{"id":6120,"date":"2016-10-22T20:36:42","date_gmt":"2016-10-22T18:36:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thefootballfreak.com\/?p=6120"},"modified":"2021-08-18T15:09:00","modified_gmt":"2021-08-18T14:09:00","slug":"rating-manchester-uniteds-new-signings-money-well-spent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thefootballfreak.com\/rating-manchester-uniteds-new-signings-money-well-spent\/","title":{"rendered":"Rating Manchester United&#8217;s New Signings &#8211; money well spent?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Louis van Gaal spent around a quarter of a million of your earth pounds in the space of two short years at Manchester United. But, with the likes Chicharito, RvP and Danny Welbeck sold, it would fairly easy to argue that the squad was no better when he left.<\/p>\n<p>The obvious exceptions were Luke Shaw and Anthony Martial (the former was surely on his way to Old Trafford before LvG arrived). Daley Blind is a quality player but the rest &#8211; the likes of Marcos Rojo, Matteo Darmian, Morgan Schneiderlin and Bastian Schweinsteiger &#8211; have been outright failures so far.<\/p>\n<p>So how do Jose&#8217;s first four signings compare? We take a look at each new boy and the omens seem very good. Indeed, it&#8217;s already difficult to imagine a Manchester United team without the likes of Pogba, Zlatan and Eric Bailly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>CHECK OUT THE WEEKLY PODCAST <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"450\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/288944203&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;visual=true\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Eric Bailly<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>He&#8217;s not even 23 until next April and Bailly has to go down as one of the top 5, maybe even top 3, Premier League signings of the whole summer window.<\/p>\n<p>Still a little raw at times, but Bailly looks as if he has been marshalling the Manchester United defence for 5 years already. He&#8217;s a tough as Vidic but as fast as Ferdinand. And, as well as being an imperious presence in the defence, he loves to carry the ball forward.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What a signing &#8211; 9\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=tKi4pRaLQ9g<\/p>\n<p><strong>Paul Pogba<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Has taken his time to adjust to the pace and rigours of The Premier League after a brilliant debut against Southampton. <\/p>\n<p>And the price tag was always going to set the more mischievous media tongues wagging with the first hint of an average performance.<\/p>\n<p>But ask any Manchester United fan if they would pay \u00a390m for him again and they unanimous answer would be YES.<\/p>\n<p>At 23, Pogba is the present and the long-term future of Manchester United. His two goals and superb performance against Fenerbahce could be the platform he needs to kick on. The signing of Pogba will help United wrest control of the league back from Manchester City. <strong>7\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Henrikh Mkhitaryan<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A real disappointment so far. The Armenian was perhaps emotionally, as well as physically damaged by the 45 minutes that he got against Manchester City. We haven&#8217;t seen him since but TFF still thinks that he will be in the strongest Manchester United XI come spring.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Zlatan<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Killer. Zlatan&#8217;s goals have dried up of late but it&#8217;s difficult to think of a better target man. His power, touch and awareness are superb and he will be a vital cog in the Manchester United machine this season. Will score 20 goals. But we also think that United will make another big money striker signing next summer. Griezmann?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>Big Investment  <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/thefootballfreak.com\/rating-manchester-uniteds-new-signings-money-well-spent\/\" title=\"Rating Manchester United&#8217;s New Signings &#8211; money well spent?\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":5406,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[17,252],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefootballfreak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6120"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefootballfreak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefootballfreak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefootballfreak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefootballfreak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6120"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thefootballfreak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12170,"href":"https:\/\/thefootballfreak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6120\/revisions\/12170"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefootballfreak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefootballfreak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefootballfreak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefootballfreak.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}