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

Lord TSC

Genuinely have no problem with Young starting off against Swansea. He preformed very well against far bigger and better teams on the pre-season, and deserves the chance to try and carry that form into the league now. Same for Jones and Smalling (and I'd say Blackett too) who were pretty solid on tour.

Only worry is James, but even he looked decent.

It's not the perfect back 4 and LVG is obviously working on improving it (Vermalean, Rojo, Cuadardo, Blind stories all pop to mind, and that's who we know), but it's not the disaster some people are making it out to be....

Mitch Connor

Maximus Alexander wrote: »

redbaron came up with that lineup not LVG.

oh, so LVG is going to be playing a right back at right back? or a left back with senior football experience in the position in the game vs swansea?

It doesn't matter who posted it, the fact is those are the options available to the club because no one thought it important to bring in a few defenders this summer despite letting Fabio, Buttner, Evra, Ferdinand and Vidic leave in the last 8 months.

Maximus Alexander

Mitch Connor wrote: »

oh, so LVG is going to be playing a right back at right back? or a left back with senior football experience in the position in the game vs swansea?

It doesn't matter who posted it, the fact is those are the options available to the club because no one thought it important to bring in a few defenders this summer despite letting Fabio, Buttner, Evra, Ferdinand and Vidic leave in the last 8 months.

I'd say it's more likely that he won't play a right back or left back at all, as per the whole of pre-season.

The_Kew_Tour

Young and Valencia will be like new signings..

Lord TSC

I'd say the starting lineup will be identical to the one who played Valencia (which I think was pretty much the same team who played Liverpool too).

De Gea
Jones - Smalling - Blackett
Young

---

James
Fletcher - Herrera
Mata
Rooney-Hernandez

FutureGuy

Mitch Connor wrote: »

oh, so LVG is going to be playing a right back at right back? or a left back with senior football experience in the position in the game vs swansea?

It doesn't matter who posted it, the fact is those are the options available to the club because no one thought it important to bring in a few defenders this summer despite letting Fabio, Buttner, Evra, Ferdinand and Vidic leave in the last 8 months.

It's the exit of the first three that annoys me. If you are going to get rid of your three first-team left backs, you need to have signed at least two replacements of at least equal quality, especially if they are not going to be wing backs. We have one first-team quality LB and he is injured.

I would expect Fletcher to protect James a little on Saturday if needed.

Oh, I dreamt last night that we lost the game 7-1

bucketybuck

Gowlasauras Rex wrote: »

I didnt know Red Baron was LVG or a manager of a top football club. :rolleyes:

I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of how poor our defensive options are.

redbaron_99

It was just a suggestion. I think he will go with the five at the back. It's just a risk with Blackett and James next to each other, both making their debuts, with only two midfielders offering protection.

It's a weak spot that any opposition manager would look to exploit.

homerjay2005

Lord TSC wrote: »

I'd say the starting lineup will be identical to the one who played Valencia (which I think was pretty much the same team who played Liverpool too).

De Gea
Jones - Smalling - Blackett
Young

---

James
Fletcher - Herrera
Mata
Rooney-Hernandez

so honestly, that is a team you are happy with? come on man, this vow of positivity you have is great for calming the place on here, but thats as far as it goes.

you are only accepting that team (or more to the point defence), as its the reality and youve no other choice in your opinion. i doubt if you were given that team 2 months ago, you'd have been "happy" to accept it and probably would have had/wanted 5 different people, if not 6 in there.

the reality is, that is at least 6 people away from being a decent first 11. we can say "meh, its only swansea" but the opposition should not determine our level of happyness. im surprised how low the levels of acceptance have gotten in our club in the last 14 months.

Coat22

Lord TSC wrote: »

Genuinely have no problem with Young starting off against Swansea. He preformed very well against far bigger and better teams on the pre-season, and deserves the chance to try and carry that form into the league now. Same for Jones and Smalling (and I'd say Blackett too) who were pretty solid on tour.

Only worry is James, but even he looked decent.

