Jan 05
Taking stock, post-Leeds.
I woke up at 6:45am in time for the 7am kickoff, my local time. I was up late the previous night; stayed up till 4am, in fact. But late nights are quite common during weekends, by my standards. About 60 minutes into the game, overwhelmed by a combination of weariness and an unprecedented ennui watching the game, I gave in and involuntarily dozed off. In my mind the game played on as Rooney fashioned a comeback 3-1 win.
When I woke up, I carried on with my day, only to fire up the Guardian a few hours later to read the match report. Only then did the 0-1 scoreline dawn on me. Funny story — not much on poignance value — but true.
A few hours later I watched the rest of the match and what I witnessed was an extension of the pre-slumber blur, earlier in the day.
But this was supposed to be less a match report and more a description of trends I’ve been observing this season. You’ve read the match reports everywhere. So another one will only be redundant. In case you haven’t read this already, Cockney-Red, who writes for the refreshingly honest blog When Seagulls Follow the Trawler (and who has often faced unfair flak in the past for calling a spade a spade) has hit the nail on the head with his match report.
Even the proud optimist, Scott, on RoM was mightily pissed off at the result.
Therefore, when Ferguson decides to talk about added time under the circumstances, I squirmed much more than I’ve ever squirmed before when the manager complained about added time.
He, however, did go on to direct his ire at the players for their shoddy performance. But anyone would have to be either blind or have the brain of a housefly if they didn’t think we played shit. A loss to Leeds hurt, although not as much as it would have years ago, but United’s capitulation, while unexpected, upon reflection seemed unsurprising.
Following more convincing wins against Wigan and Hull I wondered if they were for real. The nature of our season has been such. I had high praise for the lads after the Wigan demolition, but I felt compelled to pour a little cold water over it because it was hard to believe they were precursors to a revival. Five premier league losses by December — some of them, comprehensive — can do that to a United fan.
So when you think of the Leeds defeat, all you can do is sigh, and go, “Oh dear… what next?”
We can only go so far as to blame squad selection. In past seasons it didn’t matter what side Ferguson put out — they’d find out a way to win. In past seasons we could put out a similar side and win 10 times over against that Leeds outfit. This season I think we might win six times and lose four. It’s that random. We are a random side this season.
We might very well win the league, and if we do, then it would also be the greatest shooting in the foot our rivals would have done, since Hitler marched his troops to Russia. [Of course, I exaggerate. But the fact that we're two points off the pace after five defeats says a lot.] But that sort of misses the point. It also doesn’t have anything to do with a general improvement of the Premiership. Well, it has to a point, but not to the extent that we’d lose five by December.
But what was more galling from the Leeds defeat was the complete lack of passion. Neville, Evans, Brown, Welbeck, Gibson are all players who’re expected to get the importance of the game. Every Leeds player was first on the ball, pressed like their life depended on it. (Which makes sense because this is a massive game for them considering their league status.) But the rivalry was built up prior to the game by managers and fans alike. Even if a player wasn’t aware Leeds United existed, it would have been force fed right into his bloodstream under threat of castration.
Also, Welbeck on the wing? Really? If anything, now that we’ve established he’s as useful on the wing against League One full backs as a skunk in a pan-animal-kingdom body odour contest, we can safely send him back to the reserves to play in his proper position. There have been instances of players like Henry who’ve started out on the wing and gone on to become great strikers. But Welbeck has always been shit on the wing. Why not play him in a position he’s used to playing?
We were supposed to be playing our “kids” against Man City. There’s the familiar spiel from the manager about nurturing youth and developing them when quizzed about transfers. You will hear the familiar, “we don’t have value in the market,” when there is ample evidence to prove there is value when you look for it. Ferguson can be stubborn like that. [I've long nurtured a secret hope where I've interpreted his "we won't be buying players to resolve our defensive crisis" as "we might, however, explore options on the attacking end." I'll hold out hope on that front till the 31st of January]
As mentioned earlier this season, we have deficiencies in our attacking end that need to be plugged. I am still confident about our defence when it eventually comes together, which it should in the coming weeks.
