Manchester United Banter Archive September 28 2011

28 Sep 2011 23:22:35
Right abit early for when i'd normally do a assessment of the teams performance i'd normally wait until november time but due to recent performances i thought i'd give you guys my two cents now.

Defensively we've been poor ALL season but due to key injuries(Rooney, Cleverley, Vidic) it's starting to cost us.
Now for me there are 4 main contributing factors to our poor defence. The first being that last season we had one of the best organisers of a defence in Van Der Sar, now this isn't a slant on De Gea but at the moment he just isn't as good as VDS was, I'm sure in time he will be but not having a keeper who can organise the defence is a big blow but one that could be made up for if we solve the other 3 problems i see.
The second is that we don't have a settled back four to work with, all this chopping and changing means it's hard to sort out communication and organisation between everyone. But once the injuries subside this should sort it's self out.
Third is the decline of certain key members of our defence. I feel Rio has lost half a yard of pace and his ability to recover was a big part of his game, not being able to as quickly means he has to taylor his game to how he can play now. Hopefully it's just that he's not quite fully fit, but this or next season will be his last at united. Now we move on to a player who has been widely slated today.......Evra. He needs to be moved on, the worst thing is i don't think his legs are gone but his head. He seem perfectly able to sprint forward to attack but just can't be bothered to track back and this is pulling our defence all over the place while people cover for him, he has become a passenger in our defence and had it not been for all the injuries i feel he'd be finding splinters in his ass as he'd be benched so much.
The forth problem with our defence has been a problem for nearly FOUR years, that being that we have no one providing cover infront of them. Carrick does the job, but it's not his strong suit and as such we have suffered. It has only been the brilliance of Vidic and Ferdinand behind our midfield that has covered for it abit, but if you wanna see the problem in it's worst just rewatch the last two champions league finals, Barca camped out in the space between our defence and midfield and no one there to break up their play and help out the defence. We need someone who is capable of protecting the back four while also able to pass forward and create as times have moved on and you can only afford to have a Makelele type player if you have a midfield three, which more often than not we won't.

So thats why we've been poor defensively, Lack of organisation from our keeper, Players in decline, Mis-mash defence due to injuries and no one sheilding the back four.

How do we solve it? well most of it through training and will take abit of time. But Evra needs to go and possibly Ferdinand depending on who we bring in.
With Evra leaving we need a new left back, the three best options i see are Izaquirre, Pereira and Fabio now if we promote Fabio then we would need someone else as cover, i'd go for Briggs as his under study. Now if we get Briggs then i think it would be best to keep Ferdinand for another year for his experiance but if we were to get one of the other two then i feel we could let Ferdinand go.
Then we need a new body in midfield to help shield the back four and dictate play. The three on my list would be: McCarthy- good young player who's proven in the premier league, wouldn't cost a fortune, Barkley- super talented but very young, could you thrust him into the key games? would be quite expensive, Martinez- top talent and a good age, would be expensive but worth every penny. One of these or a player similar should be signed as Pogba is a year or two away yet.

That should sort us out defensively. Now moving forward. Our Midfield need some work now we've discussed getting a defensive force in midfield now we need a creative one. Carrick Gibson and possibly Park(getting older now and will start slowing and becoming inconsistant in the next year or two) could be leaving next summer. So we need a creative spark to help Cleverley and Anderson(hope he can prove himself but he's still inconsistant atm) out. I think it important that we get someone who can play either wide left or centrally as and when needed. The three players on my short list are: Bannan- great prospect and british, perfers being central but can move wide if needed, full of movment and tracks back if needed, Marin- a great player who hardly ever gets noticed because of Ozil and Goetze but is just as good, Douglas Costa- Super talented but blows abit hot and cold, maybe better either out wide or in a midfield three. So with one of these or similar type player plus a more defensive midfielder along with the players coming through we should have an awesome midfield.

