You honestly rate Cleverley and Welbeck?!
Danny Welbeck
- Thread starter esmufc07
- Start date
I did at the time, not as every day starters but I certainly felt like they had something to offer in a possession based system.
He's had a number of seasons with 4 or less goals.
I mean if your aim is to create pointless possession-based football you can't get more of a sideways passer than Cleverley, but even LVG recognised he wasn't very good.
Jesus, the revisionism 
Never was a fan of his and thought selling him was the right decision - just not to Arsenal. He’s a solid mid table player
He sold the deadwood and the players that wanted to go. None of them were good enough and they all plummeted once Fergie left. What they did years before LvG is not important., as they all went to shit as soon as Fergie stepped down.
Except Di Maria, all of the players he sold did nothing of note after leaving United.
I think the bigger problem was not so much selling those players, they were done here. It was that he sold the players and then replaced them with much worse players.
That was classic Van Gaal get rid of any player with creativity like Nani and then complain about the lack of creative players in the squad.
Also according to Rafael LVG hated one touch football.
https://strettynews.com/2021/09/04/rafael-van-gaal-army-football/
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He got rid of Rafael, Nani, Welbeck, Evans, Keane, Januzaj, hell even Zaha. They may not all have been world beaters but it's a strong base to build a squad from, all of them were young and had very good seasons at United or would go onto be very good elsewhere.
Instead he sold them all and replaced them with crap like Bastian, Schniederlin, Depay and Darmian. The end result was that when Mourinho took over, we were many years behind City in terms of squad depth and ability and have been trying to play catch up filling 50 different holes since. We made two mistakes - not giving the job to Mourinho earlier, and hiring the Van Gaal and letting him do whatever he wants with the squad. It set us back 5 years.
Put it this way - had Sir Alex still been in charge in 2014, or had Mourinho taken over after Moyes, a lot of those players would've been used.
The worrying thing is that a lot of those players he got rid of are more technical than the players in their positions.
He was right to get rid of all of them. Most wanted to be starters after a failed season under Moyes and left. The others were trash. They would have been squad players at best. It doesnt matter what Fergie got out of them, after Moyes, nothing was the same. We didnt miss any of them.
Speak for yourself. We missed most of them, and still do.
Didn’t Lvg do that anyway?
It's good that he's replaced them with absolute gems in Rojo, Schneiderlin, Darmian, etc. Proven squad/first XI players with players who weren't even good enough to be even squad players.
The direct replacements for those players who played a majority of games for Van Gaal were Herrera, Martial, Blind etc. and Lingard, Rashford from within the academy.
Rafael - finished at 30, was terrible wherever he went after United.
Nani - had a couple of decent seasons in the Portuguese and Turkish league but after that nothing special and a lot of injuries.
Welbeck - would've spent more time on the injury table than Jones.
Evans - I would've kept him but people overstate how good he's been after United, still error-prone and panicky.
Keane - one of the worst defenders in the league for years, can't believe you mentioned him.
Januzaj - would've kept him but he needed to play, he's still at best a squad play for a mid-table team.
Zaha - we never really needed someone at his position. Martial an Rashord have been posting better numbers than him for years.
You see what you want to see regarding how it would've panned out at United, I could argue in favour for each of those players as you've done against, that's not the point. The point is a lot of those players only 2 years prior had been very good in winning the league with us, or played at a very good level a few years after leaving, which would've helped us in building a top squad.
Instead we've spent every summer trying to fill all the holes in the squad. RB - AWB for 50m. CB - 5 different players for about 200m that are not noticeably better than we already had. Sancho, Depay, Diallo etc, no better than Nani at the time or Zaha or Januzaj now. It's not that they're individually world class or elite, it's that having them in the squad would've helped us to really focus on one or two positions, instead of needing to sign about 10 players every summer. Had SAF stayed for another 5 years a lot of those players would've been key members of his squad. Van Gaal got rid of them for no reason (probably his ego), which would've been fine if he signed better players, but he did not, and as such every year since we've been trying to build a base squad to replace them all.
Only Rafael deserved to stay, and that was because LVG allegedly had some weird issue with Brazilian players for some reason that he was sold.
What could have been.
That guy Welbz sending Leeds down. Love it!
This guy is still a better link-up player than anyone at United.
Can we trade Rashford for him?
It's the reason we used to look so much better with him in our team.
The one that got away.
The only serious goal threat we've had since 2013.
Our player of the season?
Can we swap rashford ?
That's why I always found the comparison with Rashford odd.
He's the complete opposite of him, a hard worker with great link-up but a questionable output.
Hilarious
Zup zup say nada
Career ruined by injuries. Which vindicated moving him on, with hindsight. I didn’t like the decision at the time though. And if he’d been able to stay fit….
Interesting!
Welbeck was/is a player who always makes players around him better. You even see that to this day when he starts for Brighton. His link up and off the ball movement is phenomenal. Very good in tight spaces. Rashford, on the other hand, especially two seasons ago, was a goal threat.
I'm a big fan of both but Welbeck, to me, is a better footballer than Rashford and can play the two roles - striker and wing, equally as well. Rashford is a player who has always needed space to run into.
At only 24, it will be interesting to see how Rashford develops under ten Hag. If he goes back to what he was like two seasons ago, then I can imagine he'll be bagging a lot of goals.
Welbeck was/is a player who always makes players around him better. You even see that to this day when he starts for Brighton. His link up and off the ball movement is phenomenal. Very good in tight spaces. Rashford, on the other hand, especially two seasons ago, was a goal threat.
I'm a big fan of both but Welbeck, to me, is a better footballer than Rashford and can play the two roles - striker and wing, equally as well. Rashford is a player who has always needed space to run into.
At only 24, it will be interesting to see how Rashford develops under ten Hag. If he goes back to what he was like two seasons ago, then I can imagine he'll be bagging a lot of goals.
Rashford is the better player but can't stand the guy that's making the case, he's clueless. The simple argument is that Rashford is capable of being a 20+ season scorer as he's shown in multiple seasons. Welbeck's ceiling was being a good team player.
It isn't really a debate. Rashford is/was comfortably better. Whether we'll see that player again though is anyone's guess.
What a below average player!
You could never rely on Welbeck to finish a chance.
Rashford to be fair to him if he's through on goal 99% of time it's a goal.
Rashford to be fair to him if he's through on goal 99% of time it's a goal.
His overall game as a striker was/is vastly better than Rashford's. But I described old Danny at the time as the anti-striker: excellent at everything until it was time to put the ball in the net. Which, sadly, for a forward is pretty important.
Welbeck had SAF and Wenger.
Rashford had LVg, Mourinho,Ole and Rangnick.
The fact that one has better stats on top says a lot.
Rashford had LVg, Mourinho,Ole and Rangnick.
The fact that one has better stats on top says a lot.