Robin van Persie

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That's basically our current formation but with Kagawa in midfield, really. Doubt anyone will see issue with that. Definitely think that's a possibility.

I think it's a terrible formation, why would we play DDG as our lone striker, and 4 defenders as strikers. Rooney and RVP in defense with no goalkeeper? feck sake...
 
Something like this could work:

..................DDG...................

Rafa......Rio..........Vidic.....Evra

..........Carrick Kagawa............
................Rooney.................
Valencia..........................Nani
...................RVP..................

That's what I thought it would work out to be.

I just don't want to see Rooney so deep to be honest. He's become a very good goalscorer. For me, now, that's his best attribute. I want to see him as far up front as possible. So at worst, I want him in behind the striker up top and ideally as the striker up top.
 
Who is the better "number 10", and who is the better "number 9" between rooney and rvp?

the good thing is both of them are good at finishing but also holding the ball/distributing/creating for themselves, when working in tandom it could be the closest thing to a cole / yorke partnership we've had for a while.
 
No matter what we do, if we sign RVP it means less game time for young players like Welbeck and Cleverley. There's no point making up entirely new formations that involve not playing our best players or playing our best players completely out of position in order to try and accommodate them.

SAF rotates, he doesn't suddenly change his formations out of the blue and no longer use his most valuable assets (wingers), Cleverley and Welbeck will still get games, but they'll get them from resting players who play in similar positions to them, (or god forbid, injuries), not by fecking about with trusted formations!
 
No matter what we do, if we sign RVP it means less game time for young players like Welbeck and Cleverley. There's no point making up entirely new formations that involve not playing our best players or playing our best players completely out of position in order to try and accommodate them.

SAF rotates, he doesn't suddenly change his formations out of the blue and no longer use his most valuable assets (wingers), Cleverley and Welbeck will still get games, but they'll get them from resting players who play in similar positions to them, (or god forbid, injuries), not by fecking about with trusted formations!

I can see Cleverley becoming first choice in midfield. But I think one of Hernandez and Welbeck will suffer if he comes.
 
SAF rotates, he doesn't suddenly change his formations out of the blue and no longer use his most valuable assets (wingers)

Erm, yes he does.

Or maybe I imaged the 2008 CL final where we played Rooney and Hargreaves on the wings.

It seems like your biggest issue with the set-up I posted was having all 3 strikers a in front 3, it was simply an example of something that I think will happen at some stage, certainly not something I think will stick. But when we do play 3 up top, and this is my main point, I think all of RVP, Welbeck and Rooney will get used in wide positions from time to time.
 
Cant believe people are worrying about Welbeck. He's improved but he's lightyears from the quality of RVP. I'm more worried about Hernandez, as I was really hoping he'd get back to his first season form - regardless of either of them tho RVP would be a fantastic signing!

As soon as City won the league their fans were all gloating about them signing RVP. If we could sign him instead it would really put us back on the front foot. Without him, we'll be praying our key players dont get injured, to avoid a very frustrating campaign. We need that X factor that RVP would bring
 
I can see Cleverley becoming first choice in midfield. But I think one of Hernandez and Welbeck will suffer if he comes.

And Anderson hasn't exactly had a bad pre-season either.

It's tough, the way I see it, if RVP comes here, someone will suffer for game time, it's inevitable. I also want to see Kagawa behind the striker, not pushed into a 2 man midfield, because he's absolutely lethal there. With Rooney infront of him, Cleverley behind and Nani on the side, the passing could be great.
 
Cant believe people are worrying about Welbeck. He's improved but he's lightyears from the quality of RVP. I'm more worried about Hernandez, as I was really hoping he'd get back to his first season form - regardless of either of them tho RVP would be a fantastic signing!

As soon as City won the league their fans were all gloating about them signing RVP. If we could sign him instead it would really put us back on the front foot. Without him, we'll be praying our key players dont get injured, to avoid a very frustrating campaign. We need that X factor that RVP would bring

Their two main targets for the summer were Hazard and Van Persie. To see them go to their main title rivals is a little lesson in humility for them.
 
