Manchester United Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread - 2013/14 Mod warning post #718

sea_monkey

RVP not good in the air?

his header in the arsenal game....you wont see better

homerjay2005

Oranage2 wrote: »

None of uniteds forwards are renowned for heading so why put in high crosses?

we scored the most headed goals in the PL on route to winning 2 of our last 3 league titles. the problem isnt our strikers, its the fact that our wingers cant beat the first man.

armchair fans indeed eh?

Headshot

When Val was good he ping the ball in from wide and Rooney would score all day long

master-t

Been staying away from Posting on the thread for the last few months, but watching from the sidelines. Both for the sake of my mental state, and the work productivity

It's safe to say it's been a hard season to watch to date. CL performances is probably the highlight as it's were most would have thought Moyes would have fallen first.

But our league form. It's just simply not good enough. 9th in December? No. Not acceptable.

Now, it starts. Who to blame? Whose at fault? Where do we fix the problem?

Sure - we can blame Moyes. And, ultimately the fault usually lands at the mangers feet in football.

But, we need to be looking at the board in January, and this is where I will be judging Moyes and Woodward and Co. ITS CLEAR we need to improve the squad. Whether or not this happens in Jan remains to be seen.

A good manager, will find players who he can bring in in January that will improve the squad, not break the bank and possibly still be eligible to play in CL. A good manger / scouting network will identify these players.

A weak manager, or poor scouting network, will rely on the excuses of 'no value' in the January market, 'we have identified the players we want for the summer', 'I am happy with my squad' etc. This simply can't be the case, as no manager or fan can he 'happy' with the current squad.

That being said, we still have to get though December unscathed. 12 points at this stage of the season is a big claw. We still have Rafa to come back, RvP and Carrick so these are starting 11 players who make a big difference. But it highlights the weakness of the overall squad.

Der Santa, this Christmas all I want is a December full of points and goals, and a very active January Transfer Window for United.

bullvine

I know Valencia is poor now but fans have such a short memory, he was easily the most important player in the team 2 years ago, I'm not saying he deserves some slack for this currently and to be honest I'd rather he wasn't in the team but I think fans needs to remember just how good he was.

Hes just somehow managed to forget how to be a proper winger and needs to be taken out of the team!

homerjay2005

kippy wrote: »

Why Moyes shouldn't be sacked? Surely that is blatantly obvious? (They would be the same reasons he got the job in the first place, less than 6 months ago - nothing has changed in that respect.)

the only thing that is obvious right now is that Moyes is out of his depth and we are 9th in the league. the PL champions, 3 weeks before Christmas have won 1 game against the current top 10 in the league, 1 game..

im still in belief that he can turn this around and hoping that if we can get into the top 4 by January, we will sign the players to make a difference. that is more in hope, than expectations as it is quite possible that neither of those will happen and it will be just another few months of depression.

but how long does this go on before people stop spouting si*t about not being a real fan or being disgraced by fans who slag off the manager?

we heard kneejerk after 6 games, kneejerking after 12 games. we were s*it fans after 16 games....now its the same after 22 games. CL has been decent, but everything else apart from this has been woeful to say the least.

tallaghtmick

homerjay2005 wrote: »

the only thing that is obvious right now is that Moyes is out of his depth and we are 9th in the league. the PL champions, 3 weeks before Christmas have won 1 game against the current top 10 in the league, 1 game..

im still in belief that he can turn this around and hoping that if we can get into the top 4 by January, we will sign the players to make a difference. that is more in hope, than expectations as it is quite possible that neither of those will happen and it will be just another few months of depression.

but how long does this go on before people stop spouting si*t about not being a real fan or being disgraced by fans who slag off the manager?

we heard kneejerk after 6 games, kneejerking after 12 games. we were s*it fans after 16 games....now its the same after 22 games. CL has been decent, but everything else apart from this has been woeful to say the least.

You're a kneejerk!