The newspapers have been awash with the MUTV caller that kicked off the post-Leeds inquisition with a “Ferguson must be sacked” comment. I think that’s a ridiculous remark and I wouldn’t go as far, but I can sympathise with a lot of fans who have been less than satisfied by the manner of our performances this season. MUTV have since then edited out those uncomfortable moments Lou Macari and Co. had to negotiate in their repeat airs. But, in those comments, despite their causticity, lies a giant grain of truth that not all is well.
Related items from Red Rants:
- United End 2009 With a Flourish
- United Sleepwalk to Defeat
- David Gill’s “Out of Context” Cop-Out
- The Chatroom Experiment
- Southampton v Man Utd FA Cup Match Thread
Tags: Manchester United News
Opti (541)
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First
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Our form has been enigmatic this season to say the least. And if we somehow regain our best form in the second half and win the league this season. this would become Ferguson’s greatest campaign ever, considering the severe lack of quality we have going forwards.
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@Aditya: This wouldn’t be his greatest campaign ever if we win it. We’ll win it because other teams will do worse than us which isn’t saying much of the league.
Even if we win the league, it will be a good achievement, not his greatest.
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This season, we had play less than 10 or less matches which i can remember where we play beautifully or convincingly. We were unbeatable and strike fear to the opponents. But now, the fear strikes me when any opponent we face. Any result can happen and like you said are random. I’m not sure if we can regain the form in the second half. I agree if we win the league, it is due to other teams doing worst than us. Giggs, Scholes, Neville and Van Der Sar are getting old, fergie too. Club in serious debt and i not sure how the club is going to be in the future.
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our greatest weakness right now for me is we have no reliable left winger outside the former winger named Giggs.
worst of all there aren’t many worthy left side player on the market in world football.
No wonder SAF says there is no value in the market. …..
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Winning or loosing are different things but it also matters to the fans to get some entertainment watching your side.This thing is completely missing this season.Otherwise Inter wins everything in Italy but who cares as they are too dull with their play.This separates Barca from others where evey game more than 90000 people go there to watch and gets entertained.This season at OT a lot of seats remain vacant.
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@owen: Barca’s capacity is 90k, but their average attendances are much lower — about 73k. Lower than United.
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@Aditya: Despite all my negativity and tirades directed towards Fergie, I have said this on numerous occasions that the job he is doing this season may very well his best ever managerial job. Frankly he is using magic or mirrors to steal points and keep this team in contention despite the massive drop off in quality and skill. But this has all come at a heavy price. Despite what the Glazer’s are doing to the team, he has been forced out of desperation and his true player assessment that he must play a slow ball control boring Italian style game that former Roma manager Spaletti said was more Italian than Italy. So even though he is getting the most out of the team he has, he is not however treating certain players right or playing certain players properly. He is also protecting the owners while continuing to insult all of us and our intelligence by claiming this team is better than it is and that he is not about to spend money on players. This is not the Fergie from five years ago who always bought player and pushed the envelope by always trying to improve the team, even when it was already quite good.
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@Red Ranter: The League has declined due to a mass exodus of very good players who prefer to play in Spain and also the knowledge that many other great players abroad who have no interest in coming to the EPL because they prefer Spain or Italy. Although I do not think the League will fall lower than it’s 195 level when it comes to the number of foreign players and quality players, I do think that the Big Four are struggling to convince world class players that England is the place to be. Thus the drop off in quality of the Big Four.
Really has Villa or Spurs or any of the other teams below the four improved their squads that much to account for their improvement and the Big Four’s disappointing form? I don’t think so. When the league is raided for top stars, it’s the Big Four that get hurt. Only Man City has benefitted and even they are having a Hell of a hard time convincing great players to come and play for them. Now with Mancini in there that could change but I am noticing that many European and South American players do not think highly of British managers like Hughes, Redknapp and Bruce. Instead they want a romantic and famous foreign name to play for. And even then Wenger, Benitez and Ancelotti are having a hard time getting players to come over to their sides.
