And I'm pretty sure you consider Chelsea's squad better than ours and somehow he's not top of the league with Chelsea.
Moyes: "January not an easy month to purchase in. We have a good squad."
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MOurinho wwould have us top of the league.
Remarkably delusional.
He'd have bought better in the summer and would have us further up the table, that's pretty fair to say.
Had Ronaldo signed for us last summer, his goals would have won us the league right now.
MOurinho wwould have us top of the league.
Remarkably delusional.
He's two points below the leaders, with a team that only four months ago was called infeior to United squad by practicly everyone except ItsEssexRobb. Nothing outlandish to suggest that we would have been top with him as manager. He isn't our manager though.
Mourinho would certainly have setup a tactical approach to get the best of this group that has been struggling, but I doubt the club would be in first at the moment. Too many holes, too much inconsistency. No doubts the club would have a few more points and thus sitting nicely in the top four.
I do think he would have signed a midfielder not named Fellaini. He's the type of "name" manager, big profile manager, that would attract top players. I do fear Moyes will put off some top players that otherwise may sign for the club. We shall see.
I do think he would have signed a midfielder not named Fellaini. He's the type of "name" manager, big profile manager, that would attract top players. I do fear Moyes will put off some top players that otherwise may sign for the club. We shall see.
Yes, Woodward was clearly on top of his game. There's nothing going on there except a man who is very, very good at his job. Mourinho would have gotten everything he wanted. Moyes, not so much.
Completely. Very reasoned.
Nah, I doubt anyone would've had us top in these circumstances, we simply have too many weaknesses. Even SAF would've struggled with RvP and Carrick out, as we constantly said we would last season.
I'm sure we'd have be doing better with Mourinho but short term results were never going to be the problem with him.
I'm sure we'd have be doing better with Mourinho but short term results were never going to be the problem with him.
How are you sure he considers Chelsea's squad better than ours? It isn't and Cal hasn't really indicated that I think, he rates our team as far as I remember (and rightly so).
Regardless how it's going with Moyes I'm thrilled Mourinho isn't our manager.
Uh. Yeah. Notice anything different in the owners of those two teams over the past few years? I guess we've been the big spenders, getting every player we wanted. I'm enjoying Hazard in red.
As I said. Delusion.
Exactly, the last three seasons they weren't even close to us and now they are comfortably ahead yet people still question Mourinho. He'll get them playing even better in the second half of season and could well win the league.
Go on then, what's that actually based on? Certainly not anything that's happened this season, or that you haven't seen us play.
Also, I knew this thread would take off. The Caf is so predictable at times.
When will people learn that what managers say in press conferences re transfers rarely actually resembles the truth?
When will people learn that what managers say in press conferences re transfers rarely actually resembles the truth?
Seconded. Although, how much pride would you feel when he walked over to Wenger and gouged out his eye with his finger?
We finished around 15 above them last year and we also had a net spend of 30m this summer.
We can't know for sure, but there isn't anything delusional to say that with Mourinho/Pep or had SAF stayed for another season, we would have been top of the table this year.
Our squad isn't weaker than Chelsea's.
The obsession with quotes in England is REMARKABLE. In the states we usually take it with a grain of salt.
Moyes spent more in the Summer than Mourinho, didn't he?
And a dollop of Mayo...
Nope. William, Schurrle and that Dutchman pretty sure cost more than Fellaini, Varela and that Swiss player.
MOurinho wwould have us top of the league.
Remarkably delusional.
Really? What's delusional is how much some people have lowered their expectations. This is a team who won the Premier League by 11 points last season. After 20 games, we have already dropped more points than in the entirety of last season. I find it weird that some people will sooner blame our players who have proven their quality than blame Moyes who has been distinctly underwhelming at best so far.
But, we have a good squad. It's our first team which isn't good in comparison.
