** Summer Transfer Window 2011/12 Season Rumours/Signings **

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Tom84 said:
That simply wont happen, Fergie wont sign someone who comes in thinking he's bigger than the club. If Sneijder does sign he wont even be the best player at the club so hell need to realise the size of the club he'll be coming to, and while he may be the big fish at Inter he wont have the same status at United.
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I totally agree, thats why im saying it might not happen.
 
Arry saying on SSN that Spurs are in for Mata.... erm Arry shouldn't you be getting some strikers? Mata's not really even a direct replacement for Modric :confused:
 
Think it's more a case of 'Arry hearing that Mata is available and Arsenal are after him so he's got to be quite good, so 'Arry might put a cheeky bid in.

I thought that Spurs needed to sell and reorganise the squad before they bought anyone in, and even then it would probably be a striker which is where they were left lacking last season.
 
Tom84 said:
Well Valencia's injured so Nani will most certainly be starting the season, lets say it's more of a hope of mine that Nani & Young will be the first choice. Like you said though Valencia when fit will no doubt get the nod for some of the bigger games but when he plays someone like A.Cole as well as he has I dont really have a problem in certain games bringing him in. Against Barca in the final on paper it was the right move, Tony V just decided to have a shocker that day and just kick everyone :p
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I had forgotten AV was injured - thanks for the reminder

Pretty spot on (although to be fair the whole team had a bit of a shocker after the first 20ish minutes of the final) :)

Good to see Utd can at least beat a youthful Barca on tour - even if it counts for squat lol (I dont know how many they missed, but it sounds like Utd missed a fair few decent chances lol)

Tom84 said:
Words cant comprehend the keyboard rage I'm feeling right now :mad:
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The picture you posted to me yesterday would come in handy now - wouldnt it? :):)
 
drunkenmaster said:
Jenkinson has been better than Sagna all preseason and Sagna/Gibbs are our worst players for being out of position, though I'm not really sure who is less useful out of Gibbs and Traore. Vermaelen is great and has been great, but the partnership with any CB he's played with has been useless, both CB's have to work together, aside from Verm none of the other guys play that way. THough, I'm willing to give Kos the benefit of the doubt as I've simply not seen him play with a good CB alongside him yet.

The problem with the defence wasn't the personel, it was the way they played, and the fact that all the problems were the same mistakes our "first choice" players were making all last year.

Maybe/hopefully Vermaelen can beat some sense into whoever plays alongside him, but I doubt it.

We need a new right back(or the old one) without question a new left back, and 2 CB's.
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I agree that we need a new left back. I don't think Gibbs is as bad as you make out, but with his injury record we need a quality LB, Traore isn't going to cut it.

You seem to have a dislike for Sagna, but I like him. Defensively he is pretty solid, but you are right in that he gets caught upfield a bit too much. However, with the way we play full backs that is going to happen sometimes. The bigger issue is that we don't have midfielders who will naturally drop back and cover. In the past we had Petit, Vieira, Flamini, Gilberto, etc who would cover when required.

I think the CB issue last season wasn't so much the personnel, but more the combination. Arseblog mentioned it recently and it makes sense. Verm and Djourou are more aggressive players, going to meet attackers and when they have the ball they like to take it forward. Kos and Squillaci are the mopping up type of players. When Squillaci and Kos were playing together, Squillaci was asked to take on the more aggressive role which isn't his strength.

The fact that Squillaci's best two games were against Wolves and Everton, where he played the mopper upper behind Djourou, would tend to back this up. Yes, we do need another CB (Jag or Cahill for me, not sure Samba is good enough) but just as important is that we play the right combination of CB's.
 
Tom84 said:
Arry saying on SSN that Spurs are in for Mata.... erm Arry shouldn't you be getting some strikers? Mata's not really even a direct replacement for Modric :confused:
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I swear that harry doesn't employ scouts, I'm sure he just picks up the newspaper ,looks at who other teams are going for and then decides he wants them too :)
 
reefoid said:
I agree that we need a new left back. I don't think Gibbs is as bad as you make out, but with his injury record we need a quality LB, Traore isn't going to cut it.

