Manchester United Banter Archive August 28 2014

28 Aug 2014 21:43:05
Apparently vidal has said he's staying at juve. Express

There's no quotes, just hearsay. It maybe true, but literally zero proof that it is true. We will have to wait and see I guess. Not long left to wait.

Keep believin' Syd, him and Hummels are still coming. Bless.

I still believe Vidal will come if he leaves juventus.

28 Aug 2014 21:19:02
Hi ed,

not sure if I've done it the correct way but I've submitted the blog post through the contact us page.

if you want me to submit it any other way just say so.

{Ed002's Note - Send it here with Blog at the top and mark it for my attention.}

28 Aug 2014 21:06:26
Rumour going round Kagawa £8m +2m in add ons to Dortmund, Leicester Hull Villa and 1 other in for Cleverley

Everton.

Everton would be a bad move he would be on the bench

£10m for Kagawa is beyond a joke. He's worth double that in terms of marketability alone.

28 Aug 2014 20:34:37
Rumours in spain that Vidal
has already signed for us and
will be joined by Alex Song!

Bye from sunny mijas

I wouldn't be at all surprised if a deal has been agreed in principle for some time and we're waiting for his fitness to return to the point where he can pass a medical. Maybe it hasn't; but if we're willing to pay well over the odds for Di Maria I'd be surprised if we weren't willing to pay a fair price for Vidal.

It's been going on for too long for there to not be some sort of agreement between some of the parties involved and I agree R7 TO AN extent that his fitness is playing a huge part in the hold up, but I also think the fee maybe an issue.

I would think that as Juve's prize jewel they are looking for a ridiculously high fee and just don't think the club will pay it .
With Di Maria I don't think there are many alternatives to him not at that level anyway where as with Vidal maybe LVH sees cheaper, younger alternatives.

28 Aug 2014 18:43:13
Sky reporting that Madrid may be interested in vidal . That's the risk of leaving it late .

28 Aug 2014 17:50:13
Not United related but its strange how Man City always get a tough draw in the Champions league, That's got to be the last three years they've ended up in the group of death. Where as Chelsea always get a favourable one. Arsenal always end up playing middle of the road type teams along with one good team, good teams who can pull off a result but who are unlikely to be there come semi final time. Liverpool's draw was a good one, big games with Real Madrid but then two easy games to make sure they get through.

Chelsea always get a comfortable group. Liverpool will be chuffed with theirs. They have had a squeeze there.

It's simple City have been very poor in Europe and are lower seeds.

28 Aug 2014 18:39:19
Carl mate I know how the seedings work, but there are always teams you'd rather avoid in the lower seeded groups. Trips to Russia for example in winter is something you'd like to avoid, or getting to tough team in the bottom seeded group such as Roma. City just don't get any luck in their draws.

City are in pot 2 carloto.

I quite fancy city for the CL this year

Poor city what a shame. I could weep if I cared!

I won't sleep tonight now worrying about citys tough draw :)

Who's going to complain about a trip to Moscow, etc when some teams could have to travel to Donetsk! JK of course, but I can imagine many of those brazilians are now regretting leaving the relative safety of Brazil's slums for an active war zone.

To quote Windsor Davies "Oh dear, how sad, never mind!"

28 Aug 2014 17:00:39
Spurs hold a very strong interest in welbeck. Good move for him, as I feel Van Gaal sees him surplus to requirements.

You can never thought the guys work rate.

If he's going to Spurs we should ask for 20 million pounds or ask Dembele/Vertonghen in swap.

Keep him buy depay reus hummels carvalho get rid off young anderson felini think wilson could be the next owen

28 Aug 2014 19:33:39
Well I hope we rip their eyes out like they do to us. He still has a lot of potential IMO and he's a young England international, can I ask when do they ever come cheap? We should put in a buy back clause if we can.

I don't want welbeck to go as he's a very good young player. But if we have to let him go then I would ask at least £20m for him.
I think he might go out on loan and it Hernandez also leaves, that will leave us with Rooney and rvp, not a lot of cover.
So that's why I can't see welbeck going.

If we sell anybody to spurs I hope we pull their pant down like Levy has done to us

Welbeck would fetch maybe £14m plus £3-4m in bonuses. Don't expect £20m+.

28 Aug 2014 16:50:10
United have accepted a bid from Villa for Cleverly. Fingers crossed Cleverly is clever enough to know he's not good enough and he signs the deal at Villa

28 Aug 2014 16:24:09
So Zaha has gone out on loan let's hope he has a good season and comes back a better player

28 Aug 2014 15:40:44
"Also, players shall go in the meantime. I had a conversation with the players after lunch and I said, after this week, we shall maybe have another group. Players will go away and others will come in."

