Manchester United are not pleased after hearing about Zidane Iqbal’s imminent exit.
According to The Athletic, an offer has been accepted – worth €1 million – from FC Utrecht, who are preparing to announce Iqbal as a new signing on a four-year deal.
The 20-year-old completed his medical on Monday after being handed no first-team minutes over the course of the 2022/23 season.
Iqbal was widely regarded as a hot prospect in the academy, but nobody can blame him for wanting to move on in search of regular game time. This is something he has yet to achieve at senior level.
United fans took to social media after the news broke to fume at the transfer fee being reported.
I understand it, but worth up to 1m… farce
— James 🏴 (@JamesUTD10_) June 20, 2023
The club is managed soooooo bad. This is ridiculous
— Fredrik Nord (@FCorleone) June 20, 2023
Disgusted. Selling him is fine but for 1 million ?! 💀
— Jogbafinito (@man_united_44) June 20, 2023
The other side of the argument – employees at United are likely to put forward – is that they didn’t recieve a better offer for the central midfielder. If he’s surplus to requirements, as far as Ten Hag is concerned, it makes complete sense to move Iqbal on.
Disgusted. He’s starting for his national team, and he’s a great young talent, send him on loan, not selling for 1million. This club makes me want to drag my skin on molten lava. Some terrible decisions, it’s Garner 2.0
— United_All (@Unitedfaith01) June 20, 2023
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is Ed Woodward still at the club it’s the kind of stroke he’d pull the whole transfer setup needs replacing with people who know what they’re doing
Surely he could have been sent out on loan . He was a player that showed a lot of promise last preseason. Plus if he has a good loan you would get a t least ten million for him instead of one . Will we ever be good in the transfer market
if he is such a great young talent then why are no other clubs trying to sign him?
this player who apparently is gonna be a great player has just signed for Utrecht – not Ajax, not feyenoord, pSV but utrecht. so he obviously isnt good enough for united and people need to stop pretending that the academy produces amazing players.
united make it out like our academy is good – its really not and even if it was good, the days of having many academy players making it are simply a thing of the past – look at city – this is the bar set and they bought basically all their players.
Havent
Are you for real, Dixon? Just without Googling, our Academy has produced The Busby Babes, Class of 92, Mark Hughes, Sammy McIlroy, Norman Whiteside, Danny Welbeck, Marcus Rashford, Scott McTominay….Best.Academy. Ever.
i mean currently of course. i am very aware of the class of 92 and preceding years – welbeck and mctominay? are you serious?
nowhere near good enough for top level football. when i say top i mean where united should be – players like mctominay, welbeck are PL level certainly but neither would get near Liverpool or City’s and unfortunately that is the bar, city more ofc!
So Academy produces Premier League players, but it’s ‘ really not good’ OK then.
you mentioned welbeck and mctominay and rashford, thats three. and thats over the past ten years.
there are 500 players in the PL and thats just what can be registered per season so its really not many.
also city only play academy players when they are good enough – ie foden and lewis. united have had mctominay fpr how long? he would get nowhere near a top team – therein lies uniteds problem – their players aren’t good enough.
You keep mentioning City; I guess it comes down to what you want from football. City are 100% artificial, their wealthy owners bought a new stadium, bought loads of players, bought them a manager. Their name is all that remains of the club that used to play at Maine Road. Now, they can watch Haaland scoring for Norway and say ‘ our owners bought him for us. ‘ But for me that’s nowhere near the sense of pride I get watching Rashford and McTominay scoring for their Countries. Not saying I’m right and you’re wrong – as I say, it’s how you view your Club and how they operate.
I respect that man but the way united operate is embarrassing – united have literally outspent city in the past ten years, yet city have dominated, playing amazing football, ripping up all sorts of records – i mention city as they are the bar – if united want mediocrity and 66-75 points certainly is for a club of our size then we should continue at our pace, but other clubs, newcastle, arsenal, chelsea will all jump above us – then i would be interested in your opinion.
United do not have a god given right to be at the top, you have to earn it by making good decisions. that means not holding onto academy players who are simply not good enough (mctominay), buying the top talent and scouting properly and ofc having the right people right up to the board.
I also don’t care if our players do well at international level for scotland – i doubt city fan care about Haaland for norway.
United are a basket case resembling people with old money who just think that they have a god given right to rule, if they continue how they are they will find out that this isn’t the case – i would say even more starkly than they have experienced in the past ten years.