Manchester United Superthread 2014 mod warning #8081

Backstreet Moyes

Personally i thought Vertonghen was the best cb in the league two seasons ago. Haven't seen much of Spurs this season but i presume his form has tailed off or he is being played out of position.

kryogen

Agueroooo wrote: »

Ancelotti for me would be the worse case scenario as a rival fan.

Van Gaal will do the clear out (no probs) but when it comes to a new starting point and ethos for Utd - Anceloltti would imo be the better candidate.

Van Gaal has a pretty gigantic reputation as an excellent project starter

homerjay2005

TheDoc wrote: »

In terms of the Ferdinand thing, I'm reading from Mark Ogden it was a signal made by LVG, indicating he's already working through the squad culling.

Others indicate it was a decision taken by the club.
l.

id say it a club thing, the blow of no CL football can be softened by taking out £20million off the wage bill and players that are over 33 are prime candidates for the chop.

if only Young and his £5million was struck off now, we'd be laughing. take out our 8 or 9 most senior players and the actual wage bill is very very low -

we have 15 players in our squad 25 or younger (excluding those on loan or in academy) and the average wage for this group is 53k per week (this is even distorted by Matas 130k)

we have 11 players between the ages of 26 and 32 and the average wage here jumps to 114k per week, Over that then Rio and Giggs are on 175k p/w between them.

our 5 oldest players, Rio, Vidic, Giggs, Evra and Carrick earn £465k per week between them....4 of them will prob be gone and if i was Carrick (and fletcher) i would be worried.

thats 5 players, all in the last couple of years of their career, earning £24.18 million a year between them - replace them with young lads and the club has already saved about £20million.

Leftist

kryogen wrote: »

Van Gaal has a pretty gigantic reputation as an excellent project starter

and ancelloti has never built anything that has lasted after he left.



ancelloti would be a short term success, probably. But he won 1 serie A out of what, 5/6 attempts? he's a cup manager.

Don't want him.

Look to the long term.

please christ get van gaal.

bangkok

we have a massive wage bill...

http://www.tsmplug.com/richlist/manchester-united-players-salaries-list/

UnitedIrishman

bangkok wrote: »

we have a massive wage bill...

http://www.tsmplug.com/richlist/manchester-united-players-salaries-list/

Take Rio, Vidic, Giggs, Evra and bizarrely Scholes out of that and you're talking about 545k saved. That's a massive amount.

And allied with that, that wouldn't be the most reliable for wages given that Rooney's isn't a base salary of 300k, it's all related to commercial and performance details AFAIK.

I wish they'd just do like the NFL and release what players guaranteed money is and what the breakdown of the rest.. far easier to see what we're actually spending then.

homerjay2005

bangkok wrote: »

we have a massive wage bill...

http://www.tsmplug.com/richlist/manchester-united-players-salaries-list/

thats the link i was basing my figures off above, but something is not adding up....


that lists our wage bill as £2,238,000 a week and multiplied by 52, thats £116,376,000.

however the total wage bill is £162million.

does that mean that management, staff cost the club £46million a year, outside of the playing staff?

thats a fair chunk of cash if true, though suppose the first team coaching staff alone are on £10million.

redbaron_99

homerjay2005 wrote: »

id say it a club thing, the blow of no CL football can be softened by taking out £20million off the wage bill and players that are over 33 are prime candidates for the chop.

if only Young and his £5million was struck off now, we'd be laughing. take out our 8 or 9 most senior players and the actual wage bill is very very low -

we have 15 players in our squad 25 or younger (excluding those on loan or in academy) and the average wage for this group is 53k per week (this is even distorted by Matas 130k)

we have 11 players between the ages of 26 and 32 and the average wage here jumps to 114k per week, Over that then Rio and Giggs are on 175k p/w between them.

our 5 oldest players, Rio, Vidic, Giggs, Evra and Carrick earn £465k per week between them....4 of them will prob be gone and if i was Carrick (and fletcher) i would be worried.

thats 5 players, all in the last couple of years of their career, earning £24.18 million a year between them - replace them with young lads and the club has already saved about £20million.

If agree with carrick being worried. High wage, poor form and the wrong age. Not a good combination.
I would imagine VG wanting much more energetic midfielders for the future.

