United Could start Season without 4 first team players.

GuanYin

With Rio Ferdinand and John O'Shea out til Sept (or longer) with suspension and injury respectively, and Ronaldo and possably Heinze at the Olympics, United could find themselves missing all four players for the first 4 premiership games the CL qualifiers and the Charity (community) shield.

Do they have the squad to cope without having a poor setback. They'll miss Ronaldo and O'Shea for the CL qualifiers anyway.

jesus_thats_gre

Originally posted by syke
Do they have the squad to cope without having a poor setback. They'll miss Ronaldo and O'Shea for the CL qualifiers anyway.

ask smemon, he will know this one for sure!!

Taking bets!!

smemon

yeah tricky one, charity shield is a must win and cl qualifiers will be tough against fgugfsgfsg fc.

do we have the squad to cope? we only need 11 players to show up, any 11 will do.

for the 4 prem games, weve taken in miller, smith the numbers will be made up. we'll miss ronaldo against chelsea and heinz hasnt played yet so we dont know what we're missing.

we'll get by, charity shield will give us an indication of how well we'll do.

GuanYin

Originally posted by smemon
yeah tricky one, charity shield is a must win and cl qualifiers will be tough against fgugfsgfsg fc.

Glad to see you know anything about your own teams season. Utd don't joing the qualifying til the 3rd round.

Funny that Liverpool, Rangers Monaco, Real Madrid, Inter Milan, Juventus and Benfica will begin their campaigns in the third qualifying round with Utd and the seeding doesnt come into effect at that stage so its quite possible that Utd could draw any of those teams.

Any 11 against Juve, Madrid or Milan? I'll be reminding you of this if they go out.

SteM

Originally posted by smemon
do we have the squad to cope? we only need 11 players to show up, any 11 will do.

Good one, sure I'll turn out if they can't make up the numbers

Hopefully we'll not pick up any bad injuries on this tour of the States, don't know what the PLC were thinking booking that during a summer that also had the euro championships. Feckin stupid :rolleyes:

thegills

don't know what the PLC were thinking booking that during a summer that also had the euro championships

Money my friend. Utd PLC don't care about the players well-being only their marketing potential. They bought Ronaldo becuase Portugal were hosting Euro2004 and he would be the 'flair' player. Bought Tim Howard because they wan't to crack the US hence the forthcoming trip, etc.

eirebhoy

Originally posted by thegills
Money my friend. Utd PLC don't care about the players well-being only their marketing potential. They bought Ronaldo becuase Portugal were hosting Euro2004 and he would be the 'flair' player. Bought Tim Howard because they wan't to crack the US hence the forthcoming trip, etc.

Ferguson has the say of who comes and goes. Are you saying he cares more about marketing than success?

SteM

Originally posted by thegills
Money my friend.

Well yeah, that was a bit of a rhetorical question tbh.

Utd PLC don't care about the players well-being only their marketing potential. They bought Ronaldo becuase Portugal were hosting Euro2004 and he would be the 'flair' player. Bought Tim Howard because they wan't to crack the US hence the forthcoming trip, etc. [/B]

Ronaldo and Howard were their best buys last summer so I don't think they bought them just for the reasons you stated. Also, how would they have known for sure that Ronaldo would have even been picked for the Euro 2004 squad? Also, if they only cared about marketing potential they would have kept Beckham.

kida

Glad to see you know anything about your own teams season. Utd don't joing the qualifying til the 3rd round.

Funny that Liverpool, Rangers Monaco, Real Madrid, Inter Milan, Juventus and Benfica will begin their campaigns in the third qualifying round with Utd and the seeding doesnt come into effect at that stage so its quite possible that Utd could draw any of those teams.

Any 11 against Juve, Madrid or Milan? I'll be reminding you of this if they go out.

Syke - you should really check your facts before you slag off someone else - the qualifiers are seeded so Utd can't draw any of the above you mentioned

eirebhoy

There will be 32 teams in round 3 of the qualifiers and most of the following teams will be there (the teams with "Q2" have an extra round so aren't certain to qualify to round 3):

Deportivo
Real Madrid
Juve
Inter
Man Utd
Liverpool
Bayer Leverkusen
Monaco
Panatoikos
Benfica
PSV
Rangers
Anderlecht
Club Brugge (Q2)
Sparta Prague (Q2)
Basel
Dinamo Kiev
Maccabi Haifa
Rosenborg (Q2)

That means at least 3 of those clubs won't be seeded, Dinamo Kiev, Maccabi Haifa and Rosenborg. They could easily cause upsets. Remember Haifa -v- United!:D

PHB

Sun 15th Chelsea PREM. 16:05
Sat 21st Norwich City PREM. 17:15
Wed 25th Everton PREM. 19:45
Sat 28th Blackburn Rovers PREM. 12:45


Those teams are not the teams I'd have liked to start on.
Chelsea for obvious reasons, but I really feel that they will need time to gel once again.

Norwich City will really be looking to make a name for themselves in the premiership, and they will have incredible hunger

Everton are ****ers I still remember that final

Blackburn you can never discount

Rio Ferdinand
John O'Shea
Ronaldo
Heinze

Leaves

Howard

Neville - Brown - Neville - Slyvestre - Fortune??

bit weak in the old defense department
might see keano drop back to help out in the defence
Scholes - Miller - Keane - Giggs - DD - Kleberson

Saha - Smith - Van Nist

Mid + Up front should be ok, but the back is weak without Rio.
Hopefully Heinze might put club first and realise he should try make his impression before Rio gets back and there is serious competition for places.

