Poll: Should Alex Ferguson go? (Poll please)
- Thread starter IceBus
- Start date
Man of Honour
In the league?da_mic_1530 said:
Soldato
memphisto said:
Sorry to go o/t, I couldn't give a monkeys if he stays or not but your sig rocks - is probably the best one I've seen on OCUK.
I'll list the reasons why I think Ferguson should go:
1) Staff - Ferguson has a knack of employing friends and family at Old Trafford. Up until recently the only agent he would let any youth team player use to secure a new contract with the club was his son. And his son received a good percentage of whatever deal was brokered between player and club. Who profits from his employment, Ferguson's son or the club?....
Our Chief Scout is Martin Ferguson, his brother. He is responsible for overseeing any new talent spotted by our scouts throughout the world. He attends matches and basically informs Ferguson if a player is any good. Martin Ferguson never played football, has never managed a team, up until his post at Old Trafford he had nothing to do with football and to this day possesses no skills or qualifications that you would expect goes with being Chief Scout for a high profile club. Who profits from his employment, Ferguson's brother or the club?....
Walter Smith was brought in as assistant manager during the 2003/04 season. He did absolutely nothing for the team and his brief employment was completely pointless. But being a lifelong best friend of Ferguson the opportunity of doing little and being paid was too great an offer to turn down. Who profited from his employment, Ferguson's best friend or the club?....
After McClaren departed to start his own managerial career, Ferguson used the opportunity to bring in someone with experience of the continental style. Carlos Queiroz. After winning the CL in 1999, Ferguson wanted to win it again, but felt a different approach was needed to clinch it a second time during his time at Utd. This is where all the 4-5-1 crap originated in our tactics. He has built a wall between the players and Ferguson and it's no coincidence that the club's two highest profile players Keane and RVN have directed criticism towards him and the way things are being run. Is Queiroz here for the good of the club or Ferguson's inflated ego?...
Brian McClair, an excellent player for us years ago, now the coach for the youth team and a trusted ally and friend of the players. He was nominated by the players to speak to Ferguson about how unhappy the players were with the current set-up with Queiroz running the show and the lack of involvement from Ferguson. McClair was basically told to keep his cakehole shut and get back to his job. Apparently he got the famous hair drier treatment as well. Ferguson does not give a crap about anyone else's opinion but his own.
Even more recently our team doctor was forced to leave Old Trafford. Not because of malpractice but because he had indirectly made Ferguson look like an idiot. After Rooney got injured, I'm sure everyone will remember Ferguson's pessimistic expert injury analysis after the match stating that Rooney would not be playing in the WC this summer. A decision or opinion not based on fact but based on Ferguson's own agenda. If Ferguson had his way, no Utd player ever would play for their country. Rooney is no different. Simply put, Ferguson would rather stick his hands in a fire than watch Rooney play for England. Our team doctor remained upbeat not only for England's chances but for Rooney himself. And his correspondence with the England team doctors during the first few weeks of Rooney's recovery would prove too much for Ferguson to bare. So the doctor was shown the door.
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2) Players - Used to be a good man manager. If a player had a problem Ferguson would be there like an eager dad trying to help a son. The players responded well to this relationship and felt safe with Ferguson looking out for their interests. One player in particular comes to mind, Giggs. Never in the papers for the wrong reasons. Down to Ferguson.
I don't know when Ferguson suddenly lost this interest in his players but it's one of the main reasons there are strained relationships at Old Trafford. Players have spoken publicly about being distant from Ferguson. And they do not like having Queiroz dictating to them how things are going to be done. Ferguson has little involvement in training, tactics or match preparations. Basically the managerial duties every other manager in the Premiership does week in week out.
There are numerous players who have felt Ferguson's wrath. Two players this season must be a new personal record for him. Keane was shown the door for highlighting Ferguson's own bad judgement and errors, but mainly his failure in replacing him. Keane's comments hit a raw nerve with Ferguson and Queiroz and because he had spoken publicly about players. Ferguson got rid. But it's funny how months later Ferguson can actually publicly criticise RVN after a game.
