Another Manchester United transfer window full of squad turnoverBY ANDY MITTEN
At a news conference to announce new signings earlier this summer, Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal said that his squad needed to be increased in numbers in order to cope with the likely demands of playing in four competitions this season. United had 27 first-team squad members at the end of last season. With the summer transfer window just finished, the Reds now have 24 first-team players, just 18 of them senior, going into the next game against Liverpool.
Ben Amos and Anders Lindegaard were the goalkeepers who departed, while the ones who wanted to leave, David De Gea and Victor Valdes, stayed. From the defence, Rafael, Jonny Evans and Tom Thorpe have all gone. Of the midfielders, Angel Di Maria and Adnan Januzaj will play their football away from Old Trafford while forwards Radamel Falcao, Javier Hernandez and Robin van Persie have also left. That's seven departures in one transfer window. Eleven officially, for Tom Cleverley, Reece James, Saidy Janko and Nani -- all of whom spent some or all of 2014-15 on loan away from United -- also said "see-ya" over the summer. Now, goalkeepers Sergio Romero and Sam Johnstone are in the first-team squad, while Matteo Darmian is in defence. Bastian Schweinsteiger and Morgan Schneiderlin have been added to the midfield and Memphis Depay and Anthony Martial have arrived to keep the number of forwards at four. Another deadline-day signing, Regan Poole, is expected to join the under-21 squad for a fee of ￡100,000. The 17-year-old central defender came from fourth-level Newport County, where he was watched by both United and Liverpool on Saturday. The transfer window elicited mixed feelings among United fans. It opened promisingly as Schweinsteiger and Schneiderlin were brought in alongside Depay and Darmian before the club's U.S. preseason tour. However, it closed in farce with a deal incomplete for De Gea to leave and Keylor Navas to arrive. That was followed by Real Madrid and United releasing conflicting statements with their version of events. It was as amusing as it was unedifying, with fans' loyalties to the fore as they backed their club's version of events. De Gea could join Madrid in January, but by that time he's likely to be cup-tied in the Champions League, a competition Real Madrid are rather fond of. The judgement of whether the transfer window has been successful will be made at the end of the season, but United spent ￡112.9 million and received ￡64.2m this summer -- a net spend of ￡48.7m. That's easily manageable for a club who will announce yet more lucrative sponsorship deals in the forthcoming weeks, although there's the smaller matter of human beings and their families being moved at the last minute, often against their wishes, which isn't as easily computed. United are slick and successful in attracting sponsors, yet their transfer activity casts them in an unbecoming light. No football club gets exactly what they want in the transfer market, but while new signings excite fans -- especially those hopelessly obsessed with transfers -- United's transfer strategy is in danger of spinning too fast. The image of the club's 2013 championship-winning team, with players who have since left greyed out, has become a familiar one on social media. Of the 43 people in that team photo, only nine remain at the club. It's not just the players, either. Since the 2014 retirement of Rob Swire, aged only 52 (with 23 years at the club), United are on their fourth first-team physio. Several members of senior staff with 10, 20 and 30 years' experience have departed for any number of reasons. They announce that they're moving on to another challenge or that they'll consult for the club, usually for a year before they disappear into the ether. The changes have been significant and the power base at the club is now largely consolidated in two decision makers: executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward and director Richard Arnold. They've been chiefly responsible for the club's outstanding commercial success, using methods that are being copied by others but they'll be judged largely by what happens on the pitch. After Monday's transfer shenanigans, several significant United people mentioned how much former chief executive David Gill was missed. When Woodward took charge in 2013, he said that the current squad needed little "re-tooling." Nobody laughed. It may have been too corporate of a term, but the sentiment wasn't unreasonable given that United had just been crowned champions for a record 20th time. The revisionism since from some fans, who claim that dead wood needed to be shifted, is disrespectful to a squad that was talented enough to win the league two years ago. Not 10 years ago, two. Indeed, as Gary Neville pointed out after Sunday's defeat at Swansea, are United really that much better off after spending the thick end of ￡250m since? Of course changes were needed; they always are at any football club. Every club is in transition all of the time, for if they stand still they start to slide. Post-Sir Alex Ferguson United was not going to be easy for anyone because of the near-complete control he had at the club. You can argue the merits of any of the departures, too. Take Januzaj for example. He was given three games by Van Gaal at the start of this season, and by the third in Belgium he'd done little to convince that he deserved a place in the side. But is that enough in these days of snap judgements, when too many fans demand new players and the buzz of a signing? When the club go along with that and measure that brief euphoria in social-media clicks as if they somehow translate to winning a football game at Anfield or Aston Villa? United fans like Danny Welbeck, Cleverley and Evans have all left. None were world class -- none pretended to be -- but they were talented enough to contribute to United's first team under Ferguson. They were good professional players and good people too, who were brought through the club's youth system and didn't complain when they were among the lowest-paid players in the first-team. Clubs need such players and fans need to have patience for such players. I recently interviewed another Mancunian Red, Tyler Blackett, and appealed for questions from United fans. Sadly, almost every one was negative. Blackett, who has joined Celtic on loan, is a grounded lad who was brought up two miles from Old Trafford in a working-class background and supported United when most of his mates were City fans. He came out of an area with significant social problems to be a credit to his family and community. Maybe Blackett is not good enough to play for United's first-team long term, but then nor does the patience exist for him to get the chance needed by young players, particularly defenders, whose craft is learnt gradually through often bitter experience. The thinking seems to be that, if they don't impress after five minutes, sell them. If the club listened to its fans, they'd have no players left. All would have been sold at one time or another in their career, from Roy Keane to Ryan Giggs. At least Ferguson stuck by players when they were getting pilloried by their own. He was the boss and that was that; he needed to make the unpopular decisions. So does Van Gaal and he has. He may look back at the current turbulence and say it was necessary to move the club forward. He has the experience, CV and strength of personality to succeed, but he's had 50 games in charge and there have been only limited signs of improvement in areas like defence. He has been indulged on many levels, had his wishes granted, spent the money on the players he wants. Now they have to improve. United still need to buy more players in key positions, but they need to slow down off the pitch and speed up on it.
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发表于 2-9-2015 10:23 PM
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