Mocha Joe

homerjay2005 wrote: »

the only thing that is obvious right now is that Moyes is out of his depth and we are 9th in the league. the PL champions, 3 weeks before Christmas have won 1 game against the current top 10 in the league, 1 game..

im still in belief that he can turn this around and hoping that if we can get into the top 4 by January, we will sign the players to make a difference. that is more in hope, than expectations as it is quite possible that neither of those will happen and it will be just another few months of depression.

but how long does this go on before people stop spouting si*t about not being a real fan or being disgraced by fans who slag off the manager?

we heard kneejerk after 6 games, kneejerking after 12 games. we were s*it fans after 16 games....now its the same after 22 games. CL has been decent, but everything else apart from this has been woeful to say the least.

We had been heading for a 'sh*t hitting the fan' season for the last few, Fergie or no Fergie it was coming. The squad is poor and was last season. Rafael, Carrick and RVP got us through last season and none of those have got going yet this season. I'm sure Moyes realises now what he needs and he deserves the next two transfer windows to try and address the squad.

We've been playing poor quality football but I don't know how this shocks anyone because for the most part we haven't been playing good football for the last few seasons. I think Moyes is tough enough to overhaul the squad in the next year and we'll see that happen.

Your Airbag

homerjay2005 wrote: »

we heard kneejerk after 6 games, kneejerking after 12 games. we were s*it fans after 16 games....now its the same after 22 games. CL has been decent, but everything else apart from this has been woeful to say the least.

I'm the most biased pro Moyes butt sniffing Woodward fan ever according to you. I wouldn't complain about name calling too much.

bucketybuck

bullvine wrote: »

I know Valencia is poor now but fans have such a short memory, he was easily the most important player in the team 2 years ago

Yeah, sure he was.

tallaghtmick

Your Airbag wrote: »

I'm the most biased pro Moyes butt sniffing Woodward fan ever according to you. I wouldn't complain about name calling too much.

But ye are :pac:

Jokin lads its Friday and we're heading for a draw at the weekend wahey

jonnyfingers

bullvine wrote: »

I know Valencia is poor now but fans have such a short memory, he was easily the most important player in the team 2 years ago, I'm not saying he deserves some slack for this currently and to be honest I'd rather he wasn't in the team but I think fans needs to remember just how good he was.

Hes just somehow managed to forget how to be a proper winger and needs to be taken out of the team!

That season when Rooney was the lone attacker he scored so many goals from Valencia crosses. Valencia would just get the ball and immediately try to run past a defender and hammer a ball low across the 6 yard box, and all Rooney had to do was get a touch and it was in.

Sadly I think since Valencia broke his leg he's lost some of his boldness and is now just too cautious, which is a real shame. Because if he could still make half of those quality crosses RVP, Rooney and Hernandez should be cleaning up.

ericzeking

tallaghtmick wrote: »

You're a kneejerk!

We can now have "the circle jerk" as a number of posters, who were a little less dramatic than others over the summer, were labelled by one particular very active poster and The circle kneejerk!!!!

:pac::pac::pac:

keane2097

Pro. F wrote: »

It might average out over the course of a season, or the sample size needed might be much more than that. Neither of us know I suppose.

Either way, if the conclusion from looking at chance conversion rate is that Rooney, RvP and Hernandez aren't much better at scoring goals than Eto'o, Torres and Ba then I think that particular stat should be regarded as misleading.

Not exactly right in the second part, more like being much better at finishing chances might not necessarily lead to all that many more goals. If you think about it, all those strikers are pretty competent and will all score chances of a certain difficulty, the edge the elite striker has will only be reflected in a tiny proportion of the chances they all get - i.e. the rare exceptionally difficult chance that an RVP might score 10% of the time that Eto'o would get 0-1% of the time. That's a huge difference in % terms but will only lead to one extra goal out of ten exceptionally tough chances that could take any amount of time to accrue.

It's all a bit esoteric without doing a fair bit more research but I would guess having a decent striker who gets loads of chances is probably a bigger win than having an excellent striker who lives off scraps, you might not agree

bullvine

jonnyfingers wrote: »

That season when Rooney was the lone attacker he scored so many goals from Valencia crosses. Valencia would just get the ball and immediately try to run past a defender and hammer a ball low across the 6 yard box, and all Rooney had to do was get a touch and it was in.

Sadly I think since Valencia broke his leg he's lost some of his boldness and is now just too cautious, which is a real shame. Because if he could still make half of those quality crosses RVP, Rooney and Hernandez should be cleaning up.

