No transfers in January

Sarni said:
But did that include wages of players mentioned? If it does, it'd probably be 40 or 50 per cent increase instead had we kept them. Wow, just wow.
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The first quarter covers the period from 01 July to 30 September. Van Der Sar, Neville, Scholes and Hargreaves had contracts which expired on June 30 and Brown and O'Shea left the club in early July so on that basis, no, it didn't include the wages of those players.
 
peterstorey said:
Like us you couldn't pay Nasri over 70% of what he was worth because of the effect on the whole dressing room.
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Exactly.

Sarni said:
That's my point though, we cannot compete against City and such.
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There's a difference in this case in that we wouldn't rather than couldn't afford to. United could afford to pay Nasri £180k a week or whatever it is, but why would we do that and destroy a well established wage structure which will lead to every other player at the club re-evaluating their worth?

Generally speaking, no, we can't compete financially with City, but I've got some shocking news for you, nobody can. Do you actually think it would any different under a different ownership model? We're talking about an obscenely wealthy Sheik owner verses a football club that generates it's own funds. I know which I'd rather be associated with.
 
Does Sir Alex ever come out and announce he'll buy? We always say before each window we won't be buying. I think we mostly do this for selling clubs to see our supporters won't freak out and cry for a buy, which would be leverage they could use to push up the price.

Showing everything is calm helps us get a fair price.
 
It seems we also refuse to get into bidding wars as well, we have a set value for a player, offer that and a wage structure, then they either like it or lump it.
 
gooDevil said:
Does Sir Alex ever come out and announce he'll buy? We always say before each window we won't be buying. I think we mostly do this for selling clubs to see our supporters won't freak out and cry for a buy, which would be leverage they could use to push up the price.

Showing everything is calm helps us get a fair price.
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I can't remember the last time he did that. Which makes transfer speculation all the more .... speculative.
 
You'll see lads. We're going to hit form during the Christmas break and onto the new year. We'll win the league. I don't know about any other silverware but the PL is ours. Summers signings will probably take place afterwards
 
If Silkman is to be believed we are trying to get a couple targets in during the January window.
 
I cannot see us getting a midfielder in Jan, we would undoubtedly be ripped off to the max. So i would be happy enough if we picked up Gary Cahill on the cheap. At least that would enable us to keep Jones in midfield, and give us a bit of pace and experience at the back should anything happen to Rio, which is hardly an unlikely scenario.

Buying no-one will be a major error in judgment imo. Leaving us with potentially an injury ravaged midfield, in front of a very inexperienced defence would quite simply be a recipe for disaster.
 
Or we'll try, but if we fail we can say whoever we wanted wasn't available and of course if we do sign someone, "we had been looking at him for a long time."
 
I'd be very interested to see the Cafe's reaction if we signed Modric, Sandro & Sneijder and still struggled in midfield. I think it'd implode.
 
Come on guys!

You can't expect SAF to come right out and say now yes he needs someone. It just bumps the price right up and he undermines the squad he has at his disposal especially those coming through.

We're in the middle of contract negotiations with Pogba (hopefully) and basically it says I don't trust you when he might not even get that or those players.

He'll do what he has done and to keep everything under wraps. It wouldn't surprise me if he didn't buy anyone, but then it wouldn't surprise me if he did either. Anyone that says we need a player he thinks is casting aspersions on the strength of the team and also his own judgement as a manager.
 
Mad said:
Or we'll try, but if we fail we can say whoever we wanted wasn't available and of course if we do sign someone, "we had been looking at him for a long time."
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Surely though that would always be the case. I cannot see us signing anybody who we haven't been monitoring for a long time, the only time i remember that occuring is with Bebe, and we know how that has worked out so far!

I do think SAF knows we need someone, but what frustrates me is this stance on value, amid claims that there is nobody available who would improve us. There are plenty of players who would improve us, but why are they not available? It appears to me that these players are readily available to clubs like City, Barca and Madrid, but not to us at the prices or wages we are willing to pay. There is not a manager anywhere that would not buy a top quality player for a fee below the going rate, and who will accept below top dollar wages. Yet that seems to be what we are waiting for.

We clearly have a policy with emphasis on not spending over the top, in either huge fees or huge wages. This obviously limits our options and this is why i believe we are struggling to strengthen the midfield. Top quality midfielders demand top wages, and their clubs want the highest fee possible which is only to be expected. Our problem now is that even potentially top quality players who are in demand, are now going for hugely over-inflated fees and want huge wages in keeping with the other top players.

