Manchester United Rumours Archive November 22 2011

22 Nov 2011 19:13:42
Bayern Munich chief executive Karl-Heinz Rummenigge has revealed an attempt to prise Portuguese winger Nani away from Manchester United.

According to German sources, Rumenigge said: “We had an interest in Nani, but unfortunately the price went up and up so he was too expensive.”
jred

Why the hell do they need Nani when they have Ribery and Robben?!?!? {Ed004's Note - Ribery is over rated}

I don't know about Ribery being overrated. He's doing pretty well with 6 goals and 6 assists this season in the Bundesliga. I think if anything Bayern's worried about Robben's injuries.

Ruudinthemood

In my opinion one or other is to likely to be injured and let's be fair we would sooner have Nani than either of those two

Pardoe

Wud be nice to get a deal sorted out for nani that included schweinsteiger :-)

Robbo

If Bayern offered Schweinsteiger in return for Nani I would accept that in a heart beat. Nani is a very good player for us but he still only performs one game out of three, that's not 'United Quality'

United Till I Die 1987

22 Nov 2011 04:18:58
It's just a differant way i looked at it. Everyone keeps saying spend 30+ million on players like Gotze or Martinez and when we have Pogba and Morrison who could be as good at our club i just don't think that makes sense. The problem is they aren't ready yet so my solution is to put an extra player in the centre to make us more solid down the spine of the team and to give more support to the youngsters when they play. And to add more of a threat going forward so as teams are forced to drop deeper to cope giving our midfield more breathing space. That i think is a better plan than buying players to get in the way of the most promising young players to come through our academy since Giggs and Scholes. But it seems that you are one of the few who are prepared to look outside the box.

Shappy

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Shappy I think it's obvious that this is SAF's plan as he hasn't bought another CM yet. Anybody in the world can see that there's a hole there in the middle that needs filling and I just think he is biding his time until the kids are ready to go. I think a Pogba/Cleverly relationship has the potential to be great. Why bother spaffing 30M on a player you don't need.

He is trying a lot of different CM pairs at the mo (to be fair could be to do with injury) but I think he's just trying to plug the gap with what he has at hand until the boys are ready.

Good plan in my opinion, it's working.

Joe

I totally agree with Shappy and Joe. I believe SAF is looking for and older midfielder no more than 18 million or so. Somebody who will do the job aswell as help teach the likes of Morrison, Pogba and Cleverly by showing the tricks in the trade.

With Morrison's and Pogba's great potential and Cleverly already proved to be a star why should we spend 30-40 million on one player when that could buy 2 good players e.g Jones and Young last Summer.

^^^^ So someone like, say, Scott Parker, ooooops, we missed out there already.
Joe, Fergie has missed out on his own targets, he has tried to sign a CM'r but failed for whatever reasons, as it is he is filling the gap but it is'nt by choice.... HERBIE

What about the 30+ fergy was going to spend on sneijder
jred

It's working!!!! Are you serious mate? I would hate to see how bad we would be if it wasn't working!

Well without cleverley, we go back to the standard of football we were playing last season, grinding out wins not really playing creative football. So you could say atm, it's working but not working well. I was watching a lot of clips of Pogba recently because of this whole contract nonsense! He does really excite me, i think him and Cleverley would be a fantastic partnership. They connected well against leeds, they both were more than happy to give the ball to each other.

Ozwald

People keep saying how crap we are and that we'd no good but this is our best start to a season since 07/08, since then we've won the title 3 times with worst starts. So yes even though we're not playing great football we are getting the results so it is working.

At the start of the season we were playing great attacking football but were a shambles at the back and our midfield were great going forward but were not offering any protection to our defence, that's why i think if we added a more defensive midfielder into the midfield with Cleverley and Anderson then we'd be better than we were at the start of the season.

Shappy

I agree with that last quote from shappy. its no coincidence that our form dipped and attacking football failed when cleverley got injured. we also had no fletcher or carrick beginning of season to possibly try and play the defenisive role. i know what people say about carrick but playing that role infront of back four breaking up attacks, his what he his good at.

Glad of the 5 clean sheets in last 5 games, and we are defo building back up. 3pts is 3pts, and come end of the season i wonder how many 1-0 wins will help us clinch number 20.

We we're playing all round better football at the beginning of the season, when we had anderson and cleverley in midfield we were great! Our defense wasn't perfect, but with all the rotations being made within the back four you can't expect miricles. Our defense is bound to get stronger as the season goes on, with jones and smalling coming into the team. Ever since Kevin motherfudging Davies broke Tom Cleverley's ankle, our team has looked less ambitious, less confident and generally being short on players with the amount of injuries. We never needed a £30 m + player in our team.. All we needed was Cleverley, who brought out the best in Anderson. With a fully functioning midfield the widemen and forwards could cocerntrate on their own game rather than having to come infield, or for the forwards to drop back deeper. We're just not getting the ball moved around quick enough in the middle. I know united have always been known for having influential widemen doing the job but you need a strong enough midfield to supply them. Anderson + Cleverley was working fine, although i would love to see Pogba + Cleverley.