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@Keith Kaira II: Franck Ribery, David Silva, Mata, Di Maria, Schweinsteiger, just to mention a few.
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@owen: Despite the fact that they are not as good as Barcelona, I think Real Madrid have been playing really attractive and beautiful football this season. In fact, their style reminds of the style United used three or four seasons ago. Not just because of Ronaldo but the interchanging and the pace, especially on counters. I also love watching their skill players attacking opponents and showing no fear when on the ball. Their is timid streak in their game. But their defense is weak at times and they do need to address that with the purchase of Vidic in the summer. God I hope not.
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Does anyone else like “Phelan to Burnely” gossip just as much as I do
, now if only Fergie could get us that former Spurs No 2, whatever his name is….
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@Keith Kaira II: Mate, I’m amazed there’s still anybody left among the United faithful who believe anything Fergie says these days! No value in the transfer Market – what???? That is a strictly dumb arsed statement whether anybody believes it or not!
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@Red Ranter: We won’t win it mate – I am almost certain of that. I also feel we will be OUT of the CL next round – sorry, but that is my honest feeling! SAF says our players didn’t perform like Manchester UNited against Leeds – but what amazes me is that he didn’t say we haven’t played like UNited for nearly 2 years now! Also that he said the players didn’t perform, rather than THESE PLAYERS ARE SO OBVIOUSLY NOT GOOD ENOUGH!
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@Ober-fuckin-tan: I’d love Gus Poyet as a number 2 here.
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Dont forget Diuof who is available for selection. I dont know how much he’ll be used but the manager has been talking him up
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After ‘The Leeds Debacle’, I doubt he would play Diouf.
GK’s : VDS, PIG, Foster. VDS will retire this season.
Defence : Rafael Evans Vidic Evra. That’s probably our best defence, so lets play it every week. Sorry Wes, sorry Gary.
Wings : Valencia is our only senior winger. He’s a very good one, and bar one off game we have had no problems going down the right. Giggs is NOT a winger, hasn’t been for years. Cut’s inside all the time, no width. Park is a back up and Obertan is promising but one for the future and not ready now. So that’s 1 Right Winger. 0 Left Wingers.
CMs : Fletcher and Carrick are our best performers here. Anderson is not as bad as everyone makes out and Gibson hasn’t even played enough games to start counting on his toes yet, but together are too inexperienced. We need to either play Fletcher & Carrick, or one from them and one from Anderson/Gibson. Scholes is done. If Hargreaves comes back even half as good as he was then that will help us greatly.
Strikers : Rooney is a sore thumb here. Berbatov still hasn’t pushed on, and it seems like he never will for us. I was cheering the midnight we signed him, having seen what he’d done at Spurs. He has all the skills to be a brilliant United striker, but a lack of service frustrates him and he stops bothering. Michael Owen gets criticised all too quickly. It’s difficult to come on and score every time you touch the ball. That is what’s expected of him by most, and no striker in the world has ever done that.
No idea how good Welbeck is as a striker. I’ve rarely seen him play there in the first team. He is not a bloody winger, we know that now. Macheda is young and promising. Diouf is an unknown.
So if we are to have a fully functioning Champions League winning side we need a FIRST TEAM Goalkeeper, Left Winger and Striker, and to play a consistent Defence and CM pairing.
Akinfeev(£15mil) and Di Maria (£30mil) would be my first choices, but I’d be happy with Neuer/Adler/Lloris etc.. They are not unobtainable if we have the money, which records would indicate we do. Fergie is just being a stubborn ass. As for up front, it’s probably the hardest position to find anything like value. Fergie seems to think we can get Benzema for £20mil. That would be an amazing signing at that price, as he would complement Rooney so well. That’s £65mil to sort our team out with young talented hungry players, and I’d say worth every penny.
