Morgan Schneiderlin | BBC: Morgan Schneiderlin is currently having a medical at Manchester United.

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devilish said:
The only one raving about him was our chief scout, a former Hibernian coach whose been sacked by his club only to land himself the chief scout role at one of the biggest clubs of Britain. His own brother SAF almost laughed at him as he described Ando as having more talent than Rooney. Such episode gives a better picture of the level of staff United had back then.

The Ronaldinho link came from some average journalist who knew nothing about Anderson and wanted to write something about him. It was evident from day 1 that the only thing that Ando and Ronaldinho was their nationality.
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Anderson was widely regarded as one of the most talented youngsters in the world after he won the Golden Ball at the U17 World Cup and his performances for Porto pre-leg snap enhanced his rep further. Just about everybody in Brazil and Portugal raved about him; Zagallo, for instance, called him a prodigy and a future superstar, and that guy's hard to please. I reckon the mistake we made wasn't rating him in the first place, it was signing him before it was evident that he wouldn't suffer any long term effects of his leg break, as he hadn't looked quite as explosive since his return to action. Then there's the psychological sequela of suffering such an injury, especially at such a young age. And not for nothing, but plenty of journos and 'experts' gave him the admittedly lazy 'new Ronaldinho' moniker due to his Gremio roots, explosive style (especially pre-injury) and long hair. "The Ronaldinho link came from some average journalist who knew nothing about Anderson and wanted to write something about him." Sometimes I wonder if you actually believe some of the outlandish stuff you write, mate. But at least you're not boring. Except for when you're very, very boring.

And coaching and scouting have very little to do with one another, so your description of Martin Ferguson is rather pointless. Was there nepotism involved in his appointment? I don't know and neither do you, it could just be that Sir trusted him and though he was right for the job, despite his lack of previous scouting gigs. He was here for a decade before we signed Ando and got it spot on plenty of times.
 
Elliott said:
Anderson was widely regarded as one of the most talented youngsters in the world after he won the Golden Ball at the U17 World Cup and his performances for Porto pre-leg snap enhanced his rep further. Just about everybody in Brazil and Portugal raved about him; Zagallo, for instance, called him a prodigy and a future superstar, and that guy's hard to please. I reckon the mistake we made wasn't rating him in the first place, it was signing him before it was evident that he wouldn't suffer any long term effects of his leg break, as he hadn't looked quite as explosive since his return to action. Then there's the psychological sequela of suffering such an injury, especially at such a young age. And not for nothing, but plenty of journos and 'experts' gave him the admittedly lazy 'new Ronaldinho' moniker due to his Gremio roots, explosive style (especially pre-injury) and long hair. "The Ronaldinho link came from some average journalist who knew nothing about Anderson and wanted to write something about him." Sometimes I wonder if you actually believe some of the outlandish stuff you write, mate. But at least you're not boring. Except for when you're very, very boring.

And coaching and scouting have very little to do with one another, so your description of Martin Ferguson is rather pointless. Was there nepotism involved in his appointment? I don't know and neither do you, it could just be that Sir trusted him and though he was right for the job, despite his lack of previous scouting gigs. He was here for a decade before we signed Ando and got it spot on plenty of times.
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I confess I am not a great SA football follower, however Im a great Serie A fan and honestly I lost count of the players who were labelled by the SA so called experts as the new this or the new that. Some of them turned out to be decent talent (ex Ortega) others were unbearable to watch (ex Jonathan and Caio). Considering the scandals about the Selecao selection and the record number of false dawns I would take everything they say with a pinch of salt.

I've followed Martin Ferguson for quite some time. He's quite a funny lad to follow. During his first years he was our scout in Italy were he discovered the absolute talent of Taibi, Silvestre and Quagliarella. Our interest for the former 2 players was quite a shock (Bebe/Bellion type of shock). I mean anyone who watched the Serie A knew that Taibi was average having bottling it up at top level with AC Milan. Yet Martin had seen something in him that no Serie A fan saw and went on suggesting him to his own brother which was followed by a 4m+ fee. That came up as a surprise even to Venezia's owner who would later confess that he would have sold him for half that fee. Same thing happened with Silvestre, who was so horrendous at Inter that he was relegated with the youths with fans insulting him whenever he showed his face again. Our (and Liverpool) bids came up as a surprise for the entire Serie A who still remember him as a bidone (ie a dustbin)

Then at a point he became our expert in South America were he discovered Kleberson and Forlan. If its true that was the one discovering Salas (a great player) than he was probably also the one who suggested Celio Silva.

However its unfair to mention only his mistakes. For example in one interview he stressed on his importance of discovering RVN despite SAF son was the one who put him in our radar (when he was his teammate at Hereenveen) and Martin himself admits that it was Les Kershaw who followed the player later on. Not to forget the famous 'Anderson has more talented than Rooney' suggestion which SAF found it so hilarious to add it in his book.

There again as you said, despite of his numerous clangers, his inexperience (ie he was a mediocre player and his only experience in coaching was at Hibernians where he ended up sacked there), I am absolutely sure that he was chosen out of meritocracy. Same as when United loaned a couple of players to a club where SAF's son coached only for us to pull the plug out of the loan deals the day his son got sacked. I am sure that there's a perfectly reasonable and technical reason why United would have done that. Not to forget that we're talking here about a one man club and therefore he deserves respect. I mean the day big brother retired from football, the great chief scout decided to follow his foot steps rather than continue his football career. I guess life would have been too cruel for him without big brother covering his arse.
 
