Deckard 13

Ah, the Steven Taylor cycle. It's almost as regular as the Sunderland cycle.

Start the season with everyone writing you off - Have a couple of stellar, backs to the wall style games - get praised. "Maybe this time" - have a few moments where you are absolute mince - handle the ball comically - get injured - put on your horrific suit to go and roll out cliches on Monday Night Football - sit out the rest of the season and post questionably racist tweets on twitter in your spare time. Repeat.

I hope Paul Scholes chokes on a dick. Unless that's the kind of thing he enjoys.

Has played two great thru balls for man u to be fair. Basically Scholes.

Mitrovic is winning a canny few headers like. Good too see.

Colback. Midfield maestro. Just keeping things ticking over.

Wtf is that Obertan. Ffs.

I worry that we've spent a decent wedge and bar Gini every signing looks like a total punt while all the old weaknesses are still there. Just shows how bad things were allowed to get.

Evans would be great at this point IMO. Knows the league, is tidy, isn't wildly expensive, isn't Steven Taylor. Lots in the Pro's column there. 

I reckon we've got a chance as long as we can avoid gifting them a goal. Need to see Mitrovic get a start along with Aarons.

I'm not sure he would ever really have been good enough but then I think that of every true CM option we have.  Much like Anita or Dummett, he is liked because of the relative weakness of those around him rather than on individual merit alot of the time. Not bad, just not good enough.

So Coutinho, Ibe, Lallana, Markovic, Firmino, and one of Sturridge, Benteke, Ings and Origi... Nuts. That said, he is a great player.

Same guy thinks Man U want Krul...

I was prepared to give most players, apart from obertan and Williamson, a clean slate now we have got rid of Pardew and Carver. Thought this lad could shine in a more positive set up.

This is largely how I feel. I still think that despite the money spent we lack someone really capable of making key passes in tight areas and it seemed early on that this was meant to be Cabella's biggest asset. I did hope that given the opportunity to drift and find space with movement around him that Cabella would have done a lot better than being forced out wide into 1 v 1/2 v 1 situations where he lacked the heft or the pace to really trouble full backs. I can understand why building a team around Cabella in the Premier League is something that most managers would not want to do however.

I see Antonio Rudiger who we were linked to early on has joined Roma on one of those "only in Europe" style loans. Total price of around 9M by the looks of it if Roma make it permanent.

Cabella leaving does somewhat take the shine off of Thavin coming in mind. I really did think this lad could make it given time. With Sissoko out wide though I appreciate that he was never going to really be given a chance. Seems a nice lad with plenty of talent and I wonder if we'll look back and wonder what if.

Some one had to leave though and clearly no fucker wants Obertan/Gouffran/Tiote so...

That podcast doesnt exactly fill you with hope like. Also points out at that fee he needs to be as good as/superior to the likes of Ayew, Payet and Shaqiri who've all went for similar sums.

It has failure written all over it tbh but I'm still excited to see him. Maybe it will be the making of him.

Crazy to worry about how far he is away from the first team when we're starting Obertan. Sounds like Thauvin can play across the front 3 so there is still plenty of opportunity for him if we shift Sissoko inside or just rotate the team.

I'm more worried about where Ayoze fits in. These are still good concerns to have mind you.

I expected no more, so one more in is a slight improvement, even if I think we are ridding ourselves of a player that could be useful in this team.

Still makes all the talk of a new look United total bullshit mind. The final figure will show money spent but it will only be money we've had for years, plus selling another player for a good fee (which we won't see for a year) and one of the worst defences in the league has still not been addressed. Unless you count giving a potential extra 2 years to a player whose looked past it for the last 2 years addressing the problem.

Gonna be mint to see him brought on in place of Obertan for the final 5 minutes of games. Just wonderful.

Even without knowing a great deal about Thauvin I struggle to understand why we would spend 12M on a 22 year old who has never really done it over the 12M that would have got you Shaqiri who is 23.

There will be no new signings. I genuinely think if clubs wanted the likes of Willo, Gouffran etc they would already be gone. Without people leaving, there will be no incomings. Provided we don't absolutely shit the bed before January we won't see a new player in until the start of next season by which point the likes of Sissoko and Janmaat will be gone not replaced and we'll go into the following season still short on numbers and quality. Nothing has been learned at all from the last 3 years.

Nothing sticks to Cisse.

I see he's already said "we'll go with what we've got".

Fire him now.

Has he even actually played that many minutes? FPL has him down as playing around only 1000 minutes in each of the last 3 seasons which is 11/12 games worth of play for someone who would cost 15m?

He's hardly been prolific in that period either.

For 12m I think it's going to make everyone south of the top four pissed off tbh. Ridiculous signing on paper.