Paul Ince says we need to sign a striker!!!

We've got a ludicrous injury list but that will mean nothing if we don't perform because of it.

We need a centre back and possible cover in central defence, as well as at least one midfiled player..

We need cover at CB? :lol:

Jones
Rio
Smalling
Evans

That's 4 fit centre backs for 2 places. What are you lot smoking? How many extra players per position do you want?

If United need extra cover at centre half then the rest of the football world is fecked and better get their cheque books out.
 
We need cover at CB? :lol:

Jones
Rio
Smalling
Evans

That's 4 fit centre backs for 2 places. What are you lot smoking? How many extra players per position do you want?

If United need extra cover at centre half then the rest of the football world is fecked and better get their cheque books out.

Given that the twins can't be relied to to stay fit for more than 60 minutes. It's more like 4 centre backs for 3 places. Then we have to pray Rio's back holds up.
 
We've got a ludicrous injury list but that will mean nothing if we don't perform because of it.

We need a centre back and possible cover in central defence, as well as at least one midfiled player. The injuires are unlucky but its simply exposed the failings in the squad depth and, in my opinion, poor planning - especially in midfield given Fletcher's obviously ongoing problems.

To be honest we've been average going forward over the last ten games so perhaps Paul Ince has a point.

Yes i wouldn't disagree with most of that RR, but i don't think our lack of goals is down to the attackers, i think the midfield plays a bigger part in whether the attackers receive the ball in the right areas or not.

At the start of the season we had Clev and Ando carrying the ball deep into the opposition half and giving the strikers/wingers the ball much higher up the pitch. At that time Young, Rooney and Nani were scoring for fun, only after Clev's injury did the team dynamic change and all our attackers struggled for goals since.

However against Wolves, Jones began similarly carrying the ball into advanced areas, and all of a sudden Rooney scores his first goals since September and Nani also grabs a couple. So for me the capabilities of the midfielders to service the strikers/wingers much further up the pitch has greater impact on how regularly effective our attacking players are.

We have goals and creativity within the team, the start of the season proved that, so for me it seems more a question of setting up the midfield to get the best possible service to them, rather than looking at acquiring additional strikers.
 
We need cover at CB? :lol:

Jones
Rio
Smalling
Evans

That's 4 fit centre backs for 2 places. What are you lot smoking? How many extra players per position do you want?

If United need extra cover at centre half then the rest of the football world is fecked and better get their cheque books out.

I agree.

Plus Fryers is a centre back who could play there (although being introduced at left back at present he looks more like a centre back to me).

Look we don't need centre backs. We need more central midfield players whether they come on loan, purchase or from the reserves - all that matters is that they are good enough to play a role there for the rest of the season.

I hope SAF doesn't rely on getting Cleverley or Anderson back as cover because if just one of them doesn't make it back or we pick up an injury to Carrick, Jones as a result of overplaying then again we're in trouble.

Personally I think he'll make some kind of signing.
 
Err... we're not competing on all fronts.

We're out of the Carling CUp and SAF has made it clear he doesn't view the UEFA cup as a priority.
 
3 are not enough. You need 4 to compete on all fronts.

Nonsense, a silly myth that started with the treble team.

Inter won it all with less, Barca too.

Obviously more quality players in each position helps, but you don't "NEED" 4 out and out strikers to compete on all fronts.
 
We need cover at CB? :lol:

Jones
Rio
Smalling
Evans

That's 4 fit centre backs for 2 places. What are you lot smoking? How many extra players per position do you want?

If United need extra cover at centre half then the rest of the football world is fecked and better get their cheque books out.

Ferdinand always appears to be a tweak away from an injury, Jones is increasingly pressed into midfield and Smalling looks like being required at right back with Fabio and Rafael seemingly constantly injured.

Its not rocket science.
 
Sorry but Berba has scored 2 in 12 this season, if you ignore his last season, 12 in 44 and 14 in 44 previously, his performances are not enough to "take the pressure off". Welbeck and Macheda are both young and still learning. Owen can't even break into an 18 man squad when fit.
2 in 12 is a ludicrous way to describe it. 7 of the 12 were substitute appearances, the longest of those being 26 minutes on the pitch. Total the substitute minutes up and it's a little over one game, minus minutes when he came off and it's 2 in under 6 full games. Which a) isn't enough to be making any judgements on and b) isn't enough to be hitting anything approaching form. Also, I have no idea why you'd ignore last season, surely given how little he's played this year it's a lot more relevant to his form than the previous two, for which you've again done the misleading appearances rather than minutes trick.
 
Nonsense, a silly myth that started with the treble team.

Inter won it all with less, Barca too.

Obviously more quality players in each position helps, but you don't "NEED" 4 out and out strikers to compete on all fronts.

Think the Premier League is more physically demanding than La Liga and Serie A, certainly Serie A.

Also depends what formation you play, if you have 2 upfront and only 3 strikers on the books then one injury and you have no options at all.
 
Ferdinand always appears to be a tweak away from an injury, Jones is increasingly pressed into midfield and Smalling looks like being required at right back with Fabio and Rafael seemingly constantly injured.

Its not rocket science.

riiiiiiiiiiiight. We only have 6 centre backs in our squad, let's buy another or 2 just through fear of injury.

Or... we buy a CM, which is what we need and Jones isn't required there any longer.

Some of you would be awful managers, I could just imagine your squad size :lol:
 
Nonsense, a silly myth that started with the treble team.

Inter won it all with less, Barca too.

Obviously more quality players in each position helps, but you don't "NEED" 4 out and out strikers to compete on all fronts.

If Rooney gets injured we'll end up with a promising but fairly untested striker and an excellent goal poacher (but little else) upfront.
 
3 are not enough. You need 4 to compete on all fronts.