If we cannot match that, then the only alternative is to shop below that standard and hope to get lucky and stumble on a diamond. The problem at a club like ours, is you have to shop regularly in the top standard to improve. It seems a bit of a catch 22 atm in my view, we will simply have to wait and see how it turns out.
 
apotheosis said:
Surely though that would always be the case. I cannot see us signing anybody who we haven't been monitoring for a long time, the only time i remember that occuring is with Bebe, and we know how that has worked out so far!

I do think SAF knows we need someone, but what frustrates me is this stance on value, amid claims that there is nobody available who would improve us. There are plenty of players who would improve us, but why are they not available? It appears to me that these players are readily available to clubs like City, Barca and Madrid, but not to us at the prices or wages we are willing to pay. There is not a manager anywhere that would not buy a top quality player for a fee below the going rate, and who will accept below top dollar wages. Yet that seems to be what we are waiting for.

We clearly have a policy with emphasis on not spending over the top, in either huge fees or huge wages. This obviously limits our options and this is why i believe we are struggling to strengthen the midfield. Top quality midfielders demand top wages, and their clubs want the highest fee possible which is only to be expected. Our problem now is that even potentially top quality players who are in demand, are now going for hugely over-inflated fees and want huge wages in keeping with the other top players.

If we cannot match that, then the only alternative is to shop below that standard and hope to get lucky and stumble on a diamond. The problem at a club like ours, is you have to shop regularly in the top standard to improve. It seems a bit of a catch 22 atm in my view, we will simply have to wait and see how it turns out.
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Its neither a new 'problem' nor 'policy'.

Back in his earlier United days, SAF wanted to sign all sorts of great and exotic players. Gabriel Batisituta is a name that springs to mind. SAF had his heart set on him, alot of the woo-ing had been done, but the board refused to sanction the wages Batistuta had asked for (because, like it or not, we have a wage structure) and the transfer was cancelled. We'll never know the real truth about Ronaldiniho, unless SAFs talks about it the next chapter of his autobiography, but I think it would be along the same lines (the board not funding the transfer or allowing for the required wage demands).

So this is not a new phenomena.

However, the club is also known for consistently breaking the British transfer record, when SAF see's a player he is absolutely convinced about (whether he was right in hindsight is another debate). And even if thats unlikely now, given the idiocy of the Chavski £50m Torres transfer, if we did sign somebody for £50m+ in January or the summer, though it would excite me, it would certainly not surprise me.

The club has the funds to make necessary transfers. We have the foundations of a very healthy squad. SAF will NEVER BUY unless he knows the incoming player is better than what he has available and will deliver long term value to the club be it many games and being sold on (Ronaldo) or being with us for the rest of their career (Rio/Rooney).

But then we all know all of this. We have had 25 years to understand SAFs beliefs and values. I don't know why everybody is so surprised by our current activities. Its not as though we don't buy players .... just in the last few years, that list includes Berbatov, Hernandez, Valencia, Young, DDG & Jones. Some were cheap, some were not, but all are of top top quality. However, what SAF never does is buy 'fillers' .... thats why we have a huge squad.
 
sammsky1 said:
SAF will NEVER BUY unless he knows the incoming player is better than what he has available .
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So I wonder what's keeping him from buying a CM. Its not that difficult to reach that aim isn't it? Gone are the days when we had Scholes, Keane and Robson. Now we're more like Ando, Fletcher, Park and the Gibbo guy's level.
 
devilish said:
So I wonder what's keeping him from buying a CM. Its not that difficult to reach that aim isn't it? Gone are the days when we had Scholes, Keane and Robson. Now we're more like Ando, Fletcher, Park and the Gibbo guy's level.
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For all the other reasons I wrote in my post!

The 'value' equation for players that have been available does not suit our clubs financial principles. And as I said, we have had such 'principles' since SAF became manager. I may not like those 'principles' but they are what they are.

Likewise, it was nice while it lasted, of ourselves being the omnipotent financial footballing powerhouse in the UK and we hoovered up a whole load of talent in the process. Whatever the route they gained those funds does not matter, but Manchester City and Chelsea currently have deeper pockets than us and a very different financial policy that is not sustainable in te medium term. I dont want to derail this thread about the virtues or not of the Glazers, but at the moment, we have to accept that financially, we are no longer as powerful as we once were. It may be unfair, but so what. It is what it is.

