Manchester United Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread 2015 - Mod Post in OP 23/07

Adamocovic

Gowlasauras Rex wrote: »

Think that was the article I read and that's were I'm getting my notions from.

Even going on and using the website you can still have a quick search to see each teams top performer based on stats. For each year.

Jones for example last season had in his 22 appearances:
Pass Success= 85.3%
Aerials Won= 2.3 (PG)
MotM= 3
Yellow= 3
Tackles= 2.4 (PG)
Interceptions= 3.2 (PG)
Fouls= 1.2 (PG)
Clearances= 7.5 (PG)
Blocks= 0.3 (PG)
Dribbles= 0.6 (PG)

These stats led to his high player rating. Interesting just looking over that he wasn't used as a sub and all his 22 appearances were starts and all starting at CB. It was his best season rating based on stats and largely to do with him playing at CB I feel and not being moved around an awful lot.

Again as I say people can complain and moan that statistics don't reflect true performance or whatever but I am just stating them as they can definitely be used in argument that Jones gets undeserved criticism at times.

Personally I hope he has a good injury free season (please don't reply with something along the lines "well thats his problem, injuries, he's not reliable" I understand he has had injury problems) next year and proves a lot of doubters wrong.
*PG=per game

adox

The strongest midfield 3 is the 2 new lads and Herrera I think most would agree.

homerjay2005

with the way things are going, looks like that 70 year odd record of having a youth graduate in our senior match day squad will come to an end pretty soon unless we have a bout of injuries this year again.

at the way things stands, this would be our strongest 21.

DDG
Darmian Smalling Rojo Shaw
Herrera Bastian Schneiderlin
Depay Rooney Di Maria

Valdes, Valencia, Daley Blind, Jones, Carrick, Mata, Fellaini, Young,New CB, New Striker

not a single youth graduate in there

based on that list however, i think we have no choice but to keep Johnny Evans as our homegrown number is getting smaller and smaller. its also a big reason why i think Harry kane will ultimately, become our main signing this summer even though we would all like other options.

Billy86

bangkok wrote: »

where is that Valencia supporter who said Balague is full of sh1t and there is no way Otamendi will leave Valencia... I wonder is he still as confident now?

To be fair to whoever that poster was, Ballague is nearly always completely full of sh*t, but even a broken clock is correct twice a day.

bangkok

Billy86 wrote: »

To be fair to whoever that poster was, Ballague is nearly always completely full of sh*t, but even a broken clock is correct twice a day.

Roquentin

homerjay2005 wrote: »

with the way things are going, looks like that 70 year odd record of having a youth graduate in our senior match day squad will come to an end pretty soon unless we have a bout of injuries this year again.

at the way things stands, this would be our strongest 21.

DDG
Darmian Smalling Rojo Shaw
Herrera Bastian Schneiderlin
Depay Rooney Di Maria

Valdes, Valencia, Daley Blind, Jones, Carrick, Mata, Fellaini, Young,New CB, New Striker

not a single youth graduate in there

based on that list however, i think we have no choice but to keep Johnny Evans as our homegrown number is getting smaller and smaller. its also a big reason why i think Harry kane will ultimately, become our main signing this summer even though we would all like other options.

i like that team but id switch the positions of di maria and depay

The_Kew_Tour

Gowlasauras Rex wrote: »

McNair is over rated .

I have seen very few suggest he will go onto big things myself

I would be surprised if we got 10% who think he is United standard.

UnitedIrishman

Coat22 wrote: »

His contract was out next season so of course they would protect their investment by giving him a new one. He's not worthless - he'll be worth 15/20M to somebody.

And those 3 players were good squad players, as Jones could be but won't by a first choice unless he gets lucky like O'Shea did when Rio forgot to have a piss.

Given he's played 94 league games since he has joined us (13 more than John Terry at his age - two years later under Mourinho he became on of the best defenders in Europe) I think he's well on the way to being more than a backup squad player by the time he's 27-28.

I think Gowls point too about familiarity breeding contempt is correct in some regard. We see every little mistake Jones makes every week whereas at best we see highlights of others across Europe and more than likely not enough to make judgement.

We're going to have to just agree to disagree but I can't see why anyone would make a sweeping judgement on a player so early when it's clear he has tons of ability for his age. Everyone professes at different rates (Vidic was on loan at Spartak Subotica and Stam was at SC Cambuur - hardly a high standard).

Roquentin

jones is good but my worry is his propensity for injuries. every three matches he seems to have an injury.

homerjay2005

correct me if i am wrong here, but do we now only have 7 homegrown players in our squad (over 21???) and the rule is 8? the current squad is 26 plus Rojo and Di Maria, but 8 of them are u-21 and with Valdes and Rafael on their way, theres not alot else left.

