At this very moment, I'm going to give it a...
Wait and see 😁.
I suppose you could just scroll down, but anyway.
When looking at the business done by MUFC so far, I would say that the window has been good, not great, could be better. It's not as terrible as windows gone by but neither has it been as amazing as perhaps some of us thought it would be.
Yet.
With 8 days remaining of the window, there is still time for the club to do business for both incomings and outgoings. The summer transfer window will close on Friday August 30th at 11pm BST and as we know, several deals get done in the last minute so one shouldn't panic if United haven't done anymore business next Friday morning as there's a chance some could be done by the evening.
Remember bringing in Alex Telles on deadline day and not signing Jadon Sancho despite all the rumors suggesting otherwise back in 20/21?
Those final few hours are crazy. Anything can happen.
But would we be happy to be doing business at that time?
If push comes to shove, of course I'd rather we bring in someone as something is better than nothing but I (and I'm sure the club) would rather be doing the transfers sooner rather than later.
We don't want to be sweating over whether we could get a deal over the line in time or not.
The business so far
United have made a fair share of deals over the past three months both incomings and outgoings. Some names have been surprising while others, not so much.
Incomings
I suppose you can count the coaches as well as MUFC did bring in former striker Ruud van Nistelrooy and Rene Hake to be Erik ten Hag's new assistants after the departures of Mitchell van der Gaag and Benni McCarthy.
We also saw the additions of Jelle ten Rouwelaar (goalkeeping coach from Burnely) and Andreas Georgson as the set-piece coach from Southampton.
While these may not be names that get one excited about a new season - other than van Nistelrooy - I do believe that they could have as major an impact as some of the new recruits in the first-team.
Ruuuuuuuddddddddddd is an example because we all know that he is the greatest striker in Premier League history 😏 and to have someone like him come in and teach our forwards to put the ball in the net will be very valuable as we know that we struggled in that department tenfold last season.
I've also no doubt that Ruud himself could put a pair of boots on and do a better job than most of the current number 9s in the league.
Adding Andreas Georgson to help with set-pieces is another coach who could be a massive improvement to this side.
United score around 1 goal a season from set plays (probably) and concede every other goal from opposition free-kicks, corners and deadball situations.
To be able to defend them properly and create opportunites at the other end is something we need drastic improvement upon because we aren't much of a threat from our own set plays yet look like we can concede every time to opposition's.
The Fulham game gave us a prime example of how much work we have to do in the defending of corner kicks as we had no answer to their simple front post header.
Joshua Zirkzee
The first was the 23-year-old Dutch striker. We brought Zirkzee in on July 14th from Bologna for £36.5m (Sky Sports) on a five-year deal with the option of a further year.
Perhaps a little pricey for an unknown raw up-and-coming young striker but having paid double that for Rasmus Hojlund last year who is also raw and up-and-coming, I think it was a good bit of business.
We also took him off the toes of AC Milan as he seemed for all the money that he was headed to the Rossoneri.
Leny Yoro
But one we absolutely stole was Leny Yoro.
The 18-year-old French defender was the second signing of the window and if Zirkzee appeared destined for Milan, one could say that Yoro already had one foot in the door at the Bernabeu.
Real Madrid were the club leading the race for Yoro's signature for a good while but because they didn't want to pay the asking price of Lille, that gave United the opportunity to swoop in.
And that they did as just four days after Zirkzee's announcement, Yoro was unveiled in the Red of United, a colour that suits him better than any other 😉.
The amount paid for him is the most of all the signings and was, despite his quality and many clubs frotthing at the mouth for his signature, overpriced. United spent £52.18m (BBC) for Yoro who signed a five-year deal with an option for an additional year.
As there were the likes of Madrid, PSG and Liverpool circling around for his services, United had to act fast and make him an offer he and Lille couldn't refuse.
And here we are. Unfortunately we are going to have to wait a couple months to see him in an official game for United thanks to an injury he picked up in pre-season.
Noussair Mazraoui and Matthijs De Ligt
But hands down the best transfer business we've done, and perhaps the best business any club has done (other than Mbappe to Real Madrid for free), was bringing in Noussair Mazraoui and Matthijs De Ligt.
Two former players of Erik ten Hag's during his time as Ajax manager, Mazraoui and De Ligt definitely brought a lot of excitement and optimism to everyone associated with United.
With their quality and experience, they are surely going to improve the squad and team in more ways than one.
United paid a total of around £52m (The Guardian) for both their signatures from Bayern Munich. Mazraoui signed a four-year deal while De Ligt signed a five-year deal, both with the option of a further year.
