Greenlizard0 Weekend Football Thread ** spoilers ** [19 - 23rd January 2013]

drunkenmaster said:
THe whole league has gone to crap though, being the best of a ever weakening league isn't as good a thing as it sounds. There is a reason why in the past 2 years English teams are starting to be more routinely embarrassed, yeah, its still a cup competition and anyone can win, especially with anti football, playing "proper" football Chelsea looked much much worse this season.

A 5 year 85k a week contract for Welbeck(assuming 5 years) probably has a couple mil signing bonus and will likely take out at least 20mil from the club, despite him being basically rubbish.

Welbecks aren't what help you fund RVP's, Utd have bagloads of money and can do significantly better.

For example, making the choice to let Welbeck walk, and buying Michu on a 40k a week contract at 2mil would save you 10mil over a 5 year contract AND you have a MUCH better player.

Transfer fee's are the small part of spending, wages is where the real money goes every year, and every bad player you pay, when you can NOT pay them, is money you could spend on other players. Every decision like Welbeck adds up, 20mil over the next 5 years, its probably closer to 25mil with a signing bonus, and thats likely excluding appearance/goal/assist bonuses and a basic wage rise every year. 3 players like that and you're talking about Messi/Ronaldo level wage for someone.

Welbeck + Berbatov + Giggs + anderson was throwing away how much a year.

When Utd were their best, and when Arsenal were their best, there was no room in the first team for rubbish players, no chance of players who were really crap getting improved contracts, no massively overpaying in a desparate attempt to keep very average or poor players around. Two managers who were cut throat, who got rid of Beckham, Stam, Overmars, Petit.
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Michu is prodigious but he can't be used as the rod to beat all managers with. He should have been spotted but he wasn't. Michu is also really lazy and is not an appropriate alternative for the role that Welbeck performs in the Man Utd squad.

I don't like welbeck but I assume the calculation that went on in Fergie mind was "85k for X years is better value than me going out to buy someone I don't know will work and will cost a transfer fee plus the same 60-85k wages and in any case I can't find anyone who does what Welbeck does but better."

I agree that the league is weakening but one thing that does shine through is that consistency and club identities work better in Europe than lots of quick signings. Chelsea and City vs Arsenal and Man Utd in CL... The weaker squads judged individually perform better than the superstar assembled squad. There is value in persisting with "vhome grown" talent in Europe.
 
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DM lives in a world where every club knew Michu was going to turn out great and just chose to sign player x for £10m instead. He was the same when Cabaye, Ba etc turned out to be decent signings for Newcastle too.
 
shipinabottle said:
That's the problem, we only have 3 world class players at best, 4 if you count Hernandez (purely on his poaching ability).

The rest of the squad is 'potential' or average. And even the potential is pretty vague.

3 outfield players who are possibly world class against 7 mediocre. That isn't balance. Our centre backs are the wrong side of success and injury stricken (the backups are always injured) our midfield is reliant on Carrick, who is a solid possession player, can't do fudge all else really.

I'm a spoilt child for realising this squad is a shambles of 'homegrown potential' and players past it.

There's just not enough star talent in there. The balance is horrendous, I understand the 'doing a job' player. That was O'Shea and the likes of Butt. But there wasn't an overwhelming balance in favour of average around these players, they were backed up with 5-7 world class talents, not 3 at best.
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I completely disagree.

We have one of the best goalkeeping prospects in the world who, even at his current level, is holding his own and has a huge amount of potential still to be fulfilled.

We have a very good back four, with two ageing but still world class centre backs and excellent backup for them. We have arguably the best RB in the league this season. LB is a bit of a problem but Evra has been more solid this season and if Fabio fulfils his potential, as some of his QPR performances are suggesting, then we are sorted there too.

Midfield is more problematic but Carrick has been brilliant this season and Cleverley is developing rapidly. It is well known that we are a little short of options here but if I had a choice between signing someone or giving the likes of Cleverley a chance, it's a no brainer. With Scholes probable to retire this year and Fletcher out of the picture we will certainly recruit in midfield in summer but our midfield looks better this year than last, in my opinion, even if that's not saying much. The issue we have been having is tactics, not personnel. On more than one occasion this season we have looked great in one half and crap in the other.

Wingers are a funny one, we've gone from having the best set of wingers in the league to a collection of meh players. I don't know what's happened, but hopefully the return of Nani can spark a bit more competition into the positions. Young and Valencia have been coasting this year. This has been our main problem area this year, Evra and Rafael have had to do the work of two players.

We have two of the three best strikers in the league at the moment and Hernandez so there's really no room for improvement there.

To say we have only 3 world class players paints a very misleading picture of our squad, but obviously it suits your argument. If our wingers get going again and we stop sitting back on one goal leads then we are away.
 
OMS FTW

On the midfield point Carrick and Cleverley this season has probably been our best midfield partnership since Carrick and Scholes back in 2006
 
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Yeah, I mean why did we give Welbeck a new deal when we could have found this 12 year old kid in Argentina and given him some HGH and, hey presto, best player in the world.

And why didn't we go to Ronaldo's house when he was a kid and make sure he could watch the Premiership on his telly instead of La Liga.
 
