CONFIRMED Oliver Arblaster signs a new contract

[Berkshire Blade]

Yep, quite natural when a player reaches the end of their usefulness. gets older or develops regular injury issues. Only McBurnie there we might have got a decentish fee for. Would you have renewed them all a year ago, with resigning bonuses etc?

All of them will be at top championship level next year. Maybe not starting but certainly in the match day squads. Mcburnie scored as many as ndayie last year....

 

[Gin&Juice]

He’s a talented lad.

Imagine if you had the talent he has, playing for the Blades??

LIVING ALL OUR DREAMS.

 

[Carlton Blade]

Yep, quite natural when a player reaches the end of their usefulness. gets older or develops regular injury issues. Only McBurnie there we might have got a decentish fee for. Would you have renewed them all a year ago, with resigning bonuses etc?

It's not a binary decision. The option to sell these players and reinvest was there as well. The least advantageous option was to just let contracts expire with nothing to show for it. The reasoning most often given for people being comfortable with the Ndiaye sale is not losing an asset for nothing.

If you are planning to run a club in a sustainable fashion, having to build a team from scratch is a very difficult way to go

 

[Valley Blade]

As I said, it wasn’t just about those who we haven’t renewed, there are a lot of instances where contracts have been renewed for too long for past it players.

Some of the players in the 2nd paragraph left for less than we could have got if they were on longer term deals. That’s how it works.

Lundstram was one of our best players for the half season where we were pushing for Europe. His performance dropped when this went to his head and the contract issues began.

It’s all just an opinion of mine, I’m not overly fussed if it’s right or wrong. Some people have differing opinions on matters, who’d have thought?!

Inadvertently you've hit the nail on the head. I agree Lundstrum was very good in that period. So we offer contract, he declines. We then offer more than is prudent. Lundstrum signs for 3 years and performs like he did in his latter days. Club is then castigated for wasting money. Also, letting your contract run down is financially a good move, if you have suitors.

 

[Gin&Juice]

Remember when Ryan Flynn turned into Roberto Donadoni, when he had 6 months left? Muggers like that can fuck off. I get it’s a short career, but he was the epitome of league 1 shite, then under Clough with 6 months left, ended up almost getting us into the playoffs.

 

[bertieblade]

Leon Clark was another

 

[Houston_Blade]

Inadvertently you've hit the nail on the head. I agree Lundstrum was very good in that period. So we offer contract, he declines. We then offer more than is prudent. Lundstrum signs for 3 years and performs like he did in his latter days. Club is then castigated for wasting money. Also, letting your contract run down is financially a good move, if you have suitors.

Agreed, it’s a hard balance, you have the likes of Fleck, Stevens, Osborn etc. who were offered contracts and then declined in performance. Then you have Ndiaye, Berge etc. who we wanted to sign long term but wouldn’t.

It goes back to picking the right ones and then making compelling and timely offers to keep them.

 

[Bladesman]

Which high performing players have we, in your opinion, allowed to leave on the cheap in recent years?

Andre Brooks.

Oh wait... he signed a new deal despite a dozen people on here saying he is a Man Utd fan and will turn down a new deal.

 

[Houston_Blade]

Leon Clark was another

I’d have given Leon another 5 year deal.

 

[Nick Jansky]

All of them will be at top championship level next year. Maybe not starting but certainly in the match day squads. Mcburnie scored as many as ndayie last year....

His body is beginning to let him down, possibly because of the way he plays coupled with lifestyle choices when he was younger. Baldock & Lowe are injury prone. Who knows how well an ageing & slowing Egan will come back. None of them will be regulars at the top end of the championship next season.

 

[Nick Jansky]

It's not a binary decision. The option to sell these players and reinvest was there as well. The least advantageous option was to just let contracts expire with nothing to show for it. The reasoning most often given for people being comfortable with the Ndiaye sale is not losing an asset for nothing.

If you are planning to run a club in a sustainable fashion, having to build a team from scratch is a very difficult way to go

We are freeing some big wages up to reinvest in the squad. We are saving the huge signing on fees that players (and their agents) pick up when signing a new contract. I’d prefer to wave them off for nothing at the end of their contracts than to have tied them to longer deals on big wages which would have made them very difficult to sell because of the drop in salary they would need to take to move on. We won’t desperately miss any of them, a complete overhaul is badly needed.

 

[bladesmanluke]

If we weren't quite so shit on the pitch a lot more would be made of this

If we weren't quite so shit on the pitch we'd probably offer them something closer to what they want

 

[Carlton Blade]

We are freeing some big wages up to reinvest in the squad. We are saving the huge signing on fees that players (and their agents) pick up when signing a new contract. I’d prefer to wave them off for nothing at the end of their contracts than to have tied them to longer deals on big wages which would have made them very difficult to sell because of the drop in salary they would need to take to move on. We won’t desperately miss any of them, a complete overhaul is badly needed.