Forward players is an interesting one, Berbatov, Owen and one or both of Diouf and Macheda will leave. Now Welbeck has impressed me with his strength movement pace and awareness his shooting and first touch at times lacks conviction but on the whole very impressed and i think he definatley has a future at the club, that leaves Hernandez and of course Rooney which means we may need another 4th choice striker one of: Erick Torres, Alvaro Morata or Angleo Henriquez should sign and be the 4/5th choice depending on whether one of Diouf/Macheda are still at the club.

let me know what you think.

Shappy {Ed007's Note - You won't hear any arguments from me over McCarthy Shappy.}

28 Sep 2011 23:19:09
think evra should go at end of season, hes not trackin back quick enough and as for being capt thats a joke, he is not verbal enough, rio should of worn armband last night

28 Sep 2011 21:13:40
Dortmund are 3.0 down and don't look comfortable in Europe or in the Bundesliga at the moment. If they drop out of the CL at Christmas and they are nowhere near the top four in the Bundesliga, Dortmund could be ready to sell their prized asset in January. According to Raphael Honigstein, he believes Dortmund started the groundwork for him to move on next summer. Could we nab him in January when others have no readies? Mario Goetze is one of the best things in football right now, he is a carbon copy of Sneijder, just less greedy and not as old. Fingers crossed!

Sydney!

28 Sep 2011 20:36:23
Last night I watched some of the play closely. My opinion.
At the beginning Giggs had a lot of space and they didnt get anyone near him for a long time. Their defensive line was not a straight one for some time and the combination cost Basel two goals.

Anderson- Good playing in one direction but when runners went past him into space he didnt do anything and left them in space. Could not keep up with them when running back, not agile.
Carrick- Doesnt cope with runners from midfield. Looks uncomfortable when the space is tight.
Rio- Looks like he is playing with an injury to help the team.
Evra- Slowed down, looked like he was not giving 100% and could not get back at key times.
Welbeck- scored two goals but continues not to convince me he can be first choice, lacks conviction in his touch.

Overall it appeared our defence was seen as the major problem however a less than 100% Rio and an indifferent Evra had no cover from midfield as runners found our two central midfield players who could not show either decent positional play or agility to cover breaks from midfield.
SAF waited until 82 mins to bring Berbatov on and that to me shows how little he trusts the Bulgarian. Berbatov then showed us SAF is right not to trust him.

We will improve when Cleverley, Vidic, Rooney and Hernandez return but the central midfield will cause us major problems this year and if Hernandez is injured so will the striking position, perhaps also in difficult away games when Hernadez doesnt hold the ball well enough yet.

However I am not surprised by those points and given discussions on here all summer nor should anyone else

Red Man

28 Sep 2011 20:11:12
Sydney! {Ed007's Note - I'm not 100% sure of that one Syd, it could be. I deleted a couple of posts that I knew couldn't be Utd fans writing them, then he tried to sign them off with stupid Utd fans kind of names. The best was that the stoater tried to post 3 posts at the same time, 2 of them as a LFC fan and one foul mouthed rant posing as a Utd fan.}

I posted the decline post
Syd should look at are team play an stop bein over confident

I am a utd fan
KingE {Ed007's Note -If people don't use names it is hard to determine who it is from. I have better things to do with my time than hunt about for IP numbers and noting them down.}

28 Sep 2011 18:37:48
Potential new faces that i feel would improve the squad are: Krasic, Bartley, Soriano and the big signing could be Higuain...but id prefer Benzema or Llorente :)

28 Sep 2011 16:24:18
Rooney can not come back into the team quick enough for me. Last 2 games without him we've looked poor in possession and void of ideas.. with the exception of sir ryan of giggs. suppose its only like barca without messi or real without ronaldo.. but still, we shouldve seen out that game last night. embarrassing to say the least.

28 Sep 2011 15:29:25
LFC fan here...

Loving all this stuff happaning with Tevez... that's what happens to traitors and money-grabbers. Can't wait for Torres to hit the headlines in the similar spirit.

