Soldato
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I wouldn't and haven't advocated buying any of those players, they were all bad purchases which United has a history of.
The Manchester United Club Thread **Sponsored by Comedy Central**
- Thread starter Robbo
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We've been hopeless in midfield since Scholes retired. It says a lot when SAF brought him back in post initial retirement.
This is the problem we have though. City have bought world class players and developed others. Who have Liverpool bought apart from VVD and Allison? Liverpool have a top class setup and a top manager who inspires his players. I'm sorry but most of Liverpools squad is nothing special. They have a core of top players and then the rest of them just do what they are told and the whole team would die for each other.
We saw that our players can play well when OGS took over. We had the best form in the league for a while and then they just gave up again. We have a fundamental issue with the way the club is run from top to bottom and paying too much money for the wrong players is just the outcome of that. City have a squad full of stars but they also work their arses off.
If you put most of our players into the Liverpool squad and they gave as much as the rest of the squad you would be saying how great they are.
I bet that Sanchez would be banging them in if he signed for City.
Caporegime
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It is far too early to rule Fred out, I'm definitely willing to give him another season after Lindelof's improvement.
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and yet for a team of nothing special players zero Utd players would get into the Liverpool team at the moment.
and yet for a team of nothing special players zero Utd players would get into the Liverpool team at the moment.
You're completely missing my point....
We are obsessed with having the "wrong" players when good teams are not always stuffed full of world class, bought talent. Stick half the Liverpool players in this United team and we wouldn't be competing for the title. Our issues are much bigger and run far deeper than the quality of player we have at the club.
Good teams aren't stuffed full of world class talent but if you're challenging City for the title whilst making a 2nd successive CL final then your side is a bit more than good and dare I say, so are the inividuals within that side. Maybe our definitions of world class are different but imo you're going to struggle to name too many fullbacks that have performed to the standard of Trent and Robertson, keepers that have performed to Allison's level, there's not a CB on the planet that's as good as VVD and I don't think anybody is claiming our front 3 isn't world class either. Yes we then have your Matip's, Milner's and Henderson's that are steady, solid players that glue the side together.
I know the point you're trying to make but I think superstars rather than world class players is what you mean. As I think I said the other day, Liverpool haven't gone out and signed ready made superstars, we've instead targetted players who we felt were on the verge of world class and with a little fine tuning from Klopp they've gone on to become world class players.
Soldato
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I disagree, the likes of Firmino, Mane and Salah are top class players and would walk into most teams, plus I genuinely think Robertson and TAA are the best full-backs in the prem, in fact they're probably up there as two of the best in the world. Sure, Klopp gets more out of these players than some other managers might, but they're phenomenal players to start with.
I think as much as anything the great run we went on was due to the mostly inferior opposition. During that time the only big teams we played were Chelsea, Arsenal and Spurs, and out of those three Chelsea were in poor form at the time, we got incredibly lucky that Spurs couldn't hit a barn door, and Arsenal had an off day that they made up for when they played us in the league a few weeks later. I think that run of results was a bit fake really, once we played teams in good form and/or who played well on the day we got found out.
I think there's a fundamental flaw with our recruitment. Successive managers have failed with a mostly quite similar squad. Maybe that's down to repeatedly choosing the wrong managers, but it's looking more and more likely that the real reason is that we have a squad that comprises players who are either not good enough or don't care. I think even the likes of Klopp and Pep would need multiple seasons to fix the problems we have, and that's assuming that the club structure around them was strong and stable, which it really isn't at United.
They are very good but the best teams in the world weren’t clamouring to sign them at the time. That’s my point.
Oh it would take a few seasons for Pep or Klopp to fix but our players aren’t ****. Something is wrong in the dressing room for sure.
I think there is a reasonable argument that Michael Carrick is the only decent central midfield signing that United have made in 20 years. Keane signed in 1993 and was the mould was broken with him. One of the most under rated players in EPL history in my opinion. United have never replaced what they lost with him.
How about this for a list - no particular order.
Anderson, Kleberson, Djemba-Djemba, Owen "tissue paper" Hargreaves, Seba Veron, Liam Miller, Daley Blind, Nick Powell
I've lived through successful periods when John O'Shea was partnering Ryan Giggs in CM and the failed attempted conversion of Alan Smith!