Everyone leaving needs to be replaced and those players will bring their own financial burdens as well as all the associated risks of any incoming transfer.. I would have kept one of the main 3, probably Egan. He's had 2 injuries in 6 seasons and is an excellent player at Championship level. There's nobody at the club who cones close to his level of consistency over a long period, or who garners so much respect from his team mates.

But my main point stands. Ndiaye and Berge were moved on in the name of sustainability. Losing 10+ players for £0 at the end of their deals isn't a sensible way to operate that plan. Sell them, identify replacements on longer deals, rinse/repeat. Having £300m+ additional prize money over a 5 year period (than if the club had been in the Championship the whole time) and needing to sign a decent number of players in the summer to field a competitive Championship team is difficult to defend and does give me concern over the ability to sign players of requisite ability

 

[loyalblade95]

Everyone leaving needs to be replaced and those players will bring their own financial burdens as well as all the associated risks of any incoming transfer.. I would have kept one of the main 3, probably Egan. He's had 2 injuries in 6 seasons and is an excellent player at Championship level. There's nobody at the club who cones close to his level of consistency over a long period, or who garners so much respect from his team mates.

But my main point stands. Ndiaye and Berge were moved on in the name of sustainability. Losing 10+ players for £0 at the end of their deals isn't a sensible way to operate that plan. Sell them, identify replacements on longer deals, rinse/repeat. Having £300m+ additional prize money over a 5 year period (than if the club had been in the Championship the whole time) and needing to sign a decent number of players in the summer to field a competitive Championship team is difficult to defend and does give me concern over the ability to sign players of requisite ability

To be honest, not everyone who is leaving needs to be replaced.

For example if we let six players leave and then signed six new ones the squad would still be too big which has been a problem of ours for a few years now. Maybe it would be more practical to let six go (if they are squad players) and then sign just three players as their replacements.

I would argue that you could let these four players go (A Davies, Lowe, Osborn and Couilibaly) and not need to replace them as they won't be in and around the first team next season.

 

[Champagneblade]

To be honest, not everyone who is leaving needs to be replaced.

For example if we let six players leave and then signed six new ones the squad would still be too big which has been a problem of ours for a few years now. Maybe it would be more practical to let six go (if they are squad players) and then sign just three players as their replacements.

I would argue that you could let these four players go (A Davies, Lowe, Osborn and Couilibaly) and not need to replace them as they won't be in and around the first team next season.

If you have a sustainable model then it’s when the fringe players go, you hope you then have youth players coming through who can step up.

It seems we are a little bereft of keepers.

But on the right of defence we have Curtis, Sagdev and Seriki. Left we have Buyabu and Boyes. They could put paid to Osborn and Lowe perhaps and maybe even Baldock.

Frecklington is a big lad at the back who I’m sure we are keeping an eye on.

Arblaster and Brooks already make it logical to let Fleck and Osborn, the midfielder go not to mention Peck who was unlucky to be injured.

You then have a plethora of strikers in the ranks like Oné and Machedo behind Marsh, Hackford, Osula, Jebbison.

It’s these lads we need to fill the gaps.

 

[Nick Jansky]

I think people have picked up on the “let the contracts run down & they’ll try harder in the last year” comment and made far too much of it.

It would be a problem if that was a blanket approach applied to all players, but there is zero evidence that is the case, and in fact there is evidence to the contrary.

But for some players that approach makes complete sense. I’m thinking of players like Norwood, Fleck, Sharp, Enda etc. I have no problem with allowing the contracts of players in decline to run down and then to take a view on whether they are worth another year based on whether they still have another useful year in them. I think that’s exactly the right thing to do. The same with the likes of Egan, Baldock & Osborn at the moment.

I think the cases of Berge & Ndiaye are outliers. The club had been trying to have contract talks for a long time. But if players won’t sign for what the club can afford to offer there isn’t much more can be done.

In the past we rushed to renew, and that is exactly how we accumulated a lot of deadwood. Happily, we seem to have learned from that.

 

[Carlton Blade]

To be honest, not everyone who is leaving needs to be replaced.

For example if we let six players leave and then signed six new ones the squad would still be too big which has been a problem of ours for a few years now. Maybe it would be more practical to let six go (if they are squad players) and then sign just three players as their replacements.

I would argue that you could let these four players go (A Davies, Lowe, Osborn and Couilibaly) and not need to replace them as they won't be in and around the first team next season.

This is probably a fair description of the strategy the club has taken.

