Every time I see pictures of him in a United gear for a second I think we've mistakenly signed Joseph Gordon-Levitt 
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Season Average Rating
- Appearances
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran are here to talk about a frustrating 2 points dropped at Crystal Palace. They then discuss the regeneration of Old Trafford. Finally, Nik is joined by special guest Michael Statham from the Football Oranje podcast - who gives us a more in depth look at our EL opposition FC Twente, and then runs through the (many) Dutch connections currently at United.
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Hasn't played a game for us and he's angling for his own song. fecker.
They spoke to Andy last night on United in Press , he was talking about Ander and that quite often when you interview footballers you don't get much that is interesting out of them. He said Messi is awful to interview.He said he spoke to Ander for, I think 90 minutes and he spoke about all sorts of things, not just football. That he is a really nice well grounded lad who will be great for us. I don't know if anyone can find a clip of the programme.
I'm happy with his signing, although I would have preferred Kroos or Fabregas. Something that does worry me though is the fact it doesn't add goals to the centre midfield area and we have craved that for a long time. Averages around three goals a season which is neither here nor there in what we should be aiming for from that position.
Probably about 3 times more goals that our midfield managed last season, so that is good. I think our team as a whole will score a lot more goals next season, just from a change of manager.
I don't think it'll be that big of an issue, if he can add 5 goals that'd be a great return from him. He'll give us more presence in midfield something we've been screaming for years.
We've got enough goals in our team with the right managemenet. Mata/Kagawa/Rooney will bring the midfield goals (one of them will probably play as the most advanced of the midfield three). He's also more than capable of upping his own goal tally in my opinion. As long as he's strong in the tackle and direct passing, which he is (only 4 key passes less than Fabregas despite playing 3 games less and great tackling stats) and can pop up with a few goals himself, I'm happy.
Kroos and Fabregas would be the furthest man forward of a midfield 3 in van Gaal's most likely system at Manchester United and we already have Mata who's better than both of those mentioned players occupying that role whereas Herrera can play in a box to box role.
The whole goals from midfield thing is overrated, and talked about way too much in the media. Obviously goal-scoring midfielders are nice, but when you have forwards of the quality of RVP, Rooney, Mata and Januzaj, the most important thing for the midfield to do is get the team playing well and making chances. Whether or not they score much is almost negligible by comparison, because if the team is playing well those forwards will score plenty of goals.
Agree with the last two posts (884 and 885). You need to look at the fit between player and team, not just the quality of the player.
The thing is, we have very few players capable of seeing out the defensive duties, that is: Carrick, Fletcher and to some extent Fellaini. I don’t rate Cleverley in that regard, he is very easy to go past and has poor positioning.
We really don’t know what will happen to Fletcher, although I love this guy he didn’t look reliable last season, understandably so.
Carrick’s legs are gone IMO, he won’t be able to handle the midfield by himself anymore. All in all, bringing a player capable of both defending and attacking makes much more sense than bringing another attacking midfielder, even though both Fabregas and Kroos are a few levels above Herrera in that regard. Mind that we might still be in for Toni.
I don’t think goals will be a problem with players like RVP, Mata, Rooney, Kagawa, Januzaj. Right now I would say we need another box-to-box midfielder to replace Carrick, I think Strootman fits the bill (I’m not talking about muppet signings like Vidal).
Players who control the tempo of the game are hard to find these days, and usually they are top tier players, what means we won’t get one this summer.
At risk of derailing the thread, I can't help but agree.
I think it's become apparent now that Woody can close deals if the manager sanctions them as we've seen in the last 48 hours. The fact that Moyes couldn't make his mind up whether or not to sign players like Herrera shows he was unwilling to take risks which is all what United are about.
That is such a delicious quote. Sounds like a proper football man, a rare thing these days.
Fully agree with that sentiment.
He's 6ft.
But he has a reflection on the car under the dodge badge, you have the top of his head, and the reflection of the tree on the roof of the car tells you that Herrera's shadow his outside the scope and toward the viewer, since we can see his feet we can't see his potential shadow.
Berbatov was a wonderful player when you think about it. Definitely not as much as a flop as he's sometimes made out to be.
One of the best first touches I've seen. Immaculate control.
With the Real example I was thinking specifically of the first leg against Bayern, that certainly looked like 4-4-2 to me. Pretty sure Ancelotti used that formation with PSG too.
I don't buy this idea that 4-4-2 is dead. Like all formations it'll go in and out of fashion but in the right circumstances and with the right players it can still be as effective as any other formation.
It was a 4-4-2 in defence and 4-3-3 in attack.
Almost mad to brand someone a 'flop' who scored a hat-trick against the red scousers.
But still was it a classic 442? Their midfield is much more energetic than the usual midfield and mostly Koke played on the wing - but he is not a winger as we all know - so although he played on the "wing" he contributed a lot offensively and even more defensively in order to help out the midfield. With these player and that system Atletico could afford to play with 2 strikers, even in big games.
Same, it's such a strange feeling. Can't wait to see him play for us.
Nah he had a great touch and was great for that half season but was a flop. He broke up the Rooney-tevez partnership which had way more potential and was much better IMO and for being our record signing just was never good enough. It's not like he was ibra who is a brilliant player but before just couldn't be arsed, berbs just never put in effort and said it was his style to be lazy and walk around.
So weird this obsession with things not really being 442. Think back to 2008 we had Hargreaves right wing so it wasn't 442. Back to 1999 we had Beckham right wing who worked hard defensively and sometimes came central so it wasn't a 442.
It doesn't matter if some of them are slightly more or less attacking than others, ifsome of them like to drift wide or come more central. This has always been the case. If you play 4 defenders, 4 midfielders and 2 forwards it's 44sodding2.
Actually thinking back to the 1968 United team I think muppet heads would have exploded trying to define the roles of the likes of George Best and Bobby Charlton.
Classic 4-4-2 or not, it doesn't make much of a difference. People on here have become a bit obsessed with the actual formation rather then the players that are deployed there. Our 4-4-2 seems shit because we had shit wingers and a midfield 2 who would prefer not to move anywhere for the full 90 minutes, and we're incredibly slow when they did move. Hard to make it look good when the 4 in the middle are all pretty shit. Play good wingers and energetic/quality midfielders like we had a decade ago, and suddenly 4-4-2 would look great again.
It's baffling that SAF let our midfield get this bad. I know that he had faith in Anderson and waited for Hargreaves to somehow magically make a return, but he was so ruthless when it came to other positions. Yet he let our midfield rot away.
Agree! I wasn't saying I am against 442, but with our midfielders it has killed us at times! If we had Koke and Vidal in midfield, then we could play 442 or whatever you want to call it even against Barcelona, but unless you have those allround midfielders / personel who are rare to find, you can't really play 442 against top teams.
He just looks like one.
If you have the right players it might work, but for me a proper 4-4-2 has two out and out forwards. I don't see any top sides playing that.
Even at United with Rooney and RVP it always looks like a 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-1-1.
A proper 4-4-2 was when we had Yorke and Cole - both player as forwards rather than either dropping deep.
Real usually only have Benzema as a proper striker, the others are wingers cutting inside or midfielders for me.
Is this the first established CM we have bought since Carrick 8 years ago???
I still can't believe his almost 25 Shaw is 18 and looks older haha
Hargreaves in 2007.
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