RHI

28 Sep 2011 14:57:45
De Gea is shocking what a poor poor buy so is that Phil Jones aswell and boy does that lad have a massive jaw on him.

Dan1CFC
---------------------------
If your going to come on here for a wind up, at least speak sense.

G.A.G.U.S

28 Sep 2011 13:37:56
No sarcasm here ladies whatsoever. Just a wee message to thank you ladies for all the great banter, i've come across on this great site. I'm off for a while, not because of you but some LFC fans cannot handle what you throw at them, and never stop moaning about us and you. It's just getting very, very repetitive from some LFC fans, which is not making the LFC site enjoyable whatsoever. I tip my hat to you guys, none of you regulars i.e Shappy, Mumbles, Matthew, TK, Red Devil, Sydney, GAGUS, HERBIE, etc, etc....have told any of us to kiss off, cheers lads.

I hope you lose every single game you play, but look after yourselves, stay safe.

Blair Mayne YNWA

Ps. You too Ed007, speak to you soon mate, cheers.

28 Sep 2011 10:40:55
did someone really just suggest mclaren? Do you not watch the championship? He's been awful at forest. That got smashed by five last night

28 Sep 2011 10:32:38
LMAO....

What happened lads? You were 2-0 up at home. Two draws on the bounce ah, not looking good is it really?

Two draws in the CL and a draw at stoke.

Well lads look on the bright side, you play Norwich at OT next so you should take all 3 points.

4 points from 9 for you boys, while we'll be taking 9 from 9. See you at Anfield soon lads and don't let the bad form get you down to much.

Maybe SAF should be sponsored by Wrigley's.

TIZER RED
YNWA

28 Sep 2011 09:55:52
redeyedhector
i remember the times your talking about and its because of that i can see where liverpool are in there development back then all we cared about was beating you lot and if we didnt win the league at least we gave you a beating that is where your at now if you beat us its the highlight of your season me i,ll take losing the odd game to you lot or even sh***y as long as it means winning the title your fixation with all things united is your achilles heel cos if you get a result against us you think thats it job done then you go and f**k up against the next 5 or 6 teams and blow all the good work but never mind you,ve still got the memories of the odd good result against us whereas we now concentrate on the bigger picture with a winning mentality

onecut

28 Sep 2011 09:52:30
Tevez refused to leave the subs bench last night as it was closer to his kids than the pitch

28 Sep 2011 09:03:04
Our defence seems to be getting a bit of stick and i can understand why but to be fair it is looking a bit makeshift, fabio ferdinand look like they need a few more games and jones could do with a regular partner.
Have no idea whats going on with evra , either fergy has no one else to play lb or its some mental tactical decision.
but this time next month i'm sure we will be fine there when everyone fit i think we have a very strong set of defenders.
What is a worry, is still our midfield , we are not closing teams down enough in the middle or creative enough in that department. the wingers and rooney are were our creativity is coming from.
in europe the cm area needs to control the game by keeping the ball closing the opposition out and creating chances and after just watching bayern i dont think we are good enough in that department even when clevs is back.
bayern were very good glad we weren't playing them last night
jred

28 Sep 2011 08:14:06
GAGUS, you harp on about my lack of football knowledge because i've been critical of your man Jones.

Well I was an apprentice at Birmingham City when Ron Saunders was at the helm when Mark Dennis, Noel Blake, Van Den Hauwe, Gail, Coton etc were there. I played at a semi-pro standard on a saturday for 12 years so i've been around a bit to be able to know a bit about football. If it hadn't been for the fact that I enjoyed the odd tipple here and there, I may have played at a higher standard.

I watched your man Jones at Blackburn early in the season at Anfield. I didn't know anything about him then, it just so happens I spotted him in the warm up and thought how out of shape he looked. Not for one minute did I think he was 19.

Liverpool pressed Blackburn for the majority of the game putting pressure and their back line. His defencive play that day was woeful. Given that he was lined up in a poor side, he never had the opportunity to push forward. His defencive qualities were there for all to see as Blackburn had to defend for the duration of the game.