Cantona's Collars

kryogen wrote: »

Van Gaal has a pretty gigantic reputation as an excellent project starter

LVG is legendary for promoting youth and building teams,as it stands he's exactly what United need right now.

bangkok

homerjay2005 wrote: »

thats the link i was basing my figures off above, but something is not adding up....


that lists our wage bill as £2,238,000 a week and multiplied by 52, thats £116,376,000.

however the total wage bill is £162million.

does that mean that management, staff cost the club £46million a year, outside of the playing staff?

thats a fair chunk of cash if true, though suppose the first team coaching staff alone are on £10million.

yea I presume that includes the glazers salary as well, CEO, etc along with all the other salaries of reserve team players, kitchen staff, groundsmen, all the catering staff etc there could be over 500 people outside of the football side employed by the club

Backstreet Moyes

Looking forward to see what he does with Zaha. I watched a few Palace games after we signed him and he was brilliant. He is very raw but has great skill and pace which the team needs. His attitude is supposed to be his problem so hopefully Van Gaal sorts that out.

homerjay2005

Nuts102 wrote: »

Looking forward to see what he does with Zaha. I watched a few Palace games after we signed him and he was brilliant. He is very raw but has great skill and pace which the team needs. His attitude is supposed to be his problem so hopefully Van Gaal sorts that out.

i would be fearful for Zaha in the sense that the only way LVG would sort him out, is a size 11 boot up the backside all the way down to Palace.

Cantona's Collars

bangkok wrote: »

not a hope ed woodward walked into the united dressing room and told rio he was not getting a new contract in front of all the players.

He spoke to Rio on the flight home and it was overheard.The talk of announcing it in the dressing room was bs.

tallaghtmick

kryogen wrote: »

Van Gaal has a pretty gigantic reputation as an excellent project starter

He only posted that because I said rival fans were worried, he was caught out with another post praising Van Gaal

homerjay2005

Adnan named in the Belgium squad for Brazil :eek::eek::eek:

kryogen

Leftist wrote: »

and ancelloti has never built anything that has lasted after he left.



ancelloti would be a short term success, probably. But he won 1 serie A out of what, 5/6 attempts? he's a cup manager.

Don't want him.

Look to the long term.

please christ get van gaal.

In all fairness I would actually like Carlo a lot, long term just refuting the point that LVG wouldnt be good to start a new era

tallaghtmick

homerjay2005 wrote: »

Adnan named in the Belgium squad for Brazil :eek::eek::eek:

It's unfair on other players but he could be a diamond off the bench with 10 mins to go I can see why Wilmots picked him.

kryogen

bangkok wrote: »

we have a massive wage bill...

http://www.tsmplug.com/richlist/manchester-united-players-salaries-list/

We have massive turnover

Cantona's Collars

Neville & Woods on the way out now: http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/phil-neville-chris-woods-leave-7113005

Personally I'd keep Woods,he's worked wonders with De Gea who is the only player to come out of this season having been consistent and shown improvement.

redbaron_99

zerks wrote: »

Neville & Woods on the way out now: http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/phil-neville-chris-woods-leave-7113005

Personally I'd keep Woods,he's worked wonders with De Gea who is the only player to come out of this season having been consistent and shown improvement.

VanGaal must be standing firm on bringing in his own staff.

Blatter

zerks wrote: »

Neville & Woods on the way out now: http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/phil-neville-chris-woods-leave-7113005

Personally I'd keep Woods,he's worked wonders with De Gea who is the only player to come out of this season having been consistent and shown improvement.

I'd imagine van Gaal will want to bring in his own goalkeeping coach.

kryogen

tallaghtmick wrote: »

It's unfair on other players but he could be a diamond off the bench with 10 mins to go I can see why Wilmots picked him.

Do him well to get the experience of winning a major tournament

homerjay2005

tallaghtmick wrote: »

It's unfair on other players but he could be a diamond off the bench with 10 mins to go I can see why Wilmots picked him.

am sure the players who are missing out for him, are more than likely injured.

Cookiemunster

tallaghtmick wrote: »

It's unfair on other players but he could be a diamond off the bench with 10 mins to go I can see why Wilmots picked him.