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3) Media - All managers receive bad press at some stage during their career. Instead of shaking it off, ignoring it and moving on, Ferguson holds a personal vendetta against the person or media group. Everyone remembers the BBC documentary about Ferguson and his corrupt (agent) son Jason, well Ferguson took it upon himself to ban the BBC from interviewing him for the rest of his life.
A policy that is still in operation today. Queiroz now handles interviews. Before that, Ferguson would only let himself be interviewed by people he knew would not ask invasive questions or knew better than to ask him such things. I can't remember actual names but he has stormed off during interviews for being asked something that he doesn't want to talk about.
Ferguson has all youth players doing short courses on how to deal with the media and being interviewed. It started with the last generation of kids coming through the ranks, the Nevilles, Beckham, etc. I think Ferguson should be taking the same lessons. He might actually learn something. It's still in dispute whether or not Ferguson's actions towards the BBC have affected how much airtime our game coverage gets on MOTD.
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4) His damn horses - While Queiroz is being manager at our Carrington training ground, Ferguson can often be spotted at horse racing events. His interest with horses has risen dramatically since his business partnership with John Magnier (a former major shareholder at Man Utd). Ferguson is well known for his aversion towards players who are involved with interests outside football that can affect them on the pitch. But it's different for Ferguson, he can have major interests outside football because he's Alex Ferguson. At one point 2 years ago during our season Ferguson was suing one of the two biggest shareholders at the club (at that time).
Scenes behind closed doors were tense, there was a lot of friction between high ranking members of staff. The whole thing went on for months before Ferguson agreed to a settlement outside court believed to be around the £2.5million mark. Who knows what would have happened if the two major shareholders of the club, one of which Ferguson had tried to sue, had decided to keep their shares and not sell them to Glazier? A big what if? Yeah, but it makes you think differently. I can't exactly imagine any love loss between them.
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5) Transfers - Probably Ferguson's biggest weakness. His transfer record is very mixed, no doubts that in the past he has brought the right players in at the right time. Under the PLC, he was very restricted to who he could buy and fit in with the wages scheme, so he had to be more astute in the transfer market. But under Peter Kenyon and David Gill he was given more money and freedom to spend. So instead of transfers of £1million and the player turning out to be a flop, we had transfers like Veron £28million, Forlan £8million and Kleberson £6.5million.
Ferguson tried to do a 'Wenger' and buy in young talent from the French Premier Division but Bellion and Djemba Djemba were complete flops too. Ferguson just doesn't have the eye to buy in young unproven and unknown players and nurture them into the first team. His worst attempt at this was with Darren Fletcher or "talisman" for short. It's hard to believe Darren has played over a hundred first team games for us. Would he have broken into the team during the Fledging era? Well why is he in a red shirt these days? The reason? We are stepping back a gear, settling for second best. Letting Ferguson bring the club back a few decades. I'm just glad we didn't have to pay anything for Liam Miller.
Ferguson can only buy well known players now like Rooney and Ronaldo. We don't have the scouting system in place to find the next Keane or Beckham. And because we go for the well known players we pay an arm and a leg more than we should have to.
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6) Tactics - 4-4-2, that's all Ferguson needs to know. He messed around with the tactics at the beginning of the season then brought back the 4-4-2 for the latter half of the season. What half of the season did we play our best football? When did we have our longest unbeaten streak this season? 4-5-1 does not work in Europe, it does not work in the Premiership. The same goes for the 4-3-3. The sooner Ferguson stops the tinkering completely the sooner we'll get back to our better form.
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7) Money - This latter half of his Man Utd career boils down to money. Ferguson had his heart set on retirement in 2002. He had his horses as a new hobby and vowed to spend more time with his family. That was until he heard a rumour about how much the Utd board were willing to offer Sven to coax him to Old Trafford. £4.5million a year. Bye bye retirements plans, hello money!! And it's not like he's even properly working for it now either, he's doing less than half of what he did before.
