Manchester United’s transfer policy under Louis van Gaal and Ed Woodward has been ‘a disaster’ according to respected Daily Telegraph sports journalist Matt Law.
Speaking to Sky Sports’ Sunday Supplement show Law said that there doesn’t appear to be any clear plan in place for transfers, and Manchester United are instead employing something of a scattergun approach to the transfer market:
“We get to January and they suddenly need a striker,”
“But how many goals has Mane scored this season? Three [in the league]. You wouldn’t look at him and say traditionally he’s a United player based on that record. The policy has just become a bit of a disaster. It’s panic, panic, panic.
“Every transfer window we come to, there doesn’t seem to be any proper plan. It’s ‘oh, we’ll try and sign Neymar, we’ll try and sign Gareth Bale’ and actually they end up with [Morgan] Schneiderlin and [Bastian] Schweinsteiger.
“It’s just a disaster, and you can see it coming with this transfer window again. Who knows what Anderson will be like when he comes over to England? It’s just all over the place.”
We can see his point. Louis van Gaal said early this season that his squad is now more balanced but the lack of goals this season would surely counter that argument with interest.
Manchester United have a decent crop of defenders but haven’t been able to grow a solid back 5 due to key injuries to players like Luke Shaw and Marcos Rojo.
The midfield looks deeper but the likes of Morgan Schneiderlin and Bastian Schweinsteiger have so far failed to deliver despite their large salaries.
And, up top, Wayne Rooney and Memphis have been misfiring while Anthony Martial is still finding his feet. Meanwhile crowd favourite Javier Hernandez, a player who Van Gaal disposed of in the summer, has now scored 19 goals in 26 games for his new club Bayer Leverkusen.
All in all you get the sense that this is a make or break month for the Manchester United manager in the market and on the pitch.