It's not the perfect back 4 and LVG is obviously working on improving it (Vermalean, Rojo, Cuadardo, Blind stories all pop to mind, and that's who we know), but it's not the disaster some people are making it out to be....[/QUOTE]

In fairness it kinda is.

So Young (agree he should be given a chance), Jones, Smalling, Blackett all did well in some pre-season games - the same players (ex Blackett)have been below par for 2 or 3 seasons in actual competition so why does everyone think that suddenly they're good enough to start every game for Man Utd?

We have a relatively handy couple of weeks but that could work the other way around - if we fail to take max points from the first 6 matches then when the inevitable trashing comes against City, Arsenal etc we'll be up the creak.

Ok we have injuries and that can't be helped. But 3 of these (Rafa, Evans, Valencia) are serial injury specialists and its only a matter of time before Jones joins them.

IMO we should be focusing on getting in at least 2 CBs as a matter of urgency. There aren't a whole pile of top class ones out there who are available but we should be realistic, realise where we are as a club and get in 2 players who, while maybe not making us world beaters, will improve the team.

Forget Vidal, Di Maria etc and just address the problem which will cost us CL football again this season.

redbaron_99

Lord TSC wrote: »

I'd say the starting lineup will be identical to the one who played Valencia (which I think was pretty much the same team who played Liverpool too).

De Gea
Jones - Smalling - Blackett
Young

---

James
Fletcher - Herrera
Mata
Rooney-Hernandez

We suffered in the opening 30 mins against the pool, the part of the game when they pressed us. Jones gave away a penalty, the back three were shaky and fletcher kept giving the ball away because the time and space he had was under pressure. That's the way it will be in the majority of PL matches.

Mitch Connor

redbaron_99 wrote: »

It was just a suggestion. I think he will go with the five at the back. It's just a risk with Blackett and James next to each other, both making their debuts, with only two midfielders offering protection.

It's a weak spot that any opposition manager would look to exploit.

maybe this is LVGs genius master plan.

We are weak at LWB, LCB, RWB and central midfield - we are going to give the opposition SO MANY weak spots to exploit that they won't be able to decide on which one, and will just pass the ball around midfield while they think it though and then BAM - final whistle goes and United have snuck the win.

sky88

The_Kew_Tour wrote: »

Young and Valencia will be like new signings..

I cant see anything Valencia has shown in pre season to think hell start playing good this season its been the similar to last year

bucketybuck

Coat22 wrote: »

Ok we have injuries and that can't be helped.

Of course they can be helped. They can be helped by having a squad depth fiit for a Premier league club. They can be helped by making use of the entire summer transfer window to arrange quality cover. They can be helped by knowing that injuries are inevitable and taking steps to plan for them. They can be helped by remembering that four senior defenders left the club in the summer and arranging replacements for them.

Little things like that would help.

Your Airbag

http://www.beinsports.tv/en-espanol/title/juan-guillermo-cuadrado-se-habria-decidido-por-el-barcelona/article/1r2m5ynx01oyr1ownlwix9jwvt

Cuadrado has chose to go to Barca rather than us, according to report.

Professional Griefer

We're not going to bring in anyone else, are we?

Adamocovic

homerjay2005 wrote: »

Ive convinced myself that Vidal is coming....dont know why but i think that will be done, its gone too far now.

Ha I'm preparing myself for the worse, that way no matter who we sign I'll be pleasantly surprised!

Will I Amnt

Your Airbag wrote: »

http://www.beinsports.tv/en-espanol/title/juan-guillermo-cuadrado-se-habria-decidido-por-el-barcelona/article/1r2m5ynx01oyr1ownlwix9jwvt

Cuadrado has chose to go to Barca rather than us, according to report.

Thiago chose Bayern, Kroos chose Madrid, Özil chose Madrid, Moura chose PSG, Fabregas chose Chelsea, Hazard chose Chelsea...
Vidal won't sign, Di Maria won't sign.
But sure we'll just blame Woody.

homerjay2005

Looks like people have lost patience with Woodward completely now after that Delaney ESPN article, the amount of twitter traffic in his name is at really high levels this morning!