Its obvious why we have not signed the players we did not sign: we don't want to imbalance the harmony within our squad by throwing our wage structure out of kilt. That is true of every single organisation with heritage and history, be it in the corporate world or as a football club. We also may not have the financial wherewithal to do so either (again not new - Ref: Batistuta).

Either way, there's no point moaning about it. As I said, it is what it is.

And anyway, we proved in 2006/7 when the Chavs added Ballack, Ashley Cole, Shevchenko & Obi Mikel to an all ready consecutive premiership winning side that we actually already had the quality within the club to surpass lots of expensive players through out strong team ethic. We proved that again last season having lost Ronaldo & Tevez.

All our squad players are of an incredible quality and we have a great balance between experience, maturity, youth and newcomers. Im still very encouraged and optimistic about PL success this year, whether we sign a midfielder or not.
 
devilish said:
So I wonder what's keeping him from buying a CM. Its not that difficult to reach that aim isn't it? Gone are the days when we had Scholes, Keane and Robson. Now we're more like Ando, Fletcher, Park and the Gibbo guy's level.
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Not sure why you put Fletcher in there who has proven himself to be an excellent player. How many central midfielders are currently around then are better than the likes of Fletcher or Carrick? lets just look at the PL. Modric yeah sure, can't think of too many others in the league. I suppose you could say Toure, I don't think he's on a different level to either of them. I wouldn't swap them for any of Chelsea's midfielders. Wilshere and Ramsey have great potential but they've got more to prove before they show they're better players. Even then it's harder to say how good they'd be playing in a two. Who else? Barry? Not for me. I wouldn't take any of liverpools midfielders. Parker isn't better than either of them. Can't say too much for other players in europe. But in terms of proven players there aren't many, and even less of them are established and available.

The others you've mentioned are back up, certainly in the case of Gibson and Park anyway. Gibson wasn't even going to be that going in to the season. You left out Giggs, a quality player, who could still cut it at most teams in the middle. Anderson and Cleverley are young players with lots of talent, who aren't top class yet but certainly have the potential to be.

I suppose you could say there's been a drop in top talent in central midfielders in todays game, that's a fair argument, there are certainly few top central midfielders I can think off. In todays game most midfielders are specalised, the box to box player is more rare.
 
sammsky1 said:
Its neither a new 'problem' nor 'policy'.

Back in his earlier United days, SAF wanted to sign all sorts of great and exotic players. Gabriel Batisituta is a name that springs to mind. SAF had his heart set on him, alot of the woo-ing had been done, but the board refused to sanction the wages Batistuta had asked for (because, like it or not, we have a wage structure) and the transfer was cancelled. We'll never know the real truth about Ronaldiniho, unless SAFs talks about it the next chapter of his autobiography, but I think it would be along the same lines (the board not funding the transfer or allowing for the required wage demands).

So this is not a new phenomena.

However, the club is also known for consistently breaking the British transfer record, when SAF see's a player he is absolutely convinced about (whether he was right in hindsight is another debate). And even if thats unlikely now, given the idiocy of the Chavski £50m Torres transfer, if we did sign somebody for £50m+ in January or the summer, though it would excite me, it would certainly not surprise me.

The club has the funds to make necessary transfers. We have the foundations of a very healthy squad. SAF will NEVER BUY unless he knows the incoming player is better than what he has available and will deliver long term value to the club be it many games and being sold on (Ronaldo) or being with us for the rest of their career (Rio/Rooney).

But then we all know all of this. We have had 25 years to understand SAFs beliefs and values. I don't know why everybody is so surprised by our current activities. Its not as though we don't buy players .... just in the last few years, that list includes Berbatov, Hernandez, Valencia, Young, DDG & Jones. Some were cheap, some were not, but all are of top top quality. However, what SAF never does is buy 'fillers' .... thats why we have a huge squad.
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Sammsky i never claimed it was a new phenomena. A lot of what you are saying is true, but then i never disputed any of that in the first place.

What you are failing to recognise is that since Berbatov, we have actually shopped below top quality. Valencia, Young, Jones etc are very good players, but they are not top top quality. Anyway this is a different debate to what i posted.

I would categorically state, and have done previously, that since the sale of Ronaldo, we have never strengthened the first team adequately, and we have still not done so imo.