That's really assuring press conference from Van Gaal. Let's keep calm and wait for the window to close. Things will happen. We will get back to where we belong.
GGMU
GGMU

28 Aug 2014 15:11:03
We all seem (me more than most) to have become fixated on formations, tactics, signings, ownership, and managers over the last year. But not many people have addressed the big elephant in the room: the fact that Manchester United are failing miserably in improving the players we are signing and bring through the youth academy.

The club's philosophy is supposedly to bring in young players and develop them into top quality players; Manchester United don't buy stars, we make them. But how many players over the last seven or so years have we actually improved. Look at the players in our squad: Jones, Smalling, Rafael, Hernandez, Welbeck, Cleverly, Zaha, Powell, and even Anderson. All of these players were deemed to be promising prospects when we signed them, or when they were in the youth ranks. Yet, not a single one has come close to reaching their potential. Add to that the likes of Nani, Fabio, Henrique, Macheda, Tosic, Varela, Buttner, Diouf and Bebe, and we have a massive list of young players who joined the club and did not improve as players in any significant way.

It's obvious that some of this is down to individual factors like injuries (Rafael), attitude (Zaha) and over estimating potential (Bebe). Nevertheless, the club is having a massive problem in transforming potential into genuine quality. As Scholes said, none of the young lads were pushing him out of the team in his mid-thirties, and that was very worrying to him at least. Put aside the lack of investment and managerial shake ups over the last year: there is simply no reason why young players at a club like United shouldn't be improving the important aspects of their game. The fact that so few of our young players are demonstrating and discernible difference in the standard of their play after spending significant time in the first team hints at a big problem in our training methods.

Moyes, to his credit, tried to change the training set up, and I'm sure van Gaal is doing the same. But I think we can safely say that SAF took his eye off the ball during his last few years at the helm and we are paying for it now. But until their is a wholesale shift in training 'philosophy' and attitudes toward young players' development at the club, our longterm stability will always be in danger. Van Gaal, at least, has started integrating the young lads to a greater extent in the first team, but I hope he is starting to rip up the rotting foundations too because our development of young talent has frankly been shocking for a long time now.

28 Aug 2014 15:48:12
Fergie really took his eye of the ball he only won the league twice in his last 3 years, disgraceful.

He did what was best for the club while he was there and probably thought anybody taking over would do the same.

Great post Danny.

I am sure this was one of the big sells of LVG, but obviously it will take a fair few years to see if his ideas work. I am confident he knows what he is doing with youth development, the Dutch as quality at it. There are lots of problems at the moment, we seem to be constantly putting out fires. I hope we prioritise our focus.

I think I recall LVG saying he is starting with the first team as it is the most vital, but his plan is to restructure the whole set-up in a few years.

28 Aug 2014 16:09:16
Great post. I think we were spoilt by the class of 92, and it lulled everyone into thinking this whole youth thing was a piece of p1ss.

Nothing short of disgraceful how few players have come through since, for a club with our ethos, and how many have failed to live up to their potential.

28 Aug 2014 16:09:55
Januzaj, Pogba?

We have produced a hell of a lot of players its just most don't make the grade for our 1st team which isn't surprising as we want the best of the best but it's not like our youth players get to 18 then become builders they all go on to have careers in the game some of the problem is mental attitude and whether they can take the pressure of playing for a major club

28 Aug 2014 16:37:34
Danny mate you've just hit a bullseye. Personally it is this issue that I think van Gaal is referring to when he speaks about a new philosophy, and the work they are trying to do and the time it will take to achieve it.

As to why we seemingly was unable to improve the young players we have had over the last few years I think are many and varying.

Injury has played its part and the attitude of some players has also held some back. Another issue I feel is a lack of quality in the team pushing the youngsters to improve to get game time, I think some have far too easily got into the team. Rafael for example hasn't had any competition for his place since Neville left. So what is forcing him to work on his game and improve? I also think a focus was taken away from the improvement of youngster by the glare of silverware and the importance of winning it. Personally I think over the last 4-7 years too much focus was put on winning things rather than improving our players. By that I mean all training and preparation was focused on winning the next game and none left to improving and challenging our players. You start to regress the moment you stop trying to improve.

We all marvelled at Sir Alex's pure will to win but it may have been detrimental to the development of some of our players and their ability to improve.
Personally I think Ronaldo leaving had an effect on Sir Alex, Since then you could argue that none of our players have significantly improved, did the hurt of Ronaldo wanting to move on have an impact on Sir Alex? Maybe, we'll never really know.

Either way the club needs to return to our roots, Sir Matt's success was built on bringing through and improving young players, as was Sir Alex's, van Gaal has made a career out of it also and as such he is probably the right man to refocus the club on what is important to this club. All our success has come from it and if we are to continue to have success then we need to stick with what we do best.