Give older players an extra year, hoping the PL season isn't too embarrassing. Replace them with United Academy products.

All fine in theory. But the chances of more than a couple of our academy players being better than even the likes of Osborn are slim. He was starting for Forest in the Championship at 19/20 years old and has had a solid career.

 

[Blade58]

The contract is dragging, any closer?

As far as I am aware, it’s all agreed. Reason it’s not happened yet is nothing to do with OA, but also nothing sinister either.

 

[Pedro's Winger]

There's now an argument that selling Ndiaye was a mistake given the damage being done to the club since.
The shocking level of performance this season will take a lot to recover from and the club has made itself a laughing stock by not appearing to take this season seriously.
Presumably we got £15m or so for him but the wider cost of the sale could actually end up being more than that.

 

[bertieblade]

And what would have happened if Ndiaye would have performed for us like he has for his new employers.
life in retrospect is a doddle

 

[Champagneblade]

There's now an argument that selling Ndiaye was a mistake given the damage being done to the club since.
The shocking level of performance this season will take a lot to recover from and the club has made itself a laughing stock by not appearing to take this season seriously.
Presumably we got £15m or so for him but the wider cost of the sale could actually end up being more than that.

Could we have just tried to keep Ndiaye and Berge until January and then tried to sell if we were done and dusted still?

If the fee was attractive enough to the buyer we may still have got something workable.

 

[1987]

I think people have picked up on the “let the contracts run down & they’ll try harder in the last year” comment and made far too much of it.

It would be a problem if that was a blanket approach applied to all players, but there is zero evidence that is the case, and in fact there is evidence to the contrary.

But for some players that approach makes complete sense. I’m thinking of players like Norwood, Fleck, Sharp, Enda etc. I have no problem with allowing the contracts of players in decline to run down and then to take a view on whether they are worth another year based on whether they still have another useful year in them. I think that’s exactly the right thing to do. The same with the likes of Egan, Baldock & Osborn at the moment.

I think the cases of Berge & Ndiaye are outliers. The club had been trying to have contract talks for a long time. But if players won’t sign for what the club can afford to offer there isn’t much more can be done.

In the past we rushed to renew, and that is exactly how we accumulated a lot of deadwood. Happily, we seem to have learned from that.

It was a nonsense statement though, not based in fact. Think that was the main issue. He phrased it as if it was a planned masterstroke.

What you suggest, I don't think there's much of an issue with at all. I'm happy we're tieing the youth down, though think Bogle is one who we should have tied down earlier.

 

[Balham]

I think people have picked up on the “let the contracts run down & they’ll try harder in the last year” comment and made far too much of it.

It would be a problem if that was a blanket approach applied to all players, but there is zero evidence that is the case, and in fact there is evidence to the contrary.

But for some players that approach makes complete sense. I’m thinking of players like Norwood, Fleck, Sharp, Enda etc. I have no problem with allowing the contracts of players in decline to run down and then to take a view on whether they are worth another year based on whether they still have another useful year in them. I think that’s exactly the right thing to do. The same with the likes of Egan, Baldock & Osborn at the moment.

I think the cases of Berge & Ndiaye are outliers. The club had been trying to have contract talks for a long time. But if players won’t sign for what the club can afford to offer there isn’t much more can be done.

In the past we rushed to renew, and that is exactly how we accumulated a lot of deadwood. Happily, we seem to have learned from that.

The approach should be based on future benefit to the club as well as the level of demand that player is in. The four you mention (Norwood, Fleck, Sharp, Stevens) and arguably Osborn, Robinson and Foderingham are neither going to be in huge demand nor command a large transfer fee. That reduces the pressure on United to sort their contracts and anyone over 30 shouldn't be getting more than a year guaranteed anyway.

Berge and Ndiaye (and Jebbison, Arblaster, arguably McBurnie and others) are a different case because they will have a number of suitors and would mostly command multi-million figure transfer fees. It's therefore good business sense to try and tie those assets down for longer; and you're wholly correct that if the players (see Berge & Ndiaye) won't sign then for a club like ours cashing in is unfortunately the only option.

Could we have just tried to keep Ndiaye and Berge until January and then tried to sell if we were done and dusted still?

If the fee was attractive enough to the buyer we may still have got something workable.

I think Ndiaye was told "now or never" by Marseille in the summer and that forced his (and our) hand. Berge strikes me as the sort to have been quite happy to see out the full year had we not shipped him off to Burnley.

 

[Ndiayewillalwaysloveyou]

Agreed on a few posts that not every player needs to be replaced in the summer.