We have signed some good players, but not for midfield. Anderson was the last siging for midfield back in 2007. Scholes and Hargreaves are now gone, and they have not been replaced and we are weaker for it. To use your own example, the Batistuta deal was negotiated and only fell down on the wage demands. So let me ask you considering how long midfield has been our weakest area, when was the last time we actually put a bid in for a midfielder? Probably Ramsey iirc.

So considering we have now lost Scholes and Hargeaves, we should have strengthened midfield, but we didn't. The reason we didn't imo is because we were either unable or unwilling to match the salaries of the players we wanted or the fees asked by the clubs.

If that is the case, then we are limited in the types of players we can go for. That is why we have not signed a midfielder or 2 imo. The players we want are unavailable to us because of the financial implications of the transfers, not because they are unavailable full stop.

Nasri was available, he chose City. Modric was unavailable, but would have opted for Chelsea had he been. Sneijder was available but SAF decided not too bother for whatever reason, it may have been money, but tbh im not sure. What i am saying is we appear to be waiting for top quality bargains, this limits our options and that is why we have not yet strengthened clearly our weakest area imo.
 
Ash_G said:
Not sure why you put Fletcher in there who has proven himself to be an excellent player. How many central midfielders are currently around then are better than the likes of Fletcher or Carrick? lets just look at the PL. Modric yeah sure, can't think of too many others in the league. I suppose you could say Toure, I don't think he's on a different level to either of them. I wouldn't swap them for any of Chelsea's midfielders. Wilshere and Ramsey have great potential but they've got more to prove before they show they're better players. Even then it's harder to say how good they'd be playing in a two. Who else? Barry? Not for me. I wouldn't take any of liverpools midfielders. Parker isn't better than either of them. Can't say too much for other players in europe. But in terms of proven players there aren't many, and even less of them are established and available.

The others you've mentioned are back up, certainly in the case of Gibson and Park anyway. Gibson wasn't even going to be that going in to the season. You left out Giggs, a quality player, who could still cut it at most teams in the middle. Anderson and Cleverley are young players with lots of talent, who aren't top class yet but certainly have the potential to be.

I suppose you could say there's been a drop in top talent in central midfielders in todays game, that's a fair argument, there are certainly few top central midfielders I can think off. In todays game most midfielders are specalised, the box to box player is more rare.
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I wish Fletch all the best and I admire his fighting spirit but lets face it, he's all workrate and very little talent. Giggs was a world class player and he still has it but he's 38 while Ando is one of the most frustrating players I've ever seen wearing a United shirt, 1 good game followed by 5 bad ones and 2 months injury. The talent is there, but for one reason or another we rarely see it. Clev on the other hand has potential and the right attitude to succeed but he's just 1 player who'll have still alot to learn.

The truth is that we tend to hype our players a bit too much + we were often lucky. Our CL run last season was very lucky indeed (we cruised to the final against much smaller team like Shalke and Marseille). Mind you I rate this side and I see great potential in players like Jones, Smalling, De Gea, Clev and Welbeck but we're far from being a great team. A great team doesn't end up being knocked out in one of the easiest groups of CL history.

Anyway we can stick our heads in the sand by saying that a 38 yr old Giggs can save the day. That Ando will finally become the next Ronaldinho and that Fletch is one of the best midfielders ever but we're only laughing at ourselves. There's plenty of players who can strengthen our CM and SAF's knows that (if he really rate CM so hard then he wouldn't have gone for Sneijder and Nasri with the latter hardly being a world beater). Its just that creativity comes with a price and we don't want to spend the dosh for it. Lets hope that our relegation in the Value league will hit the owners hard enough to give SAF a chance to strengthen the CM. Considering his limits the man had performed miracles.
 
sammsky1 said:
For all the other reasons I wrote in my post!

The 'value' equation for players that have been available does not suit our clubs financial principles. And as I said, we have had such 'principles' since SAF became manager. I may not like those 'principles' but they are what they are.

Likewise, it was nice while it lasted, of ourselves being the omnipotent financial footballing powerhouse in the UK and we hoovered up a whole load of talent in the process. Whatever the route they gained those funds does not matter, but Manchester City and Chelsea currently have deeper pockets than us and a very different financial policy that is not sustainable in te medium term. I dont want to derail this thread about the virtues or not of the Glazers, but at the moment, we have to accept that financially, we are no longer as powerful as we once were. It may be unfair, but so what. It is what it is.