Your Airbag

Will I Amnt wrote: »

Thiago chose Bayern, Kroos chose Madrid, Özil chose Madrid, Moura chose PSG, Fabregas chose Chelsea, Hazard chose Chelsea...
Vidal won't sign, Di Maria won't sign.
But sure we'll just blame Woody.

Yeah, he wants to play CL football with Messi, Neymar and Suarez in Spain rather than league football with Cleverly and Carrick in Manchester.

This is Woodys fault though, we must sack him today, even though we may have never shown interest or actually enquired about the player.

Adamocovic

Tried that Transfer Rumour Generator,

First two were Strootman and Cuadrado, maybe a sign!....but then I got Borini to United for £42million and just quickly closed the tab.

For some reason I reckon most tabloids probably use that generator to pick their gossip!

Your Airbag

homerjay2005 wrote: »

Looks like people have lost patience with Woodward completely now after that Delaney ESPN article, the amount of twitter traffic in his name is at really high levels this morning!

Haha, twitter traffic, haha people on twitter losing patience. Your really scraping the bottom of the barrell here and its only 10am.

Brendan Flowers

bucketybuck wrote: »

Just look at it! And yet we get called "moaners" for being unhappy with how the summer went. :rolleyes:

And thats the problem right there. Some people are "moaning" as if the summer is already over and no new players can be brought in. Ideally we all would have liked to have at least seen the defence strengthened by now. But there is still 2 weeks to go in the transfer window and most fully expect new faces to arrive. If that doesn't happen then Im sure everyone will be moaning about how the summer went.

And I'm sure LVG has factored in the strength of the teams we face in the opening few weeks of the season. New faces will still be settled in by the time we face any of the bigger teams.

TheTownie

Talk about messy.

Duncan Castles ‏@DuncanCastles 6m
Rojo fiasco: Sporting have announced a termination, 'with just cause', of their contract with investment fund Doyen for the player. #MUFC

Delboy5

TheTownie wrote: »

Talk about messy.

WHat will that mean to the player?

Doyen own 75% of him.....

Your Airbag

This thread is going to be epic on deadline day

beakerjoe

Brendan Flowers wrote: »

And thats the problem right there. Some people are "moaning" as if the summer is already over and no new players can be brought in. Ideally we all would have liked to have at least seen the defence strengthened by now. But there is still 2 weeks to go in the transfer window and most fully expect new faces to arrive. If that doesn't happen then Im sure everyone will be moaning about how the summer went.

And I'm sure LVG has factored in the strength of the teams we face in the opening few weeks of the season. New faces will still be settled in by the time we face any of the bigger teams.

The problem I have is that even though the summers not over, not enough has been done in the summer thus far. United needed IMO at least 4 to 7 new faces before the season started, yet We have seen 2 so far.

bucketybuck

Brendan Flowers wrote: »

And thats the problem right there. Some people are "moaning" as if the summer is already over and no new players can be brought in. Ideally we all would have liked to have at least seen the defence strengthened by now. But there is still 2 weeks to go in the transfer window and most fully expect new faces to arrive. If that doesn't happen then Im sure everyone will be moaning about how the summer went.

And I'm sure LVG has factored in the strength of the teams we face in the opening few weeks of the season. New faces will still be settled in by the time we face any of the bigger teams.

Thats blind faith. I prefer to comment on whats actually there in front of us, and right now things are a bit shit to say the least. We are actually expecting to start the season with the likes of Blackett and James, anybody who expected that a few months ago is a liar.

Besides, this craic of waiting until the end of the transfer window is just the same old thing we heard last summer, and look how that turned out.

If we finish the transfer window with the quality signings needed then credit will be given, but right now any objective assessment of our team and our transfer policy reads very poorly indeed.

kryogen

Deal almost done there then.