You seem to have a dislike for Sagna, but I like him. Defensively he is pretty solid, but you are right in that he gets caught upfield a bit too much. However, with the way we play full backs that is going to happen sometimes. The bigger issue is that we don't have midfielders who will naturally drop back and cover. In the past we had Petit, Vieira, Flamini, Gilberto, etc who would cover when required.

I think the CB issue last season wasn't so much the personnel, but more the combination. Arseblog mentioned it recently and it makes sense. Verm and Djourou are more aggressive players, going to meet attackers and when they have the ball they like to take it forward. Kos and Squillaci are the mopping up type of players. When Squillaci and Kos were playing together, Squillaci was asked to take on the more aggressive role which isn't his strength.

The fact that Squillaci's best two games were against Wolves and Everton, where he played the mopper upper behind Djourou, would tend to back this up. Yes, we do need another CB (Jag or Cahill for me, not sure Samba is good enough) but just as important is that we play the right combination of CB's.
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When your CB has his best games against a team without a striker, and another team without a striker, then you should worry.

I really dislike this, but they were good in game X so that partnership obviously does work. Song is more than good enough to beat bottom tier premiership teams, that doesn't make him good, just less bad than some of the worst players in the league, thats life, against the top 4 he's laughably bad, he is simply not a good player.

Squillaci and Kos I've never seen with a solid partnership in a solid defence so I can't rule out that with a decent CB alongside them and decent fullbacks, that they might play well.

Sagna is not even close to good defensively, going all the way back to the Liverpool 4-4, and in literally dozens of games since, he has a ridiculously consistant habit of clearing balls from the right side of the box into the middle of the box and then we concede a goal, or a ludicrous pass across the defence which should have been simple but goes to a striker and ends up as a goal. HE gets caught up field not off the back of an attack, but off the back of walking back slowly rather than working hard to get back and set himself.

He's absolutely crap at playing the overlap with a right winger, his passing isn't close to great, his crossing is mostly completely inaccurate, he got a couple of goals but like with Johnson a couple of goals doesn't make up for being crap defensively.

Even when he's in line as said he's full of ridiculous errors and, if ref's ever call him on it, every single time he ends up running after a long ball in behind he flops to the ground with little to no contact, he consistantly wins fouls for it, but also barely 20% of them should be given, most of the time his "play dead" routine should lead to corners/throw ins and people running at goal. His positioning is woeful, the sheer number of times, I remember the Chelsea game where he stands between the left winger to block the ball but he simply doesn't raise a leg, or he leaves for no reason just enough room. Same goes at the other end, I've never seen someone who does two irritating things with crossing, if someone lays on a great ball into space to cross first time, 99% of the time he controls it, slows it down, waits to be closed down then blast it straight into the defender, he also almost never shifts the ball just a foot either way before crossing it, I don't think anyone in the league hits the defender with his crosses as much as he does.

The first 6-7 months at Arsenal, awesome, none of those problems, good defensively, always got back, crossing was better, since he came back from his first injury, he's lazy, stupid, and offers little to the team and frequently the CB's being out of position is actually his fault for being missing.

Djourou is the only CB I'm basically unwilling to give a chance, when we had infinately better CB's around and Djourou got a chance to come on, be a sub or start a game in a solid working defence, he still made mistake after mistake after mistake. He's also injured constantly and you are right about Gibbs, I don't rate him, but even if I did I don't think he's ever been fit for more than half of any season and often a lot less, he's very very slight in build, he gets injured insanely easily and he's just not very good. Tackling wise Clichy is statistically the most successful left back, more tackles and higher success rate than anyone else, Gibbs just doesn't look strong and doesn't look very good in any area. Going forwards he's only got the same drive/workrate as Clichy but little to no end product.
 
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While one game doesnt mean much I wonder if Cleverley will be earmarked for a major role with United this season if a big name midfielder doesnt come in? I believe he played very well centrally last night albeit against an understrength Barca side.

I thought he was excellent last pre-season and was a little disappointed to see him go out on loan again. Id like to see him given a chance.