Jones, smalling, rooney, carrick, shaw, young and Evans.

that would suggest Evans is going nowhere and we will sign at least one player thats homegrown before the window is out.

guess it could also mean somebody like Nick Powell is kept on, but why is he not on the tour then unless still injured?!

summary - Evans could well stay and we are signing Harry Kane or am i over-thinking this?

Edit : Schneiderlin is homegrown...

RobertKK

Think we will play a front three (4-3-3) of:
Di Maria--Rooney--Depay

or in a 3-4-3 if we get our dream CBs of Ramos and Otamendi
Herrera--Schneiderlin--Sweinsteiger--Di Maria
Allows Mata to replace him in the front three.

Di Maria in left midfield if Schweinsteiger isn't playing.

In a 4-1-4-1

---

Schneiderlin

---

Mata--Herrera--Schweinsteiger--Di Maria

I am not sure Di Maria leaves, unless he wants to leave, or unless LVG wants him gone.

Julez

Don't we also need (basing this solely on Football Manager) 4 players that are trained at the club (at the club since before there 18th birthday) for Champions League rules?

UnitedIrishman

homerjay2005 wrote: »

summary - Evans could well stay and we are signing Harry Kane or am i over-thinking this?

Edit : Schneiderlin is homegrown...

Lingard is 22 and thus has to be registered too (can't be supplemented). Is a home grown player too. That leaves us with 8 even without Evans.

Billy86

bangkok wrote: »

A Brad Maddox Guy

I believe you can still register players under 21 to comply with homegrown rules. The drawback being that it's an unnecessary registration & could potentially reduce the overall squad numbers.

Billy86

homerjay2005 wrote: »

correct me if i am wrong here, but do we now only have 7 homegrown players in our squad (over 21???) and the rule is 8? the current squad is 26 plus Rojo and Di Maria, but 8 of them are u-21 and with Valdes and Rafael on their way, theres not alot else left.

Jones, smalling, rooney, carrick, shaw, young and Evans.

that would suggest Evans is going nowhere and we will sign at least one player thats homegrown before the window is out.

guess it could also mean somebody like Nick Powell is kept on, but why is he not on the tour then unless still injured?!

summary - Evans could well stay and we are signing Harry Kane or am i over-thinking this?

Edit : Schneiderlin is homegrown...

I could be wrong on this, but if we have 26 + ADM/Rojo, that is 28. If 8 of those are U21 then they don't count towards the 25, meaning we have only 20. And if we only have 20 senior players over the age of 21, we only need 3 of them to be homegrown (e.g. an unused spot out of your 25 goes towards homegrown, so hypothetically you could have a 17 man squad (of over 21s) and not a single one of them would need to be homegrown.

I could well be wrong on that though, moved to Toronto in January where it's harder to keep track of football and I think I read something about the HG rules changing recently?

homerjay2005

Billy86 wrote: »

I could be wrong on this, but if we have 26 + ADM/Rojo, that is 28. If 8 of those are U21 then they don't count towards the 25, meaning we have only 20. And if we only have 20 senior players over the age of 21, we only need 3 of them to be homegrown (e.g. an unused spot out of your 25 goes towards homegrown, so hypothetically you could have a 17 man squad (of over 21s) and not a single one of them would need to be homegrown.

I could well be wrong on that though, moved to Toronto in January where it's harder to keep track of football and I think I read something about the HG rules changing recently?

ya i think you are right, the 8 thing just came as a natural assumption based off a squad size of 25...the actual rule is no more than 17 non-homegrown players so based on that, i think we are grand.

as it stands though, we wont be having 25 senior players this year, its going to be around 21/22 plus the young lads which is a real worry is we get a burst of injuries

it does mean however we can sign 2 or 3 more foreigners

Kerrydude1981

Hopefully Di Maria will stay on,everything went wrong for him last season after the great start he made,hopefully the injury he got in the Copa Final wont keep him out of action for long.

TheDoc

The_Kew_Tour wrote: »

I have seen very few suggest he will go onto big things myself

I would be surprised if we got 10% who think he is United standard.

All depends on what he wants in terms of his career and what the club can offer. We all know and it doesn't need explaining why you cant have a squad of 21 to 22 superstars. You need guys in there that can fill gaps, play a few roles, and supplement the squad. Solid players.

It's entirely possible that McNair can develop a bit and become a reliable squad member, or even blossom into something good. Or, just as likely, can will move to a lower team.

Evans is someone I've never rated. I firmly thought he was a horrible defender and was perplexed why he was in our squad. Then he had a bit of a breakout season and I was like " oh ****". Then he went back to being hapless. My initial reactions were not good enough, he started to look good enough, then he wasn't.