Erm, yes he does.

Or maybe I imaged the 2008 CL final where we played Rooney and Hargreaves on the wings.
We played Hargreaves on the right and Ronaldo on the left (against a terrible RB in Essien), but you have a point, it was probably more a 4-3-3 that night with Tevez, Ronaldo and Rooney interchanging and Hargreaves not really being a traditional winger.

If RVP joins we'll have two options for the right (Nani, Valencia), two options for the left (Nani, Young), two options through the middle (Kagawa, Rooney) and four options for the striking spot (RVP, Rooney, Welbeck, Hernandez)... in case we play 4-2-3-1 or any variation of 4-3-3. If we play 4-4-2 we'll most likely see Kagawa used on the left drifting inside too, similar to David Silva at City.
Hernandez and Young are in for a difficult season IMO... yeah, we will have lots of games, but still, their game time will be limited no doubt.
 
Erm, yes he does.

Or maybe I imaged the 2008 CL final where we played Rooney and Hargreaves on the wings.

It seems like your biggest issue with the set-up I posted was having all 3 strikers a in front 3, it was simply an example of something that I think will happen at some stage, certainly not something I think will stick. But when we do play 3 up top, and this is my main point, I think all of RVP, Welbeck and Rooney will get used in wide positions from time to time.

A whole game? That Ronaldo, a winger, played in? It was also a 4-4-2, by the way, and Hargreaves did literally play on the wings, as a winger in that game. And I'm not sure what you watched, because Ronaldo was on the left, Rooney was upfront with Tevez.

Anyway, we'll see about your new groundbreaking formation that we might use in one or two games over the course of a 60 game season. I think you're on to something here.
 
An Italian (well in the Euros anyway) approach may be used a few times - 4-1-3-2.

Carrick

Valencia Kagawa Nani

RVP Rooney​

I think that's the only possible, sensible formation that Fergie could pull out to play the maximum amount of our best players. I'd say Nani and Valencia are disciplined enough to do enough tracking back, as well as Rooney and Kawabanga.

The only time I'd expect to see Rooney, Welbeck, RVP, Valencia, Nani AND Kagawa on the pitch is if we're chasing the game with 10 minutes left or so :lol:

But as mentioned above a few times, everyone will see plenty of gametime. I can't see us using the same eleven more than twice.

That formation would put way too much pressure on Carrick. He's going to have a tough season cleaning up after everyone :lol:
 
We played Hargreaves on the right and Ronaldo on the left (against a terrible RB in Essien), but you have a point, it was probably more a 4-3-3 that night with Tevez, Ronaldo and Rooney interchanging and Hargreaves not really being a traditional winger.

If RVP joins we'll have two options for the right (Nani, Valencia), two options for the left (Nani, Young), two options through the middle (Kagawa, Rooney) and four options for the striking spot (RVP, Rooney, Welbeck, Hernandez)... in case we play 4-2-3-1 or any variation of 4-3-3. If we play 4-4-2 we'll most likely see Kagawa used on the left drifting inside too, similar to David Silva at City.
Hernandez and Young are in for a difficult season IMO... yeah, we will have lots of games, but still, their game time will be limited no doubt.

Yup, agreed.

Of course, that's assuming the players ahead of them in the pecking order don't get long term injuries and/or the competition for places makes them raise their game massively. Either way, it's great to have strength in depth after seeing previous seasons derailed when Rooney got injured.
 
I still think Young will get games, SAF clearly likes him as a player, even though we may all rate him far lower than Nani and Valencia, plus those 2 never seem to be fit at the same time.

I agree on Hernandez though, he's going to be more of a sub this season.
 
I can see Cleverley becoming first choice in midfield. But I think one of Hernandez and Welbeck will suffer if he comes.

Not likely. Scholes, Carrick, Kagawa should all be above him in the pecking order.


Unless Scholes is rotated a lot (we saw absolutely no sign of that happening last year) or Kagawa/Carrick get injured, Cleverley will have barely 10 starts in the season.

