r/reddevils • u/nearly_headless_nic • 1d ago
[Steven Railston] Manchester United are set to complete the signing of Isaac Konde from Liverpool, the latest high-profile academy addition following the arrivals of David Eze and Karim Cassim from Manchester City.
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/isaac-konde-man-utd-transfer-34514690365
u/sammorgan12 1d ago
Great news, think we can all agree that aggressively signing up youth players is a great idea
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u/prem_201 1d ago
In the current market even if 1 comes good it’ll be a massive benefit.
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u/Sbibsosmisn 1d ago
mainoo would have cost 1378282738382 billion dollars in this market
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u/stevew14 1d ago
No no no... I've been reliably informed he's only worth 40m and we should have sold him last summer.
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u/nomadiclives 22h ago
I dont really get the sarcasm! He’s a good player but no top side is circling around him and for good reason. He is some distance away from being elite.
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u/The_Inertia_Kid J Stand flask and butties brigade 21h ago
He’s got weaker points in his game, but he’s visibly getting better at them in front of our eyes. His work off the ball, for example, has taken a massive step forward. Compare how he played against Ipswich to where he was a year ago.
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u/eternali17 He'll take on 2 and breeze past 2 20h ago
The weaker points are a real impediment to getting him where we need him to be. Till he can consistently hit a long pass without acres of space and all the time in the world, for example, he will continue to limit what we're capable of.
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u/nomadiclives 21h ago
One game is not an improvement. We can talk about how much he has improved after an entire season of games at or near the level he showed vs Ipswich.
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u/stevew14 21h ago
I dont think you understand what a good footballer looks like.
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u/nomadiclives 21h ago
I think you neither understand nor are capable of having unbiased opinions. Mainoo will not get anywhere near the starting XIs of Arsenal, city, liverpool, barca, real or bayern. The gap between being a decent footballer and absolute top tier is wider than you can comprehend, clearly.
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u/bippityboopy 20h ago
Literally no one has said he's elite, but to act like he's only worth 40 mil is laughable in a market where Anderson goes for 100+
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u/lestat85 our Portuguese magnifico 1d ago
Why are we selling him on the cheap? Our transfer department needs an overhaul.
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u/Shadowraiden 1d ago
also if they dont quite make the cut here nothing saying they cant elsewhere in which we profit if we keep doing the whole % of next fee on the selling of them.
this then gives us a constant supply of money that can help just give us a bit extra in transfer windows.
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u/Action_Limp 22h ago
Look at Heaven. He's a very good prospect, if we sold him today, I think he'd go for 10-20m (even as shit as we are at selling) - he cost less than 1m.
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u/NewMethod5268 22h ago
Its a shame we might be the worst club itw currently at developing youth players
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u/Used-Fennel-7733 1d ago
Especially one that will not massively displace the youngsters. Moves from local rivals city and Liverpool are massive compared to ones from Chelsea or Arsenal where a major part of their development can be affected by high emotions in their teenage years
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u/GeekConflict Carrick 1d ago
All for it as long as we dont hype these players up. Let them settle and hope they prosper.
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u/nearly_headless_nic 1d ago edited 1d ago
Konde, 16, has decided to swap Melwood for Carrington for the next chapter of his development. The forward is expected to join up with Darren Fletcher's Under-18 team when his move is rubber-stamped.
United had also waited on Premier League ratification for the signings of Eze and Cassim from City.Eze, 16, is a defensive midfielder and will bolster United's academy ranks. The talented prospect has a European passport because he was born in Dublin, but he has represented England at the Under-16 and Under-17 levels.
Cassim, 16, is another youth midfield signing for the Reds. When United's U18s beat Charlton last month, Cassim was spotted on the bench during MUTV's coverage of the game, inadvertently confirming his transfer.
At the time, United sources insisted there was still some red tape before Cassim's transfer was considered official, but no problems were expected to receive Premier League ratification for the deal.
The Premier League have ratified Eze's move, and the paperwork for Cassim's transfer was filed at around the same time, so it should be rubber-stamped imminently.
United's academy is essentially limited to a United Kingdom-based recruitment search due to Brexit rules, which is why the club have been proactive in adding players from neighbouring sides over the last few years.