He tried to tie up his image rights last year but failed because he was too well known. Which funnily enough was one of the reasons why he took a severe disliking to Beckham the season before he left, because Beckham wanted all his image rights in his new contract. Beckham was happy with the thought of Sven taking over the following season but that completely reversed when Ferguson announced he wasn't retiring. That, combined with the bullying behind closed doors and the famous boot incident, Beckham was forced to leave. There are two sides to every story and I'm sure the nagging from ugly spice didn't help matters. Ted Beckham, David's dad still goes to every single match sitting amongst the real fans in the stands and still wishes things turned out differently. I believe he would still be a Utd player if Ferguson had retired.
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8) Age - He'll be 65yrs old this year. Not exactly a spring chicken either. His famous temper still lurks underneath that red face of his but it's taken on a different form. It's senile dementia. Symptoms: Giving crap players longer contracts. Playing players out of position. Bringing in a full time manager and letting on that he's number 2 in the pecking order. Failure to realise what he's doing to the club.
He no longer holds the dressing room. His idea of settling an argument or coming to a peaceful conclusion is getting rid off the person in question. He doesn't play mind games with other managers anymore, he's just not up to it. And all this love between Ferguson and Mourinho....they should get a bottle of wine and share a hotel room next time we play Chelsea.
Every week he spouts the same old nonsense like "We are as good as Chelsea" and "We will be contenders for the title next season".
He doesn't do anything about selfishness amongst our players. Ronaldo has been allowed to get away with being ball greedy and not supplying any end product for 2 seasons now. If this had been 10 years ago Ferguson would have adapted his game by now for the good of the team. Afterall it is a team game.
If you've read it to this far well done, I haven't so please excuse any bad spellings or poor grammar.
1) Staff - Ferguson has a knack of employing friends and family at Old Trafford. Up until recently the only agent he would let any youth team player use to secure a new contract with the club was his son. And his son received a good percentage of whatever deal was brokered between player and club. Who profits from his employment, Ferguson's son or the club?....
Our Chief Scout is Martin Ferguson, his brother. He is responsible for overseeing any new talent spotted by our scouts throughout the world. He attends matches and basically informs Ferguson if a player is any good. Martin Ferguson never played football, has never managed a team, up until his post at Old Trafford he had nothing to do with football and to this day possesses no skills or qualifications that you would expect goes with being Chief Scout for a high profile club. Who profits from his employment, Ferguson's brother or the club?....
Walter Smith was brought in as assistant manager during the 2003/04 season. He did absolutely nothing for the team and his brief employment was completely pointless. But being a lifelong best friend of Ferguson the opportunity of doing little and being paid was too great an offer to turn down. Who profited from his employment, Ferguson's best friend or the club?....
After McClaren departed to start his own managerial career, Ferguson used the opportunity to bring in someone with experience of the continental style. Carlos Queiroz. After winning the CL in 1999, Ferguson wanted to win it again, but felt a different approach was needed to clinch it a second time during his time at Utd. This is where all the 4-5-1 crap originated in our tactics. He has built a wall between the players and Ferguson and it's no coincidence that the club's two highest profile players Keane and RVN have directed criticism towards him and the way things are being run. Is Queiroz here for the good of the club or Ferguson's inflated ego?...
Brian McClair, an excellent player for us years ago, now the coach for the youth team and a trusted ally and friend of the players. He was nominated by the players to speak to Ferguson about how unhappy the players were with the current set-up with Queiroz running the show and the lack of involvement from Ferguson. McClair was basically told to keep his cakehole shut and get back to his job. Apparently he got the famous hair drier treatment as well. Ferguson does not give a crap about anyone else's opinion but his own.