Ozwald

Influential widemen as you put it will surely soon be a thing of the past? who actually plays with rigid wingers like united anymore? bayern have ribery and robben.. but europe's other big hitters have far more fluid players who offer more in attacke, defence, ball retention. barca, real madrid, ac milan etc. maybe this is the problem? im not saying were stuck in the past, but maybe that we dont have balance in the squad. loads of wingers.. with no big target man to hit with crosses.. and an inept collection of center mids. i dont think we have the quaity in center mid to give the rest of our players artistic license. im no manager, or even mike phelans equivilant (tea boy?) but i know something is not right.

I agree completely with the above post very few top teams in europe and international football play with 2 wingers.
ball retention is key and wingers by there very nature dribbling crossing tend to give the ball away
jred

22 Nov 2011 01:03:48
Right the Martinez link has only come from some shady spainish paper and there is nothing to surgest that we are at all interested and even if we were he'd be out of our price range and not avaliable until the summer at least.

And we've been here with Gotze before the differance is last time it was Sanchez who was the best young talent in the world and we were after him and he was a untied fan so it was only a matter of time that the best young player in the world would join us only for the little s##t to go and join Barca. And we get our hopes dashed having built him up as our saviour and the player to make the differance.

Gotze is a good young player with potential........nothing more. To say he is a future Ballon d'or winner is absurd at this stage in his career. Whether he becomes a great player is yet to be seen, but he does have a chance.....in fact he has as much chance as Morrison or Pogba and neither of them will cost us 30m+.

How about we appreciate the great young players we have rather than fixating on a young player who'll cost a fortunte and most likely end up playing his football somewhere else anyway.

Yes we need someone to improve our midfield but i think we should be looking at someone who is closer to being the finished artical rather than buying a talented teenager like the ones we already have.

we're living in a dream world if we honestly think we are gonna get these players, we are setting ourselves up for the fall. Let's be abit more realistic with who we are likely yo get and lets not build them up like the scousers did with Phil Jones only to have back track when he joins someone else.

Shappy

You say that we should look at our own youth players rather than buy one in for mega £££, but then you say we should look at someone closer to being a finished article? Someone like Mario Goetze still has a long way to go, but he is definitely closer to being a finished artical than pogba and morrison? I mean he is a starting XI player from a winning Bundesliga team, and he plays regularly for Germany. Not saying he's a finished article or whatever but he has the qualities and the talent to be successful at the highest level and he's 19.

Ozwald

I was just pointing that out, don't actually think he's the right player for us.

Ozwald

He is a like Jones in alot of ways, a very good player atm but a long way off being the finsihed artical. What i mean by looking at a player who is closer to being the finished artical is someone who has talent and experiance, someone between the ages of 22-26 who has played alot of first team football so they can hold the fort for the next few years while the young players settle in and gain experiance and then offer support to those young players when they take the position for their own.

If we bring in someone like Gotze for alot of money we'd have to play him before the likes of Pogba and Morrison so they are likely to look for first team football else where.The way i see it is IF we signed Gotze i get the feeling that he'd only be here until Madrid came calling and if he is a sucess here that would only be a matter of time, maybe 3/4 years then he'd be gone. The question is will Pogba and Morrison still be here when he leaves? I don't think they will be happy with limited roles over the next 3/4 years which is why i feel it better to save the 30m+ it'd cost to get him and spend it on someone alittle older who can help guide them into the first team.

Shappy

Well said Shappy I agree with you.

We've all been raving about these wonderkids for a while now so why block their progress by buying another developing wonderkid like Gotze. Buying an experienced stop-gap player makes sense, especially seeing as we lost a load of experience in our team last year (Neville,VDS,Hargo,Scholes) and we stand to lose even more by this summer (Giggs?Berba?Owen?Carrick?Evra?Rio?)

I mean you cant win anything with kids can you! (?)

A more defensive minded midfielder would be better for us. I wouldn't have minded Scott Parker along side Cleverley in midfield. Cleverley is extremely important to united got a great engine and can keep the tempo up. Gotze is a good young player but he is still developing and he is going to need time to adapt to premier league aswell if we brought him which is a bit too much for around £30 million for a youngster. You can win trophies with kids but not a team full of 11 kids. To Fergies credit he brought the players into the squad at the right time. And even if giggs was to retire and ferdinand is becoming injury prone and does not look the old Rio. Atleast half the team their vidic, nani, rooney, anderson, fletcher, park and carrick and others have been their when we have won the Premier League and Champions league so the youngster coming through are going to be playing in a team that has had the experience of winning many trophies. End of the day we are not arsenal were not going to throw all the youngsters in at once with out any experience.

In all fairness, joachim löw , the german national team manager, has been quoted often, saying: " Mario Götze is the future of German football " high praise indeed, considering the German midfield at the moment. I believe under the stewardship of SAF he would be a phenominal player for united.