It was good, just not the best in a long time.
Greenlizard0 Weekend Football Thread ** spoilers ** [2nd - 5th March 2012]
- Thread starter Robbo
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It was good, just not the best in a long time.
Better than Demba Ba?
Ba is only doing this season, what Hernandez did last season.
right. new week, new hope.
i too, wondered what ferguson was thinking. i really enjoyed the first half (until the goal went in) as for once, spurs had no fear of united (despite the look on modric's face in the tunnel before the game) and we were totally dominating the first half, keeping it calm and simple and making you burn lots of energy in the chase (took it's toll on scholes)
the above is all very well and good aslong as someone puts the ball in the net. adebayor did this and i felt it a little harsh on him for the goal being disallowed. to get to why i quoted johnyccc, it seemed to me like ferguson just knew we'd scupper ourselves sooner or later OR he didn't know what to do. if it's the former, props, if it's the latter then that really should be a worry and would confirm what a farce the pl has been this season.
0-3 was not a true reflection of how the teams played. spurs deserved something out of this but ballsed it up with just stupid, naive errors.
lennon did have a good game, so did livermore. lennon has given evra some torrid times in the past and i was dissapointed he didn't get stuck into him as much as he had before.
our defending at corners is STILL suspect, has been for a decade. 2nd goal, modric dozed off, 3rd goal quality finish but should've been closed down.
positives are the wheels haven't completely fallen off, we showed this in our passing play. we were missing 2 key players and VDV. it was man united, we were never going to win.
negatives. no voice on the pitch, no leadership, another blow to our belief. our defence.
Caporegime
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Wellbeck is a good prospect.
Not as talented as Sturridge, but then not as greedy as sturridge either.
My real problem is that, we are playing a high profile game (Ajax @ home) and revert to playing 1 up front. Wellbeck.
Im sorry but this is Man utd not Sunderland or whatever. He is the player who should be coming on when we are 3-0 for ten minutes. Not starting and finishing the match.
Fergies problem with his strike force is that he simply spent badly on berbatov, a player who he clearly doesn't like and who isn't a cutting edge pacey player, nor a willing target man who's going to graft for the victory.
Remove Rooney from the front line and we look woefully underpowered, no matter who else replaced him.
if you look at city, they can field any one from
Aguerro, Balotelli, Dzeko.
Arguably Aguero is as good, or better than Rooney (faster, more technically gifted, faster feet etc). And the other 2 are much better in terms of what they offer than either of Wellbeck, Berbatov etc.
The problem is declining standards, and an instance that young players who run about a bit can actually play any position.
Odd things ive seen this season.
Jones at RB
Smalling at RB
Rafael - CM
to name a few. Ive said for some time that Jones isnt a good RB, not is he a good midfielder, he simply doesnt have the skill, touch or passing. regardless of how Utd and England have tried to shoehorn him into a midfield position.
Not as talented as Sturridge, but then not as greedy as sturridge either.
My real problem is that, we are playing a high profile game (Ajax @ home) and revert to playing 1 up front. Wellbeck.
Im sorry but this is Man utd not Sunderland or whatever. He is the player who should be coming on when we are 3-0 for ten minutes. Not starting and finishing the match.
Fergies problem with his strike force is that he simply spent badly on berbatov, a player who he clearly doesn't like and who isn't a cutting edge pacey player, nor a willing target man who's going to graft for the victory.
Remove Rooney from the front line and we look woefully underpowered, no matter who else replaced him.
if you look at city, they can field any one from
Aguerro, Balotelli, Dzeko.
Arguably Aguero is as good, or better than Rooney (faster, more technically gifted, faster feet etc). And the other 2 are much better in terms of what they offer than either of Wellbeck, Berbatov etc.
The problem is declining standards, and an instance that young players who run about a bit can actually play any position.
Odd things ive seen this season.
Jones at RB
Smalling at RB
Rafael - CM
to name a few. Ive said for some time that Jones isnt a good RB, not is he a good midfielder, he simply doesnt have the skill, touch or passing. regardless of how Utd and England have tried to shoehorn him into a midfield position.
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But you are by counting Bebe who for all intensive purposes isn't around anymore. Another reason why Bebe shouldn't even come into this discussion is because was wasn't bought to slot right into the first team he was bought for the future (yes we know now he doesn't have one) so if you're counting him then you have to count any youth/reserve teams players City have also bought but seeing as they haven't bought any homeless kids living off the streets we don't know who these players are
Anyone my overriding point is while our strikers have been bought over a 6 year period City's have been bought over 12 months and there's an obvious difference between the two;
- We bought Rooney when he was 17 and with the future very much in mind
- Conversely we bought Berbatov 4 years ago, his value is no longer the 30m that we paid
- City on the other having assembled their strike force over the past 12 months thus the value hasn't changed whatsoever and they've signed players who are at the top right now (yes Balotelli and Aguero have plenty of mileage left in them but both are at a better age than Berbatov now and Rooney when he was 17)
In terms of solely prices paid there may not be a huge difference but you cant use that as an argument given like I said we spent our money over 6 years for players at various different stages of their career, City have spent more overall and all in the space of 12 months and all for players for all intensive purposes for the here and the now.
Basically unlike City we cant afford to spend 83m on 3 of the best strikers in the world over a 12 month period (and that's without factoring in the extra spending City have also done on other area's of the pitch during that time as well)
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don't forget the hughes era of robinho, jo, adebayor, bellamy. they've been chucking money around for a lot longer than 12 months.
i'm convinced robinho was bought purely to trump the berbatov fee!