GK De Gea Lindegaard
RB Rafael (Smalling, Valencia, Fabio)
CB Vidic Ferdinand Evans Jones Smalling
LB Evra Buttner
RM Valencia Nani
CM Carrick Fellaini Cleverley Anderson Fletcher Giggs (Jones)
LM Young Nani (Kagawa Welbeck)
AM Rooney Kagawa
ST van Persie Rooney Hernandez Welbeck
That is a squad with depth, and bar some spots in defence and midfield our second options to each position are good too. But the word good is all it is currently, as is the first team itself. If he said he's perfectly fine with our first team and doesn't think we need changing or improving it, then I would be hacked off.
GK De Gea Lindegaard
RB Rafael (Smalling, Valencia, Fabio)
CB Vidic Ferdinand Evans Jones Smalling
LB Evra Buttner
RM Valencia Nani
CM Carrick Fellaini Cleverley Anderson Fletcher Giggs (Jones)
LM Young Nani (Kagawa Welbeck)
AM Rooney Kagawa
ST van Persie Rooney Hernandez Welbeck
That is a squad with depth, and bar some spots in defence and midfield our second options to each position are good too. But the word good is all it is currently, as is the first team itself. If he said he's perfectly fine with our first team and doesn't think we need changing or improving it, then I would be hacked off.
And the year before that we had no trophies. Then we added one player who banged in goals like he was playing against five year olds. Then that player came in this year out of form and has spend most of the year injured.
Did you not want to factor that in? Or how does that work?
You may as well tie a blindfold over your eyes, stick your fingers in your ears, and start screaming, "I don't want to hear it" if you're going to pull out the "we finished 15 points up" last year. You play your hand in the most foolish of ways.
Yeah, good point about Pep. Definitely bring up managers who weren't ever going to manage us. Makes your argument sound. And you're right, we can't know for sure, so you're only bringing it up because you hate Moyes.
Delusion.
Amen to that, brother.
I'm very sorry to have put it this way and made you have a go at me. Yes, my fault, I shouldn't have written 'pretty sure'. I just think that most of users on here think United squad is the worst (I'm not saying it can't be true) out of all the title contenders. And I assumed that Cal is definitely one of them, it's just how I see him on the Caf. Sorry, sir, I have had a long break from the Caf, so I don't know more about his attitude. It will never happen again.
Yeah. We won it by 11 points. Hey, who was our biggest goal scorer last year? Any difference in him this year? Hey, who led our defense last year? Any change in him? Hey, has our LB improved? How's our RB doing? Nice and healthy? What about of CM? Has he been nice and healthy and stepping up? Hey, did we actually bring back a retired aging midfielder at this point last year instead of buying a new one?
I find it weird you ignore all those things and then tell people their expectations have lowered.
A) Last season we had SAF, both the greatest manager of all time and the manager most perfectly suited to our club. Even at their best no other manager was going to be near as good.
B) We were always going to suffer from a natural decline during the transition period anyway, more so than other clubs who change manager more regularly. This is especially true in the case of Mourinho and Chelsea due to their previous relationship. Mourinho wouldn't have done as well for us as he has for Chelsea so far, imo.
C) The league was obviously far less competitive last year, as was repeatedly pointed out while we were running away with it.
D) Last season it was repeatedly pointed out how reliant we were on both RvP and Carrick. We constantly said we'd be in serious trouble if either got injured. This season has seen injuries to both.
Moyes has obviously been extremely underwhelming, no doubt. That doesn't mean we'd be winning the league if it wasn't for him though, some of these difficulties would have been present anyway.
Well his summer was fairly similar to ours...He was fixated on one player that proved unobtainable.
His other summer signings it's debatable whether they've been successful or not so far.
I certainly don't think Chelsea have a better squad than us, if anything their problems upfront is just as bad as ours in midfield.
Anyway, the point is that I'm absolutely convinced that Sir Alex would have us sitting top if he's still around and Mourinho would probably have us top as well.
Moyes, well...
Based on the fact we are 5 points off 4th with 18 games to go and players will return from injury, plus in the run in I would expect our experience to help quite a bit when it comes to dislodging Liverpool
Still not good enough excuses there, from 11 points ahead champions to 11 behind right now, nor to negatively breaking 20 year old records and losing at home to teams with less quality than us, just because RVP and Carrick are injured and Evra and CB's are not playing as well, also Rooney is much better than he was last year, plus we had many injuries last year too, add to that that we spent 27m for a midfielder this year and we have Januzaj.
