Manchester United Banter Archive January 21 2015

21 Jan 2015 17:16:44
How come van gaal gets all the blame for not signing a centre back?

The manager doesn't do the transfer negotiations, he just provides a list of targets and let's Woodward do the job we pay him for.

So if anyone blame Woodward, although i'd like to ask just who was available to sign?

Hummels wasn't available. Benatia decided on Bayern. We dodged a bullet on vermaelen. Varane unavailable. Garay was turned down by both moyes and fergie.

And don't give me any rubbish about just banging money on the table as that's a naive view of how transfers work.

Lastly what's rojo? Chopped liver? No an international centre back. Ok we clearly need another one but its not like Woodward wasn't trying.

There are an awful lot of cbs out there not just the popular ones on this site.

21 Jan 2015 17:31:38
Apparently Arsenal are close to signing Gabriel Paulista from Villareal.

Havent seen him ever. Is he any good?

Moyes took plenty of flack for our poor showing in the summer window and I've seen people complimenting LVG on our incoming and outgoing players this past summer - so I find it quite amusing that all of a sudden, when it suits LVG supporters, he has nothing to do with transfers.

There are forty or fifty CB's (at least) who are better than what we currently have at the club. That LVG was happy for funds to be spent on players he seemingly does not want at the club (Falcao and Herrera) and failed to secure two decent CB's is laughable. As for us 'banging money on the table', we were happy to do so when it came to Di Maria, so why not a top CB (a position much more important)?

Young but quite solid. They are on a 15 game unbeaten run and quite stingy in terms of conceding. He is ball playing CB and might turn out to be very good. It is always a gamble how they do in the PL. Winston Reed from West Ham can play and we should be looking at him.

MrE, Rojo has 29 Caps for Argentina and went to the world cup final with them, admittedly he played Lb in a lot of them. He has ability.

21 Jan 2015 18:09:51
Redseven a player has to want to join, di Maria did so the money was stumped up.

Moyes gets flack because he dithered. Woodward also deserves flack.

All the manager does, both moyes and van gaal is provide a list of shoes wanted and who isn't. Its up to Woodward to get them in or out.

I agree someone should have been bought in, but again i'd like to know which top quality defender was available, because I think if one was then he would have been signed.

21 Jan 2015 18:18:03
Jamax that was my point, a lot of people on here tend discount rojo just because we didn't sign a flasher name.

21 Jan 2015 20:16:20
Agree with this point, its as if some people think LvG said "nah I don't want a top class CB thanks" to Woody. To be fair to both of them, I'm sure we tried and we did manage to sort a few of the positions we needed. 3 transfer window process as Ed002 has stated.

I don't just think the manager writes up a list and that's him out the equation??? If so, any manager should be sacked on the spot! Fergie rang players privately and even went meet them and their family, that's how ya sign/persuade big players. Ya can't just let woodward ring em up and say we want u at united??? Bollox! If the manager don't put a personal touch on it, I wouldn blame anyone for turning us down!

21 Jan 2015 21:11:29
Fergie was the last of the old style managers. European coaches tend to work in different ways. Remember van gaal was at the world cup for two months then had to get straight into the training ground. Most negotiations these days revolve around money, its not like united needs much selling.

If you are building a team you build from the back, hopefully we build it around DDg, a team like Manchester United should have 2 top class central defenders, when rio and vidic left the first thing whether it's Woodward or the manager you replace them straight away, if your one of the best teams in Europe you show it, this window that window is waffle you replace them!

21 Jan 2015 23:14:59
Leahy who with? Which world class centre back was available and willing to come.

Godin, verthongen, vermaelen, Varane, laporte, knoche, hummels, any of whom would be a big improvement, a lot of these players would love to play for united

22 Jan 2015 06:28:32
With only a week of the transfer window left and the noises coming out of the club suggesting we will probably not sign anybody, will that then make our three transfer window rebuild into a four transfer window rebuild?

22 Jan 2015 09:03:12
Huggy,

Mr Woodward told the board of directors that it was unlikely we would sign anybody in January unless a long term target became available, so I don't think it is a shock to anybody if we don't sign anybody. It is important we make the correct signings in the summer so the club will need to start working on these now. The Cuadrado to Chelsea deal shows that there are deals that can be done, but I presume he is not a target for us, which does suggest we might not be looking at playing with wing backs as he would have slotted in nicely.

