Sheffield United have chosen profit over fans with a season of record-breakingly bad football

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Tom Bott said:
The term 'sold' implies that we put a for sale sign around Ndiaye and Berge, the reality with Illi at least is that his boyhood club came calling with European cup matches to play, better weather and probably better wages.
Who would sign for Sheffield United in a probable struggle/relegation battle, given that other option.

Much of the sentiment around these two players assumes they would allow us to fare better than we are doing.
Though neither player set the stage alight V Man City in the semi final and Berge was non too prolific when we were last in the PL.
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I'm pretty sure the term "sold" implies sold, which they were. What other term would you use?

Are we going to take a game against the best team in the world as representative of the height of Ndiaye’s career? Or should we use the evidence of the other 50 times we saw him play?

Honestly, I'm not sure what point you're making hete? I said I fully understand the argument for selling Ndiaye, I just disagree. Are you saying we did well out of the deal because he didn't singlehandedly beat an Oil Stste in a semi final?
 

Football is totally batshit. As much as I think the owner should move on for everyone's sake, it's the model that's the problem more than him. Our strategy this season is derived from the financial realities under his sole ownership. Our last foray in the Prem saw reasonable governance. It's a myth that we were financially reckless vis a vis our rivals. We essentially spent what we had coming in or thereabouts. We were the "model club" the season we stayed up. When us and Burnley came down we were expected to as we were restrained financially. There were also unbudgeted for losses too due to Covid in both seasons.

What happened afterwards shows how rotten the game is. We sold a player for big money, released quite a few (both seasons), had substantial wage cuts (built into contracts anticipating the relegation scenario) and still our owner couldn't afford to buy permanent signings - despite him putting in substantial personal capital over the next few years. We also had the emergence of various first team players from our academy. Our lack of competitiveness this season is directly linked to the unaffordability of bringing these permanent signings on the way up imo. Forest had the same issue when they went up, hence the incredible investment that has gone into them.

To compensate for the above financial domino effect we've had to sell arguably our two best players and, it seems to me, to have been necessitated in setting up wage and financial packages that are even more cautious than last time. The owner has accepted that this model is unworkable given his relative lack of means. His attempt to offload the club can be interpreted as an acknowledgement of this.. The situation is unenviable for all stakeholders. The issue is more down to the financial realities, the unsustainable model being fostered on us by the authorities, than the owner, manager or anybody else etc. Our actions (or lack of) are a reaction to this painful reality.

There are things that could arguably be done better despite all that: recruitment, fitness/injury management, tactics, staff appointments.
 
Manchester United wages hit Premier League record £384.2m in 2021-22

Everton require around £20million a month to keep the club ticking over, according to The Times reporter Martyn Ziegler

This before any players are purchased, Harry Kane £ 100 million !!!

Batshit is a good description.
 
Smirth said:
We got promoted to the premier league and sold our best 2 players, it's as simple as that. Yes you can make a case for Hamer being sensible business but a progressive club would have brought him in to play with Berge, not to replace him.
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Starting to get fed up, now we’re doing shit of people churning out ‘we sold our best 2 players’

For clarity -

ndaiye fucked us over, he accepted the biggest contract ever offered by us, did the media, then changed his mind overnight and screwed us, he should have gone early to allow us to replace or been a man of his word and signed

Berge - we all laughed when we screwed Burnley over for £13m which we then spent on an upgrade, berges been on the bench and is heading back to championship like us
His ability to jump, and yet shrink at the same time, along with his 1:5 performances mean at least 50% of our fan base didn’t rate him
Yet here we are classing him as one of our 2 best players

1 fucked off
The other was no great loss
 
steve26272 said:
Starting to get fed up, now we’re doing shit of people churning out ‘we sold our best 2 players’

For clarity -

ndaiye fucked us over, he accepted the biggest contract ever offered by us, did the media, then changed his mind overnight and screwed us, he should have gone early to allow us to replace or been a man of his word and signed

Berge - we all laughed when we screwed Burnley over for £13m which we then spent on an upgrade, berges been on the bench and is heading back to championship like us
His ability to jump, and yet shrink at the same time, along with his 1:5 performances mean at least 50% of our fan base didn’t rate him
Yet here we are classing him as one of our 2 best players

1 fucked off
The other was no great loss
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But they were our 2 best players last season? In an attacking sense at the very least.