Giggsy11

Nooruddean @BeardedGenius

Read from the bottom up. MUFC have an uncanny knack of involving themselves in the most awkward deals. @PortuBall
2:21 PM - 14 Aug 2014

twam2008

TheTownie wrote: »

Talk about messy.

Ha ha, very much doubt it's that easy. Have no sympathy for teams that encourage these vultures.

Your Airbag

TheTownie wrote: »

Talk about messy.

Well according to his agent when Southamton made two bids the player was promised a move and had his heart set on one.

Then sporting changed the odds and started asking for more money.

So its understanable Rojo is upset if he was promised and geared up for a move.

http://sportwitness.ning.com/forum/topics/rojo-to-manchester-united-agent-wades-in-player-promised-move-thi

homerjay2005

Giggsy11 wrote: »

Nooruddean @BeardedGenius

what do people make of this guy? i dont follow him myself, but he is one of the most active United people on twitter and i constantly see people retweeting or replying to him there..

Maximus Alexander

TheTownie wrote: »

Talk about messy.

Mad altogether. I get that Sporting don't want to lose the player, but how do they expect this to pan out for them? They'll be left with an unhappy player who doesn't want to be there, and owing €15 million to Doyen for the privilege.

Meanwhile, United will can go sign Blind instead or whatever.

Mitch Connor

so, I think we can forget about getting Rojo - its going to end up in the courts before he ends up anywhere other than sporting!

Mitch Connor

homerjay2005 wrote: »

what do people make of this guy? i dont follow him myself, but he is one of the most active United people on twitter and i constantly see people retweeting or replying to him there..

Not a fan - one of those people who tweets to get retweets, all the time - and doesn't seem to know how to have a thought without expressing it on twitter.

Giggsy11

homerjay2005 wrote: »

what do people make of this guy? i dont follow him myself, but he is one of the most active United people on twitter and i constantly see people retweeting or replying to him there..

I think he makes some funny pics and got good photoshopping skills. Not a source or anything like that, just a ManUtd fan with good sense of humor.

The account he tweeted is a very good source for Portuguese league and football.

glued

homerjay2005 wrote: »

Looks like people have lost patience with Woodward completely now after that Delaney ESPN article, the amount of twitter traffic in his name is at really high levels this morning!

Delaney is a decent writer but he has zero insight into United. Also the transfer muppets are always going to clamour for more signings. It's always easier to blame the Chief Exec. We can't force players to join United and we can't force clubs to sell. Woodward has been the scapegoat for a long time now and it's pretty telling that it's the same ilk dragging his name up ad nauseam.

We're going to sign another defender. This is LVG's first transfer window at the club. This is a three year project that needs time. We're changing the team completely and it will take at least 2-3 transfer windows for van Gaal to really get a squad to fit into his mindset.

Also let's not forget that the club has done all it's business this summer without telling the usual 'ITKs'. Nobody knows what is happening behind the scenes.

Lucas Hood

homerjay2005 wrote: »

what do people make of this guy? i dont follow him myself, but he is one of the most active United people on twitter and i constantly see people retweeting or replying to him there..

Can't stand him.

twam2008

glued wrote: »

Delaney is a decent writer but he has zero insight into United. Also the transfer muppets are always going to clamour for more signings. It's always easier to blame the Chief Exec. We can't force players to join United and we can't force clubs to sell. Woodward has been the scapegoat for a long time now and it's pretty telling that it's the same ilk dragging his name up ad nauseam.

We're going to sign another defender. This is LVG's first transfer window at the club. This is a three year project that needs time. We're changing the team completely and it will take at least 2-3 transfer windows for van Gaal to really get a squad to fit into his mindset.

Also let's not forget that the club has done all it's business this summer without telling the usual 'ITKs'. Nobody knows what is happening behind the scenes.

Given that Liverpool are considering purchasing their 9th player, I think this argument seems to wear thin, there has to be plenty of players that would be happy to come to Manchester and earn an absolute fortune for doing so, why are our transfer dealings so consistantly complicated or over priced compared to other clubs? Definitely think we need to look at the transfer policy at the club at this stage.