His best form was actually after he broke his leg which makes it even more bizarre. The fact hes been out of form for over a year makes me think he'll never get it back.

sReq | uTeK

Pro. F wrote: »

Full backs =/= centre backs

lol at Hart being the second best 'keeper in the league. Seriously, there's no way you believe that.

Torres, Ba and Eto'o is as average a collection of strikers as Carrick, Fellaini, Cleverley, Jones and Giggs is for a collection of centre backs. Chelsea's strikers can get unreal service just like our midfielders can get away with delivering substandard service because we have unreal forwards.

Do you honestly believe what you type? our forwards get shoddy service that consists of them making chances for themselves out of nothing. There is no service from wings in terms of a decent ball in the box, we have one good crosser of the ball and that's our RB Rafael.

Chelsea's midfield have an abundance of quality coming into the box in terms of through balls, crosses etc etc as do city's and the other telling factor is that not only are these balls coming into the box the likely hood is that another midfield player will be on the end of it scoring goals.

Look how many goals the likes of Hazzard, Yaya, Ramsey, Lampard, Nasri, etc have chipped in with this season, how many has our midfield or wingers ?

Its chalk and cheese, if you want to go on about how great our defence and forwards are and that they alone can get us to the top4, you're as stubborn as the people who got us into this mess in the 1st place, Spurs walked all over us in the middle as did City, Liverpool and Chelsea, Newcastle could well do it in the next game with Tiote and Cabaye,and it's sad to say this but 2 Newcastle players who would probably add to our starting 11.

Maybe when you played or were thought about football it was the old Irish/Trap way where the "AMAZING" defenders bypassed the middle and long ball after long ball was played to the "AMAZING" forwards, all the while the midfielders stood there looking at this game of ping pong

You're right though we should strive to mediocrity and a top4 finish as our forwards try and bail us out of every game with scraps.

Here is a question for you, do you think Rooney and RVP will be sticking around for long with the service they've been getting in the 1st 13 games, do you think they enjoy being frustrated time and time again when the likes of Valencia get the ball and it can't get by the 1st defender, do you think they like the fact they make the best runs in the league but are dealing with players who lack the creative imagination to play them in.

It's been an abysmal 13 games, we need change within the squad the players you're defending are not Manchester United starting 11 standard end of. Roy Keane, Scholes, Robson, Ince, those are Manchester United players.

Cleverly, Anderson (God knows I hoped he would turn good) Jones are not players Manchester United should be playing in the middle.

homerjay2005

ericzeking wrote: »

We can now have "the circle jerk" as a number of posters, who were a little less dramatic than others over the summer, were labelled by one particular very active poster and The circle kneejerk!!!!

:pac::pac::pac:

theres a jerk circle there somwhere too

tallaghtmick

ericzeking wrote: »

We can now have "the circle jerk" as a number of posters, who were a little less dramatic than others over the summer, were labelled by one particular very active poster and The circle kneejerk!!!!

:pac::pac::pac:

Jerkception

Cantona's Collars

bullvine wrote: »

His best form was actually after he broke his leg which makes it even more bizarre. The fact hes been out of form for over a year makes me think he'll never get it back.

Can we bring Becks back? He didn't have to beat a fullback to whip in a decent cross,even if he doesn't play he can surely teach Val how to do it.

ericzeking

homerjay2005 wrote: »

theres a jerk circle there somwhere too

You called it a circle jerk at the time, I remember being confused as to what exactly you were on about as I'd never heard the term before....I think they are inter-changeable though so we'll let it off

ericzeking

tallaghtmick wrote: »

Jerkception

This place could be like a WWE PPV

The Jerk Circle vs The Kneejerk Nation at Jerkception 2013

enviro

Who are the best in the business at crossing the ball/beating their man?

Headshot

enviro wrote: »

Who are the best in the business at crossing the ball/beating their man?

At Bayern

Ribery and Robben

sReq | uTeK

enviro wrote: »

Who are the best in the business at crossing the ball/beating their man?

I'd say in the premier league Rafael / Baines at crossing a ball.

jonnyfingers

bullvine wrote: »

His best form was actually after he broke his leg which makes it even more bizarre. The fact hes been out of form for over a year makes me think he'll never get it back.