These deals were always seen as a pair rather than individual which isn't something that you see much of these days.
The duo - who've played together at Ajax, Bayern and now the greatest of them all, Man Utd - had agreed personal terms a while back which gave us all an inclination that they would be completed relatively quickly even more so after looking at how fast the club got Zirkzee and Yoro over the line.
However, thanks to Bayern Munich being very knobbish over their price for the two, there was much haggling resulting in this seemingly endless back-and-forth between the clubs.
These deals took what felt like a lifetime to get done, although Ugarte...👀.
But in the end, we managed to get their signatures for a price that players of their quality would go for individually. Two stones with one bird, I mean, two birds with one stone.
That concludes the incomings.
For now.
Outgoings
As I mentioned earlier, two assistants of the manager's departed in Benni McCarthy and Mitchell van der Gaag, two well-liked personalities around the dressing room who truly helped us in getting silverware over the past two seasons.
Their services will be forever remembered as they helped give us a feeling we had all quite forgotten about: winning.
Aaron Wan-Bissaka
This is the only truly high profile outgoing of the window thus far.
The right-back sealed a deal to West Ham and was the trigger for United to actually bringing in Mazraoui and De Ligt. Without AWB going to London, the club wouldn't have been able to sign the now former Bayern duo because MUFC are in a sell-to-buy situation.
This move wasn't only key to those moves, but I think it was important for Spider-Wan himself. He wasn't going to get much game time and didn't really fit the bill of how Erik ten Hag would want his full-back to play.
This transfer to West Ham is good for him although the price sold (£15m - Goal) was nowhere near what he is actually worth. This also meant a loss of £35m from the original (overpriced) value of £50m.
Still though, he needed to be moved on.
Facundo Pellistri
This was the second highest-profile outgoing although, was it?
I mean no disrespect to Pellistri when saying that as I do believe we wasted a talent with him but he isn't exactly a household name that would make people wide-eyed at who the club sold. He also isn't a 'we mean business so we're going to sell a big name that would shock everyone' transfer by INEOS.
Having been at Old trafford since 20/21, he hardly featured for the club and needed to move for his own development. At 22-years-old, he is still quite young but as we know, time moves hella fast nowadays so he wouldn't want to waste anymore of his career.
United confirmed his departure yesterday with a deal worth £5.1m (The Athletic) to Greek side Panathinaikos.
Mason Greenwood always looked likely to leave after his situation over the past two-and-a-half years so it wasn't really a surprise even if his was one of the higher profile names to depart.
We've also seen the removals of players like Rapha Varane and Anthony Martial) whose contracts ended), Brandon Williams, Willy Kambwala, Omari Forson, Donny van de Beek and Alvaro Carreras.
I'm sure that we will see some more outgoings before the end.
Final Thoughts
I think the incomings have been very good even if some of the prices were a little too much. To bring in four quality players for a decent bit of business is also welcomed especially after all the shite we've had to go through over the past decade.
Manuel Ugarte is the obvious next player to sign and I hope we do because we definitely need him in our midfield. A left-back would also be great because we are short in that position thanks to Luke Shaw's unreliability and Tyrell Malacia being out for over a year.
But it's the outgoings where I'm having a problem.
There are still too many players at the club that shouldn't be here. Victor Lindelof, Christian Eriksen, Scott McTominay, Casemiro, Harry Maguire and Jadon Sancho are all players I believe should've been moved on.
With just over a week left of the window, I doubt that we'll see all these players go.
I believe that they aren't good enough to take us to where we want to be and actually need to be moved on for different reasons whether it be quality, age, wage or other matters, or perhaps a combination of these.
I don't disagree with the other outgoings (although I would've liked to see more money come in for the likes of Wan-Bissaka and Pellistri) but we need to move more 'deadwood' players on.
At this point, I would give it and INEOS a 6.5/10. Not as great as I expected but not as terrible as past windows. Yes there's still time to increase that rating but currently, I still don't think it's what we truly required.
If those were the only incomings but we did sell some of those players mentioned, then maybe I would rank it a little higher at 7.5.
With that current squad, I would expect to see Erik ten Hag play better football, get into the top 4, win a trophy and give the better teams a good game especially away from home.
Barring injuries, of course.
What would you rate the transfer window for United at the moment?
Background Image: Leny Yoro, Matthijs De Ligt, Joshua Zirkzee and Noussair Mazraoui | Image via Manchester United official X (@ManUtd)