That's a 24 man squad, so he's not definitely in.

homerjay2005

Cookiemunster wrote: »

That's a 24 man squad, so he's not definitely in.

its actually going to be 25, they have to select another keeper. either way, i dont think there is anything stopping them taking 25 players, they just dont have to select 2 players for the squad when they get there.

am sure its good practice to take a player extra just incase somebody gets injured in the next month

kryogen

homerjay2005 wrote: »

am sure the players who are missing out for him, are more than likely injured.

One of the players had a moan about it publicly, that he will be taking someones place who actually got the team to the WC. Must have a look later and see if that happened

glued

Cookiemunster wrote: »

That's a 24 man squad, so he's not definitely in.

He is in. They have 4 keepers listed in that squad.

Rayne Wooney

So Van Gaal is no worry to rival fans.. sureee

Just like a certain set of red fans ecstatic at signing Shaw for 30 million but now that United are in pole position he ain't worth it and we can have him...

Ancelotti a better track record than Van Gaal? You kidding me?

The slight worry with Van Gaal is that most of his achievements were done a decade/two decades ago, but he has a better record than Ancelotti.

The man seems like a genius, look at the philosophy at Ajax in the early days and look how he bought it to Barcelona and Bayern and laid the foundations for all of their success.

glued

kryogen wrote: »

One of the players had a moan about it publicly, that he will be taking someones place who actually got the team to the WC. Must have a look later and see if that happened

That was Kevin Mirallas and Wilmots basically told him to shut up.

shadowcomplex

Cavani is 40-1 to be top scorer in the world cup, worth a punt I think

bmcc10

kryogen wrote: »

One of the players had a moan about it publicly, that he will be taking someones place who actually got the team to the WC. Must have a look later and see if that happened

Mirallas wasn't it? Benteke injured?

Rubber_Soul

Teamshadowclan wrote: »

So what, is the idea EW kicked the door down to the dressing room and bellowed "Oi, rio, you're out!"?

Nah he flew a banner over St Mary's at the end, stop being daft.

It reflects very poorly on Woodward and the club if true, It's just completely unprofessional and petty. Culling the squad incl. Rio is message enough to the other players that last season and some of Rio's behavior won't be accepted, there's no need to risk antagonising the players by doing it so publicly.

bangkok wrote: »

not a hope ed woodward walked into the united dressing room and told rio he was not getting a new contract in front of all the players.

I struggled to believe it last night when I heard it myself but when you have lads like Ducker, Kay and Ogden all saying it went down like that I believe there's an element of truth to it. I'm not saying he got up on a table and announced it, rather pulled him to one side.

homerjay2005

kryogen wrote: »

One of the players had a moan about it publicly, that he will be taking someones place who actually got the team to the WC. Must have a look later and see if that happened

does that not happen to every squad, for every world cup/major tournament though?

for ireland, mcclean came in out of nowhere, England took Walcott the last time. Shaw has what, one cap for England?

theres a player in the Spain squad that i rate really highly, Iturraspe - i think he is a smashing player..he has been included in their 30 completely out of the blue i think (i could be wrong on this one tho).

you can be sure, that almost every team going to the WC will have a young lad in, that didnt play in any of the qualifiers.

kryogen

glued wrote: »

That was Kevin Mirallas and Wilmots basically told him to shut up.

Yeah that was it, he was told it was none of his concern

tallaghtmick

Mirallas was prob worried he would lose his place, but I would be certain Adnan will be a impact sub if anything.

glued

shadowcomplex wrote: »

Cavani is 40-1 to be top scorer in the world cup, worth a punt I think

I'm going for Dzeko @ 100/1

They have Iran and Nigeria in their group so they should get out and they could put a couple of goals passed Iran.

Reus @ 66/1


I also have Diego Costa @ 31/1

kryogen

homerjay2005 wrote: »

does that not happen to every squad, for every world cup/major tournament though?

for ireland, mcclean came in out of nowhere, England took Walcott the last time. Shaw has what, one cap for England?

theres a player in the Spain squad that i rate really highly, Iturraspe - i think he is a smashing player..he has been included in their 30 completely out of the blue i think (i could be wrong on this one tho).

you can be sure, that almost every team going to the WC will have a young lad in, that didnt play in any of the qualifiers.

