Manchester United Banter Archive March 23 2013

23 Mar 2013 18:58:02
Just wondering, what do people think the likelihood is that Zaha has not been brought in to replace anyone and Nani will sign a new deal? We then sign Lewandowski and Rooney drops back into midfield making it possible that we will only sign one CM. Probably Strootman as I see him as a long term replacement for Carrick. We then get a CB (probably Garay) to replace Ferdinand. Scholes retires, Hernandez & Anderson leave and maybe Begovic comes in for Lindegaard. There is something about that that rings true, and I firmly believe that SAF see's Rooney's future as a CM.

Realistically a line up of:

De Gea, Rafael, Evans, Vidic, Evra, Valencia, Carrick, Rooney, Kagawa, Lewandowski & RVP.

That could be pretty effective and we would have some natural width with also width on the bench in Young. Nani & Zaha are game changers, Strootman can come on if we need him and also have Welbeck. We might even keep Hernandez but I doubt that very much.

Fresh, I really don't see Rooney as good enough for midfield. I can't see why we would play him there. He either plays up front, as a number 10, or we sell him. It's a bit like when McClair moved into midfield - loyal servant and did a great job, until we signed Keane when he then dropped out. I know you will tell me Rooney is a better player than McClair but I just don't think he is good enough (or fit enough) to address our midfield shortcomings.

So you'd spend millions on Garay & Strootman and bench them?

Sorry but if those changes happened we'd be weaker overall.

Garay would just block Smalling, as someone else said further down he's just a more polished Evans. In that acse if we have to sign a centreback then why not not a top class one. Personally I don't think we need a centreback even if Rio does leave, we have Vidic, Evans, Smalling & Jones, that should be enough for next season.

Rooney is not good enough for central midfield. Its a delusion, he has an awful first touch, his short passing isn't great and his long range passing isn't as good as Carrick's never mind Scholes'. Far too many Hollywood balls that never come off. all he has is workrate which might be enough to scrape by in 75% of domestic games but wouldn't be enough for City or Chelsea and we'd get ripped apart in the Champions League. Either Rooney plays in the hole, as a striker or leaves.

If Nani was signing a new deal I think it would be wrapped up by now. Is he worthy of a new deal? No. Far roo inconsistant, poor decisions and set pieces. Has he improved in 6 years? Honestly?

Lewandowski isn't really needed if Rooney and Hernandez stay. We need good centre midfielders not strikers. We have a glut of strikers at all levels of the club, 1 more is not the answer.

Anderson I would get rid of if we could find anyone daft enough to give us money.

Strootman and Carrick in midfield would be better, in fact so would Clevs and Carrick.

AJH totally agree, Choccy was a great forward till his legs went and he dropped into midfield, it didn't work. I seem to remember Hughes doing it as well at other clubs afte he left United, the legs went and he tried to play midfield. Did Charlton try similar?

I suspect that Rooney's legs might be going hence all the hints about playing midfield.

It wouldn't work. I'd hate to play a midfield 2 of Carrick & Rooney in most of our league games never mind in Europe.

After reading what Goetze said yesterday, I would personally sell Rooney and do whatever it takes to get that kid.

Buy ourselves a good winger, good box to box cm and Lewandowski and we would be unbelievable.

Shahram

Fresh, you're determined to get rid of Hernandez! I'll sell Rooney and Valencia and try and get goetze and falcao or lewi if falcao is out of reach.
Nomidfield {Ed004's Note - Why Falcao he will want garunteed game time and I think RVP should stay up top were he has been excelling?}

You're right ed, but if we sell Hernandez then we need to replace with another striker. If we want to improve and possibly play a slightly different system, then falcao will give us something different.
Nomidfield {Ed004's Note - but my point is... both Falcao and RVP play the same position and both will want to start it would be impossible to keep both happy in the team IMO}

24 Mar 2013 12:21:31
have to agree with the editor falcao pretty much has his pick of european football if anyone meets the asking price. He's not going to move to sit on the bench or accept rotation. We could sell rooney and play van persie behind falcao but I think van persie plays better as the striker rather than support striker. I'm not sure why everyone wants to sell hernandez its a squad game and it looks like he accepts that. We need players like that. Of course we don't know what goes on in private behind closed doors but the lad doesn't seem the type to rock the boat. {Ed002's Note - The club has shown no interest in Falcao at all.}

Nomidfield, there is literally zero chance of us signing Falcao. It's simply not going to happen. We do however have a strong interest in Lewandowski.

24 Mar 2013 13:32:21
Didn't say we did ed just saying how it would work in the extremely unlikely event we did. Syd we don't need lewandowski such a pointless signing.

I guess you and SAF will have to agree to disagree.

23 Mar 2013 15:38:45
Our wingers have been dreadful recently, does anyone think we could return to the diamond and perhaps bring on the wingers once we've worn the opposition down? Were a bit short of midfield options but I think jones could comfortably fit in alongside Cleverley and Carrick, with Kagawa or Rooney behind van Persie and Chicha.

23 Mar 2013 14:03:13
I'm sure someone will correct me but this portuguese publication that's going around saying that we're signing garay, but isn't this the same publication that last year said we're signing gaitan. And that didn't happen. So I think garay won't happen either.

It doesn't really work like that mate.

Papers tend to do what we do and speculate, the only difference is that they see the scouts at the games, they don't know exactly who they are looking at.