You're right. I remember that now. It is a strange situation with him.

I have often wondered what he might be like if he played just behind the striker. Granted he's fairly limited technique-wise but with his pace and strength he'd surely get a lot of joy with balls over the top, or just running at defenders he'd get plenty of free kicks and possibly penalties. He can rocket in the odd shot too, but to be fair he'd probably miss by miles more than he'd score!

He's just a frustrating type of player though, full of pace but just unwilling to try to beat his man.

Your Airbag

Weird if true

Dave Goddard ‏@DaveGoddard1971 Ambulance staff had to treat Shinji Kagawa for breathing difficulties at home after Everton game according to the Sun today.

https://twitter.com/DaveGoddard1971/status/408878033685471232

Timmyctc

Your Airbag wrote: »

Weird if true



https://twitter.com/DaveGoddard1971/status/408878033685471232

Apparently he was treated at the scene and EMTs said he's grand. Probably choked on food or something :pac:

Your Airbag

Timmyctc wrote: »

Apparently he was treated at the scene and EMTs said he's grand. Probably choked on food or something :pac:

Didn't the whole team choke that night?

keane2097

Probably an allergic reaction to something.

Cantona's Collars

The CEO at Dortmund has said that Gundongan may move for £25 million.

Timmyctc

Your Airbag wrote: »

Didn't the whole team choke that night?

Here you go

Rayne Wooney

zerks wrote: »

The CEO at Dortmund has said that Gundongan may move for £25 million.

What are the bets that Madrid will buy Gundogan for £25m(less than we paid for Fellaini, lol) and then Woody will buy Khedira for more than £25m.

Vic Vinegar

Rayne Wooney wrote: »

What are the bets that Madrid will buy Gundogan for £25m(less than we paid for Fellaini, lol) and then Woody will buy Khedira for more than £25m.

Pretty slim, Khedira is out for the season with medial and anterior cruciate damage.

Cantona's Collars

I know it's Sports Direct news but hey..

They are saying that the club may accept offers for Cleverley.

Let him go I say,can't see him improving any more than the level he's at,he's better suited at somewhere like Villa.

tallaghtmick

Bombleswizzum wrote: »

Pretty slim, Khedira is out for the season with medial and anterior cruciate damage.

30 million it is

jonnyfingers

zerks wrote: »

I know it's Sports Direct news but hey..

They are saying that the club may accept offers for Cleverley.

Let him go I say,can't see him improving any more than the level he's at,he's better suited at somewhere like Villa.

I too think Cleverley has reached his level and we should get rid. But obviously only if there's a better replacement lined up. The way the club has done business recently I wouldn't be confident in them not messing that part up!

homerjay2005

Bombleswizzum wrote: »

Pretty slim, Khedira is out for the season with medial and anterior cruciate damage.

good old Woodie probably wont even know the meaning of the word cruciate and throw in a bid anyway.

Rayne Wooney

keane2097 wrote: »

Probably an allergic reaction to something.

Blatter

keane2097 wrote: »

It's all a bit esoteric without doing a fair bit more research but I would guess having a decent striker who gets loads of chances is probably a bigger win than having an excellent striker who lives off scraps, you might not agree

It'll be interesting to see how Bayern perform next year with a clear upgrade at CF when they sign Lewandowski (as long as everything else at the club largely remains the same)

keane2097

Blatter wrote: »

It'll be interesting to see how Bayern perform next year with a clear upgrade at CF when they sign Lewandowski (as long as everything else at the club largely remains the same)

The obvious inference to take from even the fairly babytown stats I did was that the better the team is behind the striker the bigger the benefit actually having that striker is, i.e. more chances created equals bigger accretion of all these 3-5% edges.

Which is pretty interesting when you think about it as it gives a bit of clout to the notion that you need to build a team from the back, or at least midfield, forward.

EDIT: Actually it's a lot more complicated than that of course, but I'm busy having a nervous breakdown today so that'll have to do :pac:

bullvine

I will actually cry if Nani, Januzaj and Rafael dont start tomorrow!

bullvine

Not Good!

"This manager's a bit different in that he doesn't name the team beforehand," Ferdinand told BT Sport. "You don't really get to know the team. The old manager used to give you a kind of a little bit of an idea if you'd be playing and stuff.