Yep, not a big deal at all imo, if you have ambition you bring the best squad available to you

Lord TSC

StarshipPooper wrote: »

It reflects very poorly on Woodward and the club if true, It's just completely unprofessional and petty. Culling the squad incl. Rio is message enough to the other players that last season and some of Rio's behavior won't be accepted, there's no need to risk antagonising the players by doing it so publicly.

Depends how it went down I suppose.

I could well imagine, for example, that Woodward went to the dressing room to thank the players at the end of the season. While there, Rio pulled him aside and asked what was happening, were negotiations going to reopen, and rather than string Rio along, he told Rio that there wasn't going to be a new contract offered. The conversation took place in a public room with others around him, and some would have heard, but it was an overheard conversation.

However, a lot of people seem to want to run with the narrative that Woodward calling a meeting, initiated the conversation and in front of everyone told Rio he was gone, as if Rio was totally unaware his contract was expiring; that Woodward chose to publicly humiliate Rio.

Both versions could come from the same line the journalists are taking, but a lot of people want to jump on the more unbelievable version because its a juicer story.

I struggled to believe it last night when I heard it myself but when you have lads like Ducker, Kay and Ogden all saying it went down like that I believe there's an element of truth to it. I'm not saying he got up on a table and announced it, rather pulled him to one side.

Ducker and Kay, afaik, are the same source when it comes to the story; the article which has started this was a joint one, so they count as one source to me. Even then, the article states "It is understood that..." which is usually code for "...we don't have solid sources to back this story up, so we'll be vague about it"

Has Ogden commented on it, confirming? Would appreciate a link there.

I'm going for Dzeko @ 100/1

That's a nice spot. Might through a tenner on that :P

Pro. F

Liam O wrote: »

Don't know how you can write off the importance of good full backs after what has transpired this season. Leaking goals from one side and no attacking infiltration on the other.

I didn't. We're not talking about just getting a good full-back, we're talking about trying to get one of the best full-backs in the world. Actually, even worse, we're talking about spending the money required for one of the best full-backs in the world in the hopes that an excellent 18 year old full-back will keep on developing at the rate he has been.

Liam O wrote: »

Hugely important position for the modern game and difficult to fill. Look at Barca, pretty much everyone through their youths and yet have had to spend money on Alves, Alba (he was at Barca before in fairness though), Adriano and Maxwell (feel he might have been a free but not bothered checking)so it's obviously worth investing in the position to prevent having to sign cheapies every 1 or 2 years. Bayern had to convert one of their best young midfielders to left back too. These are just off the top of my head as examples of great teams that found the position troublesome enough to fill and have reaped benefits from doing so.

Adriano, Maxwell and Alba were all bought for small money: €9.5m, €4.5m and €14m respectively. As you say, one of them was a youth product that the club had let get away. During the period that those lads have been at the club, playing the position by committee along with Abidal, who was battling cancer, the team were one of the most dominant in history. I don't think this strengthens your argument that full-back is a hugely important position or difficult to fill, more like the opposite.

Alaba was (and still is) an extremely talented midfielder who couldn't get into the Bayern first 11 in his natural position. So LvG retrained him as a full-back, where there was an opening in the team. Alaba went on to become one of the best full-backs in the world, even though it was a position that was new to him. Again, this is the opposite of support for your argument.

Felexicon wrote: »

Have to disagree to a certain extent there. Watching Jones and Smalling at full back over the last couple of seasons has highlighted the need for decent fullbacks to be successful. Anytime they were playing on the right our attacks just broke down due to them not having to required skills to play the role effectively. They'd go on the overlap and either hoof it in to row Z or deliver one of those terrible looping crosses to beyond the back post that was easy pickings for the keeper. Defensively they are fine but the modern full back needs to be utilized in attack too

I didn't say that you don't need decent full-backs. We're not talking about spending the money required to get just a decent full-back, we're talking about spending the money required to get one of the best full-backs in the world. I agree that we should get decent full-backs, although the club's PL and CL success in '08 and '11 shows that even with makeshift full-backs you can still win the biggest prizes.

IrishIrish

Pro. F wrote: »

Alaba was (and still is) an extremely talented midfielder who couldn't get into the Bayern first 11 in his natural position. So LvG retrained him as a full-back, where there was an opening in the team. Alaba went on to become one of the best full-backs in the world, even though it was a position that was new to him. Again, this is the opposite of support for your argument.

