Manchester United Banter Archive November 28 2013

28 Nov 2013 20:08:51
I find is astounding that we have yet to be linked with rakitic.

Statistically, he has been La Liga's best midfielder. and Sevilla's answer to Ramsey, with less goals and better passes.

What would you guys think about him?

I agree Mick1

I have been watching lot of him. He is exactly the player we need in our midfield. Height of 6 ft, with exquisite and decisive passing. I am most impress by his strong character, humble, quiet and great football brain!, exactly the player we need! I for one hope we are looking at him instead of Herrera! There are lots of amazing midfield players like him, Vidal, Gundogan and Koke. We better secure service of one of them in January! Our midfield is the position the desperately needs improvement.

I agree, he's a also a very hard worker.

And it looks like Sevilla want Anderson, so a 20 million bid with a season long loan for Anderson with an option to buy might just get us our man

United have been regular at Sevilla games. Phil Neville has apparently gone to watch them at least a couple of times. It was assumed that we were watching Moreno, but perhaps Rakitic too?

28 Nov 2013 18:58:02
A quote from my father last night, " if Gareth bale was worth 100 million, what would Giggs in his prime have been worth? Bale wasn't even the best left foots welsh player in the premier league!" Have to say I kind of agree, all I can say is I've grown up watching Ryan Giggs but last nigh just shy of his 40th birthday was simply amazing! What a legend. He epitomises Manchester United and what this great club is about!

28 Nov 2013 17:14:00
Not MU related but I want to say thanks to Pardoe for the heads up with the Jack Daniels. Sainsbury's are doing 70cl bottles for £15, so I ordered three bottles of Jack Daniels and a bottle of Southern Comfort (also £15) for £60, used an online voucher (spend £60 get £15 off) so I got four bottles for £45 plus £2.99 delivery. So £12 a bottle. BARGAIN! That's my Christmas sorted.

Note: This is NOT an advert for drinking, drink responsibly ;)

Did I lol getting old obviously forgot all about it but glad if I helped mate

28 Nov 2013 19:27:31
Me and the Mrs did the same thing, but we went for the Russian standard vodka, it was on offer anyway so we were able to get six bottles for just over £45. So that's a merry christmas and a happy new year. Lol. {Ed002's Note - And the advantage of doing it on line is they don't know you are only 12.}

Looks like I'm not the only one with a drinking problem on this page.

It's been a month since I watched a match at a bar cause I've been saving up for a Johnnie Walker Blue label

Youve drunk too much it was me :)

Yes it was John, sorry about that. I was drunk. Thanks for the heads up :)

Still on offer syd but unfortunately they have took the jim beam red stag off the promotion :(

I had a bottle of Red Stag a month or so ago. Lovely stuff. I ran out of Coke so was drinking it neat at the end of the night. You can really taste the cherry.

Dont put anything with it syd that cherry taste is nice and mellow no need for coke :)

All spirits in the supermarket are a bargain when you think that a 70cl bottke is 28 pub measures. Well that's how I position it to the Mrs to get away with buying too range vodka, gin etc ;-)

28 Nov 2013 16:44:46
So last night shows us Smalling Jones and Evans need to be played in the one team Ferdinand isn't anywhere near their standard and Vidic really needs replacing
Jones is a decent defensive midfielder and has to play their beside Carrick and Smalling and Evans are our best defenders

28 Nov 2013 15:32:57
Anyone notice Kagawa a couple of times when we were on top operate straight down the middle and going deep getting the ball and going forward, absolute class in a couple of moments exactly what he would do at Dortmund. He could play behind Rooney and RVP or I think he'd suit a 4321 with him and Rooney behind RVP if we were looking to accomodate all 3 in a first choice starting lineup.

28 Nov 2013 14:44:29
A couple of shouts for Cabaye on here. Do you think that he would be a worthy investment? Would be improve us? I think he would but depends on the price.

Is he better than Cleverly and Anderson?

Yes.

Get him in. I don't care if we can't afford the Gundogans of the world, but there are plenty of quality CM players out there that we can afford that would improve us - Cabaye falls into that category.

If we could get him for £15mill, I'd consider that a good buy.

28 Nov 2013 14:16:55
Last night was fantastic, I think that what we would of seen under SAF all be it RVP for Rooney. I think SAFs idea was that Kagawa would play in the whole behind RVP and I think he would really of pushes to get Ronaldo on the left with Probably Valencia or Zaha on the right or maybe Welbeck. Interesting to see where Moyes goes from here as Kagawa has to have significant central involvement.