Fergie interview is bizarre. Why did he keep talk about us pumping he ball in the box? We had defoe as a striker! Our best chance was a 1 on 1 with the keeper...

Aside from that he was graceful enough to concede we deserved something.
 
Tom84 said:
OMS FTW

On the midfield point Carrick and Cleverley this season has probably been our best midfield partnership since Carrick and Scholes back in 2006
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Yup, Cleverley compliments Carrick perfectly. Cleverley is like Scholes with Beckham's ball striking style, if he becomes half as good as either of those two I'd be very happy.

I wish Fergie would look at playing a proper 4-2-3-1 because we have the perfect squad for it with those two in the deeper midfield role.
 
Snax said:
Fergie interview is bizarre. Why did he keep talk about us pumping he ball in the box?
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Because that's how much of the second half went :confused:

Spurs won a lot of corners, a lot of free kicks and basically put a lot of high balls into the area that the likes of Vidic had to defend over and over and over again, hell the Spurs goal came from a high ball into the box.
 
Tom84 said:
Because that's how much of the second half went :confused:

Spurs won a lot of corners, a lot of free kicks and basically put a lot of high balls into the area that the likes of Vidic had to defend over and over and over again, hell the Spurs goal came from a high ball into the box.
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Taking a corner/free kick is not pumping a ball in the box...

Pumping as a verb invokes hopeful balls lumped into the box. Spurs probe a hell of a lot and play around the box but I can't remember us resorting to long ball pumps. The goal was ironically from a deep cross but it was the first time I remember us doing that from open play.

Edit; it is bizarre because we have no one to aim for. We rarely have runners charging the box. Only Dempsey can head, otherwise you have defoe, lennon and bale.
 
Snax said:
Taking a corner/free kick is not pumping a ball in the box...

Pumping as a verb invokes hopeful balls lumped into the box. Spurs probe a hell of a lot and play around the box but I can't remember us resorting to long ball pumps. The goal was ironically from a deep cross but it was the first time I remember us doing that from open play.
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Well I've just seen the MOTD highlights and both Bale's chances came from high balls played into the box also, I dont know if Fergie was insinuating you were playing long ball or not but you certainly put in a lot of high balls into the box

For what it's worth I still dont know what this 'penalty' the Spurs supporters think they should have had because I dont remember it live and MOTD haven't deemed it worthy of showing it either so I'll take it the Spurs supporters are clutching at straws to deflect away from the fact we had a stonewaller
 
Tom84 said:
For what it's worth I still dont know what this 'penalty' the Spurs supporters think they should have had because I dont remember it live
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you didn't see rafael grappling caulker? it was as much a penalty as uniteds shout. refs just don't give them for that sort of thing.

besides, had rooney won the penalty, he'd probably have missed it anyway :D
 
cm1179 said:
you didn't see rafael grappling caulker? it was as much a penalty as uniteds shout.
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Well it obviously wasn't given it's only the spurs supporters (well actually you) who are talking about it. Like I said I'm gonna guess it wasn't, Sky didn't flag it up during or after the game and nor have MOTD.
 
Tom84 said:
Well I've just seen the MOTD highlights and both Bale's chances came from high balls played into the box also, I dont know if Fergie was insinuating you were playing long ball or not but you certainly put in a lot of high balls into the box

For what it's worth I still dont know what this 'penalty' the Spurs supporters think they should have had because I dont remember it live and MOTD haven't deemed it worthy of showing it either so I'll take it the Spurs supporters are clutching at straws to deflect away from the fact we had a stonewaller
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Our main chances were all from through balls; defoe was through twice and deuce once. We also shot from outside the box far more.

It just seems peculiar. On a good day, Defoe would have had 1 and Dempsey another. Those were from the Man Utd defence being cut open not from crosses. That would worry me more than De Gea's flapping at crosses.
 
One More Solo said:
Yup, Cleverley compliments Carrick perfectly. Cleverley is like Scholes with Beckham's ball striking style, if he becomes half as good as either of those two I'd be very happy.

I wish Fergie would look at playing a proper 4-2-3-1 because we have the perfect squad for it with those two in the deeper midfield role.
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Exactly

Really glad Clev has really moved on from last season (which was hit badly with injuries), he works brilliantly with Carrick.

Really think Evra has improved in the last couple of months - but I still think getting Baines in the summer would be a no brainer (and would assist with free-kicks / corners too imo, leaving the strikers in the box to score goals). Nothing wrong with Buttner but he is definitely a No2 for atleast another season or more

Squad would also benefit from a hard tackling cm - I know Fergie has said recently "football has moved on, and hard tacklers havent been required for a few years" but this is desperately what Utd need.

If Kagawa can bulk up a little and wingers can (re) find their form, we then just have to see how Rio's and Vidic's fitness is for the rest of the season and hope they can complete the 13-14 season without anything major happening.
 
Tom84 said:
Well it obviously wasn't given it's only the spurs supporters (well actually you) who are talking about it. Like I said I'm gonna guess it wasn't, Sky didn't flag it up during or after the game and nor have MOTD.
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it was replayed during the game?

are you going to bleat on about how you should've had a penalty or admit a draw was a fair result?
 
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