Even more recently our team doctor was forced to leave Old Trafford. Not because of malpractice but because he had indirectly made Ferguson look like an idiot. After Rooney got injured, I'm sure everyone will remember Ferguson's pessimistic expert injury analysis after the match stating that Rooney would not be playing in the WC this summer. A decision or opinion not based on fact but based on Ferguson's own agenda. If Ferguson had his way, no Utd player ever would play for their country. Rooney is no different. Simply put, Ferguson would rather stick his hands in a fire than watch Rooney play for England. Our team doctor remained upbeat not only for England's chances but for Rooney himself. And his correspondence with the England team doctors during the first few weeks of Rooney's recovery would prove too much for Ferguson to bare. So the doctor was shown the door.
_________________________________________________________________
2) Players - Used to be a good man manager. If a player had a problem Ferguson would be there like an eager dad trying to help a son. The players responded well to this relationship and felt safe with Ferguson looking out for their interests. One player in particular comes to mind, Giggs. Never in the papers for the wrong reasons. Down to Ferguson.
I don't know when Ferguson suddenly lost this interest in his players but it's one of the main reasons there are strained relationships at Old Trafford. Players have spoken publicly about being distant from Ferguson. And they do not like having Queiroz dictating to them how things are going to be done. Ferguson has little involvement in training, tactics or match preparations. Basically the managerial duties every other manager in the Premiership does week in week out.
There are numerous players who have felt Ferguson's wrath. Two players this season must be a new personal record for him. Keane was shown the door for highlighting Ferguson's own bad judgement and errors, but mainly his failure in replacing him. Keane's comments hit a raw nerve with Ferguson and Queiroz and because he had spoken publicly about players. Ferguson got rid. But it's funny how months later Ferguson can actually publicly criticise RVN after a game.
_________________________________________________________________
3) Media - All managers receive bad press at some stage during their career. Instead of shaking it off, ignoring it and moving on, Ferguson holds a personal vendetta against the person or media group. Everyone remembers the BBC documentary about Ferguson and his corrupt (agent) son Jason, well Ferguson took it upon himself to ban the BBC from interviewing him for the rest of his life.
A policy that is still in operation today. Queiroz now handles interviews. Before that, Ferguson would only let himself be interviewed by people he knew would not ask invasive questions or knew better than to ask him such things. I can't remember actual names but he has stormed off during interviews for being asked something that he doesn't want to talk about.
Ferguson has all youth players doing short courses on how to deal with the media and being interviewed. It started with the last generation of kids coming through the ranks, the Nevilles, Beckham, etc. I think Ferguson should be taking the same lessons. He might actually learn something. It's still in dispute whether or not Ferguson's actions towards the BBC have affected how much airtime our game coverage gets on MOTD.
_________________________________________________________________
4) His damn horses - While Queiroz is being manager at our Carrington training ground, Ferguson can often be spotted at horse racing events. His interest with horses has risen dramatically since his business partnership with John Magnier (a former major shareholder at Man Utd). Ferguson is well known for his aversion towards players who are involved with interests outside football that can affect them on the pitch. But it's different for Ferguson, he can have major interests outside football because he's Alex Ferguson. At one point 2 years ago during our season Ferguson was suing one of the two biggest shareholders at the club (at that time).
Scenes behind closed doors were tense, there was a lot of friction between high ranking members of staff. The whole thing went on for months before Ferguson agreed to a settlement outside court believed to be around the £2.5million mark. Who knows what would have happened if the two major shareholders of the club, one of which Ferguson had tried to sue, had decided to keep their shares and not sell them to Glazier? A big what if? Yeah, but it makes you think differently. I can't exactly imagine any love loss between them.
_________________________________________________________________
5) Transfers - Probably Ferguson's biggest weakness. His transfer record is very mixed, no doubts that in the past he has brought the right players in at the right time. Under the PLC, he was very restricted to who he could buy and fit in with the wages scheme, so he had to be more astute in the transfer market. But under Peter Kenyon and David Gill he was given more money and freedom to spend. So instead of transfers of £1million and the player turning out to be a flop, we had transfers like Veron £28million, Forlan £8million and Kleberson £6.5million.