Tbf you could use this argument for every single position. Kompany 'retraining' to be one of the best cb's in the world. Schweinstiger 'retraining' to be one of the best midfielders in the world. Henry 'retraining' to become one of the best strikers in the world. Its a pretty silly argument.

lordgoat

IrishIrish wrote: »

Tbf you could use this argument for every single position. Kompany 'retraining' to be one of the best cb's in the world. Schweinstiger 'retraining' to be one of the best midfielders in the world. Henry 'retraining' to become one of the best strikers in the world. Its a pretty silly argument.

I think you've missed his point.

shadowcomplex

shadowcomplex wrote: »

Cavani is 40-1 to be top scorer in the world cup, worth a punt I think

Think PP are doing place bets on correct top scorer?

tallaghtmick

tallaghtmick wrote: »

It's unfair on other players but he could be a diamond off the bench with 10 mins to go I can see why Wilmots picked him.

Great opportunity for him, here's hoping he gets a chance of the bench.

Pro. F

homerjay2005 wrote: »

id say it a club thing, the blow of no CL football can be softened by taking out £20million off the wage bill and players that are over 33 are prime candidates for the chop.

if only Young and his £5million was struck off now, we'd be laughing. take out our 8 or 9 most senior players and the actual wage bill is very very low -

we have 15 players in our squad 25 or younger (excluding those on loan or in academy) and the average wage for this group is 53k per week (this is even distorted by Matas 130k)

we have 11 players between the ages of 26 and 32 and the average wage here jumps to 114k per week, Over that then Rio and Giggs are on 175k p/w between them.

our 5 oldest players, Rio, Vidic, Giggs, Evra and Carrick earn £465k per week between them....4 of them will prob be gone and if i was Carrick (and fletcher) i would be worried.

thats 5 players, all in the last couple of years of their career, earning £24.18 million a year between them - replace them with young lads and the club has already saved about £20million.

According to your numbers, replacing the 5 oldest earners with 5 average earners in the 15-25yo bracket would save the club £10m per year, not £20m.

That's all based on the assumption that you have reliable numbers for wages, but I still haven't seen any sources for individual player wages that should be treated as reliable.

IrishIrish

lordgoat wrote: »

I think you've missed his point.

I thought he was trying to say that fb isn't as important as other positions and was using the fact Alaba excelled there and became one of the best fb's in the world even though he wasn't a natural fb as back up for his point? But as I stated plenty of players have retrained new positions to become the best in the world so it doesn't really show anything about fb requirements.

But maybe he was making a different point.

bangkok

januzaj is one of the best teenage players in the world right now of course Belgium were going to take him to the world cup, was class for united this season.

Sven brought theo Walcott to the world cup at 17 without EVER seeing him play in person :eek::eek::eek:

DARK-KNIGHT

shadowcomplex wrote: »

Cavani is 40-1 to be top scorer in the world cup, worth a punt I think

Dodgy group with ingerland and italy though. They could walk the group or miss out easily too.

Pro. F

IrishIrish wrote: »

Tbf you could use this argument for every single position. Kompany 'retraining' to be one of the best cb's in the world. Schweinstiger 'retraining' to be one of the best midfielders in the world. Henry 'retraining' to become one of the best strikers in the world. Its a pretty silly argument.

I think if you go and look at the line-ups of successful teams over the last number of years you will find more full-backs who weren't natural full-backs than you will any other position.

In this particular discussion, I wasn't the one trying to argue that a particular position is hugely important and difficult to fill by holding up the example of a player who had retrained to that position. Liam O was the one who did that.

bucketybuck

Teamshadowclan wrote: »

I could well imagine, for example, that Woodward went to the dressing room to thank the players at the end of the season.

Why would the CEO ever do a thing like that?

I always assumed that was the managers role, and while I could see an active owner like Dave Whelan coming into the dressing room why the hell would the money man be coming in to speak to the players?

Quite apart from that, the dressing room is no place for conversations of that ilk with Rio. Simplest thing in the world to smile and say something like "call by my office Monday and we'll talk".

If any of this is true then it comes across as horribly unprofessional.

TheDoc

Januzaj while coming onto the scene and impressing, is being totally blown out of proportion as being labelled the best young player in Europe

Discuss

:P