Manchester United Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread - 2013/14 mod warning post#7259

NTMK

Mitch Connor wrote: »

Anderson going, while not in the least bit surprising, would leave us with Carrick, Fellaini and Cleverley, backed by Giggs and Fletcher. If we sell Anderson in January we HAVE to bring in a midfielder. Who, though, is the question.

Herrera would be an obvious target again I suppose, given we were in for him and he wouldn't be CL-tied.
.

tbh that should be the case regardless of whether or not anderson goes

CL-tied isnt a huge thing imo but i still think we would need a non cl tied player (i.e herrera) to come in.

Having a MF for the EPL is a higher priority imo

Oregano_State

n32 wrote: »

Delighted to see fletcher back playing albeit at reserve level. He s the type of player you would have to love for his effort and committment and he comes across as a no **** kind of fella. Some dedication and desire to keep coming back from that illness

One of my friends has the same illness and had the surgery. It takes a long time to recover from and he still has to take loads of meds, but as far as I can tell he's back to full health.

There's a difference between being healthy enough to walk around, and healthy enough to be an elite athlete. Fletch is missing a large part if his intestines so absorbing nutrients from good is hampered. I'm no doctor, but that would have to affect his recovery from games. He may be able to get back to a high level, but would have to be rested more, and his career will probably be shortened overall.

Rayne Wooney

There are a lot of people who think Fellaini wasn't worth the money we paid, I wonder what they'll think about signing Ander is that case, he's not blown my mind in the games I've seen him.

Robson99

Rayne Wooney wrote: »

There are a lot of people who think Fellaini wasn't worth the money we paid, I wonder what they'll think about signing Ander is that case, he's not blown my mind in the games I've seen him.

Has Muniain gone off the boil altogether ? He was class for Bilboa in the Europa league a couple of seasons ago and looked a real prospect. Haven't heard him mentioned in a while

newballsplease

Hows Thiago getting on at Bayern?!

Lucas Hood

newballsplease wrote: »

Hows Thiago getting on at Bayern?!

Only played 2 league games I think, been out injured .

homerjay2005

Rayne Wooney wrote: »

I wonder what they'll think about signing Ander is that case, he's not blown my mind in the games I've seen him.

he has been really really poor this season. am a little bit shocked that Moyes didnt see Thiago as a priority but then wanted this fellow. Thiago is a much more proven player.

Herraras form this season is so poor, he is not even making the team now and has finished very few games, i think its only one full game so far this season.

tallaghtmick

homerjay2005 wrote: »

he has been really really poor this season. am a little bit shocked that Moyes didnt see Thiago as a priority but then wanted this fellow. Thiago is a much more proven player.

Herraras form this season is so poor, he is not even making the team now and has finished very few games, i think its only one full game so far this season.

I'd say Herrara's head isnt in the game after the transfer debacle and is itching for a January move, hopefully thats all it is and we dont buy a dud :pac:

Vic Vinegar

homerjay2005 wrote: »

he has been really really poor this season. am a little bit shocked that Moyes didnt see Thiago as a priority but then wanted this fellow. Thiago is a much more proven player.

Thiago was always going to Bayern, any reason to try and make Moyes look bad though, eh?

Maximus Alexander

tallaghtmick wrote: »

I'd say Herrara's head isnt in the game after the transfer debacle and is itching for a January move, hopefully thats all it is and we dont buy a dud :pac:

It's United, I'd say it's about 50-50 that any purchase will be a dud! :pac:

wheres me jumpa

Rayne Wooney wrote: »

Maybe with Fletcher coming back we don't need any midfield signings





*runs*

He will be like a new signing.......

Pro. F

Bombleswizzum wrote: »

Thiago was always going to Bayern, any reason to try and make Moyes look bad though, eh?

But everybody knows that Moyes wasn't interested in Thiago. It was discussed in here loads of times. What more proof do you want? etc, etc.

Robson99

Bombleswizzum wrote: »

Thiago was always going to Bayern, any reason to try and make Moyes look bad though, eh?

Is all the criticism of Moyes and Woodward in relation to the summer transfers a bit OTT. Both came in during the summer and would have required a period of time to settle in and get accustomed to the Club. The fact that Both Fergie and Gill retired at the same time has not helped either of them. Surely Gill could have stayed until the end of the transfer window to blood in Woodward. Has anyone here who criticizes Woodward changed jobs and been up to scratch in their new position straight away? I dont think so

We all know that the middle of the park needs probably 2 world class players. However Fergie and Gill had done nothing for the last few seasons to sort it out. The mess that our middle of the park is in is down to them not Moyes and Woodward. At least they signed a player for the position although the jury is out on whether he is actually good enough

I think Thiago was always going to go to Bayern. Sure they should have offered Barca more for Fabergas but I think the change of manager didnt help our chances of getting him. I dont think both him and Thiago would have been let leave

It looks as though there is money there after all we supposedly bid €100m for Bale. Thankfully this didnt happen as our middle of the park would still be a problem and at least we should have that money to address this.