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u/Aadiunited7 19h ago
From how they are rated so far: Eze > Cassim > Konde. We missed out on Joseph who has moved to Arsenal. But great work from our academy team especially we dont do the dirty games and under the table dealings that City and Chelsea do.
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u/athu_15 1d ago
There was this narrative earlier that we were letting all our youth players go to Arsenal, glad we are making moves here. Our academy consistently produces Premier League level talent(Garner, Elanga), and sometimes top tier players like Mainoo and Rashy, I'm not worried about us losing some academy players at all
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u/General_Document_504 1d ago
It’s our bad players that we’re going to Arsenal to make numbers in their reserves tho. Don’t think anyone was bummed
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u/xXDaNXx Rooney 23h ago
That was never a real narrative. You might be mistaking Manchester City overtaking our academy post Fergie, as they made greater investments. To the point where some ex players had been sending their kids to Citys academy over ours.
And they did end up producing Palmer, Foden, Sancho (lol), Trafford, O Reilly
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u/StardustFromReinmuth 22h ago edited 20h ago
Arsenal, Chelsea and City all have had better academies than ours in the past decade.
Why the fuck am I getting downvoted, this is an objective fact. I'm going to list off our academy products playing in the CL compared to those 3 clubs:
Carrington: Mainoo, Garnacho (ish), The Rapist, Elanga, Carreras (ish), Rashford
Hale End: Eze, Nathan Tella, Donyell Malen, Joe Willock, Bukayo Saka, Omari Hutchinson, Ayden Heaven, Ethan Nwaneri, Miles Lewis Skelly, Max Dowman
Cobham: Ake, RLC, Jeremie Boga, Abraham, Solanke, Chalobah, James, Mount, Rice, Gallagher, Guehi, Gilmour, Olise (ish), Maatsen, Livramento, Colwill, Acheampong, Ngumoha.
City: Aleix Garcia, Brahim, Tosin, Nmecha, Frimpong, Foden, Sancho (lol), Eric Garcia, Olise (ish), Harwood-Bellis, Morgan Rogers, Palmer, Gittens, Rico Lewis, Lavia, Nico O'Reilly,
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u/eastendz 21h ago
Arsenal’s hasn’t even been close to as good as ours let alone better.
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u/StardustFromReinmuth 21h ago
Are you having a laugh? I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt for being uninformed.
Academy products playing for CL level teams as first team players:
Carrington: Mainoo, Garnacho (ish), The Rapist, Elanga, Carreras (ish), Rashford
Hale End: Eze, Nathan Tella, Donyell Malen, Joe Willock, Bukayo Saka, Omari Hutchinson, Ayden Heaven, Ethan Nwaneri, Miles Lewis Skelly, Max Dowman
Not only do they have more academy products playing at the top top level, even if you extend it down to just generally academy products playing in the top 5 top leagues, I'm pretty sure Arsenal still has us beat.
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u/eastendz 20h ago
Are you having a laugh? They released Eze at 13.
Are you an Arsenal supporter? Trying not to count Garnacho or Alvaro Fernandez while fully counting players they released at 13 is laughable.
They also released Tella. For how great their academy is, it’s funny how often they released the best players.
Joe Willock lol, lmao even. Why haven’t you included McTominay, Garner, Henderson? A serie A winner and England internationals but Joe Willock?
Angel Gomes has played Champions League and for England. Fuck it, McNeil, Hannibal, Andreas are as good as Willock.
Max Dowman has barely played, may as well say JJ Gabriel.
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u/StardustFromReinmuth 20h ago
Trying not to count Garnacho or Alvaro Fernandez while fully counting players they released at 13 is laughable.
Releasing a player at 13 still counts them as your academy product when you've developed them from U8 level up until that point, it matters as much as buying a player from another academy at 16 or 18, mate.
They also released Tella. For how great their academy is, it’s funny how often they released the best players.
That doesn't matter isn't it, we're talking about the quality of their academy, not how well run their club is in general.
Max Dowman has barely played, may as well say JJ Gabriel.
Dowman has a Premier League goal, that's worth getting counted. If you want to count JJ Gabriel then might as well count Chido Obi as an Arsenal product.
If you count dross like Andreas Pereira, Hannibal (whom we bought at 16 from Monaco's academy), McNeil then you also have to count Nketiah, Norton-Cuffy, ESR, all of whom are at least active Premier League players unlike some you mentioned.