Maybe the Leeds result will kick start Fergie into action. I wouldn’t bet on it.
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Carling Cup game tomorrow is POSTPONED.
Sky news just reported that the ‘Carling cup game between United and City has been pwnd.’ I think she meant postponed, but good to see l33t speak working its way into the mainstream!
I guess this is both good and bad news for us. All our players will be fit and we might be in a better vein of form by the rescheduling. That being said the rescheduling may not work out well for us visa-vis fixture congestion.
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City leg now being played Tuesday 19th. 2nd leg at our place now on Wednesday 27th. Home game v Hull (26th) now postponed.
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I dont know what stats reveal but
As per Actim our best player this season is Valencia! He is at No7 on the index with fab fabregas leading the rankings (and why shouldnt he with 9 goals and 12 assists so far this season!)
In fact only Valencia and Rooney are in top 10 with Rooney at No. 10 (our No. 10 at 10!) now since it is known that actim takes a very holistic view of all round performance and keeps track of both good and bad performances, valencia has not been a bad signing despite what some people here might suggest.
Ashravin is way behind him (No 23) and nowinger from chelseas or pools makes top 10 (or even 20). Only Lennon has been better (at No.5)
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@Grognard: & @Traverse: I think the 50% income tax has hit in more ways than one…players salaries are inflating and others just don’t want to hassle with it..there was talk of doing the same in Spain but don’t know if its happened yet..i expect another mass exodus in the coming windows.
Traverse mentioned we now know welbeck cant play wing but this isn’t the first or second time he played there and was poor..he was tried there last year as well and still was pretty bad, albeit he had some goals…for a while fergie made some weird decisions, initially i followed the mantra that i had followed for years, place my trust in the manager, but these days it just doesn’t seem to add up, we are tactically looking pretty inept..player management is all over the place, and we are still too heavily invested in the old guard..and then there is fergie favorite..gibson looks promising while shooting but just doesn’t have it anywhere else, i sincerely hope he does a Fletcher but even he wasn’t this bad passing the ball at his age…anderson looks lost in what he is..is he a defensive midfeilder, box to box or what not and it generally sums up what i feel is being felt by fans and some players(nani)? It seems to me Fergie is still caught up with winning another CL.
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@Traverse: I think its bad news as we would have been keen to put the leeds mishap behind us after playing so soon.
Fergie would also have been more likely to make drastic changes, instead of following a more cautious route of, say, playing Park, Giggs and Owen against city.
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http://amanita-design.net/plachy_trpaslik/
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@RMJ: We all knew that before, but Fergie managed to miss it. There is no way he missed that, and he now has no excuse.
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Fergie makes way to many bad decision this season. I think the overall mistakes last season is the same as this half season. Welbeck should not have play. I like to see tosic play there and he will be playing more better than welbeck. I don’t know why fergie hates tosic so much that he seldom pick him. Welbeck can’t play wing at all!!! Anderson is more of a attacking midfielder. I thought he play well in leeds game, at least better than gibson who only know how to shoot. Anderson had the split passing in his game while gibson don’t have creativity pass or dimension in his game yet. We are not a powerful force as we once were anymore. Any team feel they can beat us. With fergie stubbornly refused to buy player. I do hope he can sell some players. As his age is getting old, i think he had more sentimental in him that he feel sad to sell players. In the past, he sell players that don’t perform. Now, he never sells and if he never sells, where do we get our money? Ronaldo is a must sell given he wants to leave the club. We need to buy players and that is for sure. There is value in the market. If we can become more stronger with one or two players then why not spend more cash and sell our under performing players? I think fergie might lose it given his mellow character. I prefer the youngster fergie where he get rid of Beckham, staap and keane.
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@NicoQB: is that game in czech?
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If we can clone Fletcher and our defence gets fit then I think we’ll be fine this year.