Ferguson tried to do a 'Wenger' and buy in young talent from the French Premier Division but Bellion and Djemba Djemba were complete flops too. Ferguson just doesn't have the eye to buy in young unproven and unknown players and nurture them into the first team. His worst attempt at this was with Darren Fletcher or "talisman" for short. It's hard to believe Darren has played over a hundred first team games for us. Would he have broken into the team during the Fledging era? Well why is he in a red shirt these days? The reason? We are stepping back a gear, settling for second best. Letting Ferguson bring the club back a few decades. I'm just glad we didn't have to pay anything for Liam Miller.
Ferguson can only buy well known players now like Rooney and Ronaldo. We don't have the scouting system in place to find the next Keane or Beckham. And because we go for the well known players we pay an arm and a leg more than we should have to.
_________________________________________________________________
6) Tactics - 4-4-2, that's all Ferguson needs to know. He messed around with the tactics at the beginning of the season then brought back the 4-4-2 for the latter half of the season. What half of the season did we play our best football? When did we have our longest unbeaten streak this season? 4-5-1 does not work in Europe, it does not work in the Premiership. The same goes for the 4-3-3. The sooner Ferguson stops the tinkering completely the sooner we'll get back to our better form.
_________________________________________________________________
7) Money - This latter half of his Man Utd career boils down to money. Ferguson had his heart set on retirement in 2002. He had his horses as a new hobby and vowed to spend more time with his family. That was until he heard a rumour about how much the Utd board were willing to offer Sven to coax him to Old Trafford. £4.5million a year. Bye bye retirements plans, hello money!! And it's not like he's even properly working for it now either, he's doing less than half of what he did before.
He tried to tie up his image rights last year but failed because he was too well known. Which funnily enough was one of the reasons why he took a severe disliking to Beckham the season before he left, because Beckham wanted all his image rights in his new contract. Beckham was happy with the thought of Sven taking over the following season but that completely reversed when Ferguson announced he wasn't retiring. That, combined with the bullying behind closed doors and the famous boot incident, Beckham was forced to leave. There are two sides to every story and I'm sure the nagging from ugly spice didn't help matters. Ted Beckham, David's dad still goes to every single match sitting amongst the real fans in the stands and still wishes things turned out differently. I believe he would still be a Utd player if Ferguson had retired.
_________________________________________________________________
8) Age - He'll be 65yrs old this year. Not exactly a spring chicken either. His famous temper still lurks underneath that red face of his but it's taken on a different form. It's senile dementia. Symptoms: Giving crap players longer contracts. Playing players out of position. Bringing in a full time manager and letting on that he's number 2 in the pecking order. Failure to realise what he's doing to the club.
He no longer holds the dressing room. His idea of settling an argument or coming to a peaceful conclusion is getting rid off the person in question. He doesn't play mind games with other managers anymore, he's just not up to it. And all this love between Ferguson and Mourinho....they should get a bottle of wine and share a hotel room next time we play Chelsea.
Every week he spouts the same old nonsense like "We are as good as Chelsea" and "We will be contenders for the title next season".
He doesn't do anything about selfishness amongst our players. Ronaldo has been allowed to get away with being ball greedy and not supplying any end product for 2 seasons now. If this had been 10 years ago Ferguson would have adapted his game by now for the good of the team. Afterall it is a team game.
If you've read it to this far well done, I haven't so please excuse any bad spellings or poor grammar.
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Man of Honour
I read it all, good post. Can't believe he isn't more like 75 though.
Great post Tony - I agree with everything you said and it reminded me of the issue that bothers me most.
