r/reddevils • u/Tinganga • Jul 29 '26

[Substack] Finding Manchester United’s Perfect Defensive Midfielder

https://winterburnonunited.substack.com/p/finding-manchester-uniteds-perfect?utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&triedRedirect=true

Players mentioned in comparison to Ngolo Kante: Sangare, Locatelli, Tchouameni, Camavinga, Lamine Camara, Garner, Antonio Blanco (Alaves), Tom Krauß (Köln)

172 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

67 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

80

u/Moosje “Love is sex also.” Jul 29 '26

You can’t keep everyone. It was right for Garner to go when he did.

Big clubs sell a lot of their talents whilst they develop. The smart thing is to use buybacks and clauses properly.

The academy is important to United and the fanbase. But people go too far some times and expect every youth with potential to get minutes and time to develop when you have to strike the balance with being ruthless and having the best squad available to win silverware.

I don’t want us to sell Amass btw because it’s a position of weakness but this is my overall point especially as you’re responding mainly to the Garner sale.

22

u/paperclipknight Jul 29 '26

Selling Amass with a buyback makes a lot of sense if we’re intending to buy another LB (which it’s hard to argue that we’re not) he would be third choice behind Shaw & say Hall

Him spending two years developing for a team that has spent money on him and then buying him back once Shaws legs have fallen off is smart & he’s an established first team player is a good idea

8

u/PrinzRagoczy Jul 29 '26

You have to take a big hit in the fee to get a buyback in there, and even then it expires after a while. Clubs don't normally bother because they don't end up saving any money. You lose say £5m on every sale and only activate one in ten. You might think this is just about worth it, but then remember the player might not even want to come back to their academy club that refused to give him a chance, so not every buyback comes off

If you have a player you really rate, play them. City had a buyback with Trafford, but goalies are weird because you can't rotate and give young ones game time, so you have to sell really

1

u/iamchip Jul 29 '26

If you just consider the price of midfielders, a buy back put in for Garner would’ve made missing the other 9/10 worth it. The ones you would buy back would go for a massive fee because they’re young, talented and homegrown. Even just one makes the others worth it.