Normal football clubs who get promoted don’t immediately sell the 2 of their best players when they get promotion.

If you want to accept the spin from the club then be my guest. But players under contract have to be sold by the club, we were only too happy to oblige and in the process write off a whole season in the premier league.
 
jt64 said:
I must have missed the part where Ndiaye sold himself to Marseille, as opposed to the club selling him to Marseille
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He refused to sign a contract, and insisted he wanted to leave

With 1 year on his contract we either get some money for Hecky, or tell him he’s staying, losing £15m and we have seen 1st hand how that pans out - Lunstrop

same at spurs with Kane, mount atChelsea etc

I agree we miss him, but for me selling was the least worse option
 
Smirth said:
But they were our 2 best players last season? In an attacking sense at the very least.

Normal football clubs who get promoted don’t immediately sell the 2 of their best players when they get promotion.

If you want to accept the spin from the club then be my guest. But players under contract have to be sold by the club, we were only too happy to oblige and in the process write off a whole season in the premier league.
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I agree it’s not ideal, but the other option is to force them to stay for remaining 12 months
They sulk, don’t go into 50/50’s for fear of serious injury and sit on the bench when the intensity drops - now known in the game as ‘to Lunstrop’

I would have loved them to sign an extension with a relegation clause but they wouldn’t, so same as Kane & Mount, they have to be sold
 
Tom Bott said:
£17 million plus in wages, might have been the clincher, on top of the £ 16 million transfer fee.

What wages would we have offered him, I wonder.
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But apart from the facts……
 
jt64 said:
I must have missed the part where Ndiaye sold himself to Marseille, as opposed to the club selling him to Marseille
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Ndiaye made no secret of the fact he wanted to play for Marseille, so basically he made them and his agent aware if they want me I will go, they wanted him and he went , he was never going to stay it was his dream move,
 
wak1889 said:
Ndiaye made no secret of the fact he wanted to play for Marseille, so basically he made them and his agent aware if they want me I will go, they wanted him and he went , he was never going to stay it was his dream move,
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Exactly

And you know what, I don’t have an issue, fair play to the lad as you say he was always open

My issue with him, is out of respect for the club and manager that took him from non league to World Cup, promotion to EPL and was the platform to secure said move, he should have told both clubs to make it happen early, or commit to 1 season with us and honour his word

He flip flopped, then left us in the shit

I agree with the exit, not the way
 
steve26272 said:
Exactly

And you know what, I don’t have an issue, fair play to the lad as you say he was always open

My issue with him, is out of respect for the club and manager that took him from non league to World Cup, promotion to EPL and was the platform to secure said move, he should have told both clubs to make it happen early, or commit to 1 season with us and honour his word

He flip flopped, then left us in the shit

I agree with the exit, not the way
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He told the players in May he wanted to sign for Marseille this was before the season even ended , I was told this by a first team squad player , I posted this in here at the time, then his agent had to try to get Marseille on board to make the dream an actual reality, once it became that then ndiaye was gone , in his own mind he was never staying but rather than just accept that, united tried to keep him, then when it became obvious to everyone that the move was happening united tried to play hardball with Marseille which then massively weakened our chances of finding an adequate replacement, this was very very similar to the ramsdale deal so it appears we have learnt nothing from that particular transfer saga ,
 

wak1889 said:
He told the players in May he wanted to sign for Marseille this was before the season even ended , I was told this by a first team squad player , I posted this in here at the time, then his agent had to try to get Marseille on board to make the dream an actual reality, once it became that then ndiaye was gone , in his own mind he was never staying but rather than just accept that, united tried to keep him, then when it became obvious to everyone that the move was happening united tried to play hardball with Marseille which then massively weakened our chances of finding an adequate replacement, this was very very similar to the ramsdale deal so it appears we have learnt nothing from that particular transfer saga ,
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Great itk, fair play

So in layman’s terms

our best player wanted to leave.
We tried to keep him
Then played hardball when he went back on his word

Oppose to driving him to the airport and accepting their opening offer?