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Been away from this blog for a while, Happy new year everyone. As i predicted after the humping we gave the Ammers at Upton park, I thought(December) our toughest game would be Fulham away, I totally missed the Villa Result and the very crap performance we put in, there was not one player who put in a shift.
I like everyone else understands the injury crisis, but I am not seeing the winning attitude we are used to witnessing putting your body on the line.SAF right now is a similar to a juggler with a fucking blindfold on, He is the best manager in the English leagues of all time, But like our Canadian friend I am becoming more convinced there is very little finance availiable to Improve our fantastic club in terms of purchasing the jewels that are attainable at the market price.
I have a concern regards the proven special one,is it me or has he been watching the Spanish waiter and his rotational policy, its screwing up my head his team choices when imo the better pegs are fit but on the bench.
January is a fucking huge month for us and i truly belive the pivotal month in our current postion/season.
This Saturday 9th Brummies away( lets hope the midlands is snow bound)
16th Clarets OT ( Manager less should be a given
19th Shitty wastelands ( you may see why I say pivotal)
27th ” OT ( you may see why I say pivotal)
30th Arse away (as above without emphasis )
So with out looking to much into the future and even to mid February if we can scrape through this month bye hook or bye crook we will imo have silver ware to crow about.
Who believes and be able to justify(why not) that Berba should be put up for sale he looks totally fucking disinterested and truely getting on my tits. I hate to pick out one player as we all know, you win and lose as a team but I fail to see what he is bringing to the team, sublime touches yes, sheilding the ball yes 30 Million pounds for that, and again its not settling in, he was majik at the Spuds .
One very low Red, I truely do feel like marching on OT, Or demand some enquiry to what the fuck is happening, before the whole thing implodes.
Am gonna shake up my crystal ball so all i see is fucking snow!
Just to rub salt into the wounds Stoke Live, giving Fulham the run around Stoke 3 Fulham nil…… say no more, away away to fill up my half full glass.
Keep believing, although its getting ridiculously hard.
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@gator: I had a little chuckle when I read your post. It was confusing at first, but then I figured out what you were doing hehe. Is that the common stereotype in the UK about the US? If so that’s pretty funny.
Also let me clear up my post about the British press. When it comes to “news” the British tabloids have zero shame. If one rag makes up a headline like “torres signs pre-contract with United” then the other rags all run with it, never even doing a little research to verify the validity of the story.
On the other hand, I far prefer British writers to American ones. The same goes for commentators. US writers sound like they are borderline illiterate, they shy away from any words over two syllables. Also in case you feel I’m exaggerating, I know that my hometown paper the “The Oregonian” which is an award winning publication is geared toward readers with grade school level reading abilitys.
I’m far from an elitist, but I enjoy reading stimulating material.
Sorry if I offended you, I should have been more clear in my earlier post.
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@Karl: while I admit it’s harsh to call us a one man team, it’s kind of hard to lose the best player in the world then replace him with Valencia and think we are ready for a rematch with barca.
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@Johnsom33: Didn’t know you were on the left coast, mate.
Are you in Portland?? I’m down here in the SF Bay Area.
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@NicoQB: If it was just a “mishap” why do we need to put it behind us?
Honestly mate the term should be “debacle” at least, and probably then some.
Be some years before we live that one down!
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@Redrich: Used to live in Portland now I live in LA.
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@Scotjimland: i’ve been saying all season that berba needs to be moved on. sublime touches and shielding the ball. he must do this occassionally. everytime i see united he does bugger all.
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Veron ….LEGEND!!!
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city are shit and skint than us in football and also in managing business
take a look at this http://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/2558/news/2010/01/06/1728069/manchester-city-report-annual-losses-of-926m
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hey it’s 92.6m not 926m
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and that’s not including their record breaking summer spend. Even if they got into the Champs League and negotiated bigger sponsorship deals they would have to go some way to be operating at a profit.
I know it’s not a big deal to a Billionaire, but even with our massive loan debt we make a profit each year. If City don’t start winning things soon how long will they be willing to be associated with a failure? Arab business men do not like loosing face, and I think are much more likely to cut and run if things don’t go to plan than say Abramovich at Chelsea.