For example we have 4x senior/2x youth LBs/LWBs;
RND
Larouci
Osborn
Lowe
Buyabu
Boyes

2/4 seniors can leave not replaced with a senior LB/LWB and senior back up plus potential youth players.

Similar at RB/RWB.. If Bogle or Baldock leave we have one of them plus Curtis, Seriki and Sachdev.

 

[Need4speed]

His body is beginning to let him down, possibly because of the way he plays coupled with lifestyle choices when he was younger. Baldock & Lowe are injury prone. Who knows how well an ageing & slowing Egan will come back. None of them will be regulars at the top end of the championship next season.

"His body is beginning to let him down" I think that started when he signed. He isn't an athlete by any stretch of the imagination, he looks injured when he is fit and I am sure his feet are on the wrong legs. I absolutely love him asa character and I never doubt his commitment and effort but he is a footballer from a different era He would have been world class in the 70s.

 

[GrunkyPeep]

I think people have picked up on the “let the contracts run down & they’ll try harder in the last year” comment and made far too much of it.

It would be a problem if that was a blanket approach applied to all players, but there is zero evidence that is the case, and in fact there is evidence to the contrary.

But for some players that approach makes complete sense. I’m thinking of players like Norwood, Fleck, Sharp, Enda etc. I have no problem with allowing the contracts of players in decline to run down and then to take a view on whether they are worth another year based on whether they still have another useful year in them. I think that’s exactly the right thing to do. The same with the likes of Egan, Baldock & Osborn at the moment.

I think the cases of Berge & Ndiaye are outliers. The club had been trying to have contract talks for a long time. But if players won’t sign for what the club can afford to offer there isn’t much more can be done.

In the past we rushed to renew, and that is exactly how we accumulated a lot of deadwood. Happily, we seem to have learned from that.

Very well put! Awful lot of this over the last few years. People taking things out of context and using it as an excuse to be angry/upset/stick to beat the club with. Happened loads with that Yusuf interview people kept taking out of context.

I also think people don't realise how much of contract negotiation is done in the shadows. IE We go to Illi's agent and say we are interested in starting contract negotiations and his agent says "he's not interested right now". Doesn't mean the club isn't trying to get contracts sorted, it's just the other team isn't interested.

 

[Houston_Blade]

I think people have picked up on the “let the contracts run down & they’ll try harder in the last year” comment and made far too much of it.

Why say it though?

In football I’d say that it’s the opposite of this, players don’t want to get injured and scupper a payday so they go through the motions in a lot of cases.

The comment showed a lack of knowledge by the owner and for me this looks to be permeating through the club.

It seems that it’s ok to back the club to the hilt in the face of stupidity buy not to call out obvious issues with the way things are being run.

 

[Carlton Blade]

Very well put! Awful lot of this over the last few years. People taking things out of context and using it as an excuse to be angry/upset/stick to beat the club with. Happened loads with that Yusuf interview people kept taking out of context.

I also think people don't realise how much of contract negotiation is done in the shadows. IE We go to Illi's agent and say we are interested in starting contract negotiations and his agent says "he's not interested right now". Doesn't mean the club isn't trying to get contracts sorted, it's just the other team isn't interested.

While some things are blown well out of proportion, the owner did say that often players perform better in the last year of the deal. It wasn't paraphrased. This may well refer back to his NFL fandom where players often do play well on the last year of their deal. The big difference being, the NFL season is only 17 guaranteed games over 18 weeks (plus any play off games). The grind of a football season, plus the fact players can potentially negotiate new contracts half way through the season does make it a different business model

 

[Nick Jansky]

Very well put! Awful lot of this over the last few years. People taking things out of context and using it as an excuse to be angry/upset/stick to beat the club with. Happened loads with that Yusuf interview people kept taking out of context.

I also think people don't realise how much of contract negotiation is done in the shadows. IE We go to Illi's agent and say we are interested in starting contract negotiations and his agent says "he's not interested right now". Doesn't mean the club isn't trying to get contracts sorted, it's just the other team isn't interested.

There are some who will look for any stick, real or imaginary, to beat the club with. They will also refuse to give the club any credit if it gets something right. I would hate to be like them, it must be a pretty bleak way to be.

 

[Rodley]

Your first sentence is the real point though. You can't "make sure contracts are signed." How? Club can make an offer it deems right for the club. That's all it can do. I agree about certain players they've offered them to but that's just opinion. I think United will be far more competent than you give them credit for. As for the out of contract boys, theyd do well to sign up. I doubt any of them are going to a better club than us.

Evidence suggest we’ve got a problem getting people to sign contracts, getting players over the line and our business is slow. We know this because no fucker is signing a contract and our business in transfer windows is slower than a week in jail. And it’s caught us out this summer - just look at the shambles of the first few games.