It smacks of letting the manager lead recruitment which is largely what they’ve been doing for a while now. It’s also part of the reason the squad is such a mess.
There’s no overarching philosophy. No continuity between managerial changes. A non-existent recruitment team.
The shorter contracts suggests to me of being desperate not to be stuck with a player they aren’t fully confident of but are willing to sign because the manager wants them and no one is willing to say no.
Still a long contract though, four years with option of a fifth. Six year deals are fairly uncommon, I believe…?
This lad is supposed to be good from what I’ve read about him.
Here comes Nik’s annual panic about how good Man Utd are going to be 
There is one part that reminds me of Rodgers and his recruitment of players he had previously worked with at Swansea and Chelsea Reserves, true. If they are going to rely on their manager to instil a distinct playing style, then it’s better for them to rely on someone like Ten Hag than Rodgers of ten years ago. That said, aside from that Feyenoord lad, I’m yet to of their interest in a player who doesn’t have at least some previous link with Ajax.
Scottish full back playing in Bologna? Interesting career already.
I swear I’ve only just seen this post after exchanging views with @rab and @Sweeting in the summer transfers thread and then I go on Twitter and see this:
Talk about timing!
Posted in another thread, that hickey was a good player,
Knocked back Bayern Munich for Bologna as the felt he would get more game time.
He made a wise decision.
I think he got 5 goals last season at Bologna,
And was their 4th top scorer!
More eloquently put there by Simon Kuper but that is exactly what I was getting at. The line in his third tweet of thread that’s along the lines of “what are the chances that the best signings for United all come from a very small non-top five league?” is very telling.
Even better than that is all the United fans piling in to say how wrong this interpretation is when in reality they should be questioning every single potential signing given how bad they’ve been in the market for years now.
What’s the betting Ten Hag is gone with two to three years and they’re left with a bunch of Dutch players or players previously based there that they’ll be trying to flog back to that league for a fraction of what they paid for them. Quite high I would say.
He already has with his performances over the length of the contract they were willing to commit to him.
Gives me van Gaal vibes.
Utd were after De Jong before Ten Hag was lined up as manager though weren’t they, so these signings aren’t all just because of the new guy at the helm?
From Utd’s point of view I would think even if these players don’t turn out to be that great, they will still help Ten Hag to bring in his style of play to the side buying the recruitment team time to find players for future windows. Obviously, if they still bring in next year’s equivalent to Maguire and Wan Bissaka then it isn’t going to matter what they do this window anyway.
I was going say they could bring him back 
Bas Dost from Club Brugge to Utrecht on a free.
Matej Mitrovic from Club Brugge to Rijeka on loan.
Alexsandro from Chaves to Lille for £1.8m.
Alessandro Florenzi from Roma to Milan for £2.4m.
Kazimcan Karatas from Altay to Galatasaray for £1m.
Falaye Sacko from Vitoria Guimaraes to Montpellier on loan.
Taylor Harwood-Bellis from City to Burnley on loan.
Petar Musa from Boavista to Benfica for £4.5m.
Jessic Ngankam from Greuter Furth to Hertha for £1.8m.
Diego Lopez from Espanyol to Rayo Vallecano on a free.
James Tarkowski from Burnley to Everton on a free.
Cenk Tosun from Everton to Besiktas on a free.
Sime Vrsaljko from Atletico Madrid to Olympiacos on a free.
Ethan Horvath from Forest to Luton on loan.
Aitor Fernandez from Levante to Osasuna on a free.
Stefano Sensi from Inter to Monza on loan.
Luuk de Jong from Sevilla to PSV for £2.7m.
Vakoun Issouf Bayo from Charleroi to Watford for £5.2m.
Gavin Kilkenny from Bournemouth to Stoke on loan.
Dean Henderson from United to Forest on loan.
Ko Itakura from City to Gladbach for £4.5m.
Andre Gray from Watford to Aris on a free.
Raoul Pettreta from Basel to Kasimpasa on a free.
Giulian Biancone from Troyes to Forest for £9m.
I see that Biancone is a 22-year old right back (mostly), so it possibly means that they will not pursue signing Neco Williams.
I think Neco was above their price range. Specially with Fulham and Southampton in the fray as well.
Gabriel Jesus from City to Arsenal for £47m.
He is just 25, so I guess there’s still time for him to improve. But going by last two seasons, it’s an underwhelming signing for £47m. And I guess he is on handsome wages too.
Top Right - Expecting Leo to snuggle in from behind
Bottom Right - Leo?
Left - Scorned…