Exactly - if he wants to count the cost of Rooney, then Bellamy and Adebayor etc have to be included also.
As Tom has also said (in a different way) is that Rooney 's transfer fee was paid off completely over the previous four seasons (WR might have originally had a 5 year contract, so only 80% of it was paid off) before Berba was bought from Spurs
Berba was starting his third season before Utd spent the extravagant fee of £7m for Hernandez.
If City followed this plan, they would still have Adebayor, Bellamy and Tevez and wouldnt even have Aguerro until this summer, let alone Ballotelli or Dzecko
But of course its still exactly the same isnt it lol
Our set-pieces in general are dreadful. Every time Man Utd got a corner or a free-kick, they managed to get it into the six yard box. How many times did we manage that? I don't remember it happening once during the match.
(and grrr... I was going to look up the difference in corner taking ability on The Guardian's chalkboard feature but they've stopped doing it
)
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That doesn't surprise me actually, we're surprisingly bad from corners.
Surely that's precisely the problem though... Man United have had the accounts to back up that spending for the past decade or more. Most of the first team from the Fergie successful era were home grown or youth talents picked up at low cost, and most of the expensive players were bought when they had the balance sheet to justify it.
Surely it's not competitive to allow a small club to receive hundreds of millions of investment money to just buy trophies? This is what the financial fair play rules are going to address I assume, although I'v not studied them personally.
Nobody would have a problem with what Man City are doing if they'd built it up through a sustained period of success and profit before spending all that cash.
For the record I dont care about how much City have spent in a short amount of time, they're not the first and they wont be the last I just dont think anyone should realistically expect other PL squads to be as strong as theirs. Even Chelsea who spent hundreds of millions 8 years ago shouldn't have their squad compared with City's because the the players Chelsea spent money on 8 years ago are obviously all coming to the end of their careers now (that obviously being their problem at the moment)
We've always been rubbish at corners I remember back in 02/03 when we had the likes of Veron and Beckham taking them and we only scored once directly from a corner that season as well. They obviously just dont work on them in training enough. Refs may as well just give the defending team a goal kick when we get awarded corners
its not impossible - it just takes time and effort (which Chairmen / owners dont particularly like, they want instant success)
At the end of the day United have only just started really pushing commercial revenues globally and its reported to have reached £100m/season. Im not suggesting for a minute every club can do it to the same scale, but with the EPL being a nigh on global brand, there must be £5 - £10m at least out there for majority of EPL clubs that they arent currently getting (until about 3 years ago, it was the £20/m a season shirt sponsorship and that was it, and even now I believe Liverpool have a more valuable main sponsorship deal than Utd - although I believe with Utd's newish DHL training top deal being seperate, its just gone back the other way)
Spurs are proving its possible to break the usual top four heirachy without spending a fortune , Newcastle are going on the right tracks (although to be fair to everyone, even if they do it once - they need to prove it again and again....and Spurs would have to imo stay in CL spots next season to make it 3 seasons in four for them)
Liverpool always have the historical success to fall back on in lean years (which keeps the fan's £'s coming in), whilest also proving its still possible to spend a pretty penny on transfers and still not get the complete success planned instantly (although they arent out of the race for 4th just yet)
Weekend threads are so predictable these days;
- People play "guess the line up"
- Thread becomes top 4 discussion
- DM derails thread with random wall of text
- Kick off and we get some decent footie talk
- Full time - thread becomes top 4 discussion
- DM derails thread with random wall of text
- Thread degenerates into bickering between a few members from 2 different top 4 clubs.
Think if you went back and applied this formula to every weekend thread this year they would pretty much all match this criteria 100%
- People play "guess the line up"
- Thread becomes top 4 discussion
- DM derails thread with random wall of text
- Kick off and we get some decent footie talk
- Full time - thread becomes top 4 discussion
- DM derails thread with random wall of text
- Thread degenerates into bickering between a few members from 2 different top 4 clubs.
Think if you went back and applied this formula to every weekend thread this year they would pretty much all match this criteria 100%
We've always been rubbish at corners I remember back in 02/03 when we had the likes of Veron and Beckham taking them and we only scored once directly from a corner that season as well. They obviously just dont work on them in training enough. Refs may as well just give the defending team a goal kick when we get awarded corners
Utd have been pretty rubish at free kicks for that long also (minus the few games that Hargreaves was able to affect in 07/08)
Weekend threads are so predictable these days;
- People play "guess the line up"
- Thread becomes top 4 discussion
- DM derails thread with random wall of text
- Kick off and we get some decent footie talk
- Full time - thread becomes top 4 discussion
- DM derails thread with random wall of text
- Thread degenerates into bickering between a few members from 2 different top 4 clubs.
Think if you went back and applied this formula to every weekend thread this year they would pretty much all match this criteria 100%
you missed the ''man united played crap but still won'' off the list.
for the record, dm posts some very good stuff imo.
To be fair he does, but the wall of text normally burns my eyes out before I reach the end
Ronaldo scored quite a few and Rooney has started chipping in with a few a season as well (he scored 3 in 2011)
Apart from Ronaldo I don't think there's a player in world football who's that consistent from free kicks not like back in the day when you had Beckham, Juninho, Ronaldinho etc etc