28 Nov 2013 13:04:26
We are not as good as we think we are after last night. and not as bad as we thought we were after Cardiff. DM said it a couple of months ago it will take some time to get a consistant run of results while players adapt to a new set of coaches.
Another media / fans darling Bender was given a lesson last night. By a 40yo imagine what other prem league aging stars would do to him. Duff / Lampard / Gerrard.
Ok admittedley that was tongue in cheek but for me he is no better than jones and not what we need. IMO. We must realise we have good players here proven winners and SAF was not the ONLY reason they won titles. once again I call for patients and less knee jerk reactions both highs and lows

A LB, LW< CMx2 and a CH are all needed I think we will try to limp through till the summer before we bring in any top class replacements. although I would try to swap ando, young and Fabio for Cabye. it may sit all parties and give us a quality player to boost or midfield options

28 Nov 2013 12:39:25
We'll last night was the best performance of the season. kagawa was great I think David Moyes has a decision to make he going to change the squad over the next few windows and if he wants to play Rvp Rooney and kagawa in the same team and get the best out of them we have to drop our wingers and play 3 cm with kagawa in front and behind Rvp and Rooney. And we won't lose all our width as we have very attacking full backs.

I'm first time poster but been long time reader and would love to hear you opinions

RedDevilMichael

Welcome mate,
Great performance, tbh it is the best I've seen us play for well over a year

Welcome to this weird and wonderful site mate.

I think you are right, that is the only way we can fit them all into the same team. I think Januzaj could also play in any of them 3 roles as well. Using this formation the width has to come from the full backs, meaning we certainly need a new left back and also a strong box to box midfielder.

I think we look better with Jones in the middle of the park so him and Carrick would be 2 of the 3 for now.

The only player we have (who I would want to keep, so not including Young and Nani) who I don't think fits into an attacking position in this formation would be Antonio Valencia who managed to rip that left back a new one last night. In games where we are expecting to attack more maybe he could be deployed as a right back, especially with Rafael seemingly getting injured regularly again.

I think its been obvious to most for a while that Kagawa needed to be given a try in his preferred no.10 roll. The problem now is do we try and accomodate 1 striker or both? I'd like to see us try a 3, 4, 1, 2 with evans/vidic/smalling, evra/carrick/jones/raphael, kagawa, rooney/RVP.

I agree with you GDS2 completely I rate januzaj very highly so he will get plenty of game time with this formation but we do defiantly need new lb and atleast 2 cm who would you pick to sign if we did use this formation

The thing with Januzaj is he;'s only young and shouldn't be overplayed.

So he could easily play 30-40mins in most games, coming onto replace one of those players in any of those positions as he's versatile.

We need stronger personnel behind these players, and we'd be tough to beat - CM, I mean.

28 Nov 2013 12:24:06
So we saw last night exactly what I have wanted all along. A player with a great first touch, an eye for a pass and the ability to make that pass playing the number 10 role. I've said it and been shot down on numerous occassions, but in that role he is much much better than Rooney. As much as people defend Rooney and have a go at me, and as well as he has played so far at times this season, he is not a number 10 and shouldn't keep Kagawa out of that position, no matter who is/isnt fit. For me, him not playing and not playing in his position is as ludicrous as the Mata situation has been at Chelsea.

Without Kagawa linking the play last night, Rooney wouldn't have had the opportunity to play as well as he did. In my eyes, he needs Kagawa to do the number 10's job so that he can do the damage further forward with Kagawa's assistance. Together they can be unstoppable as long as Rooney keeps up his effort and attitude. If he goes back to the player of the last few years after he gets his contract, then it won't work obviously.

I know I have been shot down for suggesting it quite a few times on here, but I honestly think a 4231 would be ideal for us with Januzaj on the left hand side of the 3, Rooney to the right, but both having a licence to swap continually, Kagawa slightly behind those two and RVP up top. With Rafael and someone like Coentrao as fullbacks providing the width, with Fellaini and a new top quality CM giving the defence protection, and the forwards the licence to destroy any team we come up against. To get this formation we would need to spend about £75m but we could sell Nani, Young and Anderson so there is £30m back straight away.

I know it probably won't happen but, if I was manager, it is the way I would go.

Good post Brendan, just a shame you ruined it at the end.
The ‘Fellaini and a new top quality CM giving the defence protection’ bit was bad enough but then you topped that with the ‘we could sell Nani, Young and Anderson so there is £30m back’. We would be lucky to get £5m for any one off the four, although both Ando and Nani can have great games just not too often.

Kags had a decent game rooney and in particular GIGGS where excellent .
Rooney has been excellent all season with or with out kags playing.

