Mahrez

Red Warrior

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 8, 2017
Messages
2,903
Age
51
I've just had a crazy thought. We're after a decent winger and there is one sitting right under noses in Leicester. He has pace, can score and assists a lot! He has Prem experience so will hit the ground running.

Also, Felipe Anderson from Lazio?? He is a beast!
 
Mahrez is the antithesis of a Mourinho Winger. If he thinks Martial is bad, he'd be apopleptic at Riyadh. The guy does not defend!
 
I think Mourinho would be vary wary of a guy like Mahrez who dissapeared for most of last season when his side needed him.

I think he wants Perisic because he wants that direct crossing machine type of winger which is what you get from Perisic if he can't get him I think he'll just stick with what he has unless he can find someone similar.

We obviously want or wanted Perisic for a reason so if we can't get him we should be trying to buy a player like him maybe a certain Welsh guy who might get forced out of Madrid this summer because they've signed a new superstar. Haha
 
To be fair Utd put in loads of crosses last season. I remember game after game of them coming in and thinking why are we playing this way because we can never score from them. The quality of the crossing wasn't particularly great either except for maybe Valencia.
We have Lukaku now but we had Ibra last season so what will the difference be with Perisic?
I love wingers, I love the counter attacing style of play but that sadly dissapeared from Utd a long time ago. I personally think we need to create more from midfield, eg Miki and Mata, be more incisive.
 
Yeah but most of the crosses last season came from Valencia getting down the right side and I actually think his crossing is poor he very very rarely picks out a man he tends to just chip it up or smash it low and hope for the best in the same way Young always cuts in on his right foot and swings a ball to the back post.

Ibra got quite a few headed goals last season but he needed good crosses to make the most of them whereas I think Lukaku will make more of the bad balls because he is more mobile and attacks the ball a bit more than Ibra did. Also, Perisic should be able to give a better ball that is more aimed at the striker rather than just slinging it in the mixer which is what we did a lot last season especially when we had Fellaini/Ibra on the pitch together.

I quite like Mahrez but I think we'd have to see him as a direct replacement for Martial whereas Perisic I think gives us something different which is a winger who actually wants to stay wide rather than look to cut in all the time. I also think like Martial he'd give Mourinho a headache over the defensive side of the game.
 
Mahrez tug of war between us and Chelsea? True or bored journalists? I'd take him think he'd do good on the right for us. Blind is still spinning after what he did against him.
 
Didn't see the game at the weekend but I like him gives us a proper right winger/dribbler on that side but if he comes what are we doing with Lingard or Mata? Feels like it would make one of them surplus to requirements.

Not sure he's a Mourinho type player he was the one player at Leicester who was allowed to be a luxury and not really defend.

I like what he does though people say it's one dimensional but if he gets his trick right it's almost unstoppable and while he likes to come inside and shoot on his left he can go outside on his right. My only concern with him is the Ashley Young theory is he good enough consistently to be a Utd player.

Be a strange signing for Chelsea as they already have Pedro/Willian in his position, maybe one of them is off.
 
Long term I suppose we all still want griezmann don't we? Or Bale this season or never which looks unlikely. I look at Mahrez and only see an upgrade on Mata and a massive improvement on Lingard. So why not get him in this season and push one of those two out next season for Griezmann. Mata has been arguably our best player post Fergie but moving forward long term is he really enough anymore? While Lingard for me isn't Man United quality but I'll save that rant for another day. It's all about squad building and if that happened we'd have Mahrez, Griezmann, Martial, Rashford, Miki potentially next season as attacking options. Just spitballing long term.

Mahrez could really do an excellent job on the right for us now. So for me I'd be happy if we could do something.
 
My reading of the situation is that Griezmann is as good as done for next summer and that probably means time for Mata to move on, probably more than likely he'd return to Spain and Utd would be reasonable and let him go as by then I think he'd only have 1 year left on his deal so they'd probably take a fairly low fee for him.

