Leighton Baines

If he was Spanish he'd be in their third division and no one would have heard of him.
 
Mostly because they don't need him when they have two quality leftbacks in Coentrao and Marcelo.

Nope... Because none will have heard of him because he's been in the Premier League 7 seasons and has never been picked up by a top 6 club.

This is a myth.People cream themselves over the quality of a player, not his fecking name with Latin connotation

Of course it is, this is obvious by the fact that no United fans are currently waxing lyrical about mid table clubs' LB from other leagues.
 
This is a myth.People cream themselves over the quality of a player, not his fecking name with Latin connotation

:annoyed:

Yet nobody is creaming over the player with the best crossing for a defender in the world and who created more chances than either of our "best in the league" wingers
 
He may be a good attacking outlet for Everton who don't have wingers but Man Utd do and his job will be to defend, something he's not very good at. What are his defensive stats like?
 
:annoyed:

Yet nobody is creaming over the player with the best crossing for a defender in the world and who created more chances than either of our "best in the league" wingers

Are you implying that every top teams scouts and managers have been missing a trick for the last 5-6 years? Or that the likes of Madrid/Barcelona only went for Coentrao and Alba after failing to secure the best crossing defender in the world?

Or are you referring to a completely different player? - if so statement retracted
 
Are you implying that every top teams scouts and managers have been missing a trick for the last 5-6 years? Or that the likes of Madrid/Barcelona only went for Coentrao and Alba after failing to secure the best crossing defender in the world?

Or are you referring to a completely different player? - if so statement retracted

Not every team wants the best crossing fullback. We cross the ball more than any other top team and we rely on our wingplay to make our goals more than any other team because its not coming from the middle of our midfield.

If we sign Baines its because we didnt miss a trick regardless of anyone else. If we dont sign him its because the trick wasnt good enough to make up for his average defending
 
I guess Valencia wasnt good enough for a top team either. Thats why he was playing for Wigan. Didnt even make it at Villarreal
 
Not every team wants the best crossing fullback. We cross the ball more than any other top team and we rely on our wingplay to make our goals more than any other team because its not coming from the middle of our midfield.

If we sign Baines its because we didnt miss a trick regardless of anyone else. If we dont sign him its because the trick wasnt good enough to make up for his average defending

Not really... We make bad decisions in the transfer market regularly (along with very good ones) and just because Fergie decides to sign him doesn't instantly make him a trick that hasn't been missed, so to speak.

I just really think looking at signing someone who has been nothing more than a solid player at a mid-table team for 5-6 years is illustrative of a very regressive transfer policy. I would be equally disappointed if we were linked with other "solid" mid-table players - the likes of Cahill, Dempsey, Agbonlahor, Parker, Downing etc.

I guess Valencia wasnt good enough for a top team either. Thats why he was playing for Wigan. Didnt even make it at Villarreal

A totally different situation. Valencia was a 23 year old who'd only been in England for 3 seasons. It was clear that he had time to improve and mature. Baines on the other hand is not going to suddenly become a world beater at 27 after 7 seasons of being nothing more than decent - good.
 
:annoyed:

Yet nobody is creaming over the player with the best crossing for a defender in the world and who created more chances than either of our "best in the league" wingers

Stewart Downing probably created more chances than our wingers last season. What does that tell you
 
I guess Valencia wasnt good enough for a top team either. Thats why he was playing for Wigan. Didnt even make it at Villarreal


Valencia was 24 years old when he joined United.

Each situation is different.Just because we've seen Valencia blossom into a magnificent player doesn't mean it'll happen with Baines.
 
Not really... We make bad decisions in the transfer market regularly (along with very good ones) and just because Fergie decides to sign him doesn't instantly make him a trick that hasn't been missed, so to speak.

I just really think looking at signing someone who has been nothing more than a solid player at a mid-table team for 5-6 years is illustrative of a very regressive transfer policy. I would be equally disappointed if we were linked with other "solid" mid-table players - the likes of Cahill, Dempsey, Agbonlahor, Parker, Downing etc.



A totally different situation. Valencia was a 23 year old who'd only been in England for 3 seasons. It was clear that he had time to improve and mature. Baines on the other hand is not going to suddenly become a world beater at 27 after 7 seasons of being nothing more than decent - good.

:lol:

This thread is weird. The people who don't rate him are underrating him massively and the people who do rate him aren't building him up to be a world beater...they're rating him as an excellent player for Everton and a player who would be solid for United.
 
Not really... We make bad decisions in the transfer market regularly (along with very good ones) and just because Fergie decides to sign him doesn't instantly make him a trick that hasn't been missed, so to speak.

I just really think looking at signing someone who has been nothing more than a solid player at a mid-table team for 5-6 years is illustrative of a very regressive transfer policy. I would be equally disappointed if we were linked with other "solid" mid-table players - the likes of Cahill, Dempsey, Agbonlahor, Parker, Downing etc.

You're right, I was assuming the best if we sign him.

But he's been way more than a solid player for Everton. Without him they'd
have scored half as many goals, if that.

I'm not completely convinced hes the right player for us so I'm waiting to see if our interest is real. I can see why it would be but I can also see why we'd give him a miss. But at the same time I know we need a left back and at this current point in time there arent any similar, younger left backs out there. So I'm sure it'll come down to whether Baines huge upside (delivery) is more important to the manager than age or other qualities that another left back might have over him like pace or better defending.

Personally I think he'd do great things for us coming forward and as long as he defended decently/average and didnt have a tendancy to do something stupid that costs us like Evra has been doing, or like Clichy at Arsenal, then I'd much prefer it.