Soldato
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Doesn't that suggest that Liverpool have a top quality scouting and recruitment department though? Or at the very least that Klopp and co did a better job convincing the players to join than any rival could. In the same way, KdB wasn't being chased by loads of teams when he signed for City, yet (when fit) he's one of the best midfielders in the world. That implies that City and Liverpool have pulled away from us in terms of their ability to identify up and coming talent. United haven't done a good job of identifying young or relatively unknown players who have big potential. We seem to have been very risk averse in the transfer market, generally only spending on established talent.
Caporegime
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A lot of people say the game today is not for the likes of Viera and Keane but I wonder how much better both Arsenal and United would play if they had. Both teams have decent players but lack the work ethic that the likes of Keane and Viera would instill.
Caporegime
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Rofl, are you actually trying to claim that Pogba isn't decent? And Herrera?
It is Matic and Fred who are problem. Matic is so static and uncombative Pogba Herrera Mc Tominay i think are good. The problem remember why Fergie in times like this bought Van Persie etc we have like average 1 shot on target per game in all our big games. Liverpool had more corners more attempts more fouls than Barca.
Thats the problem the crap strikeforce on paper you might think oh boy Lukaku and Sanchez up front in reality someone like Son Heung Min would have been miles better than either and United never looked near the lad. A competant manager would have went 3 5 2 in my opinion with this team. Good fullbacks in Dalot and Shaw and midfielders thats the 5 sorted sort the back 3 and front 2.
A club the size of man utd can't be playing 352...it's not the man utd way
No disrespect to them but that kind of suggests we should have beaten Huddersfield and Cardiff at the end of the bad run, but we didn't (and could be said Greenwood was very unlucky not to score at all in the last game).
Even despite them missing a few players and their mentality issue PSG still win 80% + of their games, yet with virtually no stars in the outfield, Utd beat them on the night (ie even without the infamous pen at the end). No way in the world is PSG inferior.
Utd also beat Leicester away under BR, which as a lot of the teams this season found, is very hard to do. You are also passing off the performance against Arsenal in the league, where Utd really deserved a draw at the very least (ignoring their VERY lucky penalty) - on any other day United would have scored 2 or 3 of their own.
No team win how ever many in a row like Utd did without thoroughly deserving it - and yes Utd were lucky DDG was in inspired form for Spurs...but then you could say just as fairly Huddersfield etc were just as lucky his form had disappeared at that point.
Utd paid for an aging defence (and even those who aren't aging are at best mid-table quality for the most part anyway), missing Herrera for 1/2 dozen of the last few games (who is a dreadful miss next season imo) and a highly inconsistent midfield / attack......and a completely non-existent pre-season last summer with some players not bothered at all about who they represent.
As long as the manager/ players are using attacking football the formation is irrelevant.
3 - 5 - 2 could easily transition into 3 - 3 - 4 with the ball...as long as the full backs (or cm's) have good legs and are incredibly fit
Also depends on who /how the opposition plays.
As long as the players wear the shirt with pride and work their *** off, and try to play attacking creative football OT will love them- majority or all of these factors have been missing for the last 6 years.
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I don't think that's what my post is suggesting. The point I'm making is that our track record in signing central midfielders is not great. Much as I quite liked Herrera he wasn't as influential a player was Carrick. Pogba is a polarizing figure and I refer to my previous post on him. So perhaps you should read more carefully before collapsing in laughter?
Soldato
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That's just not true though. We beat Spurs, Arsenal and Chelsea in that run and knocked PSG out of Europe. Even when beating the lesser teams at least we actually did it. Our problems over the last few years have been an inability to beat the teams that we really should be brushing aside and in that run we were - hence the perceived progress. Its easy to make excuses to for individual results being down to luck but when you are talking about a period of 20 games it has to be something a bit more tangible.
If we had even kept up the ability to beat the "lesser" sides and still been beaten by the likes of City etc we would have clinched top 4 no problem. I f you cant beat Huddersfield and Cardiff its a mentality problem not an ability one.
Caporegime
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