Manchester United Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread - Mod Note in OP, 13/8

kryogen

Coat22 wrote: »

Van Gaal is on record as saying Blackett and Keane aren’t there yet in terms of standard so not sure why he would be relying on them to stand in for the 3 amigos is one gets injured / turns out can’t defend to save his life.

Just as well Varmaelen wasn’t upto our standards…..

When did Louis say that on record? Haven't seen it.

Verm was bid on so Van Gaal certainly thought he was up to our standards

Backstreet Moyes

TheDoc wrote: »

Spurs need to trim a few players from their squad this week, have like 6 too many or something.

Dembele was someone that always impressed me, was a bit out of favour last year. Would he still generate an interest?

I am sure there are plenty of better players who could be got for similar money.

kryogen

Al Capwned wrote: »

Call me sentimental or whatever, but I like the 1994 image the best.

I like the symmetry of the thing, the fact it's all the same height. Suppose it's also what it looked like when I visited first.

I'd love to see the stadium developed further to see the South stand and the two quadrants built up to meet the rest of it. But my understanding is that the cost is hugely prohibitive.

I used to have a clock on my bedroom wall with that picture as the back ground Someone bought it for me while over for a game I think, was young at the time!

Must dig it out for the little fella

Hococop

beakerjoe wrote: »

You've been convinced of Vidal for weeks yet theres still no sign of it happening. Give it up man

Everyday he guesses all I think of is this

bangkok

vermaelen injured for an indefinite period of time, glad we didn't sign him now

GavRedKing

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

Just take the ban like a man, man.

As I'll be in Portugal for the end of the transfer window....i'll be looking for Wifi somewhere to ban someone over the Vidal transfer. :pac:

Like the Gardai the mods have a quota and I need to fill mine before September. :eek:

Quota may or may not be true

advertsfox

From BBC Sport - http://www.bbc.com/sport/live/28624915

BBC Sport wrote:

Barcelona confirm that new £15m signing Thomas Vermaelen is still carrying a hamstring injury and will have to wait before he starts training with his new team.
The 28-year-old, who signed from Arsenal, was presented at the Nou Camp on Sunday. He injured himself during Belgium's 1-0 win over Russia in the World Cup.
A statement from Barcelona said: "Thomas Vermaelen injured his right hamstring during the World Cup in June. The player will undergo physiotherapy, and the evolution of the injury will determine when he returns to training."

Again, it baffles me why we were interested in the first place - let alone Barcelona paying £15 / €19 million.

bangkok

I would just like to add the betting has been suspended on vidal to join United

beakerjoe

GavRedKing wrote: »

As I'll be in Portugal for the end of the transfer window....i'll be looking for Wifi somewhere to ban someone over the Vidal transfer. :pac:

Like the Gardai the mods have a quota and I need to fill mine before September. :eek:

Quota may or may not be true

Duffman will be up for his ban on Sunday if United dont sign anyone by then.... Hes looking good for it at this stage of the week

Backstreet Moyes

Anybody know what the story is with getting a ferry package over to a game. Got a birthday present for the Chelsea game bus, ferry, hotel and match tickets. Leaving home at half 3 so i presume the ferry from Dublin leaves about 7. I never got the ferry over before does anybody know how long it takes to get to Manchester. I am looking at buying two tickets to go to the Liverpool game at 3pm but don't want to buy tickets if encase i wouldn't make it on time.

Also can anybody clarify if you need a passport going on the ferry. My passport is out of date and want to make sure i need it for the ferry before i renew it.

beakerjoe

bangkok wrote: »

I would just like to add the betting has been suspended on vidal to join United

Like it was 2 weeks ago? :pac:

MagicIRL

Here we go.... the betting talk again.