Also Champs League is seeded the whole way up my friend, and Man Utd will have a very easy side to play, hopefully it'll be Irish and we can go watch

I want a draw vs. Chelsea
Then 3 wins to start off the season

SteM

It's not certain that Heinze will be gone yet though is it? I thought he's been called into a provisional squad but it's not been made final yet.

eirebhoy

Originally posted by PHB
Hopefully Heinze might put club first and realise he should try make his impression before Rio gets back and there is serious competition for places.

The Australian FA got Viduka banned for missing a match for his country when he wasn't injured.

Originally posted by PHB
Also Champs League is seeded the whole way up my friend, and Man Utd will have a very easy side to play.

In the qualifiers, 16 teams are seeded and 16 teams are not. The draw is then seeded -v- unseeded, simple as that.

The Rooster

Its unlikely that Henize will be in the Olympics. Argentina have picked something like 12 or 13 overage players in their provisional squad, and only 3 can go.

I thought O'Shea's injury was very minor?

Surprised that Ronaldo is going to the Olympics. In that case Ferguson will rest him until at least mid October, I'd guess.

Even though Rosenborg have to play an additional qualifer, they will still be seeded in round 3 (assuming they make it through). Or at least they were seeded last year in the exact same circumstances.

Big Nelly

Utd will just stick Solskjaer on the right and Giggs on left to replace Ronaldo....dont tink Heinze will go! new club and all he will prob ask to be removed....They will have Brown(back to full fitness) Silvestre, G Neville and P. Neville.....not a bad back 4 even without O'Shea or Heinze.......bet Crystal Palace wud love it:-)

The Muppet

Injuries and suspensions you can do nothing about. Henize may not have figured in Fergies plans for these important games so early on in his United career which leaves Ronaldo . I would rather United fielded a full strength team in all their games next season and Ronaldo would be playing if that is the case. However all players are entitle to play for their national team so it will be the same for all clubs losing players to the olympics.

eirebhoy

Originally posted by The Rooster
Even though Rosenborg have to play an additional qualifer, they will still be seeded in round 3 (assuming they make it through). Or at least they were seeded last year in the exact same circumstances.

Rosenborg have the lowest coeffiecent out of all the teams listed above, so unless a few teams with lower coefficents qualify from R2 they won't be seeded.

Big Ears

and last year they played Deportivo who surely would have been seeded , which means Rosenborg wearnt and some1 was making stuff up .

thegills

Also, if they only cared about marketing potential they would have kept Beckham.

Not quite, Beckham as a product had reached the crest of his product lifestyle so they sold him (good job too as he is crap). Ronaldo is a new product to the market; he was always going to be a key player for Portugal so a good buy for Utd. Pity they didn't win Euro 2004 as every 2nd kid in Portugal would have been wearing a Utd. jersey with Ronaldo on the back of it. Rumour has it too that Cleenex and Clearasil are close to offering Ronaldo marketing contracts.

Ferguson has the say of who comes and goes. Are you saying he cares more about marketing than success?

Are you saying that he withdrew from the FA Cup as he valued success in the Nike Cup / World Championship trophy more?

SteM

Originally posted by thegills
Not quite, Beckham as a product had reached the crest of his product lifestyle so they sold him (good job too as he is crap). Ronaldo is a new product to the market; he was always going to be a key player for Portugal so a good buy for Utd. Pity they didn't win Euro 2004 as every 2nd kid in Portugal would have been wearing a Utd. jersey with Ronaldo on the back of it. Rumour has it too that Cleenex and Clearasil are close to offering Ronaldo marketing contracts.

So you'll ignore my comment about Howard and Ronaldo being their best buys last summer so you can make some tired 'that kid's got sports' gag? :rolleyes: Have Howard and Ronaldo been effective signings on the field for United?

Are you saying that he withdrew from the FA Cup as he valued success in the Nike Cup / World Championship trophy more? [/B]

It seems to be common knowledge now that United were pushed into a corner to compete in that tournamant. BTW, United weren't with Nike at that point (they signed in 2002) so I don't know what you mean by calling it the Nike Cup?

eirebhoy

Originally posted by thegills
Are you saying that he withdrew from the FA Cup as he valued success in the Nike Cup / World Championship trophy more?

I can't believe you think Ferguson care's more about marketing than success. Of all the managers in the world he would be the least interested in that side of the business.

The Muppet

Originally posted by thegills

Are you saying that he withdrew from the FA Cup as he valued success in the Nike Cup / World Championship trophy more?

It's well known in football circles that Utd pulled out of the FA cup because of pressure exerted by the FA and British government for them to play in that tournament in the belief that it would benefit Englands bid to host the world cup in 2006. That decision was taken in the national interest and not for financial benefit .

If you would like to familarize yourself with the story you will find further details
here

smemon

manutd aren't a rock band or supermarket store, whats this nonsense about 'cracking the US' and 'Ronaldo is a new product to the market'.

Tim howard and ronaldo were 2 of utds best last season, with fergie signing them you know their football talent came 1st.

beckham wasnt sold because he'd reached his peak marketing wise, he had a bustup with fergie and was forced out. surely that totally rubbishes your points. beckham was and still is the biggest name in football, if utd are so interested in marketing they would have held on to him.

did we sign liam miller to crack the irish market or alan smith to crack the leeds market? i dont think so.

SteM

From Aertel this morning:

http://www.rte.ie/aertel/p224.htm

John O'Shea is hoping to be fit for Manchester United's pre-season tour of the United States even though he has not started full training yet.

The defender had a knee operation earlier in the summer and looked set to miss the Red Devils' three-match programme in the US.

But even though the odds seem stacked against him, O'Shea is hopeful 'With a bit of luck, I will make the American tour but I'm not sure,' he said.

'I am still recovering from the small operation I had and hopefully I'll join back in with the rest of the squad early next week' he added.