I personally think it is still Gaitan though.

Or it could be Salvio.

shahram

23 Mar 2013 16:59:46
The point is moon that last year the same rag was saying that United would sign gaitan for x amount and fabio and macheda were mentioned. People came on here all excited about it. And it never happened. Now the same rag is saying we're signing garay. So basically more lies to sell copy. I don't think we will sign either player. Garay isn't needed and gaitan isn't good enough.

Alot of people said valencia wouldn't be good enough, but with the exception of this last season he has probably been one of our best players. great commitment level, real team player and constant outlet and goal threat with his crosses
so like valencia was, gaitan could be a very good signing for us, esp considering he would then release kagawa to play more centrally where he is more effective

dags

Thing is Valencia had already adapted to England whilst at Wigan, all he needed to do was used to better players and facilities and a higher standard.

I think signings are going to need to hit the ground running next season which is why I think we'll see a shift away from Southern Europeans & South Americans after the failures of Nani & Anderson and a switch to more Northern Europeans as seen by the links to Strootman and half the Dortmund team.

Not saying we won't go for Latin types but we'll try and grab them at young age so they can adapt quicker like Rafael and this can be seen with Henriquez and Gomes.

23 Mar 2013 13:08:49
Which game does everyone think we have performed best in this season? I would say the 3-0 away win at Newcastle was impressive. The first 60 minutes of the games against Madrid at home and City at the Etihad were very good in terms of the discipline showed and the counter-attacking football we played.

23 Mar 2013 09:33:09
Ed been thinking over last few days re. Zaha. Could it be that SAF will use him more as a striker? Rumours are rife that Rodriguez will join in the summer, and I genuinely believe Chicharito will move on. Zaha has played up top for Palace and does so for the 21's at times as well. Just a thought.

s20c {Ed002's Note - He wouldn't need Lewandowski then.}

I think he will join Bayern Munich.

s20c

I think he will join us. Bayern have a bigger fish on their agenda and will be offloading quite a few players this summer.

Shahram

Shahram, I think United intend to sign Lewandowski before he is a "bigger fish". £15m this summer or £35m+ in a couple of summer's time.

Really annoyed that Rodriguez has stated last nyt that he'd rather play in La Liga. Pfffff was looking 4ward to his possibility.
I say spend the money on some1 who WANTS to play for us.

Players always cool transfer talk patzi, they don't want to upset their current club do they! {Ed002's Note - By saying they want to play in Italy? Nonsense.}

I don't think last nights comments change anything tbh. When Rodriguez talks about moving to La Liga he is obviously IMO thinking about Barca and Madrid in particular in which case that is fair enough as they are massive clubs that play in a style he is comfortable with. That said, there are no guarantees he will get a move to either club and his comments don't mean he wouldn't like to play for United. I doubt Ronaldo, Rooney, RVP, Ferdinand, Vidic etc all had dreams of playing for United before they joined but the opportunity presented itself and they never looked back. The same may occur with James Rodriguez.

TK-Red

I think Rodriquez may end up being a red herring - it's always been clear that Porto want big money for him and it may be too big a risk following the way Nani/Ando have panned out.

Hmmm, but there was not prolonged MASSIVE speculation about us chasing the players you've mentioned TK.
Also, should we sign him only to be told his 'dream' is to play in Spain?. Surely there are players out there that we can spend this money on. ?
Fed up with this now, Essien, Robben, Ronaldinho, moura, hazard, MIKEL. blah blah.

I'm not sure the amount of speculation really matters. My point is that once/IF we officially go in for Rodriguez then all talk of La Liga could very quickly go out of the window. There is a big difference between Essien, Robben, Ronaldinho etc who all turned us down to go elsewhere and a player stating his preference before any approaches have been made. All I'm saying is that players 'preferences' can change so until he signs for a La Liga side then let's not cast him aside. Don't forget Essien and Ronaldinho both declared United as their preference at one stage or another.

TK-Red {Ed002's Note - There has been a lot of interest in him from Italy - three clubs I am aware of.}

We have to remember that initially Hazard prefered Spain, then a Manchester club. so then he signed for Chelsea. I wouldn't read too much into it. There is however no way that we are prepared to pay anywhere near what Porto want, if we apparently turned him down for £25 million then there is no way that we are going higher than that. It would be nice if a lot of the scouting done at Porto was for Alex Sandro who, apart from Schmelzer & Alba is probably the best left back in the world (or is going to be within 2 to 3 seasons).

Ed002 would a move to Italy be a realistic option given his apparent price tag? Obviously I don't know how Italian clubs finances work but I can't imagine many Italian clubs would be willing/able to pay what Porto are asking for?

TK-Red {Ed002's Note - Italy is a perfectly viable option. Ignore any thought of the money as it serves only to confuse.}

Ed002 you have said yourself that Porto have a valuation and that needs to be met before the player can move. I'm not interested in discussing the intricacies of any potential deal to be honest I would just question whether Italian clubs would be willing to meet that valuation, especially if, and it's a big if, the 36million euro fee and some of the other reported Serie A targets are accurate. That is unless the Italian leagues have stumbled upon a pot of gold recently.

TK-Red {Ed002's Note - Italy is a perfectly viable option. I don't want to try and get in to explaining how it might happen.}

Third party funding TK mate.