Official Football Thread

Angel Di Maria has completed his move to Manchester United for a British record fee of £59.7m.
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Meh, I stopped caring about the transfer fees lately. Everything is already inflated as fuck anyway. IMO only Messi, Ronaldo, perhaps Bale and maybe last year's Suarez are worth more than €50 million. Neymar, James Rodriguez and Di Maria would be €40-45 million max. And David Luiz... €20 million max and only because he can play both as a DM and CB.
 
If Cristiano Ronaldo of United were to be on the verge of a move to Real today, I don't think he'd go for anything less then €120 million.
 
The team has no confidence at all. There are several in this starting XI who want to be regular starters in the Premier League. Some of them are. But they don't seem to actually believe they are better than the opposition ... which is MK bloody Dons!

God, give me strength.
 
Just mischievously speculating. :D

I feel that it's also necessary to point out that under David Moyes Manchester United reached the semi-finals of this competition. #justsayin
 
I think the main problem with this United team had its foundation laid out in the last years of Fergie. During its glory years under Fergie, United always featured great players from their youth academy on their team. With their youth academy constantly producing good talent and almost all of their young player investments working out (Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney etc.) they didn't really care for spending money on "ready to go" players and splash in the market. In the last couple of years, the youth academy players of United have been utter garbage. Tom Cleverley, Chris Smalling, Jonny Evans...These guys are not on United level. Hell, they're not even on Southampton level. As a result, they rather panicked and spent money on players who are just not worth their price. (Maroune Fellaini, Ashley Young)

I expect a complete transition in team management department for the team. They're likely to rely upon their ability to spend money for a couple of years. Looks like they've already started it, really.
 
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I think you may be right. I'm not as negative on Smalling as you, but he's not good enough to be a regular starter. Squad player, no more. Evans has had one really good season (where he often played alongside Vidic). Cleverley has never made the transition from promising to actual quality.

A friend of mine (also a United fan) texted me some minutes ago, commented that the team is losing its identity. Hardly any local players left, those who are there are on the way out, not looking too bright in the youth department either at the moment.
 
Smalling wasn't in United youth teams. Evans has been great when partnered with Rio or Vidic when all 3 of them were younger. But yeah, Cleverley is shit :P
 
Smalling was still brought in as a young guy, doesn't change my point. Evans looked good because he was partnered with Rio or Vidic. Not because he's actually good on his own. We're talking about United here. Decent is not good enough. When you play guys like Smalling, Evans, Cleverley, Young, Welbeck it's no wonder you're not any better than Southampton and Newcastle.
 
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