Adamcp898

We've been through the betting dealio already not so long ago, can we pass on it this time?

beakerjoe

Nuts102 wrote: »

Anybody know what the story is with getting a ferry package over to a game. Got a birthday present for the Chelsea game bus, ferry, hotel and match tickets. Leaving home at half 3 so i presume the ferry from Dublin leaves about 7. I never got the ferry over before does anybody know how long it takes to get to Manchester. I am looking at buying two tickets to go to the Liverpool game at 3pm but don't want to buy tickets if encase i wouldn't make it on time.

Also can anybody clarify if you need a passport going on the ferry. My passport is out of date and want to make sure i need it for the ferry before i renew it.

I never get asked on the way over, but always on the way back home.

Backstreet Moyes

bangkok wrote: »

I would just like to add the betting has been suspended on vidal to join United

Larry must have thrown a fiver on him to join.

advertsfox

Twitter strikes again!

GavRedKing

beakerjoe wrote: »

Duffman will be up for his ban on Sunday if United dont sign anyone by then.... Hes looking good for it at this stage of the week

Great, thats at least 2 so that I can remove access for. The Admins will be appeased.

Nuts102 wrote: »

Anybody know what the story is with getting a ferry package over to a game. Got a birthday present for the Chelsea game bus, ferry, hotel and match tickets. Leaving home at half 3 so i presume the ferry from Dublin leaves about 7. I never got the ferry over before does anybody know how long it takes to get to Manchester. I am looking at buying two tickets to go to the Liverpool game at 3pm but don't want to buy tickets if encase i wouldn't make it on time.

Also can anybody clarify if you need a passport going on the ferry. My passport is out of date and want to make sure i need it for the ferry before i renew it.

AFAIK, a full, in date driving license is enough for the ferry.

Maximus Alexander

beakerjoe wrote: »

Like it was 2 weeks ago? :pac:

I think, and I might be wrong, but:

Lucas Hood

advertsfox wrote: »

From BBC Sport - http://www.bbc.com/sport/live/28624915



Again, it baffles me why we were interested in the first place - let alone Barcelona paying £15 / €19 million.

Barca announced they paid €10m up front with with addons of 8.8m based on amount of games he plays and titles they win.
That's a bargain IMO.

https://twitter.com/FCBarcelona/status/498423786094747648

beakerjoe

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

I think, and I might be wrong, but:

I dunno, its Bangkok ... I assume hes always 100 percent serious unless he has a :pac: in his message....

Larry Wildman

Vidal's agent is meeting Van Gaal today apparently.

The "betting discussion" has been put to bed alright. When bookies see an suspicious increase in volume on a specialised market, they suspend betting. Suspicious increases in volume usually mean that someone knows something. In other words, betting being suspended DOES mean something. Just because a deal does / doesn't happen, it doesn't mean that the betting patterns are irrelevant. Citing Sneijder etc is pointless unless you can demonstate that we weren't in for him at all. Admittedly, a small amount of money can change a market like this, but if betting has been suspended I'd like to think that it's because some guy in a private airport saw something and stuck £200 on in his local William Hill.

beakerjoe

Larry Wildman wrote: »

Vidal's agent is meeting Van Gaal today apparently.

The "betting discussion" has been put to bed alright. When bookies see an suspicious increase in volume on a specialised market, they suspend betting. Suspicious increases in volume usually mean that someone knows something. In other words, betting being suspended DOES mean something. Just because a deal does / doesn't happen, it doesn't mean that the betting patterns are irrelevant. Citing Sneijder etc is pointless unless you can demonstate that we weren't in for him at all. Admittedly, a small amount of money can change a market like this, but if betting has been suspended I'd like to think that it's because some guy in a private airport saw something and stuck £200 on in his local William Hill.

Is he yeah... :rolleyes:

Maximus Alexander

beakerjoe wrote: »

Is he yeah... :rolleyes:

There's nothing on their website about it anyway...

Coat22

kryogen wrote: »

When did Louis say that on record? Haven't seen it.