I think both Moyes and Woodward need both the January and the Summer transfer windows to sort out the squad. Expecting them to work miracles straight away is just madness IMO. Should they f**k up in those two windows then the knives can be thrown. But they need that chance

kryogen

Gill didn't retire. Started a new job.

Robson99

kryogen wrote: »

Gill didn't retire. Started a new job.

At UTD?

LostBoy101

Robson99 wrote: »

At UTD?

Nope, UEFA.

Robson99

LostBoy101 wrote: »

Nope, UEFA.

Fair enough QUIT. It still left Woodward thrown in at the deep end

Mitch Connor

Whatever about everything else...

Woodward knew he had the job since February. He knew Fergie was leaving within days of taking the job. Moyes was approached and confirmed on May 9th. The season finished for United and Everton May 19th.

That it got to July 1st before Moyes officially started is incredibly cheap and short sighted of United, and contributed to the problem we had in the summer. Moyes should have been in and working as soon as possible.

As for the midfield problems being down to Fergie and Gill, to an extent yes - but the state of the team is now the responsibility of Moyes and Woodward. They should have seen the quality requirements and been working to that end immediately. That we only signed Fellaini in the summer is the failure of Moyes and Woodward.

Al Capwned

Would waiting for July 1st for Moyes to (officially) start have been to avoid paying compensation to Everton if he'd quit before his contract actually ended?

I can't see any scenario where Moyes wasn't involved in decision making with United as soon as he agreed to take the job. Impossible to believe that he had no contact between May 9 and July 1 imo.

bucketybuck

Robson99 wrote: »

Is all the criticism of Moyes and Woodward in relation to the summer transfers a bit OTT.

I can't really agree with any of this. Moyes had the entire transfer window to address an incredibly obvious problem with the squad. This wasn't a case of a new manager losing an influential player with only days left in the window, he had months to get something done. Plenty of managers would love to have had that amount of time.

Robson99

Mitch Connor wrote: »

Whatever about everything else...

Woodward knew he had the job since February. He knew Fergie was leaving within days of taking the job. Moyes was approached and confirmed on May 9th. The season finished for United and Everton May 19th.

That it got to July 1st before Moyes officially started is incredibly cheap and short sighted of United, and contributed to the problem we had in the summer. Moyes should have been in and working as soon as possible.

As for the midfield problems being down to Fergie and Gill, to an extent yes - but the state of the team is now the responsibility of Moyes and Woodward. They should have seen the quality requirements and been working to that end immediately. That we only signed Fellaini in the summer is the failure of Moyes and Woodward.

I agree Mitch it was terribley cheap of Utd that Moyes didnt start until July 1st.
Yes the state of the team is their responsibility now. But the need more than part of a summer to sort things out. It took Fergie 6 years to sort out the Goalkeeping problem after Schmeichel left and and he didnt sort out the middle of the park after the first loss to Barca.
IMO they need the next two windows to address the problem

Robson99

bucketybuck wrote: »

I can't really agree with any of this. Moyes had the entire transfer window to address an incredibly obvious problem with the squad. This wasn't a case of a new manager losing an influential player with only days left in the window, he had months to get something done. Plenty of managers would love to have had that amount of time.

And he signed a middle of the park player. Its more than Fergie done to address the problem

Winston Payne

Robson99 wrote: »

And he signed a middle of the park player. Its more than Fergie done to address the problem

He signed the wrong player. This may yet prove to be a worse decision than keeping our powder dry with the investment we've made in him.

Robson99

Winston Payne wrote: »

He signed the wrong player. This may yet prove to be a worse decision than keeping our powder dry with the investment we've made in him.

Possibly but at least he sees that we need players in the middle.

Who knows maybe Fergie was having a word in his ear to hold out for either Bale or Ronaldo and not to worry about the middle of the park. Maybe it took a few games in the league for him to see the problems in the middle

Maybe they just need a fair chance

bucketybuck

Robson99 wrote: »

And he signed a middle of the park player. Its more than Fergie done to address the problem

Nothing about the Fellani deal was well handled, its really stretching things to hold it up as a positive.

Ignoring whether he is a good signing or not, if we were going to sign Fellani at all he should have been signed early in the window, allowing him to have a pre-season with the squad and giving greater freedom to focus on other targets. Instead we waited until the last day and paid 4 million more than we had to.

It was a shambolic transfer by any metric. Saying that it was more than Fergie did really misses the point.

Mitch Connor

Winston Payne wrote: »

He signed the wrong player. This may yet prove to be a worse decision than keeping our powder dry with the investment we've made in him.