Its obvious why we have not signed the players we did not sign: we don't want to imbalance the harmony within our squad by throwing our wage structure out of kilt. That is true of every single organisation with heritage and history, be it in the corporate world or as a football club. We also may not have the financial wherewithal to do so either (again not new - Ref: Batistuta).

Either way, there's no point moaning about it. As I said, it is what it is.

And anyway, we proved in 2006/7 when the Chavs added Ballack, Ashley Cole, Shevchenko & Obi Mikel to an all ready consecutive premiership winning side that we actually already had the quality within the club to surpass lots of expensive players through out strong team ethic. We proved that again last season having lost Ronaldo & Tevez.

All our squad players are of an incredible quality and we have a great balance between experience, maturity, youth and newcomers. Im still very encouraged and optimistic about PL success this year, whether we sign a midfielder or not.
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Its not about principles its all about wage structure which is nowadays the true financial killer (and not the fees). We had chairmen who were skint and others who weren't. Edwards was skint, Kenyon loosened the purses until he started dreaming about Chelski (And hijacking our transfers in the process), Glazers started well to win the fans hearts and then turned to skint mode just as they did with the Buccaneers. Our manager had to adapt to it.

Don't forget that the same man who talks about mighty Gibson being an option didn't shyed away from adding an estabilished playmaker in a midfield already star studded with players like Keane, Scholes, Giggs and Beckham. Each of those players had more talent in their right toe then all our current central midfielders put together. I wonder where the principles had gone that day.....
 
devilish said:
I wish Fletch all the best and I admire his fighting spirit but lets face it, he's all workrate and very little talent. Giggs was a world class player and he still has it but he's 38 while Ando is one of the most frustrating players I've ever seen wearing a United shirt, 1 good game followed by 5 bad ones and 2 months injury. The talent is there, but for one reason or another we rarely see it. Clev on the other hand has potential and the right attitude to succeed but he's just 1 player who'll have still alot to learn.

The truth is that we tend to hype our players a bit too much + we were often lucky. Our CL run last season was very lucky indeed (we cruised to the final against much smaller team like Shalke and Marseille). Mind you I rate this side and I see great potential in players like Jones, Smalling, De Gea, Clev and Welbeck but we're far from being a great team. A great team doesn't end up being knocked out in one of the easiest groups of CL history.

Anyway we can stick our heads in the sand by saying that a 38 yr old Giggs can save the day. That Ando will finally become the next Ronaldinho and that Fletch is one of the best midfielders ever but we're only laughing at ourselves. There's plenty of players who can strengthen our CM. Its just that we don't want to spend the dosh.
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I think you're severely underrating Fletcher. He's proved that he's far more than just workrate. With Carrick he's played the most amount of games for us in the middle in a time where we've had more success in the league and europe over a sustained period than ever before, you can't just fluke all that. 3 champions league finals in four seasons and Fletcher was a big part in two of them. We may have got some good draws at times but we also got some great results. Fletcher could get in to any team in the league.

As for Giggs, yeah he's 38 but he keeps producing so as long as he can do that he's not too old. I agree about Ando, but he's still a good squad player even if he never makes it to being a regular in the first 11. As you said Clev has potential. So going in to the season with Carrick, Fletcher, Giggs, Ando and Clev as our main midfield options for me wasn't an issue. Yes a Modric would be a bonus but it's not essential to our success. Most of those players have been a big part of our recent success. For all the problems we've had this season and City's supposed much stronger team we're only two points behind them. Maybe things aren't as bad as being made out?

A great team could easily end up getting knocked out of the CL. We had numerous issues over the group stage. We had numerous injuries to the defence and midfield, which caused us to rely on inexperienced players that made untimely mistakes that cost us goals and a place in the next round. We were in a bad way but it's not a reflection on the quality of the squad but just saying we messed up and we suffered from other factors as well. Some of it was out own fault and self brought on, others were circumstantial.