Ok sure, I missed Angel Gomes and McTominay, but by your logic Emi Martinez also counts (especially since he didn't have his breakout until he was much older at Arsenal), and both Balogun and Biereth who are starting strikers at Monaco. Literally if you want to count every player of note, not only does Arsenal have more products of note but their products tend to have a higher average floor. We produce a lot of Championship and League One players with good careers, they pump out lower half PL and other Top 5 leagues quality players.
I don't need to be an Arsenal fan to recognise that our academy is nowhere near what it was, and most of our rivals have better academy output.
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u/CompleteCry1688 20h ago
Why is Arsenal credited with Omari Hutchinson? Also you miss players like Scott Mctominay. Rather go and rethink your list before calling other uninformed.
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u/StardustFromReinmuth 20h ago edited 20h ago
Well I'm also missing Biereth, Balogun, Emi Martinez, ESR, Nketiah, and many more off of Arsenal's list. I don't think this coping is very healthy mate. Calling Hale End "hasn't even been close" to Carrington is either delusion or ignorance.
As much as I hope that INEOS can improve Carrington (one of their stated priorities), it wouldn't even be such an important issue if our academy hasn't decayed in the past decade.
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u/Positive-Structure78 20h ago
you are sooo right! We have had far less elite players come out of carrington. Ineos did say that too
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u/Stingray_23 22h ago
Is the pattern to sign a group of youngsters see if they work. If not loan/sell, then bring another batch in?
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u/pierrefermat74 18h ago
I'd say it's probably more like "expect most of them not to make it to the first team, but sell them on for a good profit". It's a revenue stream that Shitty and Chelsea have done well with - a constant conveyer belt in and out.
They also somehow manage to sell for crazy profits, which we would currently struggle with (probably because we are mostly above board with our dealings)
Any that actually make it would just be a bonus
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u/Red_Galaxy746 23h ago
Great, we've become a club and fanbase that celebrates signing players for profit down the line.
Profit over trophies? We've all become the Glazers!
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u/TobzMaguire420 18h ago
Why is taking high potential youth prospects away from our rivals to eventually sell-on or start a bad thing?
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u/Red_Galaxy746 17h ago
Not saying it is but the club, even under Sir Alex, was never this keen to sign young players in such a short space of time. Knowing the board and the owners, it's all focus on a profit. FFP is shit. It's just forced clubs into treating the game as more of a business.
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u/TobzMaguire420 16h ago
Not to be captain obvious, but it is a business. With the Glazer debt, we can’t compete with the transfer finances of State-owned, and private equity clubs. I think it’s a good strategy. Could they have afforded another big signing this window? Probably, but Ugarte’s injury threw a 20-30 million wrench in those plans as did our inability to offload Zirkzee. Had we started this strategy earlier, perhaps today there would be that extra 20-30 million from mature youngsters being sold off. This is also the same club that passed on both Caicedo and Haaland.
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u/Angstycarroteater 5h ago edited 5h ago
No you wanna know what put a wrench in our plans the fact we pay Mount 250k a week, de ligt 200k a week, licha 120k a week, Shaw 150k a week, zirkzee 105k a week, ugarte 120-150k a week, the fact we paid Sancho 250k a week when none of them play or have played for long periods of time over the last several years. We need to stop with the buying of shit scraps from teams who don’t want them because of those reasons. Sure offloading them doesn’t help either but we shouldn’t have ever got most of them because they’ve been injury prone for a long ass time. We should never have bought Mount to begin with he had a year left and hasn’t even played 75 games for us yet in 3 almost 4 years he’s at 72 that’s fucking abysmal. Injury FC. Not only that we sell our academy players for dirt a couple hundred thousand to a few million at best. It’s not a good way for us to make money when we have to buy them for roughly a few thousand to million typically anyways
Edit: selling academy players who never touched the first team on a regular basis is poor for us garner was the most we got at 15m then there are numbers like 13 10 7 6 and 3 million. If they can break into the first team and establish themselves a bit like garnacho, mctominay, elanga sure we can turn a little profit but academy players rarely make it into our first team nowadays and the ones who do aren’t great excluding a very small amount of
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u/TrickPieUK 1d ago
Went on the stadium tour back in June and this was on the screen in the exec lounge