Smalling I really like, but I had to start re-adjusting my opinion on him after some odd stuff. And just when I figure its his last chance saloon, he gets sent off and I think that the end of him. Did not expect him to come back so strong second half of the season, look at him now.

I could go on, point being, who the **** knows.

John O'Shea epitomizes it for me. Thought he was a decent fullback, but thought he was a shockingly sub standard CB. Had a bit of a spell where it was like " holy **** look at this" and thought he would be our new first choice fullback, then I went back to "not good enough".

Numerous league titles, champions league medal, numerous other medals. Over 200 United appearances, captain of another PL club, over a 100 Ireland caps.

Really didn't think John O'Shea would amount to that.

Your Airbag

Mitch Connor wrote: »

Prior to signing Schweinstieger and Schneiderlin I'd have agreed - at this point I wouldn't sell ADM at all.

I see where your coming from, were kinda sorted now but there is sorted and there is stacked. Bayern, Madrid and Barca make a point of buying midfielders for already stacked midfeilds.

Madrid adding Kross to a midfeild of Modric, Alonso, Kheidera and Co. Barca adding Rakatic and Cesc to Xavi, Iniesta and Sergio. Bayern adding Gotze and Alsonso to Thiago, Shweiny, Martinez.

They have an "if there's a good mf prospect out there we simply get him even if we are already sorted" mentality. Maybe its to stop the opposition getting them.

You look at our midfield options outside of our recent purchases and how long does Carrick have left. Fellaini is better used further up imo.

I still think adding the best talent there is a good idea as long as its not at the cost of an area that needs attention and I don't think Ed or the club would do that now, we seem to have a "nobody is off limits and there is no minimum no of players we can add" approach these days.

It looks like we are on the road to having a Madrid, Barca and Bayern mentality of getting lots of the best players after years of stagnation in the transfer market. I think part of Ed's early stage of whoring out the club to sponsors to get in crazy revenue was so he could have free rein and go nuts like this. The Glazers may well have said you can spend what you like if you can bring it in. That tweet about Woodward wanting an elite player in every position maybe true and is the right approach to have.

UnitedIrishman

homerjay2005 wrote: »

ya i think you are right, the 8 thing just came as a natural assumption based off a squad size of 25...the actual rule is no more than 17 non-homegrown players so based on that, i think we are grand.

as it stands though, we wont be having 25 senior players this year, its going to be around 21/22 plus the young lads which is a real worry is we get a burst of injuries

it does mean however we can sign 2 or 3 more foreigners

Hate to bring it up again but Chelsea and Arsenal used a total of 18 and 19 players regularly in the league last year. City used 20. 22 senior players is loads and any more are just going to be expensive reserves.

fuzzydunlop85

See we're 7/2 to win our first 3games of the season in the bookies, what yee reckon lads thinking of investing a few quid ? Spurs h , villa a , Newcastle h.

py2006

See ya Van Persie and thanks...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlz_P-tZj_w

Roquentin

hope dimaria stays. would love to see him cutting in from the right alá robben

The_Kew_Tour

fuzzydunlop85 wrote: »

See we're 7/2 to win our first 3games of the season in the bookies, what yee reckon lads thinking of investing a few quid ? Spurs h , villa a , Newcastle h.

Great bet in my opinion.

GSPfan

Roquentin wrote: »

hope dimaria stays. would love to see him cutting in from the right alá robben

Or ala himself.

homerjay2005

UnitedIrishman wrote: »

Hate to bring it up again but Chelsea and Arsenal used a total of 18 and 19 players regularly in the league last year. City used 20. 22 senior players is loads and any more are just going to be expensive reserves.

thats grand if we have no or very few injuries. after 4 injury crisis in the last 7 seasons, i guess its got me cautious.

what was it last year, over 50 injuries?

TheDoc

fuzzydunlop85 wrote: »

See we're 7/2 to win our first 3games of the season in the bookies, what yee reckon lads thinking of investing a few quid ? Spurs h , villa a , Newcastle h.

As one of the lads says "sure thing, ****ing lump the house and kids on it <syringe emoji> <syringe emoji> <syringe emoji> "

UnitedIrishman

homerjay2005 wrote: »

thats grand if we have no or very few injuries. after 4 injury crisis in the last 7 seasons, i guess its got me cautious.

what was it last year, over 50 injuries?

True we had a bad bad run the last few years with injury. But even with the massive number we had - you still have guys coming back from injury replacing those getting injured. Arsenal had a lot of injuries too last season remember.

We also have multiple players for each position like LB - Shaw, Blind, Rojo so out flexibility helps in that regard. If we sell a few (Valdes, Evans, Rafael) and send youngsters on loan) then we'll need more. And hopefully we buy better than just back up for those we sell.