Anyway like I said, what central midfielders are there? Nasri, Silva, Mata, Sneijder, Ozil, none of these are central midfielders. Had we signed Nasri/sneijder we may never have signed Young, and put them on the left wing. I don't think either would have played in a two man midfield had they come, and I don't think we're trying to move to a three. So who else is there. Sweinsteiger? A player highly unlikely to move. Modric, who seems to want to stay in london and Spurs have no inclination to sell. De Rossi isn't any better then what we have. I'm struggling to think of many more names who could actually improve us now and that we could actually get. I'm sure there are young players out there who could eventually improve us, but no one who's established that we could feasibly have gotten. And right now that's what we need if we were going to sign someone. An experienced player, or someone who can step up. Not a young player who'd be a project. We have that in Clev/Ando.

Now however having said that I would say we need to sign someone now with Fletcher being out. We're one experienced player to short in that area and I think it'd be a mistake if we didn't try and boost the numbers in january and if the club had doubts over Fletcher's fitness going in to the season I think it was odd of them not to have brought someone in to boost the numbers. But as for not having had signed someone in the summer, and not being able to find anyone who could improve us that we could obtain, I can fully see why we didn't sign anyone.
 
apotheosis said:
Sammsky i never claimed it was a new phenomena. A lot of what you are saying is true, but then i never disputed any of that in the first place.

What you are failing to recognise is that since Berbatov, we have actually shopped below top quality. Valencia, Young, Jones etc are very good players, but they are not top top quality. Anyway this is a different debate to what i posted.

I would categorically state, and have done previously, that since the sale of Ronaldo, we have never strengthened the first team adequately, and we have still not done so imo.

We have signed some good players, but not for midfield. Anderson was the last siging for midfield back in 2007. Scholes and Hargreaves are now gone, and they have not been replaced and we are weaker for it. To use your own example, the Batistuta deal was negotiated and only fell down on the wage demands. So let me ask you considering how long midfield has been our weakest area, when was the last time we actually put a bid in for a midfielder? Probably Ramsey iirc.

So considering we have now lost Scholes and Hargeaves, we should have strengthened midfield, but we didn't. The reason we didn't imo is because we were either unable or unwilling to match the salaries of the players we wanted or the fees asked by the clubs.

If that is the case, then we are limited in the types of players we can go for. That is why we have not signed a midfielder or 2 imo. The players we want are unavailable to us because of the financial implications of the transfers, not because they are unavailable full stop.

Nasri was available, he chose City. Modric was unavailable, but would have opted for Chelsea had he been. Sneijder was available but SAF decided not too bother for whatever reason, it may have been money, but tbh im not sure. What i am saying is we appear to be waiting for top quality bargains, this limits our options and that is why we have not yet strengthened clearly our weakest area imo.
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On that I totally agree.

But its the reality of where we are right now and until a very rich sugar daddy buys out the Glazers and give Uncle Alex a black cheque, we'll have to accept thats the way it is for the time being.

SAF also has become more politically astute as he's gotten older. He wants to stay employed at a club he loves more than anybody else alive (well perhaps after Sir Bobby) and he has done a remarkable, no, an astonishing job with the recent restrictions City and Chelsea have imposed on him.

Of course he is not going to come out and rubbish his owners and anyway, who is SAF to do that anyway? Like it or not, even SAF is an employee of Manchester United; by whatever means they did so, the Glazers own our club and they bought the club through entirely legal means. You and I may not think it ethical but thats a purely subjective debate.

I think we are both in agreement, SAF is financially handicapped abit right now, hence the drop in quality i our most recent acquisitions BUT except for a miraculous turn of events in this years CL, he is still able to deliver the results we need to remain the best of the best: We have apparently been a shoddy mess this year compared to a virtually unplayable and omnipotent Manchester City and yet we still only find ourselves 2 points adrift of pole position and its not even xmas and we have been decimated by injury problems in every playing department except goalkeeper.

For that to be the case, then I also think you are doing some of our recent acquisitions abit of a disservice, no matter that they are a peg or so below the likes of Xaxi, Messi, Ronaldo, Rooney et al.
 
devilish said:
I wish Fletch all the best and I admire his fighting spirit but lets face it, he's all workrate and very little talent. Giggs was a world class player and he still has it but he's 38 while Ando is one of the most frustrating players I've ever seen wearing a United shirt, 1 good game followed by 5 bad ones and 2 months injury. The talent is there, but for one reason or another we rarely see it. Clev on the other hand has potential and the right attitude to succeed but he's just 1 player who'll have still alot to learn.

The truth is that we tend to hype our players a bit too much + we were often lucky. Our CL run last season was very lucky indeed (we cruised to the final against much smaller team like Shalke and Marseille). Mind you I rate this side and I see great potential in players like Jones, Smalling, De Gea, Clev and Welbeck but we're far from being a great team. A great team doesn't end up being knocked out in one of the easiest groups of CL history.

