik Barker to name a few,supplemented by Stirling and De Bruyne would be more than enough in regards of HG to replace Boyata & co
Essential that whatever transfers are made are actual improvements on the squad as that's clearly not been the case since Marwoods last window and El chuckle bros have been in charge of the recruitment

I don't think any of those kids would count towards our 25 man PL squad as they are U21 and we can have as many U21s as we like. Even Stirling, if we got him, is U21. De Bruyne is 23 so would count towards the squad.

It's not just an improvement of the squad that's needed, it's an improvement of the first team. Right now, I think we can/have to improve on the RB, one CB, DM and a winger to improve the first team.

but rekik is about to be sold. What if those youngsters don't 1st team game time? I thought we had to have at least 8 home grown in a squad of 25. I am struggling to name more than 3 at the moment.

I still believe we could have done a lot more earlier to resolve the milner / Richards situation. Richards was told by pellegrini he didn't figure in his plans & milner wanted assurances of game time. surely that is not too hard to solve even with a bit of bullshit here & there.

I too believe it is important to improve the squad & quite considerably in order to catch up with Chelsea & keep the chasing pack at bay as they will definitely strengthen.

Milner was given more game time.  He wanted to play in the centre and that was't going to happen.

The rule is you are allowed 17 non HG in a squad of 25. That's why teams have, in the past, gone into a season with maybe 22 or 23 players. You can have as many U21s as you like.