Especially considering that SAF will go for 2 strikers, like he did last season. This is even more likely if RVP arrives.
 
Scholes should be above none of our young players in the pecking order, nor should Giggs. I love them, but they're very old and we shouldn't be sacrificing game time to talented youngsters like Cleverley and Anderson in order to play them.
 
I still think Young will get games, SAF clearly likes him as a player, even though we may all rate him far lower than Nani and Valencia, plus those 2 never seem to be fit at the same time.

I agree on Hernandez though, he's going to be more of a sub this season.


Young has an excellent work rate and defends more than Evra does so I can see him being useful in a formation which is filled with strikers and attack minded players like Rvp, Rooney, Nani and Kagawa.
 
Not likely. Scholes, Carrick, Kagawa should all be above him in the pecking order.


Unless Scholes is rotated a lot (we saw absolutely no sign of that happening last year) or Kagawa/Carrick get injured, Cleverley will have barely 10 starts in the season.

Especially considering that SAF will go for 2 strikers, like he did last season. This is even more likely if RVP arrives.

Why Kagawa? He's not even a central midfielder. The other day when both played in the middle, Cleverley was the better of the two.

And we're talking about two slots, not one. I'd personally have Carrick as first choice for one position. And Scholes/Cleverley as first choice for the other. And I think Cleverley would edge it between the two as things stand because he's younger and more mobile.
 
Scholes should be above none of our young players in the pecking order, nor should Giggs. I love them, but they're very old and we shouldn't be sacrificing game time to talented youngsters like Cleverley and Anderson in order to play them.

Scholes is still good enough to run most games, Giggs' however is rapidly wasted in the middle, his hollywood passes cost us big in some games.
 
Either way, it's great to have strength in depth after seeing previous seasons derailed when Rooney got injured.
Yeah, that would be the greatest benefit in signing RVP. I absolutely love Welbeck and think he will develop into a fantastic asset over the year, but we would still suffer if Rooney gets injured... I can't see Welbeck carrying the goalscoring burden alone yet. Having RVP as 'replacement' for Rooney is like cheating on FM, we won't lose any quality whatsoever :drool:

Looking at our injury record (Saha, Hargreaves, Rooney, the whole defence) over the years I think it's pretty likely some key players will suffer from injuries as well. What could possibly go wrong with signing an injury-prone player like RVP? (I know he hasn't been injured for 1 1/2 years, just sayin') :smirk:
 
And Anderson hasn't exactly had a bad pre-season either.

It's tough, the way I see it, if RVP comes here, someone will suffer for game time, it's inevitable. I also want to see Kagawa behind the striker, not pushed into a 2 man midfield, because he's absolutely lethal there. With Rooney infront of him, Cleverley behind and Nani on the side, the passing could be great.

Agree on all counts. I want to see Kagawa in behind the striker whenever possible and also Rooney uptop whenever possible.
 
No matter if RVP arrives or not, even our League Cup team will be quite strong this season. Lots of players needing game time and competition for the attacking spots will be really tough. Can see us winning the League Cup again this year...
 
I just don't get this insistence that Kagawa absolutely must play in behind a lone striker and I don't think we'll see it happen in the vast majority of games.

All our best attacking football last season came with Rooney in the hole behind Welbeck. The season before he was in the same position with Hernandez ahead of him. This won't change any time soon. Fergie will continue to build his team around our number 10. If we do sign Van Persie, expect to see a lot of Rooney playing just off Van Persie. You may not want this to happen but it will, wait and see.

Obviously, the arrival of Kagawa will hopefully make us that bit more effective going forwards in the very small minority of games where we do play one up top. Which is a good thing.
 
No matter if RVP arrives or not, even our League Cup team will be quite strong this season. Lots of players needing game time and competition for the attacking spots will be really tough. Can see us winning the League Cup again this year...

As long as wholesale changes aren't made, then we'll be alright.