Anyway we can stick our heads in the sand by saying that a 38 yr old Giggs can save the day. That Ando will finally become the next Ronaldinho and that Fletch is one of the best midfielders ever but we're only laughing at ourselves. There's plenty of players who can strengthen our CM and SAF's knows that (if he really rate CM so hard then he wouldn't have gone for Sneijder and Nasri with the latter hardly being a world beater). Its just that creativity comes with a price and we don't want to spend the dosh for it. Lets hope that our relegation in the Value league will hit the owners hard enough to give SAF a chance to strengthen the CM. Considering his limits the man had performed miracles.
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agreed and i hope the same.
 
Ash_G said:
I think you're severely underrating Fletcher. He's proved that he's far more than just workrate. With Carrick he's played the most amount of games for us in the middle in a time where we've had more success in the league and europe over a sustained period than ever before, you can't just fluke all that. 3 champions league finals in four seasons and Fletcher was a big part in two of them. We may have got some good draws at times but we also got some great results. Fletcher could get in to any team in the league.

As for Giggs, yeah he's 38 but he keeps producing so as long as he can do that he's not too old. I agree about Ando, but he's still a good squad player even if he never makes it to being a regular in the first 11. As you said Clev has potential. So going in to the season with Carrick, Fletcher, Giggs, Ando and Clev as our main midfield options for me wasn't an issue. Yes a Modric would be a bonus but it's not essential to our success. Most of those players have been a big part of our recent success. For all the problems we've had this season and City's supposed much stronger team we're only two points behind them. Maybe things aren't as bad as being made out?

A great team could easily end up getting knocked out of the CL. We had numerous issues over the group stage. We had numerous injuries to the defence and midfield, which caused us to rely on inexperienced players that made untimely mistakes that cost us goals and a place in the next round. We were in a bad way but it's not a reflection on the quality of the squad but just saying we messed up and we suffered from other factors as well. Some of it was out own fault and self brought on, others were circumstantial.

Anyway like I said, what central midfielders are there? Nasri, Silva, Mata, Sneijder, Ozil, none of these are central midfielders. Had we signed Nasri/sneijder we may never have signed Young, and put them on the left wing. I don't think either would have played in a two man midfield had they come, and I don't think we're trying to move to a three. So who else is there. Sweinsteiger? A player highly unlikely to move. Modric, who seems to want to stay in london and Spurs have no inclination to sell. De Rossi isn't any better then what we have. I'm struggling to think of many more names who could actually improve us now and that we could actually get. I'm sure there are young players out there who could eventually improve us, but no one who's established that we could feasibly have gotten. And right now that's what we need if we were going to sign someone. An experienced player, or someone who can step up. Not a young player who'd be a project. We have that in Clev/Ando.

Now however having said that I would say we need to sign someone now with Fletcher being out. We're one experienced player to short in that area and I think it'd be a mistake if we didn't try and boost the numbers in january and if the club had doubts over Fletcher's fitness going in to the season I think it was odd of them not to have brought someone in to boost the numbers. But as for not having had signed someone in the summer, and not being able to find anyone who could improve us that we could obtain, I can fully see why we didn't sign anyone.
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3 years are long in football. Players grow old (Scholes, Giggs, Gaz etc). Others get injured (Hargreaves) while others leave (Ronaldo and Tevez). Do you really believe that we have replaced quality with quality? I doubt it.

Regarding Fletch just tell me what he offers more bar workrate and tackling. Mind you Im not diminishing him in any way. I mean one of my favorite players ever was Gattuso who's hardly Johan Cruyff. However for such players to succeed they need quality players around them at their prime of their years. We don't have that.
 
devilish said:
Its not about principles its all about wage structure which is nowadays the true financial killer (and not the fees). We had chairmen who were skint and others who weren't. Edwards was skint, Kenyon loosened the purses until he started dreaming about Chelski (And hijacking our transfers in the process), Glazers started well to win the fans hearts and then turned to skint mode just as they did with the Buccaneers. Our manager had to adapt to it.