Mitch Connor

glued wrote: »

Delaney is a decent writer but he has zero insight into United. Also the transfer muppets are always going to clamour for more signings. It's always easier to blame the Chief Exec. We can't force players to join United and we can't force clubs to sell. Woodward has been the scapegoat for a long time now and it's pretty telling that it's the same ilk dragging his name up ad nauseam.

We're going to sign another defender. This is LVG's first transfer window at the club. This is a three year project that needs time. We're changing the team completely and it will take at least 2-3 transfer windows for van Gaal to really get a squad to fit into his mindset.

Also let's not forget that the club has done all it's business this summer without telling the usual 'ITKs'. Nobody knows what is happening behind the scenes.

I disagree about Miguel, he does, imo and the opinion of others I would trust, have a good line at United.

Its easy to blame the CEO - when the CEO is in charge of transfers, and the CEO has said money is no object, and the CEO has said United can do things in the transfer market other teams can't, and the CEO said all the top players want to play for United, and the CEO said he is fed up seeing the big players go to Real/Barca and we that we are going to stop that trend. But then what CEO would be moronicly stupid enough to say all that if they didn't have some deals actually done.

Oh, right, Woodward - Woodward said ALL of that and has failed to sign anyone since.

Very easy to blame Woodward because he makes himself the very easy target of the blame with his boasting.

it will take more than 3 windows if we continue to show an utter inability to actually sign players.

As for doing all its business with no ITK info? WHAT THE F are you talking about you liar?

Shaw - well known, reported and ITK'd on.
Vermaelen bids - well known, reported and ITK'd on.
Herrera - I'll give you that one.

We have done NO other business that you can actually point to.

homerjay2005

glued wrote: »

Also let's not forget that the club has done all it's business this summer without telling the usual 'ITKs'. Nobody knows what is happening behind the scenes.

when you say all, i assume you mean Shaw and Herrera?

you happy with both of those deals i assume?


and you cannot use the part in bold there as something to back up the club, when it could also be true that nothing has actually happened until now apart from Vidal and failed bid for Vermaelen.

Coat22

bucketybuck wrote: »

Of course they can be helped. They can be helped by having a squad depth fiit for a Premier league club. They can be helped by making use of the entire summer transfer window to arrange quality cover. They can be helped by knowing that injuries are inevitable and taking steps to plan for them. They can be helped by remembering that four senior defenders left the club in the summer and arranging replacements for them.

Little things like that would help.

Talk about quoting a line out of context. :rolleyes:

My post said must the same as what you have. I would go further though - what we have at the club at the moment is "cover" - we need to go out and get actual first choice defenders

Lord TSC

homerjay2005 wrote: »

so honestly, that is a team you are happy with? come on man, this vow of positivity you have is great for calming the place on here, but thats as far as it goes.

you are only accepting that team (or more to the point defence), as its the reality and youve no other choice in your opinion. i doubt if you were given that team 2 months ago, you'd have been "happy" to accept it and probably would have had/wanted 5 different people, if not 6 in there.

the reality is, that is at least 6 people away from being a decent first 11. we can say "meh, its only swansea" but the opposition should not determine our level of happyness. im surprised how low the levels of acceptance have gotten in our club in the last 14 months.

"Vow of positivity" :rolleyes:

I spent December to May giving out about Moyes and how bad it was he wasn't being fired, so can we please drop this narrative trying to paint me as some blind fanboy or someone only intent with calming the peace or whatever (and I'll gloss over the implication my opinions are being formed by being a mod )

I'm not going to say THAT team will be enough to dominate the league, but it should steamroll Swansea pretty damn easily, and people making it out to be a disaster are doing the usual thing of seeing things in binary (Amazing/Disgraceful). It's not utterly amazing either, but it's not the disgrace some people are worried about.