It's all relative, we my have a good squad in terms of the premier league, but definitely not a very good, or great squad. Throw in a comparison to chelsea, City. Real Madrid, and Barcelona our squad looks weak. Looking beyond our forward line we are full of holes.
RVP made a huge difference last season, but his availability has been an issue, and also where to fit in Kagawa. I think Kagawa was bought as a Rooney replacement, and seems to be a wasted talent at the moment.
RVP made a huge difference last season, but his availability has been an issue, and also where to fit in Kagawa. I think Kagawa was bought as a Rooney replacement, and seems to be a wasted talent at the moment.
a) Perhaps, but even a significant drop in management should not see us drop more points in 20 games than the whole of last season.
b) Pure speculation, Mourinho has changed jobs enough times and the evidence is that he tends to hit the ground running each time.
c) The league becoming more competitive also means we need far fewer points to top the league right now compared to 12 months ago.
d) Whilst completely ignoring Rooney's form this season compared to last.
A) No but it would certainly contribute to a lot of it.
B) Yes but he has never taken over a job like this. After the amount of time we've spent under SAF's reign I think it was inevitable that any manager would struggle initially. This is a unique situation.
C) True, yet points are equally harder to obtain by that logic.
D) While you ignore the role Moyes has played in Rooney's return to form? It certainly wouldn't have happened under SAF and there's no guarantee another manager would have handled it as well either. If we're giving Mourinho credit for the good things he's done at Chelsea you have to equally give Moyes credit for the few obviously good thing he's done here.
Is January really a bad time to do business in, do we think? There's been some great January signings in the past, although not all were immediate impacts. From memory I can think of Ivanovic, Vidic, Evra, Mascherano, Sturridge and Suarez...
Ok. Well I base my assertion on the fact we haven't even been in the top 4 since the very opening day. And I do not see it changing unless we strengthen with top quality this month. We are not catching it up and eventually the games will run out. And I don't really see Liverpool slowing down that much anyway, they have been away everywhere of note apart from to us, all the other top sides have to go to Anfield and we know how good their home form has been. When you say experience I attribute that experience to Ferguson and his navigation of a season, it remains to be seen whether the players take it on this year.
No Januzaj or Zaha there.
It's a squad that gives the illusion of depth. Several of those players aren't good enough to even be back-up players for us, with Giggs and Büttner being the main names, while the best players in some positions aren't good enough to be starters. The wingers are obvious mentions here, with the exception of Januzaj and potentially Zaha. Then there's the likes of Anderson, Fletcher, Giggs again, Rafael, Fabio, Evra, Rio, Vidic, van Persie, Smalling, Jones and to some extent Rooney, who all struggle with injuries, age or both. Some of them struggle so much it's like having half a player in the squad, if not less.
There are issues in a lot of areas. The fact that we have a lot of players in most positions covers up some of the cracks, but our wingers, fullbacks and midfielders aren't good enough to do that, and it shows. At this point in time I'm only happy with our goalkeepers, centre backs and strikers. The other positions need players returning to form or getting replaced.
a) That's only a part of it, like I said back in the summer, with Sir Alex, we'd have gone into this season expecting another title, with Moyes I'd have been happy with top 3, but all the signs are there that's he's failing to achieve that.
b) How so? We've a stable base and hence whoever takes over will struggle badly? What kind of logic is that?
c) Mourinho's home record alone will see us much closer to the top of the league.
d) Well, getting Rooney to play well isn't really a major plus when we're languishing midtable. Sir Alex would probably have sold Rooney, but we'd be much much better off.
It's nigh on impossible to get a top quality player to move though. I wouldn't say any of those were truly top class at the time of transfer. Timescale is not an issue, we know how quickly a move can happen if clubs want it to. I just hope we don't leave it late again, it used to be that the later you leave it the better the price. Well for a start we can't afford to let 4 more games drift by without anyone coming in, but now it seems the later you leave it the dearer it is if you are dealing with a strong club.