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Pogue Mahone said:
Bit weird mentioning Forlan and Silvestre as examples of poor scouting. Both went on to have very good careers at the highest level. If people in Italy thought Silvestre was as crap as you imply, then all the more credit goes to Ferguson for seeing what they did not.
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So you liked Silvestre? I always thought he was a disaster waiting to happen especially as CB. He was decent (but not great) as left back though. To summarise everything Id rate Wes and maybe even OShea more than him

Forlan on the other hand never made it at a top club. He failed both at United and at Inter
 
Forlan was a success in La Liga. As for Inter he was 31 years old when he switched to Italy hardly surprising he wasn't at his best there.
 
Spoony said:
Forlan was a success in La Liga. As for Inter he was 31 years old when he switched to Italy hardly surprising he wasn't at his best there.
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That's true. There again his performances at Inter reminded me alot of his performances with us. I wont be surprised if he was the big fish in a small pond type of player were he could only thrive in relatively small/mid clubs only to struggle with the big guys
 
morgan-schneiderlin-southampton-stats_3319319.jpg
 
From all those stats it seems a no brainier, and actually watching him he always stands out. He and wanyama are the reason why Southampton have been so good the last 2 years IMO.
 
Man, those stats really make him look a perfect fit in our team and in an area where we are vulnerable and over-reliant on Carrick. Get him ASAP, Woody!
 
Raoul said:
Yep. I'd love to see a similar graphic comparing his stats to the world's best midfielders outside the Prem.
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A neat place to start would be a couple of Schneiderlin's defensive midfield/ box to box peers through some of their better individual seasons in recent memory. The likes of Martinez when Bayern won the European Cup, Gabi last season, Sven Bender in Dortmund's run the to the European Cup final.


Seems to be there or thereabouts in most categories. :)

From a Van Gaal specific box-to-box role, vs Strootman when he was fit for Roma in 2013/ 2014 :

 
Invictus said:
A neat place to start would be a couple of Schneiderlin's defensive midfield/ box to box peers through some of their better individual seasons in recent memory. The likes of Martinez when Bayern won the European Cup, Gabi last season, Sven Bender in Dortmund's run the to the European Cup final.


Seems to be there or thereabouts in most categories. :)

From a Van Gaal specific box-to-box role, vs Strootman when he was fit for Roma in 2013/ 2014 :

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Interesting. Bender actually rates quite well here.
 
Invictus said:
A neat place to start would be a couple of Schneiderlin's defensive midfield/ box to box peers through some of their better individual seasons in recent memory. The likes of Martinez when Bayern won the European Cup, Gabi last season, Sven Bender in Dortmund's run the to the European Cup final.


Seems to be there or thereabouts in most categories. :)

From a Van Gaal specific box-to-box role, vs Strootman when he was fit for Roma in 2013/ 2014 :

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:lol: So Strootman wins 100% of his aerial duels ?
 
Looking more and more likely this transfer.

I hope it happens, he's exactly the sort of signing we should be making.

My God, we may actually have a really strong midfield this season, when could we last say that? 2008?
 
Raoul said:
Interesting. Bender actually rates quite well here.
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Yep, very interesting that. Though it wasn't very surprising in a sense. His role in Dortmund's midfield as a vacuum beside Gungogan was very underrated. Much like Gattuso when he played with Pirlo for Milan and did a lot of the dirty work.

Raw said:
And Schneiderlin with 100% pass completion when the first image shows him at 89%?
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Heh, Squawka's systems might be glitched. Someone should shoot a tweet squawkadave's way. Bugged.
 
Ok Schneiderlin vs Strootman retry.

 
I don't think its relevant to bring Strootman into this.
He is perennially injured and we don't know how he will play after he returns from injury.
In any case, Strootman probably wont ever play for MUFC, so its not worth talking about.
 
Herrera and Schniederlin infront of a DM is basically a perfectly balanced midfield. Two hard working aggressive pressers with good technical ability. One with strong attacking ability and the other strong defensively.

could bring back the glory days of anderson and cleverly
 
sunama said:
I don't think its relevant to bring Strootman into this.
He is perennially injured and we don't know how he will play after he returns from injury.
In any case, Strootman probably wont ever play for MUFC, so its not worth talking about.
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What purpose did this post serve exactly ? Why is Strootman irrelevant when he is explicitly a viable example of Van Gaal's prototypical box-box-box/ defensive hybrid midfielder. His neverending injuries don't detract from the fact that his relative stats at Roma can give a decent indication of what Louis might want from a functionally similar kind of player Schneiderlin. And the last line, lots of players won't play for United, let's stop discussing them all right. They're not worth it ?
 
His twitter name is 'LeGossip' and he used 'IMO'. Hell, even if he was right I wouldn't believe him.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Bit weird mentioning Forlan and Silvestre as examples of poor scouting. Both went on to have very good careers at the highest level. If people in Italy thought Silvestre was as crap as you imply, then all the more credit goes to Ferguson for seeing what they did not.
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The same ones in Italy who said Silvestre was crap, probably thought the same about Thierry Henry when Arsenal came in for him.
 
Crackers said:
So have we talked to him about wages yet? Is there anything new in the last few days?
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According to french media, he agreed on a 4 years contract with United, but the two clubs are still negotiating the fee.
 
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