Don't forget that the same man who talks about mighty Gibson being an option didn't shyed away from adding an estabilished playmaker in a midfield already star studded with players like Keane, Scholes, Giggs and Beckham. Each of those players had more talent in their right toe then all our current central midfielders put together. I wonder where the principles had gone that day.....
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So we all in violent agreement .... our club simply cant compete with certain other clubs financially right now. As I said, it is what it is .... and I don't put the 'blame' for that at our manager.

As you rightly point out, since football became commercial, alot of people outside of football have made ALOT of money because of Manchester United. But again, we cant complain because the club did so too. That too much of that ended up in the chairmans bank account or paying off levered debt in neither here nor there .... its the price for commercialising football.

Utopia for us would be for SAF/Sir Bobby to find $2 billion under their mattresses one night, buy the club for themselves and then we go from there .... or would the profits available then even corrupt them? You just never know!
 
sammsky1 said:
So we all in violent agreement .... our club simply cant compete with certain other clubs financially right now. As I said, it is what it is .... and I don't put the 'blame' for that at our manager.

As you rightly point out, since football became commercial, alot of people outside of football have made ALOT of money because of Manchester United. But again, we cant complain because the club did so too. That too much of that ended up in the chairmans bank account or paying off levered debt in neither here nor there .... its the price for commercialising football.

Utopia for us would be for SAF/Sir Bobby to find $2 billion under their mattresses one night, buy the club for themselves and then we go from there .... or would the profits available then even corrupt them? You just never know!
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My only wish is that SAF ends up telling the truth. Or at least he stop protecting the owner. It doesn't do us any good and it makes him look a bit like a cretin (to the outside world)
 
devilish said:
3 years are long in football. Players grow old (Scholes, Giggs, Gaz etc). Others get injured (Hargreaves) while others leave (Ronaldo and Tevez). Do you really believe that we have replaced quality with quality? I doubt it.

Regarding Fletch just tell me what he offers more bar workrate and tackling. Mind you Im not diminishing him in any way. I mean one of my favorite players ever was Gattuso who's hardly Johan Cruyff. However for such players to succeed they need quality players around them at their prime of their years. We don't have that.
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We may not have direct replacements for those players but we've changed as a team. Hargreaves wasn't exactly a big loss, seeing how he only gave us a year of service effectively. Though having someone of his quality and experience in the squad would have been a bonus over the years. We've lost Ronaldo but we've become more of a team without him. I reckon we're not far off being very strong again. We've had a rough start but the right pieces are there. You don't always have to swap one player for a direct replacement. Rooney and Tevez were never really a natural combination. Rooney Hernandez is much more natural as is Rooney Welbeck they just need time to gel. You evolve as a team. The front four we have now; Rooney, Nani, Young and Welbeck/Hernandez, have the ability to be a superb front four. Yes Young has disappointed so far but we know he can do better and Welbeck and Herandez are both developing. Give them some more time and that's a great front four, capable of bringing great variety in the attack. Behind them you have a superb deep play maker in Carrick who's proving some of his critics wrong. If Fletcher was fit, then you'd have a great basis there for any front four to work off. As we know we've got Clev/Ando showing great potential too. I'm not saying a Modric wouldn't improve us, but he's not essential and there are few available midfielders out there who could come in to our system and actually improve us.

We've had problems though this season. The defence has constantly been changing we've had loads of injuries and we've lost a lot of experience there. We've rarely had the majority of our midfielders fit at the same time as well as other problems and like I said we're not exactly far off the top spot. Do you think City have a good team? And if you do, do you really believe that Toure and Barry as a combo are significantly better than Carrick and Fletcher/Giggs? Because I don't at all.

As for Fletcher well I think the two qualities you've listed are big assets. Hence why he's such an important player in big games. Over the years the likes of Arsenal can be said to have had more gifted midfielders like Fabregas, yet when the've played against Fletcher, I've not see Fletcher being dominated. His passing is much better then he's credited if he's not as good as others, he's got a great cross, excellent in the air, great personality. He's a good tackler and a very good reader of the game and closes down space really well. As for his partner well Carrick is more than capable of being the more creative force. Cleverley has the potential to step in to that role. We just need the time to show it. Like I said for all our problems we're only 2 points of City who we all acknowledge have been superb. Yes europe was a disappointed but there were plenty of issues there. I mean we barely had a midfield to play so blaming them is harsh. That's one of the biggest issues this season, the midfield are getting the blame unduly when it should be directed at others and on top of that we've barely had any fit midfielders so saying our options are poor isn't fair.
 
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