I agree Mahrez is an upgrade on Lingard but we've just given him a 5 year deal now I know he's great mates with Pogba and Rashford but he needs to be playing some football if Mahrez came in you really see his game time limited to League Cup games and the odd bench appearence. It can be ruthless at top clubs though but Mahrez will require a big transfer fee and with that comes big wages so I'm not sure if the numbers really stack up. Where I think he'd like a guy like Mahrez is he knows in games where he wants to sit deep and counter attack on the opposition Mahrez is perfect he is brilliant doing that for Leicester.

It's easy to forget but the money at Utd isn't a bottomless pit and I do get the feeling that unless players are sold before the end of the window we might not be able to buy as we've only sold Januzaj & Rooney this summer and the reports seem to be that Rooney went on a free.
 
I agree that we haven't got endless money but there's obviously still money available to spend.

The whole 3 out of 4 targets suggests that there's a budget this window that hasn't been fully spent. At one point we were close to 100 million for Griezmann plus wages. Maybe the Lukaku deal hit took a chunk of that money, but also maybe not. We were getting a forward and a winger in those 4 targets. The Perisic pursuit was around 40-50 million plus wages, his on a reported 90k at Inter so that wasn't going to a cheap contract. So when you factor that all in, a Mahrez deal isn't really pushing any boundaries that wasn't set before hand.

I agree Mata will probably leave next summer and a trip back to Spain would suit. His done a good turn at us no doubt and it feels like his really embrace the club and it's fans. The Lingard contact still keeps me awake at night it's awful. My only hope is that next season someone like say Leicester could save us from that. But he seems more then happy at the minute taking his 100k a week, sitting on the bench, and working out handshakes for everyone.

Overall point being that Mahrez or even Alexis could come now because I feel like we'd budgeted for 4 stellar signings before we even agreed who had to be sold. We've taken the rooney wages off our books and Zlatan is coming at half the cost so there's wages there.
 
Well we did sign 4 players if you include Ibra ;)

I think had we got Griezmann then we obviously wouldn't have signed Lukaku it became very clear once the Griezmann deal was dead Utd very quickly moved on to Morata or Lukaku as an alternative, I think the plan was always to keep Ibra and hope that we could get to Xmas with Griezmann, Martial & Rashford as our centre forward options maybe even keep Rooney one more year although I think that was unlikely.

I think there is money available but not a lot which was the issue with Perisic they wouldn't budge on the price and it was clear Utd didn't have enough to pay what was needed unless players were sold which so far hasn't happened. If we have £50m to buy Mahrez now then surey we had £50m to buy Perisic a month ago which is basically what Inter wanted.

My guess is there's about £30-40m sitting their that could be spent without having to sell anyone but finding a player in that price bracket now is basically impossible thanks to the Neymar deal as £30-40m is now getting you a guy who was £15-20m at the start of the window and those guys aren't good enough for what we need.

Unless something drops into our laps out of nowhere I don't think Utd will make another move.
 
I dont think Ibra was one of the 4 original targets Jose asked for considering we already had him.

JSP is right if we sold someone we would have more flexibility. But there is money to spend and a winger or a wide man feels like the final piece of the puzzle. Maybe the performances of the team so far have convinced Jose that we will be alright without that final signing. But we did start the season well last year and couldn't maintain it. Life would be so much better if someone brought Smalling off us, but i doubt even Maidstone would want him back. Bottom line for me is that Mahrez or Alexis would complete this squad this season.
 
If it was down to me I'd sell Blind and get a proper LB as competition/cover for Shaw I think we're taking a big gamble on him this season he deserves the chance to prove himself but I think we need backup to him as the injuries are a big issue for him even the season before his leg break he was picking up a lot of niggling injuries.

Would you sell Mata to have Mahrez?
 
Well in my ideal world Lingard wouldn't be here.

But in reality I think we could have Mahrez and Mata in that same squad now. There's enough games and they do enough things differently to warrant both. The selling of Mata would come next summer if Griezmann wants to come. We've then had another year of Martial to determine if he really is the player we hope. Plus Lingard might want to move on as a Mahrez signing would only kill his minutes. Young would go, yeah Blind would go as well and Smalling. If Rojo was fit now Blind wouldn't be there now so his on borrowed time.
 

Login or Register

Forgot your password?
or Log in using
Don't have an account? Register now
Back
Top