Current batch of youngsters going in to our 2008 squad

Relevated

fixated with venom and phalluses
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More of a fun thread.

Out of the following, which would you fit into our last CL winning squad, who could really grow into a top player, as opposed to how things are turning out. You can only choose 1.

Elanga
Rashford
Mason Greenwood (please let me include him for his talent only)
McTominay
Adnan Januzaj (will include him for the moyes season)
Pogba

Those are the only worth mentioning imo. Any others who's career might have been different under good guidance, surrounded by WC players, and a good manager?
 
Ali Dia said:
None. Not one one of them. Apart from McT and Elanga who aren’t talented enough the rest aren’t determined enough.
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You don't reckon the structure and work ethic of those around em would have forced these guys to work hard?
 
Relevated said:
Come on mate, don't fancy Rashy coming in as a sub at Moscow?
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Nope, not one of them has the backbone. Can you imagine.e the tears tantrums and woe is me tweets after one of them got a bollocking from Rooney ronaldo or saf?
 
Sparky_Hughes said:
Nope, not one of them has the backbone. Can you imagine.e the tears tantrums and woe is me tweets after one of them got a bollocking from Rooney ronaldo or saf?
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You're actually right. Rooney tearing into one of these guys would have ended their season.
 
Pogba at his best is clearly much better than most of the midfielders we had back then, but he’s mentally checked out. Rashford would be good under Ferguson’s guidance, probably similar to Nani. But it’s a different club now, so players don’t develop how they should.
 
Pogba would do quite well, having Carrick or Fletcher or Hargreaves to play alongside him. He's the type of player who does better when he's not the main man
 
Idxomer said:
At what period in their careers?
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Theyre breaking through to the first team, so theyre very young and ready for their big break. They have enough motivation around them, a fantastic coaching system, players, and SAF.
 
Fergie would've loved McTominay and he was very high on Januzaj before he retired. Not sure he ever fancied Pogba if I'm being honest. Rashford's career would've ended up differently if he were put into that side. I reckon he would've sparked a good partnership with our other forwards and he wouldn't have been overplayed. We had such a great mix of experience and quality. Players led by example off and on the pitch.
 
The one who we are not talking about at the moment.....fecking obvious isn’t it!
 
Hard to believe Fergie wouldn’t have made use of Pogba given we had Anderson in the squad. We also had the likes of Darren Gibson, Chris Eagles, Danny Simpson, so yeah, McTominay, Januzaj, Rashford would all have limited game time.
 
Januzaj is the one that sticks out for me, technically he's the best of the attacking players in the list. He would've been a league cup sub at best, given that we had Nani and Ronaldo out wide, and probably would've been sold eventually, but he's carved out a good career for him at Sociedad who are pushing for top 4 in La Liga.

Rashford, Greenwood and Elanga are all strikers that have been pushed out wide because we've been terrible at signing wide players, SAF liked his wide players to actually be technical with the ball. It'd be like if we consistently played Frazier Campbell or Macheda out wide.
 
Relevated said:
Theyre breaking through to the first team, so theyre very young and ready for their big break. They have enough motivation around them, a fantastic coaching system, players, and SAF.
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I think all of them could've gotten a chance, only Pogba and Greenwood would've survived long term.
 
Pogba is the obvious answer and one who could have made a significant contribution to that side, with my impression being that Tevez was most often a starter but was usually the one (of Rooney, Ronaldo and himself) to be replaced by a midfielder, most often Anderson, and for me Pogba was a better player than either.

We had a great squad with a plethora of options for the deeper midfield positions, but at the time we didn't really have a high quality attacking midfielder. Deployed predominantly as the most advanced of a midfield three (or even off the left in Giggs' spot) in what was a very strong side could have seen him thrive.


As an aside, though this is obviously based on academy players coming into the first team, Martial is the other player who came to mind as a young player who came into the first team after the Ferguson era. On his arrival he probably had the best season of any attacking player post-Ferguson and again I think the explosive player that he was in his earlier years could have made a significant contribution to the '08 side, as another option in the front two or, more so, from the left in a slightly altered shape generally (outside of 'big' games that is, where we tinkered much more and used more stable and defensively secure players and setups)
 
I think all of them would've quite easily made it as squad players under Fergie

Fergie had some utter dross as squad players and got a tune out of them, and some of these guys are really talented.. Fergie would've had them motivated and confident, that was the genius of the man
 
Coming into a functional club and system that was one of Europe's best teams with Fergie at the helm. Based on their ability, either of them, like it or not.
 
I think everyone single one of them would have had a place in the following seasons from 08 - 13, we had some truly average players that Fergie managed to get a tune out of.

Rashford, Mason Greenwood, McTominay, Adnan Januzaj, Pogba were all better or at least equal to players that got games for us such as Owen, Valencia, Ashley Young, Tom Clev, Anderson (For example).
Could have been effective players with the right set up, although I do think Pogba would have eventually fecked off somewhere like Madrid.
 
Tom Van Persie said:
Fergie would've loved McTominay and he was very high on Januzaj before he retired. Not sure he ever fancied Pogba if I'm being honest
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Fergie tried his best (including proposing a more lucrative contract than Juve) to keep Pogba & he never had any issues with a player, only with Raiola. Whenever he would've been able to mould a top player out of him is another question though.

It's unlikely that Fergie would've even given McTominay a debut, technically & tactically he's way behind the likes of Fletcher/Park that were used by Fergie as squad players.
 
We've had some weird issues with our midfield in Fergie's later years, so I'm not entirely sure if we would've been able to make a proper & consistent world-class midfielder out of Pogba, although I would've loved an opportunity to watch Fergie try.

A certain unspeakable forward would've benefitted the most out of Fergie's management, a less injury-prone replacement for Rossi. His off the field issues probably would've still appeared (seeing as a few of Fergie's guys had similar problems — Giggs, Butt...). The less said about him now, the better though.

I'm going to go with Mejbri :drool:
 
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