As for 6 players, I genuinely disagree. I think we're two transfers off having a team that can easily challenge for the title; a CB/LB and a CM. By all accounts, we're trying for those potions.

redbaron_99 wrote: »

We suffered in the opening 30 mins against the pool, the part of the game when they pressed us. Jones gave away a penalty, the back three were shaky and fletcher kept giving the ball away because the time and space he had was under pressure. That's the way it will be in the majority of PL matches.

It says something to me though that in all that pressing, Liverpool's sole goal came from a penalty, and that against a rocky back line playing a new tactic, they were unable to score from open play, something which was a common occurrence on the pre-season against far stronger and superior teams to Swansea.

twam2008 wrote: »

Given that Liverpool are considering purchasing their 9th player, I think this argument seems to wear thin, there has to be plenty of players that would be happy to come to Manchester and earn an absolute fortune for doing so, why are our transfer dealings so consistantly complicated or over priced compared to other clubs? Definitely think we need to look at the transfer policy at the club at this stage.

How many of the 9 would you put in the United first team ahead of what we have? I'm 100% positive we could get players in like Lambert and Lallana if that was the level we were chasing too...

v3ttel

Sacramento wrote: »

Could be all for show. "I wouldn't sell them a virus" comes to mind.

I was at Sporting's stadium over the Summer. They have a couple of big displays with United related stuff (I presume this is from the time where we had a link with them). There's a big plaque in a standalone glass case that United presented to them with a United and Sporting player shaking hands, with "Friendship Through Football" written on it.

It was pretty cool, but I can just imagine the Sporting president now:

Backstreet Moyes

People on the street knew we were in for Shaw. what is certain is the ITK people had no clue when it was happening. The so called ITK people had no clue what was going on with Shaw.

Ed The Equalizer

Here in 2 weeks...

Giggsy11

Lord TSC wrote: »

It says something to me though that in all that pressing, Liverpool's sole goal came from a penalty, and that against a rocky back line playing a new tactic, they were unable to score from open play, something which was a common occurrence on the pre-season against far stronger and superior teams to Swansea.

I think I made a post about our defensive display sometime back. No matter who was played in defense we were very good defensively. We had few WTF moments against Roma in the last few mins.

Even when we played Valencia, Reece James, Young as wing backs and when Blackett, Keane were played in the CB position we hardly conceded goals.

1 controversial penalty against Roma, 1 maybe controversial penalty against Liverpool (haven't checked many replays) and 1 legitimate penalties against Madrid. 2 of the penalties were conceded by the player who might not even play next season.

Against Valencia we conceded from set piece, that was because of Cleverley's mistake. Still we conceded but it was decent effort considering we started with Blackett, James in the defense.

3 CBs tactic suits our defenders a lot. We still need a CB for sure but I wouldn't mind seeing Smalling, Jones, Blackett starting as CBs against Swansea.

homerjay2005

Taok wrote: »

Here in 2 weeks...

lets hope it doesnt come to this, it really really shouldnt or at least need to.

i would imagine here will be no different to any other form of support based for the club, be it online, in the pub or in the ground. theres a big group of us going on saturday and i guarantee as soon as we meet up at 4am it will be (our poor summer so far) the first thing on our discussion. when we get to manchester it will be the topic of conversation, when we get to the ground and inside it, it will be all that everybody is talking about.

there will be massive euphoria when LVG walks out, but watch how quickly that will disappear if the goals dont start flowing in. there will be 73,000+ people baying for Woodward at full time if we dont get the 3 points.

there is not one fan right now who if they were being openly honest, would say they are happy with the way the club has done business this summer.

twam2008

Lord TSC wrote: »

"Vow of positivity" :rolleyes:

How many of the 9 would you put in the United first team ahead of what we have? I'm 100% positive we could get players in like Lambert and Lallana if that was the level we were chasing too...

That's too simplistic a view, are you saying you wouldn't have taken Lovren, Origi, Lallana? My point is we seem to be struggling to sign even average players, I doubt Cuadrado or Rojo are going to set the premiership alight. Blind looks good, but hardly stellar, we don't appear to be aiming too high, yet still can't get any of them.