"When you know you're playing the intensity goes up a little bit more on matchday and that's what you need to try and make sure you're doing even if you don't know you'll be playing to try and get to that intensity you'd be at when you know you're playing.

"It's hard... it's hard to do that mentally because you spend a lot of nervous energy thinking 'Am I playing?' or 'Am I not playing?' and you're just going round in circles in your head and turning into a madman."

Mocha Joe

bullvine wrote: »

Not Good!

"This manager's a bit different in that he doesn't name the team beforehand," Ferdinand told BT Sport. "You don't really get to know the team. The old manager used to give you a kind of a little bit of an idea if you'd be playing and stuff.

"When you know you're playing the intensity goes up a little bit more on matchday and that's what you need to try and make sure you're doing even if you don't know you'll be playing to try and get to that intensity you'd be at when you know you're playing.

"It's hard... it's hard to do that mentally because you spend a lot of nervous energy thinking 'Am I playing?' or 'Am I not playing?' and you're just going round in circles in your head and turning into a madman."

I don't really trust Rio's opinions on anything. Hardly seems like someone that could be a decent coach or manager someday.

master-t

bullvine wrote: »

Not Good!

"This manager's a bit different in that he doesn't name the team beforehand," Ferdinand told BT Sport. "You don't really get to know the team. The old manager used to give you a kind of a little bit of an idea if you'd be playing and stuff.

"When you know you're playing the intensity goes up a little bit more on matchday and that's what you need to try and make sure you're doing even if you don't know you'll be playing to try and get to that intensity you'd be at when you know you're playing.

"It's hard... it's hard to do that mentally because you spend a lot of nervous energy thinking 'Am I playing?' or 'Am I not playing?' and you're just going round in circles in your head and turning into a madman."

Sounds like Rio's making excuses for his own p1ss poor performances this season tbh.

Your Airbag

Kag saying he can play on the left now

http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11667/9059507/manchester-united-midfielder-shinji-kagawa-feels-he-can-play-on-the-left

PhlegmyMoses

Link?

If I were Moyes, that would worry me. It's a pretty silly thing of Ferdinand to say. The old manager probably used to do lots of things differently and it's easy to get into the nostalgia mindframe when things aren't going great.

I'm sure Ferdinand would be pissed off if Moyes said: "My old 35 year old CB (Sylvain Distin) was a lot faster than my new 35 year old CB, so we were able to play a higher defensive line."

This kind of thing could actually be a big problem for Moyes so he'll need to think about how to either get them onside or get them out the door.

bullvine

PhlegmyMoses wrote: »

Link?

If I were Moyes, that would worry me. It's a pretty silly thing of Ferdinand to say. The old manager probably used to do lots of things differently and it's easy to get into the nostalgia mindframe when things aren't going great.

I'm sure Ferdinand would be pissed off if Moyes said: "My old 35 year old CB (Sylvain Distin) was a lot faster than my new 35 year old CB, so we were able to play a higher defensive line."

This kind of thing could actually be a big problem for Moyes so he'll need to think about how to either get them onside or get them out the door.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/12/06/rio-ferdinand-criticises-david-moyes_n_4397921.html

J. Marston

From United's twitter: "On Newcastle's visit, Moyes says: "They are coming to OT and we are going to make it as difficult for them as we possibly can." #mufc"[/B][/B]

That's a great mentality to have. Maybe if the Gods favour us, we can sneak a draw like plucky underdogs.

PhlegmyMoses

J. Marston wrote: »

That's a great mentality to have. Maybe if the Gods favour us, we can sneak a draw like plucky underdogs.

There are times when I swear he still thinks he's still doing press conferences for Everton. Same when he makes weirdly defensive subs early in the game.

bucketybuck

PhlegmyMoses wrote: »

If I were Moyes, that would worry me.

I find it a very strange quote indeed, and to me it screams that Ferdinand is not only unhappy with how Moyes does things, but more importantly he is prepared to come out and say it!

No player gives that quote without knowing how critical it comes across as. Ferdinand may already know his days are numbered, and if he feels prepared to make a statement like that then it is a clear signal that there are rumblings of discontent in the camp.