Ellis H

I’ll choose to believe Howe knows what he’s on about in terms of our budget, whether that’s an infinite amount or 1p. But for now we #wait

“Regular success, consistent success, all these things help you in the journey that you’re on to show to everybody that that’s where the club’s ambition is,” Howe said when quizzed over United's ambitions at Friday morning's press conference. “There’s no doubt that’s what the club’s ambition is. But of course, as we’ve said many times, the ability financially to compete (over) the last few years has been hampered by PSR, but those issues aren’t there for the coming window. So I don’t see any reason why we can’t strengthen, not weaken ourselves.”

And we’re back to so far, so good.

Improve the first team.

So far, so good.

Not much good if we can’t afford them though.

People are blaming PSR obviously but Ok then, let’s pretend money is so tight it’s causing issues with signing players. Why are we then almost exclusively targeting young premier league players who will cost loads? We’ve had at least a year to fully prepare for this window.

There is money to spend NOW to reverse long term damage but we sit here on the first day of preseason, 7 weeks into the window, with a worse squad. You can’t blame everything on “PSR issues”.

You’re talking like this is all about the last 7 weeks. Think about what they all (bar promoted teams) have done in the last 18 months compared to us. Money is clearly there to be spent now but we’re not doing it. Howe is the only reason we’re not miles behind. “I always have to say this, as far I’m aware, we have no PSR issues heading into this deadline [June 30]. “I have to put that in there because I’m not seeing the figures. I’m only relaying what I’m getting told. I think we’re in a lot healthier a position, a lot stronger a position and we’re looking to reverse what we did last summer.”

Which premier league clubs have signed players this summer? https://www.premierleague.com/en/transfers

Every other club has a budget as well. Some bigger than others but they’re all managing to sign people and improve their squad. I think we as a fanbase have forgotten how quickly things can move if we want them to. A bit of Stockholm syndrome maybe.

You’re right. It’s actually been a lot longer if you include the preparation for this window.

We’re bidding big money for players so it’s definitely there to be spent. Why we can’t complete even 1 signing in 7 weeks is the interesting part. We’ll find out soon enough what Howe thinks of our activity and ultimately his opinion is the only one that really matters.

Elanga and Trafford sound like they’re happy to come here?

We’ve been competing with those “untouchable” clubs for the last 3 years despite spending very little comparatively. Maybe if we spent the money that’s now there and backed the manager we’d be able to do even better instead of just making excuses about PSR and acting like it’s a closed shop. We’ve finished 4th and 5th in the last 3 seasons, got to a final and won a trophy so it’s absolutely isn’t a closed shop.

Very odd/convenient logic because we’d have actually signed 2 players in that scenario and we’d have a better squad, therefore taking the pressure off somewhat. The fact is we’ve signed nobody in 7 weeks and the clock is ticking.

Everyone expects us to buy some players. The chances of us getting the amount of players we NEED decreases by the day and that’s the real issue. 7 weeks wasted, 8 weeks left.

Got to bear in mind that Howe doesn’t necessarily want DCL. If we were allowed to compete fairly he’d be nowhere near here. We aren’t after him instead of some class £100million striker.

A lot of players have a bad injury history when it’s written down. This is Isak and it doesn’t even include the fact that he could barely move from February onwards and would have missed more games if we’d had a real alternative.

Trafford not even on the bench. Fee agreed?

Not even on the bench for Sweden today. Must be on his way up here.

Calm yourself down. Howe was wanting us to sign players in early June and us bidding for Trafford and Pedro (at least) in June means the PSR window theory doesn’t add up. He repeatedly said what he wanted and wasn’t getting it. It shouldn’t be hard to believe that he didn’t want a repeat of the Guehi situation (but with multiple players) so has put his foot down.

“Speed is key for us and I have reiterated that many times internally”