I was gob smacked when I heard Liverpool had expressed an interest in him pre-season as I certainly didn't want to see him at Anfield. We have the best footballing centre half in Agger but he can defend too.

Statistics already indicate that De Gea has had to make the most amount of saves in the PL this season. Once Mr Jones starts coming under the cosh during games when your being pressed, his mistakes will proove critical and don't be suprised if the points lost because of them, end up undermining your title challenge.

You have no holding midfielder and this only serves to put more pressure on the back line, where you have a weak defencive link in Jones.

Ozone

28 Sep 2011 07:59:17
Everybody has to agree without nani and Rooney we certainly don't have a creative player who will make a difference giggs can't last the 90min hopefully united buy a creative midfielder think teams are beating us to easily in centre and just taking long range shots which are getting De Gea's stats up but he shouldn't have to be under this pressure... Anybody else think Jones and Vidic could be the new partnership when Vidic comes back??

28 Sep 2011 07:43:26
That was really poor last night. The team is looking average when Rooney is absent. Fergie should have bought better in the summer as we are now suffering the consequences of not having enough depth. It's time Steve McClaren stepped in and Fergie stepped down - ex England manager and ManU faithful.

redredredredred

28 Sep 2011 03:54:20
Respect works both ways. We respect other clubs as other clubs respect us. But try telling that to our own Blair, Redeyed and those who care nothing but slag other teams off on their pages (redeyed spends more time on the mancs pages than here!)

What's there to taunt about the mancs or chavs? We lost our bragging rights years ago. We are still a work in progress but to some it seems it's easier to take the plank off the other person's eye than to take it off your own, right, Blair?

SingRed

_______________________________
Just saw this on the liverpool banter page and almost fell off my chair laughing. Even your own supporters and fed up with you Blair! I saw that you neglected to answer your follow scouser on the banter page so the only logical answer was you are spending all your time on the mancs page.

Atleast there is one non-delusional liverpool fan out there!

Melbourne CFC {Ed002's Note - We are done now with the abuse of fans - regardless of which club they support. Banter is just fine but you need to cut out the abuse.}

28 Sep 2011 00:40:14
Really poor. We could all sit here and say that because Rooney, Vidic, Cleverley, Smalling were missing, that this result came about because the best players were out, but there are no excuses. Any United team should be beating Basel, especially if you have a 2-0 advantage. Some shocking defending tonight. They may have been left open at the back, but that doesn't account for several errors throughout the game. Having said that, I can forgive Jones for playing that ball across the box and I can forgive Valencia for lunging in like that. They give their all for the team. Mistakes happen. What I cannot forgive, is a lack of willingness and determination from a certain player who consistently let's his team down (hello Patrice Evra). His legs haven't gone, but his head has. Why is Young sprinting past him to defend the area? Why is Jones having to cover two positions, as his captain-for-the-day leisurely strolls back to where he's supposed to be? We've seen p!ss poor displays from Evra for a long time now. He's getting turned over by the likes of Aaron Lennon and Theo Walcott (average players). This is most certainly his last year at the club.

The midfield did little going forward and did very little when the defence needed their protection. The general consensus among the CM's at the moment is: 'Give it Nani, give it to Young, they'll do something special'. It's not enough. There's still no sign of a midfielder who can put his foot on the ball and dictate the pace of the game. This "You have a go, we'll have a go" football does not work in Europe, especially once away goals are introduced. The team with the most possession will win the game 90% of the time. This may sound like a knee jerk reaction to a poor performance but it's been evident in the Chelsea, Tottenham and Arsenal games. The opposition are having far too many opportunities on goal. Hopefully the January window is used to good effect (Modric?), although it's probably just wishful thinking.

Matthew...

28 Sep 2011 00:01:31
So, Tevez is on £250,000-a-week, and he refuses to play. What an absolutely unbelievable ****!

G.A.G.U.S