Also i think it could really be another nail in the coffin for Wenger as far as the fans are concerned if Spurs beat them to Mata?
 
Fergie said that Cleverley was man of the match last night and has a real chance of starting the season (in the team)

It was certainly an encouraging performance from not only him but Anderson (who's been brilliant on the whole tour) & Welbeck. The result would still be the same as the last 2 finals if we met Barca again but that would also be the case even if we signed Sneijder as Barca are just light years ahead of everyone at the moment

Still you cant be too obsessed with Barca, the main priority as ever has to be the Premiership and the younger players certainly look like they're ready and maybe even good enough to play a big part in winning title number 20 :cool:
 
Tom84 said:
Fergie said that Cleverley was man of the match last night and has a real chance of starting the season (in the team)

It was certainly an encouraging performance from not only him but Anderson (who's been brilliant on the whole tour) & Welbeck. The result would still be the same as the last 2 finals if we met Barca again but that would also be the case even if we signed Sneijder as Barca are just light years ahead of everyone at the moment

Still you cant be too obsessed with Barca, the main priority as ever has to be the Premiership and the younger players certainly look like they're ready and maybe even good enough to play a big part in winning title number 20 :cool:
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Exactly!!!!

We should be improving the team in any way that simply makes it better - not to chase mythical games against Barca that may never happen.

Im actually very happy with the squad. Up front the range of options is frightening - i think someone who has almost being forgotten about like Michael Owen could pop up with the odd goal or two like he did last night. The question is what do we do with the likes of Diouf and Macheda? Surely no chance of getting agame. Having made a few signings plus the return of Welbeck and Cleverley has certainly given the squad an extra freshness.
 
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The question is what do we do with the likes of Diouf and Macheda?
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I've always preferred Macheda to Welbeck but last night showed have more advanced Welbeck is. Kiko needs a season long loan at a Premiership club because I simply cant see him getting games next season; If you work on the assumption that Rooney and Hernandez are first choice, Berbatov third choice then Macheda is then competing with Berba, Owen and Welbeck for places in the odd Carling Cup tie, he's not going to progress with that limited number of games. Welbeck has the advantage that he can play wide in those ties and even first team games, Macheda though is an out and out centre forward.

Diouf will either be sold or have half a season in the reserves leading to a departure in January IMO, he's simply no where near Premiership level
 
Tom84 said:
I've always preferred Macheda to Welbeck but last night showed have more advanced Welbeck is. Kiko needs a season long loan at a Premiership club because I simply cant see him getting games next season; If you work on the assumption that Rooney and Hernandez are first choice, Berbatov third choice then Macheda is then competing with Berba, Owen and Welbeck for places in the odd Carling Cup tie, he's not going to progress with that limited number of games. Welbeck has the advantage that he can play wide in those ties and even first team games, Macheda though is an out and out centre forward.

Diouf will either be sold or have half a season in the reserves leading to a departure in January IMO, he's simply no where near Premiership level
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I'm not sure about Macheda, he's a good finisher but he doesn't have great pace or strength to go with it (yet).
 
Tom84 said:
I've always preferred Macheda to Welbeck but last night showed have more advanced Welbeck is. Kiko needs a season long loan at a Premiership club because I simply cant see him getting games next season; If you work on the assumption that Rooney and Hernandez are first choice, Berbatov third choice then Macheda is then competing with Berba, Owen and Welbeck for places in the odd Carling Cup tie, he's not going to progress with that limited number of games. Welbeck has the advantage that he can play wide in those ties and even first team games, Macheda though is an out and out centre forward.

Diouf will either be sold or have half a season in the reserves leading to a departure in January IMO, he's simply no where near Premiership level
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I think Macheda has it in his own hands. Apparently his attitude isnt the best and really he hasnt progressed too much since he broke into the first team squad. You feel that if he knuckles down and screws the nut he could have a great career ahead of him though. I think going on loan has done wonders for Welbecks confidence, he seems to have come back a different player.

Agree about Diouf though - another one to add to the list of "might as well take a punt incase he turns out to be the new Ole" foreign strikers who just isnt good enough.
 
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