Verm was bid on so Van Gaal certainly thought he was up to our standards

“Van Gaal said Keane and fellow defender Tyler Blackett would grow better with experience.
“You saw them play today and they can do the job but not for a lot of matches – they can do it for one match.
“Maybe when you give them more matches, their experience shall increase.
“It’s the same for Tyler – he can also play at this level but can he play match after match? That is the question and I cannot answer that at the moment
“But today the penalty was not so smart. He (Keane) has to learn from these errors..””
He’s also on record as saying we need more defenders – so one would assume this is the priority for him.
In terms of Vermaelen I was talking about the opinions on this board – most seemed to think he was no better than what we had or that if he wasn’t good enough for Arsenal he wasn’t good enough for United. He’s good enough for Barcelona seemingly but don’t think Wenger would have let it happen anyway so moot point I guess.

Saucy McKetchup

Nuts102 wrote: »

Anybody know what the story is with getting a ferry package over to a game. Got a birthday present for the Chelsea game bus, ferry, hotel and match tickets. Leaving home at half 3 so i presume the ferry from Dublin leaves about 7. I never got the ferry over before does anybody know how long it takes to get to Manchester. I am looking at buying two tickets to go to the Liverpool game at 3pm but don't want to buy tickets if encase i wouldn't make it on time.

Also can anybody clarify if you need a passport going on the ferry. My passport is out of date and want to make sure i need it for the ferry before i renew it.

Ferry departs at 8 and arrives in holyhead at 11:30, Bus gets into Manchester at around 2pm, Bring a driving license or passport although if you stay on the ferry coming back off at Dublin port you wont need i.d at all

TheDoc

Not sure if anyone read...but Vermaelen has broken down in his first training session with Barca. Right hamstring problem.

Was carrying a little niggly injury and obviously wanted to train with his new team. Out for a few weeks.

Bullet firmly dodged.

Adamocovic

TheDoc wrote: »

Not sure if anyone read...but Vermaelen has broken down in his first training session with Barca. Right hamstring problem.

Was carrying a little niggly injury and obviously wanted to train with his new team. Out for a few weeks.

Bullet firmly dodged.

Seriously? And he was talking about how injuries weren't a problem anymore just the other day, awful start if true.

beakerjoe

TheDoc wrote: »

Not sure if anyone read...but Vermaelen has broken down in his first training session with Barca. Right hamstring problem.

Was carrying a little niggly injury and obviously wanted to train with his new team. Out for a few weeks.

Bullet firmly dodged.

Lets hope lady luck continues to shine on us. Roll on Saturday

TheDoc

Larry Wildman wrote: »

Vidal's agent is meeting Van Gaal today apparently.

The "betting discussion" has been put to bed alright. When bookies see an suspicious increase in volume on a specialised market, they suspend betting. Suspicious increases in volume usually mean that someone knows something. In other words, betting being suspended DOES mean something. Just because a deal does / doesn't happen, it doesn't mean that the betting patterns are irrelevant. Citing Sneijder etc is pointless unless you can demonstate that we weren't in for him at all. Admittedly, a small amount of money can change a market like this, but if betting has been suspended I'd like to think that it's because some guy in a private airport saw something and stuck £200 on in his local William Hill.

Syndicates and professional gamblers frequently manipulate player transfer markets.

Its completely unreliable. The only reliable part is when a bookie suspends a market...when there is no major movement in that market.

So for example if say a player was 5-1 to join a club...then the market gets suspended..it means the bookie has got reliable information and is dodging a massive payout.

Delboy5

It really annoys me that we are less than a week before the premiership starts with arguably a weaker squad than this time last year.

Admittedly we've a better manager in place though, and with a relatively "easy" start to the campaign we should be ok, i hope then we'll see at least 3 more additions to the squad before the transfer window closes!

TheDoc

Adamocovic wrote: »

Seriously? And he was talking about how injuries weren't a problem anymore just the other day, awful start if true.