That's Ronaldo and potentially Rooney's development at Man Utd. Years ago I would have thought SAF the perfect manager to bring on a young player and get the best out of him, but now Ferguson hasn't a clue what he's playing at. As you say it's now two seasons of Ronaldo playing for himself and diving and in the past that would have been stamped out immediately. He needs to be coaxed into the great player he could be, and SAF isn't the man to do it. I have a feeling someone like Mark Hughes would be perfect (how he's dealt with Bellamy and Savage - two notorious *****) but SAF hasn't a clue and Carlos is worse than useless.
I don't want to see Ronaldo be wasted when he's in his prime and worse than that, exactly the same could happen to Rooney if he's allowed to rest on his laurels and not push to get better (look at what has happened to Ruud). I wouldn't even put it past SAF deciding to play Roo in defence as he can tackle etc - another brainwave of playing people out of position waiting to happen.
Reading your post just made me sad that this is what has become of the club I love.
That's Ronaldo and potentially Rooney's development at Man Utd. Years ago I would have thought SAF the perfect manager to bring on a young player and get the best out of him, but now Ferguson hasn't a clue what he's playing at. As you say it's now two seasons of Ronaldo playing for himself and diving and in the past that would have been stamped out immediately. He needs to be coaxed into the great player he could be, and SAF isn't the man to do it. I have a feeling someone like Mark Hughes would be perfect (how he's dealt with Bellamy and Savage - two notorious *****) but SAF hasn't a clue and Carlos is worse than useless.
I don't want to see Ronaldo be wasted when he's in his prime and worse than that, exactly the same could happen to Rooney if he's allowed to rest on his laurels and not push to get better (look at what has happened to Ruud). I wouldn't even put it past SAF deciding to play Roo in defence as he can tackle etc - another brainwave of playing people out of position waiting to happen.
Reading your post just made me sad that this is what has become of the club I love.
I see Mark Hughes as a future Man Utd manager. Not now, but maybe 5-10 years down the line. Like Gilly said above, our next manager needs to be foreign, the only exception to that being Martin O'Neill who I rate very highly. Again it depends on the circumstances. Apparently Ferguson was going to be offered a directors role before he u-turned his retirement plans. I'm not so sure this is still on the cards but I'd like the next manager to not have Ferguson breathing down his neck from a higher position and meddling with things.
The next manager should then bring in fresh players and coaching staff. We need a breath of fresh air and it will happen. But the question is when? It something major happens this new coming season Ferguson will be the one shown the door. I think the Glazers have tolerated enough so far from him. They won't make a profit until we start winning things and really progressing in Europe. I hope next season is Ferguson's last and that he leaves Old Trafford completely turning down any other role that may be offered to him. I wouldn't want to see him dropping dead of a heart attack or anything like that because he stayed too long in the job, he's done a lot for us and I'm grateful but everyone has their time in the limelight, his has been and gone. Someone should tell him.
The next manager should then bring in fresh players and coaching staff. We need a breath of fresh air and it will happen. But the question is when? It something major happens this new coming season Ferguson will be the one shown the door. I think the Glazers have tolerated enough so far from him. They won't make a profit until we start winning things and really progressing in Europe. I hope next season is Ferguson's last and that he leaves Old Trafford completely turning down any other role that may be offered to him. I wouldn't want to see him dropping dead of a heart attack or anything like that because he stayed too long in the job, he's done a lot for us and I'm grateful but everyone has their time in the limelight, his has been and gone. Someone should tell him.
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What do you reckon to Gus Hiddink as a possible next manager?
Soldato
IceBus said:
I likes that very much
His name has been knocked about in connection with Utd for a while, but I can't see it coming off sadly
We'll be stuck with this senile old *******
Becouse i dont want you to do well.Marvt74 said:
He's been past his sell-by date for some time and you seem to be teetering from one mess to another atm which is all good to see.Everyone fit and not squabbling you have a very good team,doesn't seem to happen often tho.The RvN situation is farcical,but seemingly typical of Taggert. The gossip that has been leaked about RvNs' run-ins with Ronaldo seem just typical of the cynical,manipulative way things get done by him.Its been painted as being poor, innocent Ronaldo getting bullied by horseyboy at OT,yet its Ronaldo thats been having a warning about his temperament from his own national coach ? Something not quite right there.