But like with any transfer there are no guarantees of what the player is going to do
 
After Baines we can sign Scott Parker and become the club equivalent of England.
 
There is a reason he's "only" played for Everton all this time though.He's just not good enough for a team like United

Not necessarily...

Some players tend to be "late developers" (in footballing sense). Players like Scott Parker, Lescott and even Drogba.
 
Valencia was 24 years old when he joined United.

Each situation is different.Just because we've seen Valencia blossom into a magnificent player doesn't mean it'll happen with Baines.

At 24 he had proven himself less than Baines at 26
 
Not necessarily...

Some players tend to be "late developers" (in footballing sense). Players like Scott Parker, Lescott and even Drogba.

Some players do and some just don't.
ps: Drogba revealed himself at 24years old in Marseille when he scored more than 30 goals.
 
Hopefully Baines can develop into this other player somewhere else.
 
It's not a myth though really, is it?

It is. People get more excited by foreign transfers because they tend to be better at football, not because they are simply not English. When we signed Jones last year everyone was excited because they knew he was going to be a top player, same for Rooney 8 years ago.
 
Exactly, people are going to be excited more by signing the likes of Nani's and Kagawa's than overpriced English players like Young and Baines.
 
Jones and Smalling are both young and extremely talented and will be a huge success with us. Glad we signed the pair of them.

edit: damn whitetext :lol:
 
Exactly, people are going to be excited more by signing the likes of Nani's and Kagawa's than overpriced English players like Young and Baines.

And that's because they're superior players. If we're being given a choice between Scott Parker and someone like Moutinho or Martinez we'll obviously be more excited by the latter and it won't be because they have fancy foreign names.
 
You're right, I was assuming the best if we sign him.

But he's been way more than a solid player for Everton. Without him they'd
have scored half as many goals, if that.


I'm not completely convinced hes the right player for us so I'm waiting to see if our interest is real. I can see why it would be but I can also see why we'd give him a miss. But at the same time I know we need a left back and at this current point in time there arent any similar, younger left backs out there. So I'm sure it'll come down to whether Baines huge upside (delivery) is more important to the manager than age or other qualities that another left back might have over him like pace or better defending.

Personally I think he'd do great things for us coming forward and as long as he defended decently/average and didnt have a tendancy to do something stupid that costs us like Evra has been doing, or like Clichy at Arsenal, then I'd much prefer it.

But like with any transfer there are no guarantees of what the player is going to do

Don't be ridiculous, if Leighton Baines were responsible for at least 25 goals last year every club on the planet would be queuing up for his signature and he'd have started every England game.

He's a good, solid, mid-table player. Could he suddenly become much better with better players around him? Possible, but very, very unlikely given his age.

Not necessarily...

Some players tend to be "late developers" (in footballing sense). Players like Scott Parker, Lescott and even Drogba.

Baines has been consistently similar for certainly 3, if not 4 seasons now, not the trademark of a late bloomer.
 
It is. People get more excited by foreign transfers because they tend to be better at football.

Eh?

Over the years there have been countless foreign players you dumb feck muppets have got all excited about who've then gone on to amount to largely feck all.

If Leighton Baines played for Benfica or Valencia or the likes the muppets would be going crazy over us being linked with him. Deny it all you like but that's just the way of the muppet forum.

It's the same story with Ashley Young in many respects, he was slagged off as being average by many whilst we the rumoured to be buying him; had he been a foreign player with similar statistics he'd have been god's fecking gift on here.
 
Eh?

Over the years there have been countless foreign players you dumb feck muppets have got all excited about who've then gone on to amount to largely feck all.

If Leighton Baines played for Benfica or Valencia or the likes the muppets would be going crazy over us being linked with him. Deny it all you like but that's just the way of the muppet forum.

It's the same story with Ashley Young in many respects, he was slagged off as being average by many whilst we the rumoured to be buying him; had he been a foreign player with similar statistics he'd have been god's fecking gift on here.

Just like people were excited by the prospect of signing Gaitan from Benfica? They weren't because Gaitan was simply not that good.

Nationality or club has little to do with it. If a player is good enough, he'll be rated regardless - if he isn't and most English players right now are simply average, then chances are people won't be excited.
 
It's not a myth though really, is it?

It really is. It's not like talented young English players aren't hyped up beyond reality anyway, it happens all the time, like say, most of the young English players right now. We've had enough examples of this ourselves. No-one creams themselves over a player just because they are foreign or have an exotic name.
 
Eh?

Over the years there have been countless foreign players you dumb feck muppets have got all excited about who've then gone on to amount to largely feck all.

If Leighton Baines played for Benfica or Valencia or the likes the muppets would be going crazy over us being linked with him. Deny it all you like but that's just the way of the muppet forum.

It's the same story with Ashley Young in many respects, he was slagged off as being average by many whilst we the rumoured to be buying him; had he been a foreign player with similar statistics he'd have been god's fecking gift on here.

So you are going to throw a couple examples, but what about the likes of Cleverly, Jones, Smalling, who barely played a minute before everyone was going fecking mental. Powell? Not even in this league and we've got posters going crazy. Young, who was slagged off, but might that not be because people had actually seen him for years and years, and made their mind up on him before we actually signed him?

'Over the years there have been countless foreign players you dumb feck muppets have got all excited about who've then gone on to amount to largely feck all. '

That could apply to players from any nationality, with any name, as it has done on here in the past. We've had loads of English talents that came through, were hyped up to be something amazing, and didn't reach that level.

It's a complete myth.