28 Aug 2014 16:43:37
Ok, TOT66, 2 in 20 years. That's some going for a club with our coaches and facilities.

Mata, SAF won two titles with a ageing squad on its last legs while failing to ensure that the young lads coming through we're good enough. It's a great achievement for him, but he went out on a high without providing enough quality fir his replacement.

Tot, I'm not sure if there is a major problem with the youth academy. We seem to be capable of cultivating raw potential, but this potential isn't making the transition to a top quality end product. Pogba moved to Juve before he made his mark. As for Januzaj, he still looks as raw this year as he did at the start of last, fantastic talent but little consistency.

As much as it is about developing the 14-20 year olds. Its ensuring the 20-24 years are improving, our players have gone backwards in that category. Janujaz hasn't done anything yet, lots of ability, but our record of developing talent in the past 10 years is limited to one player of note in that age range.

I watch as many u18 and u21 games as I can and we have a nucleus of about 4or5 top class prospects in both groups.will they make it who knows no matter which club only a very few exceptional talents make it to the top.as others have said have a look at how many ex utd academy players are spread through all the divisions you will be amazed at how many there is.fergie did a good job at utd but don't forget his stubborness to address the midfield problem over the last of his 3 years which I personally believe was because we didn't have the cash.and never forget his spat with the 2 irish lads which should never of been utd related as it was all about greed but it ultimately let the glazers in the door.

Danny

Great post mate. watching Tuesday might brought home how far we have slipped in terms of our youth set up. To make matters worse, SAF got obsessed with youth in recent years and other than berna and RVP, didn't seem to want to sign established stars. Surely the way to go is a mixture of both. His endless no value in the market quote became a tad tiresome when City and Chelsea were hoovering up top talent.

28 Aug 2014 14:01:47
Antonio Rudiger seems to be trying to sweet talk us into a move can anyone give some info on him I have never seen him play before

28 Aug 2014 13:10:14
Does anyone else think its a mistake to move Rafael on? I still rate him very highly and good full backs are hard to buy

Yeah I agree if he can steer clear of injuries he can become a very good fullback

I agree, he definitely has the engine to be a wing-back, can be a little rash at times which is frustrating to watch. Valencia is not as good defensively or offensively.

Roma have an interest in Rafael.

I think if rafael moved to Italy or Spain he would see a lot of red cards

Rafael is essential to playing 4 at the back imo and seeing as LVG says ADM gives us the 433 option it doesn't make sense to me should Rafael be allowed to leave.

Ben80, unless we are buying a RB this window or a RWB (Cuadrado) with us continuing with a 352.

I really rate Rafael, he was top class the season before last, so judging him on last season is a big mistake as he was by no means the worst.

Selling him would be a massive mistake imo.

Agreed Beast unlike some of our squad at the very least he always seems to give his all

Rafael is great. Very rash, still learning but I'd hate to see him leave. If we want true wing backs then he fits the bill

28 Aug 2014 11:19:57
I don't have any source or something you are saying. Just sharing something I saw in internet. That's all.

28 Aug 2014 11:15:32
Is William Carvalho a good alternative to Vidal if it falls?

I would prefer him, would add steal to our midfield and better cover our lightweight defence

28 Aug 2014 07:39:05
With Danny Welbeck seemingly heading for the exit door this must give United some bargaining power.
Spurs seem interested and they have Jan Vertonghen playing for them. We need an experienced CB and he would fit the bill.
And he can also play LB if required. Its strange how suddenly every player seems to be left sided.
Its unlikely because Spurs are a team that will be looking for Champions League qualification but it would fill a position that we badly need, probably without any cash being exchanged.
Also the Rojo situation seems to be dragging on now.
Apparently the deal has not been signed off by the FA yet because of the 3rd party involvement in his transfer. If not done by lunch time on Friday he will miss the Burnley game.

28 Aug 2014 07:10:21
Its clear that United is not done with transfers.

If the defense and mid-field are beefed up with Vidal, De Jong and Blind, I won't complain about the squad for the next few years until RVP retires.

28 Aug 2014 00:10:34
gonna be sad watching champion league draw with us not in it, gutted

{Ed007's Note - No offence mate but I'm a Celtic supporter, how the *bleep* do you think I feel :(

No offense Bond - but it would have been a travesty if you were in the draw.

{Ed007's Note - You're *BLOCKED*. That will give you some time to realise the error of your ways.}

28 Aug 2014 09:04:08
Bond mate on the plus size at least Celtic have a new record, the only team to be knocked out of the Champions league twice in the same season. Lol.

28 Aug 2014 12:10:12
Bond, I heard there's still a chance of a reprieve. Apparently one of the Maribor player's mothers, was sitting in the wrong seat in the stadium.

LOL Steve. That made me chuckle.