Yeah I'm reading it on twitter. Always subject to caveats of some slight mistake information but the guts of the detail from Spain is his right hamstring is gone/acting up.

Lucas Hood

Vermaelens injury is something he picked up at the world cup.

http://www.fcbarcelona.com/football/first-team/detail/article/vermaelen-to-do-physiotherapy

MagicIRL

Are both Rafael and Valencia still injured? Toying with putting Young in to my FF team.

homerjay2005

Coat22 wrote: »

“Van Gaal said Keane and fellow defender Tyler Blackett would grow better with experience.
“You saw them play today and they can do the job but not for a lot of matches – they can do it for one match.
“Maybe when you give them more matches, their experience shall increase.
“It’s the same for Tyler – he can also play at this level but can he play match after match? That is the question and I cannot answer that at the moment
“But today the penalty was not so smart. He (Keane) has to learn from these errors..””
He’s also on record as saying we need more defenders – so one would assume this is the priority for him.
In terms of Vermaelen I was talking about the opinions on this board – most seemed to think he was no better than what we had or that if he wasn’t good enough for Arsenal he wasn’t good enough for United. He’s good enough for Barcelona seemingly but don’t think Wenger would have let it happen anyway so moot point I guess.

LVG has said alot of things so far - we need defenders and wingers being two of them, along of course with the broken squad thing and too many number 10's.

i guess the plan is for now to start the season with what we have and hopefully get players in before end of the month - risky, but it should be ok for now assuming we actually get these players.

the real worry though is that we failed with Vermaelen and Hummels and there is very little talk of anybody else being linked in terms of center halves. despite what people on here say, its very very rare for us to sign somebody without the press having it well in advance. Hernandez and Smalling are two of the only recent examples and perhaps buttner - everybody else was well documented in the papers so i would be concerned about our CB options at the moment from this respect though we appear to be working on other things outside of CB.

Rubber_Soul

Larry Wildman wrote: »

The Di Maria stuff is bonkers...yet again we'd be buying a flat screen tv when the roof's leaking.

It's not really that bonkers, just longer term planning than some fans seem capable of. LvG has said he prefers a 433 with wingers a few times and it's rare a player of DiMaria's class becomes available. Yeah other areas are a priority right now but if we turn up our noses at him there's no guarantee we get the players we need anyway and then we have to hope another world class winger becomes available down the line.

MagicIRL

So this has gone up in Manchester. (Piccadilly area of the city centre to be exact)

twam2008

I think that is why most people here didn't want Vermaelen, it was the injury risk as opposed to the players quality. Bullet well and truly dodged.

Coat22

StarshipPooper wrote: »

It's not really that bonkers, just longer term planning than some fans seem capable of. LvG has said he prefers a 433 with wingers a few times and it's rare a player of DiMaria's class becomes available. Yeah other areas are a priority right now but if we turn up our noses at him there's no guarantee we get the players we need anyway and then we have to hope another world class winger becomes available down the line.

Starting to come around to this way of thinking myself – we don’t need Di Maria as a priority but he would streghten the team and is available so lets get him if we can (seriously doubt we can).
I do hope he’s not being bought as a smokescreen to failing elsewhere. 2 CBs have got to be bought in the next 21 days – if we got these and Di Maria then we’d look good to challenge for 4th.

twam2008

Chelsea's Marin is on the way to Fiorentina, wonder if that will lead to the exit of Cuadrado?

Coat22

twam2008 wrote: »

I think that is why most people here didn't want Vermaelen, it was the injury risk as opposed to the players quality. Bullet well and truly dodged.

Vidic was also crocked for the last couple of seasons but most would still have had him this year. Varmaelen would definitely have been worth the risk IMO. Much better risk than heading into the season, playing 3 at the back and having 3 players to play there.

MagicIRL

Coat22 wrote: »

Vidic was also crocked for the last couple of seasons but most would still have had him this year. Varmaelen would definitely have been worth the risk IMO. Much better risk than heading into the season, playing 3 at the back and having 3 players to play there.