Associate
- Joined
- 19 Mar 2005
- Posts
- 569
I couldnt give a monkeys really, but reckonu should stick with him. Was a good season last season in the prem. You just need a few more players and you might challenge Chelsea and in europe.
Soldato
He shouldv'e gone after we got knocked out of the Champions League in January. Biggest failure of his career so far!
Associate
4) He gets on every square inch of my nerves
Soldato
I agree with most of what TS has said except for the media bit. I think he has every right to tell the media to take a very long walk off a very short pier. He has every right to ban snivelling little verming like Alan Green at Old Trafford. I don't buy into this we need them as much as they need us nonsense. The Britsh sports medai only exist because of a handfull of clubs in the Premiership. It gets right on my nerves when you hear TalkS***e 24/7 wall to wall slagging off the club, the players and the manager. Why ? because there is not one ounce of truth in most of what they say and its them making a living off the back of the club.
The crux of the problem at United is the midfield regardless of whether it was SAF in charge, Martin O'Neil or Uncle Tom Cobleigh. Utd were blessed with bringing through one of the best midfields in the country in Giggs, Keane, Scholes, Beckham. This cannot be replaced over night. I think Fergie is guilty of not breaking it up sooner. Even if you brought in four players of their calibre their is no guarantee they will gell together. Veron did not work out. I wonder how many Utd fans called him a flop when he signed for us. With the benefit of hindsight then he would never have come. However the point still remains he was a world class player and was brought with the intention of replacing scholes or Keane. It never worked out. Same with Forlan. The kind of forward we needed at the time to replace Andy Cole. Quick, Agile and brave. The market conditions inflated his price as he was never worth £8million. The right kind of player just the wrong player
Persoanally I think he is doing ok. We have some very good senior pro's at the club and some really good youngsters coming through(Won the domestic youth treble) but there is not a lot to bridge the gap. You can question his tactics and signings. You never hear Wneger coming out saying that a player was a bad buy and his record is equally as patchy as Fergusons
The crux of the problem at United is the midfield regardless of whether it was SAF in charge, Martin O'Neil or Uncle Tom Cobleigh. Utd were blessed with bringing through one of the best midfields in the country in Giggs, Keane, Scholes, Beckham. This cannot be replaced over night. I think Fergie is guilty of not breaking it up sooner. Even if you brought in four players of their calibre their is no guarantee they will gell together. Veron did not work out. I wonder how many Utd fans called him a flop when he signed for us. With the benefit of hindsight then he would never have come. However the point still remains he was a world class player and was brought with the intention of replacing scholes or Keane. It never worked out. Same with Forlan. The kind of forward we needed at the time to replace Andy Cole. Quick, Agile and brave. The market conditions inflated his price as he was never worth £8million. The right kind of player just the wrong player
Persoanally I think he is doing ok. We have some very good senior pro's at the club and some really good youngsters coming through(Won the domestic youth treble) but there is not a lot to bridge the gap. You can question his tactics and signings. You never hear Wneger coming out saying that a player was a bad buy and his record is equally as patchy as Fergusons
Man of Honour
Shame he was great elsewhere. Mismanagement again? Certainly could've been. He was hardly given a big vote of confidence by arriving and not starting a game for god knows how long.Loki said:
Taggart has nowhere near the successful history in the transfer market that Wenger has. Not even close.Loki said:
So?ballistic said:
There are big clubs all around that aren't winning it every season. We weren't having a bad management spell when we went out this season, players weren't fit or were injured and we went out in the groups.
If we'd played the groups with our full strength team when were were playing well again at the end of the season would you criticise them? No, we were playing great football with all our players back and we'd have likely done some serious damage in the European cup had we gone further.
I didn't see people calling for Wengers head despite being abysmal every year in the Champions League prior to this one...
People get too carried away.