KH25

https://twitter.com/persie_official/status/621003585069957120

Discodog

Are the US games being repeated on MUTV at more sociable hours ?

Boskowski

Liam O wrote: »

If you like Ashley Young and Valencia getting significant games on the wing it is. One injury to Mata away from Valencia on the right and one to Depay from Young on the left. Young is sufficient for a backup player but with Depay's youth and versatility could be first choice a lot again which he's not good enough for.

I thought Ashley Young was one of your best if not THE best player for ye last season?

KH25

KH25 wrote: »

https://twitter.com/persie_official/status/621003585069957120

Classy from a class act! Best of luck RVP!

RobertKK

Discodog wrote: »

Are the US games being repeated on MUTV at more sociable hours ?

Yes, they always repeat the tour games at better times.

Billy86

Boskowski wrote: »

I thought Ashley Young was one of your best if not THE best player for ye last season?

Oh, oh God. :eek:

v3ttel

Just stumbled across this.... on the off chance someone hasn't shared it already (or anybody else missed it):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdMFz-W5HaA

Strumms

py2006 wrote: »

See ya Van Persie and thanks...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlz_P-tZj_w

I remember having the good fortune to be at that game and witness Rooney's glorious ball and the RVP volley from the Stretford end. What a night, what an atmosphere. Definitely muchos thanks and best of luck to ya RVP...

IrishIrish

Discodog wrote: »

Are the US games being repeated on MUTV at more sociable hours ?

They are literally on about 6 times a day till the next game. Then probably another 6 times with just extended highlights. Then you'll see 80% of the match again in highlights during their other shows.

RobertKK

Andy Mitten says United want to keep Di Maria.

It would be madness to get rid of him, unless the player to replace was better. He should be really good next season with better players around him.

Nalz

Are we all just assuming \ hoping that Evans gets the boat?

Strumms

Trilla wrote: »

Are we all just assuming \ hoping that Evans gets the boat?

boat, tricycle, rikshaw, gondola.... etc.. anything that removes him from occupying a position in our defence.

Mars Bar

Boskowski wrote: »

I thought Ashley Young was one of your best if not THE best player for ye last season?

He was. He was one of our top 3 players last season, in a season we were happy to get 4th.

Liam O is right though. Young should just be a backup/impact sub in a season where we aim to win the title.

Billy86 wrote: »

Oh, oh God. :eek:

What's your problem? Boskowski was correct.

Billy86

Mars Bar wrote: »

He was. He was one of our top 3 players last season, in a season we were happy to get 4th.

Liam O is right though. Young should just be a backup/impact sub in a season where we aim to win the title.

What's your problem? Boskowski was correct.

He wasn't bad at all and was a nice surprise given how his previous few years had been, but I would have had several above him. Zero question DDG was our best by a long, long way though. As you said, impact sub will do - and even if he reverts to his old self this year, it might have to continue to be the case. Getting someone to take on his or Valencia's contracts are going to be very difficult, imo.

The Moldy Gowl

Billy86 wrote: »

He wasn't bad at all and was a nice surprise given how his previous few years had been, but I would have had several above him. Zero question DDG was our best by a long, long way though. As you said, impact sub will do - and even if he reverts to his old self this year, it might have to continue to be the case. Getting someone to take on his or Valencia's contracts are going to be very difficult, imo.

Who was above him?

Fellaini, mata, Carrick. Herrera?? He was one of the sides important players.

RobertKK

Watching MUTV, Live: Inside the tour.

Lou Macari said he was shocked when he saw Depay, "built like a tank" and is a fitness fanatic.

RobertKK

Ramos will really need to force a move as Otamendi seems to be doing if he wants to join United.

https://twitter.com/BumperGraham/status/621017565163319296

JamboMac

RobertKK wrote: »

Watching MUTV, Live: Inside the tour.

Lou Macari said he was shocked when he saw Depay, "built like a tank" and is a fitness fanatic.

I thought he was talking about Schneiderlin.

RobertKK

JamboMac wrote: »

I thought he was talking about Schneiderlin.

Rewinded to watch again, he was talking about Schneiderlin, but then moved onto Depay who he said shocked him as he thought he was skinny but he was built like a tank.

homerjay2005

Somebody ask for another Rachel gif???

Billy86

Gowlasauras Rex wrote: »

Who was above him?

Fellaini, mata, Carrick. Herrera?? He was one of the sides important players.

Mata, Carrick, DDG, Herrera. For me though, there really wasn't a lot standing out at all for us last year beyond that bunch (beyond some streaks of form here and there, Smalling particularly on the back end of the season). Everyone else was extremely 'meh', just thankfully Young was a little less 'meh' than most others, rather than actually playing very well himself. He was decent though, don't get me wrong.