Disagree.

Fellaini has been disappointing - I won't argue against that.

However, I would argue he has been disappointing because he has played poorly - not because he is a poor player. I simply think he needs time to learn what his role at United is/will be. We still need a Fabregas type player, who that will/could be I don't know, but that doesn't take away that we needed (imo) the attributes an on form Fellaini will bring to the side.

ericzeking

Fellaini has only played a handful of games and missed pre-season with us. Yes he has had a slow start but I wouldn't go writing him off just yet as the "wrong player".
Some of what turned out the be our best players have had slow starts.

Robson99

bucketybuck wrote: »

Nothing about the Fellani deal was well handled, its really stretching things to hold it up as a positive.

Ignoring whether he is a good signing or not, if we were going to sign Fellani at all he should have been signed early in the window, allowing him to have a pre-season with the squad and giving greater freedom to focus on other targets. Instead we waited until the last day and paid 4 million more than we had to.

It was a shambolic transfer by any metric. Saying that it was more than Fergie did really misses the point.

Yes it possibly could have been sorted before the last day. But maybe they were holding for Bale.

Shambolic no I wouldnt call it that. Shambolic was the Bebe transfer

Quandary

Im still delighted we signed Fellaini. Remember the starts Vidic and Evra had to their Utd careers and look how they turned out. Im not saying this means Fellaini will turn out to be one our best players but a slow start is nothing to get panicked about.

How the club handled his transfer on the other hand, was shambolic and he should have been wrapped up early in the Summer. This has of course been discussed to death here already and Im sure no one wants to go around in cirlces again.

homerjay2005

ericzeking wrote: »

Fellaini has only played a handful of games and missed pre-season with us. .

this bolded part is huge and the main reason i was so anti our summer transfer approach.

Fellani deal should have been tied up well in advance of July 10th. you get rare exceptions like Ozil and RVP who hit the ground running, but most signings need time to bed in and it was mindless to see us delay everything so long.

im fully convinced that the amount of negativity that surrounded the clubs summer, has played its part in the poor first 1/4 of the season. had it been managed better, with the right players in and quicker, we'd be sitting in the top 3 and Moyes in a much more comfortable position.

Quandary wrote: »

Im still delighted we signed Fellaini. Remember the starts Vidic and Evra had to their Utd careers and look how they turned out.

while i get what you are saying, Vidic cost 1/4 the price of Fellani and Evra cost 1/5th.

Had them lads failed, very few people who have paid much attention, long term. at £27million people are less leniant, especially given all the bulls*it that came with the deal and how Moyes and the club tried to lie and put a positive spin on it.

Very few people talk about the likes of Tosic or Forlan, but Berbatov and Veron are something that alot of football people use to beat United with - its all about the price tag as Jessie J would say .

homerjay2005

Team predictions for tonight? im going with

Amos/Lingegaard.

Rafael Smalling Evans Buttner
Kagawa Jones Giggs Young
Welbeck Hernandez.

i hope he has the likes of Janz, Rooney, Evra, Carrick on the bench anyway.

Shane St.

What kind of team will we see tonight?

ericzeking

homerjay2005 wrote: »

this bolded part is huge and the main reason i was so anti our summer transfer approach.

Fellani deal should have been tied up well in advance of July 10th. you get rare exceptions like Ozil and RVP who hit the ground running, but most signings need time to bed in and it was mindless to see us delay everything so long.

im fully convinced that the amount of negativity that surrounded the clubs summer, has played its part in the poor first 1/4 of the season. had it been managed better, with the right players in and quicker, we'd be sitting in the top 3 and Moyes in a much more comfortable position.

Agree, it could and should have been done earlier, however, what I think is that there may have been more to the Fabregas saga than meets the eye, I don't think we were told a price as some do and I wouldn't read anything into the lowball bids but I do definitely think there was encouragement from the player, now this may only have been to play us as a bargaining chip and that's a pity because that happens alot, most especially on a bi-annual basis by Ronaldo.
I think that whole saga threw off all our transfer dealings in respect of midfield, afterall if there was a chance of getting such a player, we would be mad not to. I think we always had Fellaini more or less in the bag if we wanted him which it turned out we did but Fabregas would have been the ideal buy.
Once Everton realised we were in a bit of a pickle, they played hardball and they were also under pressure to get replacements, hence the extreme lateness of the whole thing.

tallaghtmick

ericzeking wrote: »

Fellaini has only played a handful of games and missed pre-season with us. Yes he has had a slow start but I wouldn't go writing him off just yet as the "wrong player".
Some of what turned out the be our best players have had slow starts.

Bit like Bale had no pre season and a injury and suddenly people say hes ****e.