Imagine the outrage if we did that
 
wak1889 said:
Ndiaye made no secret of the fact he wanted to play for Marseille, so basically he made them and his agent aware if they want me I will go, they wanted him and he went , he was never going to stay it was his dream move,
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Which the club accelerated by twelve months because reasons
 
steve26272 said:
Starting to get fed up, now we’re doing shit of people churning out ‘we sold our best 2 players’

For clarity -

ndaiye fucked us over, he accepted the biggest contract ever offered by us, did the media, then changed his mind overnight and screwed us, he should have gone early to allow us to replace or been a man of his word and signed

Berge - we all laughed when we screwed Burnley over for £13m which we then spent on an upgrade, berges been on the bench and is heading back to championship like us
His ability to jump, and yet shrink at the same time, along with his 1:5 performances mean at least 50% of our fan base didn’t rate him
Yet here we are classing him as one of our 2 best players

1 fucked off
The other was no great loss
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Thing is though however you talk about how they left N'Diaye was absolutely integral to the way we played and was such a good athlete at pressing from the front. He never gave defences a minute. How many times did Iliman win the ball back around the halfway line and launch an attack?

Sander whilst you can argue (and I would) that Hamer in the long run will probably be an upgrade. What Sander did bring was a familiarity to the midfield, an outlet who can carry the ball long distances and last few seasons a good knack of being in the right place for scoring.

These two were arguably part of our spine and in the forward thinking positions.

I'd also add that with Iliman it was clear he was seemingly happy to stay until Marseille gave him the ultimatum of "now or never come here". Which is frankly harsh from Marseille.
We should have sorted his contract out though for an extension just after he properly broke onto the scene. That first season for him we could have tied him down in Jan/Feb 2022 and the likelihood is he would have accepted a good wage rise and and another year or 2 on his contract.

But the board seem to like to wait too long nowadays before getting contracts sorted. It's concerning about next season whichever league we are in because a high turnover in players in a window usually results in negative outputs too.
 
As soon as Marseille said "now or never", United should have reported them for tapping up. In fact there were multiple occasions when they could have done that. Like Soton did with Van Dijk.

But at the end of the day, we wanted the money to spend on worse players.
 
IMG_3139.png

Seems the love in at Vincent Kompanys Burnley is wavering

Everyone expected them to be comfortably safe, yet these comments seem familiar to what we’re experiencing

Last season Bournemouth and Fulham stayed up with the best of what went down and back up again, Forest spent £160m on about 30 players

The gap between champ and prem is huge, if the EPL genuinely wanted promoted teams to be competitive they should hand them £100m transfer budget each on top of regular payments
 
steve26272 said:
View attachment 173936

Seems the love in at Vincent Kompanys Burnley is wavering

Everyone expected them to be comfortably safe, yet these comments seem familiar to what we’re experiencing

Last season Bournemouth and Fulham stayed up with the best of what went down and back up again, Forest spent £160m on about 30 players

The gap between champ and prem is huge, if the EPL genuinely wanted promoted teams to be competitive they should hand them £100m transfer budget each on top of regular payments
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i think youve hit on a very critical issue here steve the 3 promoted clubs from the championship will go straight back down this season and its a trend i can see continuing for years if you havent got a multi millionaire chairman you can forget about achieving any success in the modern day premier league if this european super league doesnt come off i can see a 12 team english super league or even british super league including celtic and rangers being set up in the next 5 years or so
 
ancientblade said:
i think youve hit on a very critical issue here steve the 3 promoted clubs from the championship will go straight back down this season and its a trend i can see continuing for years if you havent got a multi millionaire chairman you can forget about achieving any success in the modern day premier league if this european super league doesnt come off i can see a 12 team english super league or even british super league including celtic and rangers being set up in the next 5 years or so
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I for one wish the European Super League would hurry up and come off
Then we might get our football back, probably not all of it but at least some of it
 
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