Plus he's been injured since the World Cup. He didn't just pick this up at Barca.

twam2008

Coat22 wrote: »

Vidic was also crocked for the last couple of seasons but most would still have had him this year. Varmaelen would definitely have been worth the risk IMO. Much better risk than heading into the season, playing 3 at the back and having 3 players to play there.

Totally disagree, think we all agree that we are desperately in need of defenders, can not see any point in filling that gap with risky injury prone option.

tupac_healy

twam2008 wrote: »

I think that is why most people here didn't want Vermaelen, it was the injury risk as opposed to the players quality. Bullet well and truly dodged.

Impossible to say until after the window closes....

If we bring in nobody and one of the starting 3 gets injured then it will have been a poor decision on our part...

I don't think it will play out that way however. I expect we will sign Blind

Tangey99

I'm new around here (so take it easy on me).

Weaker squad...well yes, certainly in terms of centreback positions in a classic back four. I'm not sure the new "3-at-the-back" would have suited Vidic. And as for Ferdinand, a blind man could see last season that he wasn't at the races, he was embarrassed on a number of occasions, so would he really feature in a back-3 where mobility and pace are needed ?

But we definitely do need better class for those back-3 when he plays that format, and unless pre-season means nothing, it looks like it's his preferred format. Of the 3, I think Evans is the best of the bunch, Smalling always has an error in him, and Jones, for all his undoubted commitment and honesty, isn't exactly the most subtle of players.

One overriding positive I have, before a ball is kicked, is the amount of talk coming from the camp, about the different system, and players admitting the boss was right to criticise them, everyone chatting about trying to impress the new boss and starting with a clean sheet, experience counting for little with Van gaal,and a general sense that there is a definite plan, and a 3-1 friendly win against 'pool was a disappointment for Van Gaal. Van Gaal may be have that same ability as Ferguson to extract MORE out of players than is in them. By the way, if by some miracle Van Gaal turns Young into a good player, I'll be seriously impressed.

Compare that to last year, there was nothing positive out of the camp, no sense of players starting again, all the chat about how Moyes would handle Rooney, and whether the utd task was too big. Moyes, in retrospect had the ability to extract less out of players than was in them (and if Man u last year isn't enough evidence, I refer you to Everton last season without him).

I go into the season with a sense of excitement, knowing that we aren't a brilliant squad but based on the potential for van Gaal to do well, as opposed to last season, where it was a sense of trepidation that Moyes wouldn't be big enough for the job.

Sgt Pepper 64

twam2008 wrote: »

Chelsea's Marin is on the way to Fiorentina, wonder if that will lead to the exit of Cuadrado?

could well do. Strangely its only a loan though

MagicIRL

Sgt Pepper 64 wrote: »

could well do. Strangely its only a loan though

Could be loan to buy option? Maybe they feel they don't have enough time to scout a perm replacement?

DM_7

Tangey99 wrote: »

I'm new around here (so take it easy on me).

Welcome to the mad house

Tangey99

Regarding Vermaelen, you might say, if he is good enough for Barca, why isn't he good enough for Man U. (I just saw an €80M buy-out clause in his barca contract ?!?!?)

You can hardly say the price was too high, £15M seems a lot better value than the £31M for Shaw.

But also, I am reminded of a certain Barca defender Gerard Pique. He's looked pretty damn good for Barca since they got him, much more so than he did at Utd, he seems such a classy defender. Defending in the Premier league is an entirely different physical contest than (mostly) in the Spanish league, and his ability to walk out with the ball wasn't seen as important at Utd.

Maximus Alexander

Tangey99 wrote: »

I'm new around here (so take it easy on me).

MagicIRL

Tangey99 wrote: »

I'm new around here (so take it easy on me).

Welcome! Just remember this:

Keep calm and love Pirlo.