Mitch Connor

homerjay2005 wrote: »

Team predictions for tonight? im going with

Amos/Lingegaard.

Rafael Smalling Evans Buttner
Kagawa Jones Giggs Young
Welbeck Hernandez.

i hope he has the likes of Janz, Rooney, Evra, Carrick on the bench anyway.

---

Amos
Fabio-Smalling-Evans-Buttner
-Cleverley-Fellaini-Anderson
Zaha

---

Januzaj

---

Hernandez

tallaghtmick

homerjay2005 wrote: »

Team predictions for tonight? im going with

Amos/Lingegaard.

Rafael Smalling Evans Buttner
Kagawa Jones Giggs Young
Welbeck Hernandez.

i hope he has the likes of Janz, Rooney, Evra, Carrick on the bench anyway.

Similar but with Fellaini instead of Jones.

homerjay2005

Mitch Connor wrote: »

---

Amos
Fabio-Smalling-Evans-Buttner
-Cleverley-Fellaini-Anderson
Zaha

---

Januzaj

---

Hernandez

Fellani is cup tied and Anderson is injured (apparently).

Zaha is the only one i forgot really..

Mitch Connor

homerjay2005 wrote: »

Fellani is cup tied and Anderson is injured (apparently).

Zaha is the only one i forgot really..

Oh, well then, forget that!

Giggs and Jones into midfield for Anderson and Fellaini.

Man our midfield sucks!

Macca07

Was at the game Saturday, and would like to make a few points.

1. The atmosphere at that game was the best I've ever experienced at a match at Old Trafford, by a mile. Last game I was at was 2 years ago, and it was like a funeral compared to Saturday.

2. The two goals conceded were shambolic. Don't know what the defense was up to for the 1st, and the 2nd was a soft needless freekick. Maybe it's Vidic missing but our defense just hasn't looked comfortable at all this season.

3. Smalling shouldn't be played at RB, he offers very little going forward. Rafael and Fabio should be the options there.

4. Rooney should be played deeper until Fellaini gets up to speed with the squad, the game changed totally when Chico came on and Rooney dropped back. I know Rooney doesn't want to move back, but he has to.

5. Januzaj should be starting, on the right/left/middle, he just has to start, he is going to be an unbelievable player. His movement off the ball is outstanding for a player of his age.

6. Without Big Dave, we would have lost, made some crucial saves.

7. Nani was useless, utter rubbish, but him being booed was OTT, and something I don't like to see, no matter how poor he was.

Robson99

homerjay2005 wrote: »

Team predictions for tonight? im going with

Amos/Lingegaard.

Rafael Smalling Evans Buttner
Kagawa Jones Giggs Young
Welbeck Hernandez.

i hope he has the likes of Janz, Rooney, Evra, Carrick on the bench anyway.

Same as above but I think he will play Zaha and rest Kagawa till Sat

Mitch Connor

Would love to see Januzaj, Zaha and Kagawa in a 3 behind Hernandez tonight.

Robson99

Macca07 wrote: »

4. Rooney should be played deeper until Fellaini gets up to speed with the squad, the game changed totally when Chico came on and Rooney dropped back. I know Rooney doesn't want to move back, but he has to.

Ive posted that here previously that he possibly needs to be played along side either Carrick or Fellani in the middle. He has the energy and would be able to get forward. It would also accommodate Kagawa playing in the hole. The tempo of our play certainly upped a gear on Sat when Rooney went into the middle of the park

Ordinary man

I hope januzaj is rested. He's only a kid and the pressure being put on him already is crazy. He needs to used sparingly this season - look at sterling for liverpool last season. I hope nani plays tonight and tries to put his last game behind him with a good performance

Headshot

How come we are hardly linked with Barkley? Iv been so impressed with this youngster.

Julez

Macca07 wrote: »

7. Nani was useless, utter rubbish, but him being booed was OTT, and something I don't like to see, no matter how poor he was.

I hate people booing the team, let alone an individual player, its of no help to anyone at all.

v3ttel

Is the match on TV tonight? If not, could someone drop me a PM

Lord TSC

Mitch Connor wrote: »

Would love to see Januzaj, Zaha and Kagawa in a 3 behind Hernandez tonight.

Those 4 together at the same time would be worthy of the South Park picture....

Liam O

Headshot wrote: »

How come we are hardly linked with Barkley? Iv been so impressed with this youngster.

He's extremely wasteful. I feel he's slightly buying into his own hype and is being given too much freedom. Seems quite similar to Powell too. Would love to sign him as with a bit more control he could be devastating but he still has a long way to go.

dubmick

v3ttel wrote: »

Is the match on TV tonight? If not, could someone drop me a PM

Not on live, only delayed coverage on MUTV at 11pm.

RasTa

It is on Norwegian TV