In good news for us, if we manage to get the bonds that have been talked about then we’ll lower that repayment and have more available to invest in the squad.
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@Traverse: yeah replacing the PIK’s by taking bonds. here is a good article on bbc http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2010/01/can_man_utd_spend.html
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The most worrying thing for me at OT, is that we can’t seem to get a winning streak going, because of Fergie’s constant messing about with the team he puts out. Just managed to win 2 games, and then SAF fecks up again by insisting on playing NOVICES on both wings, and bringing back not 1 but 2 players who were nowhere near game fit. I mean Evans had been out for ages! What happened to easing our returning players by bringing them on for the last half hour of games until they were match ready again? OK so you might say we had no option but we did. Rafael had not played many games so he was hardly tired. We need to play our so called BEST players that are available, UNTIL we put a good run together, and get into the winning mentality again. No need to keep playing the novices in games like Leeds. Too many of our so called bright young things have no passion, and no idea what history and glory days means to the OT fans. Fergie keeps fucking up getting his teams wrong – WHY? With that team, Fergie himself has cost the club BIG revenue loss, at a time we need seemingly every penny!
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@Johnsom33: I understand what you’re saying and agree with it completely. But, that’s not my point. What I’m getting at is that we should never have been in this position. We should have anticipated that. It’s beyond me how the deaprture of one player can leave a team like United totally fucked. Besides, if someone think that we can replace Ronaldo with Valencia and be ready for a rematch, then maybe that someone don’t know his players as well as what we give him credit for?
Personally, I don’t think acquisitions is the answer (any new player will be expected to perform unnatural duties). I think there needs to be a mentality shift.
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@gator: Made by an east european studio, not sure about the country.
But there is some english contextual. In any case the game is very short.
@Johnsom33: ???
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This feels just like the off season.
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It pains me to say it, but good news… looks like Neville is not being offered a new contract.
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We simply cannot afford to buy new players of a high standard because we are skint
Also, was it Ronaldo and Tevez who were keeping United afloat? Because thats all that has significantly changed from previous seasons – surely our other players cannot have declined that much? We are in dire need of creativity and flair in our midfield, a shame Nani never lived up to his promise.
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@Traverse: I’ll stick to St.Thomas’ until then.
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@Sir Red: Last season’s defensive injury crisis was not as dire as this one’s.
And Fergie has to take some blame for not recognising the lack of flair in midfield.
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the result against Leeds was awful, but people saying Fergie should go are an embarrassment, Fergie over rotates which for me is the main issue, the young players like Craig said are not good enough and simply don’t have any passion for the club eg Anderson, personally I wish he would just fuck off back to Portugal.
We have no money which also seems to be a massive issue, considering we have to over pay for every player getting quality in is nigh on imposible now so we have to play the old guard more and as I have said the “youth” are not good enough. If we were managed by anyone else we would be further down the table to saying Fergie should leave is laughable.
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@NicoQB: Ah Nico! I asked a question from you in the last thread but you probably didn’t see it. What do you think about Berbatov playing behind two front men? I thought he grew much more influential when Owen came on in the Leeds match.
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@NicoQB: It only worries me in this season that we are going to sell vidic to barca or RM by signing a precontact offer from any of those clubs and he will be gone in the summer.
Transfer rumours are always there for us but we don’t have the money enough to compete with others. the rumours have linked us with gk’s, defenders(which we aren’t going to sign),strikers. but we need amf but we have not been yet linked to players in that position the mentions of ben arfa, di maria of wingers but if nani is gone we do need a winger. 30m for a winger who is yet to be established as a major game changer is not that worth in my opinion but who knows.
I think since we do not have enough transfer chest why not sign a GOOD player on loan who is wanting first team action to get a place in the world cup.Like a Henrik Larsson loan move, liverpool are taking maxi rodriguez on loan.
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