That was the best we have played since the the last time we played the Germans that time with rvp and rooney up top so it maybe wasn't just down to kags

JTR, Fellaini and a quality CM will be a very good midfield. He hasn't looked too good so far but he will improve no matter how many people think otherwise. It's like people want him to fail, give the guy a chance. He has gone from tiny Everton to the might of Man United, the expectation and pressure will take time to get used to but he will. I'm almost certain we will get about £30m for the 3 I mentioned. I, personally, wouldn't pay it but there is a lot of silly money out there. I think we'll get £12m for Nani due to his new contract, £10m for Young as he is an England international (even though he is utter dog sh*te) and some person will pay £8m for the Pillsbury Doughboy.

JRED, Rooney has been very good at times this season I won't deny that, his first touch and short passing aside. He wouldn't have got the opportunities last night for assists etc if Kagawa hadn't been there to link the play, who else would have done that? We don't have anyone. We were good against Bayer last time but last night was a much better performance, the balance of the team was excellent and, in my eyes, that was due to the position Kagawa played and his performance. The Germans were terrified of him, how many times did they foul the poor guy? Rooney was very good but that, for me, was due to the work Kagawa did as much as Rooney's ability.

I have to say though that my favourite moment from last night was the short free kick we took in the first half on the left wing. Obviously down to the work on the training ground and should have resulted in a goal, it was nice to see that kind of inventive set piece and we lack that most of the time. Hope it is something we do more of along with the fluid attacking football we played.

Brendan
As I have said further up the page I think a lot of that had to do with giggs and Jones in the middle and the tempo they set.
We moved the ball much quicker from front to back ans as a result we stretched Bayer which meant that all our forwards had a bit of space, normally by the time we get the ball forward the opposition have 10men back.
I think giggs linked the play up extremely well and in turn allowed kags Rooney and Valencia to play

Jred don't get me wrong, I think Giggs was brilliant last night and he and Jones put in excellent performances. Their efforts would normally have been in vain though as we wouldn't have moved the ball through the area where a good number 10 operates. It all came together last night, for me, from midfield onwards. The 2 CM's did their job properly which allowed Kagawa to drop back and link the midfield and forwards as we have all been desperate to see. I just think that Kagawa was the linchpin last night as he capitalised on our CM's doing their job right and linked it to Rooney and Valencia who were doing their jobs perfectly too. Without him there, as we have no one else who can do that particular job, the efforts of the 4 players mentioned would have been in vain, I think, and it would have been a great shame as they were all brilliant. No comment on Nani.

We will never know but I think Rooney and rvp would of done just as well.
As they showed in the home game .
We have struggled in cm all season the one time we have a cm pair that play well the whole team look better.
Rooney has played well all season last night there where a couple of players on his level.
Personally I think kags has been improving all season and don't buy in to the he can't play on the left theory, I think a good performance like that was coming and it was no surprise he played well when we played quicker football.
I don't think the position is the problem for kags I think it's the style of football we have played.
With fellain and clevs in the middle and slow build up allowing Bayer to get men behind the ball and cutting down on the space I don't think kags would of played as well

28 Nov 2013 09:59:07
Good performance last night, great result. Aside from the obvious plusses from the game eg Kagawa's performance in his preferred central role, I think Moyes learned a valuable lesson last night. What a difference it makes to be positive and go for the jugular, rather than go 1 - 0 up and then try to shut up shop. Many have already said, and rightly so, that just is not the United way. We are not used to it, and I don't think have the players to play that way. We saw last night the positives of trying to kill a team off, rather than just sitting back and grinding out results.
Lets hope last night was a lesson learned, and long may it continue. Results like that can only build confidence, and that more than anything is the thing we have missed lately. We are still in need of quality additions and mustn't get carried away with one result, but last night can only help the cause.

28 Nov 2013 09:04:11
excellent performance last night, everyones mentioned the obvious players however the man who allowed it all to tick has'nt really had a mention, Phil Jones. i'm not just baseing my comment on last nights performance it seems everytime he plays in midfield we look so much more solid, i'm not suggesting he is the answer because long term I see him as a central defender, however as happened last night whoever is playing next to him needs to drive us forward and be quick on the ball, I think this has been our problem when carrick/cleverley/fellaini have played and the only person who has done this is giggs so I see no reason to change anything against spurs and that includes leaving kagawa in the hole but maybe swaping nani for januzaj.

28 Nov 2013 02:42:11
Good Source.

Manchester United will get Leighton Baines in the summer!

Everton could not justify losing their Manager, and 2 of the best players to Manchester United in the one summer. Everton told DM that he could take 1 now and 1 later. Fellaini was far more expendable at the time with the successful loan bid of Gareth Barry.

I say how much money has been discussed, but a possible cash plus player deal is on the cards with DM not seeing Wilfred Zaha in his vision for the club.

I hope not! Zaha is a great prospect, whilst there are other options for left back

28 Nov 2013 01:58:29
Wow, 5-0 away in a european game. Unbelievable, Moyes out