That is a contestable claim at best, but surely you are not forgetting that we are out of the CL?

Therefore we have the League, FA cup, and SAF will probably play weakened teams in The Europa Carling Cup anyway, so i very much doubt we will need 4top strikers for the remainder of this season at the very least.
 
That is a contestable claim at best, but surely you are not forgetting that we are out of the CL?

Therefore we have the League, FA cup, and SAF will probably play weakened teams in The Europa Carling Cup anyway, so i very much doubt we will need 4top strikers for the remainder of this season at the very least.

Well its something SAF once said and which I agree wholeheartedly (unless we move towards a one man striker formation)

BTW Im talking about next season.
 
Nonsense, a silly myth that started with the treble team.

Inter won it all with less, Barca too.

Obviously more quality players in each position helps, but you don't "NEED" 4 out and out strikers to compete on all fronts.

Of course you don't need four, basically all it takes is three solid forwards if they can stay fit plus one forward who accepts being a back up and is preferably young - could be anyone from the youth team good enough to pop in a goal here and there. We have plenty of them.
 
Rooney, Berbatov, Welbeck, Hernandez, Macheda, Owen.

And people are suggesting we buy more strikers?
 
riiiiiiiiiiiight. We only have 6 centre backs in our squad, let's buy another or 2 just through fear of injury.

Or... we buy a CM, which is what we need and Jones isn't required there any longer.

Some of you would be awful managers, I could just imagine your squad size :lol:

What a patronising arsehole.

Currently we have four decent centrebacks, one of which has spent the vast majority of the season playing at right back and another, as it stands, probably ending up in midfield.

We'll also be playing thursday and sunday now we're in the Europa League, as well as potentially having to travel to the arse end of nowhere every other week.

If we buy a central midfielder perhaps that'll change, but we've been waiting long enough for that.
 
What a patronising arsehole.

Currently we have four decent centrebacks, one of which has spent the vast majority of the season playing at right back and another, as it stands, probably ending up in midfield.

We'll also be playing thursday and sunday now we're in the Europa League, as well as potentially having to travel to the arse end of nowhere every other week.

If we buy a central midfielder perhaps that'll change, but we've been waiting long enough for that.

So your solution is "buy a CB".... beautiful, then next season we'll have:

Evans, Vidic, Jones, Smalling, Rio, NEW CB

And when the twins are fit this season we'll be massively overloaded at back, great management.
 
Berbatov, Owen, and Diouf will be gone in the Summer. Macheda might get one more year to prove something since he's still not going to take up a squad place at his age, but he could still find himself sent out on loan for half a season or so. I think we could do with another striker next season if all of this happens, but midfield is more of a priority for sure.

However, if we do stick to just the three strikers (Rooney, Hernández, Welbeck) then maybe we'd start to play a 433 even more often. Especially if we sign a more attacking midfielder.
 
Ince has a point but the caf won't even bother trying to see it from a different perspective. Yes we have other areas which should be strengthened far before but he still has a point.

Rooney is a number 10, he plays in the hole and has done for a while except the few games in midfield.

Now let's look at our strikers.. Hernandez, Welbeck and Berbatov. The latter has the talent and is a very good player but he isn't trusted and Fergie prefers someone more mobile up front.. So despite being top scorer last season, he isn't in the picture. You can say 'he's very good, we've got enough strikers' but if he isn't trusted then what's the point?

Hernandez and Welbeck are good players but neither top class, they are young and ideally you'd want someone with the general play of Welbeck combined with the goal scoring exploits of Hernandez (ideally someone like Benzema). We're fine without a top striker but if we had one, we'd be a much better side no doubt. Hopefully Welbeck grows into a top striker, but at the moment we don't have one. Obviously it isn't a priority but I can see where Ince is coming from.
 
Attacking Flair, the point you make relates to teams like Real Madrid and City, not us. Teams that only want World stars in every position, that has never been SAF's way... thank god.
 
Attacking Flair, the point you make relates to teams like Real Madrid and City, not us. Teams that only want World stars in every position, that has never been SAF's way... thank god.

And the new generation football fans.
 
Im not saying we should buy one for every position. Fergie clearly wanted a top striker when he went out and bought Berbatov but now he's not trusted and we still don't have a top player there which you'd assume Fergie wants considering he splashed out £30m previously.

Welbeck will step up no doubt eventually but I don't think things have gone according to Fergie's plans regarding strikers and thus can undertand Ince's point.

(I dont want us to buy a striker, can just see where hes coming from)
 
Im not saying we should buy one for every position. Fergie clearly wanted a top striker when he went out and bought Berbatov but now he's not trusted and we still don't have a top player there which you'd assume Fergie wants considering he splashed out £30m previously.

Welbeck will step up no doubt eventually but I don't think things have gone according to Fergie's plans regarding strikers and thus can undertand Ince's point.

(I dont want us to buy a striker, can just see where hes coming from)

He bought Berbatov 3 years ago.

When Hernandez was busy trying to get across the boarder to the US and Welbeck was 17.
 
Yep but he still wanted a top class striker even when we had Ronaldo and Tevez at the time!
 
Keyboard warriors labelling an ex-MK Dons manager's opinion is quite rich.

Two accomplished strikers can mask an average midfield's ability better than one; I'm guessing that's his reasoning.
 
Rooney, Berbatov, Welbeck, Hernandez, Macheda, Owen.

And people are suggesting we buy more strikers?

Think it looks likely we will be rid of Owen & Berbatov sooner rather than later and Macheda is unproven as is Wellbeck to a lesser extent. So that leaves us Rooney and an injured Hernandez as our main 2 so I'd agree with Ince we do need a forward if we are going to compete with the elite in Europe. I'm aware midfield is more pressing than a forward right now but none the less I really think a Benzema type would really improve our team tenfold.