22 Jan 2015 13:34:27
Leahy how many of those were actually available? Only vermarlen and he's been injured all season.

22 Jan 2015 20:00:27
I was not saying we should buy players for the sake of it. It was a genuine question, that if we don't make signing this window will it mean we still need a further 2 windows of activity to complete the rebuild.

21 Jan 2015 10:06:51
I don't know if this has been asked already. But IF we let Falcao go, who would we bring in to replace him? RVP is nearing the end. So we would need at least one top level CF and there just aren't that many about. Cavani perhaps, but I wouldn't say he was a step up from Falcao. Who else would people like to see

Cheers

I think it depends on the formation. If LVG is going for 4-3-3 eventually, then we have Rooney, Wilson and RVP which should be sufficient. The money should be spent on a Wide Attacker in that case, or 2, Bale/Reus for example.

If he sticks with this formation, may as well sign Joe Bloggs as the strikers get no service anyway.

21 Jan 2015 11:01:34
Why do we need to sign another top level striker?

One of our big problems this season is having too many strikers and trying to crow bar them into a team.

People don't like playing three at the back as they feel it won't work in English football, but I'm sure I watched a team play with three at the back last night completely out play the almost certain league winners this season. But I'm sure people will say it was down to Chelsea playing poorly rather than the other team playing well and dominating the game possession territorially and chances wise.

Three at the back works but you need to play a high line and pressure from the very front, we can't do that with two strikers.

Everyone on here from what I can see wants us to play a 433 type formation.

Rooney's best position is as a striker, playing him anywhere else is to ignore that the best stats in his career are all goal scoring ones, the guy is a goal scorer and not a midfielder, he may have lost that explosive pace he used to have but you can negate that by playing closer to your opponents goal relying on movement for space rather than pace to break away.

So surely if we are going to play with a front three next season then Rooney is clearly the favourite for the main strikers position, that leave RvP as quality back up and Wilson as a young alternative.

What we lack is quality wide players beyond Di Maria and Januzaj, so surely not signing Falcao and bringing in a couple of quality wide players would be the best option.

For what Falcao would cost we could sign Reus and Depay.

Now a front three of Reus, Rooney and Di Maria would be terrifying then RvP, Depay, Januzaj and Wilson as back up would leave us set as an attacking unit for years to come.

So for me as good as Falcao is I wouldn't sign him or any striker so we could add more balance to the squad.

Lacazette, Dybala, Batshuayi, Icardi, Cenk Tosun are all potentials.
In an earlier post I said Bony, which was trivialized. City must have seen something though.

Not sure how other people feel about it but in my opinion RvP needs to be moved on in the summer

Also helps in having 3 defenders that can play. Chris Smalling is horrendous on the ball, he blasts passes at people. Jones is gung ho and Evans has lost all confidence in himself. Rojo I like though.
I also think we don't try and shoe horn strikers into his team. We are playing Di Maria as a striker which like Rooney in CMF is a waste.

I personally would keep Falcao, but if the Bale story has ANY substance i'd let him go and have Bale Rooney and Di Maria.

Agree with Beast that another wideman should be the priority but would like to see us bring in a pacey forward too.


-------Lacazette--------
Depay------------DiMaria
--------Rooney----------

One name if not falcao.

Karim Benzema

If you are going to play with only 1 striker then they need to be prolific in front of goal if fully fit Falcao is the best option

I don't see Rooney having a future under LVG at striker. He will be a part of the midfield 3 and an out and out striker will be up top like Falcao. Someone I would love to see signed is Lacazette as he can play through the middle or from the right and is a big goal threat.

Falcao is a better striker than Rooney is though. So I would say move RVP on, sign Falcao and Lacazette plus Depay.

21 Jan 2015 04:11:13
Just saw few videos of Memphis Depay and the kid looks good but every tricky player looks good in videos. But he was good at the WC as well.

Any regular watchers care to elaborate on him?

I would prefer us keeping DDG and then going for Depay instead of Bale.

He is developing now as more than just a raw talent. His goal ration is great. Yes it is only in Holland but the transition of Dutch players to England has been reasonably good. Van Gaal apparently told him to stay at PSV this season to develop and then seek a move, I imagine we will be at the top of the pile.

He's strong and fast and has a good set of skills he performed well in the world cup and in the dutch league Suarez and Blind adapted well depay would too but with a team like Newcastle or Southampton would be better where he wouldn't be under pressure