I'd like to see Powell and Bebe get some playing time in the League Cup.
 
A whole game? That Ronaldo, a winger, played in? It was also a 4-4-2, by the way, and Hargreaves did literally play on the wings, as a winger in that game. And I'm not sure what you watched, because Ronaldo was on the left, Rooney was upfront with Tevez.

Anyway, we'll see about your new groundbreaking formation that we might use in one or two games over the course of a 60 game season. I think you're on to something here.

I thought Rooney interchanged a lot of Ronaldo, maybe I remember wrong. But the 2009 final, Park and Rooney on the wings.

And what the feck are you on about still as though that is my selection of choice you oddball? As I said all along, I think it'll get tried if RVP does come. Just as we also tried to play Rooney, Ronaldo, Berbatov and Tevez. And I can pretty much guarantee you that the main point of my post which you have seemed to hopped over will happen, Welbeck will play as wide forward in a 4-2-3-1, as will Rooney and possibly RVP too.

For the record, I think we'll start most games in a 4-4-2, with Nani and Valencia on the wings, possibly Kagawa drifting in a lot from the left. I think we'll play plenty of games in a 4-2-3-1 with either Rooney or RVP heading the line and a striker in a wide role.
 
I just don't get this insistence that Kagawa absolutely must play in behind a lone striker and I don't think we'll see it happen in the vast majority of games.

All our best attacking football last season came with Rooney in the hole behind Welbeck. The season before he was in the same position with Hernandez ahead of him. This won't change any time soon. Fergie will continue to build his team around our number 10. If we do sign Van Persie, expect to see a lot of Rooney playing just off Van Persie. You may not want this to happen but it will, wait and see.

Obviously, the arrival of Kagawa will hopefully make us that bit more effective going forwards in the very small minority of games where we do play one up top. Which is a good thing.

Everything I've read and heard about Kagawa and also seen from the few pre-season games suggests that his best position is behind the main striker. So it's natural that many would want to see him play there rather than another non-proper CM playing as a CM.

Also, I think we disagree about certain aspect of Rooney's game. So that discusion would go nowhere.
 
I just don't get this insistence that Kagawa absolutely must play in behind a lone striker and I don't think we'll see it happen in the vast majority of games.

All our best attacking football last season came with Rooney in the hole behind Welbeck. The season before he was in the same position with Hernandez ahead of him. This won't change any time soon. Fergie will continue to build his team around our number 10. If we do sign Van Persie, expect to see a lot of Rooney playing just off Van Persie. You may not want this to happen but it will, wait and see.

Obviously, the arrival of Kagawa will hopefully make us that bit more effective going forwards in the very small minority of games where we do play one up top. Which is a good thing.

I agree with this. Even if RVP doesn't come in, I'd expect we'll play a lot of games with Carrick as holding midfield player and Kagawa slightly ahead of him, with two up top. Of the two up top, Rooney will drop slightly deeper which would almost blur the lines between his position and Kagawa's.

There's no reason why we can't see similar fluidity between Rooney and Kagawa in central areas as we had a few years back between Rooney, Ronaldo and Tevez across the front line.

The argument is there that it might not get the very best out of Rooney or Kagawa, which is fair enough, but it's getting the best result for the team as a whole that counts, and if SAF thinks it's a viable system to go with then let's see what happens - it would be a pretty dynamic way of playing and would offer serious threats from all areas of the team.
 
I thought Rooney interchanged a lot of Ronaldo, maybe I remember wrong. But the 2009 final, Park and Rooney on the wings.

And what the feck are you on about still as though that is my selection of choice you oddball? As I said all along, I think it'll get tried if RVP does come. Just as we also tried to play Rooney, Ronaldo, Berbatov and Tevez. And I can pretty much guarantee you that the main point of my post which you have seemed to hopped over will happen, Welbeck will play as wide forward in a 4-2-3-1, as will Rooney and possibly RVP too.

For the record, I think we'll start most games in a 4-4-2, with Nani and Valencia on the wings, possibly Kagawa drifting in a lot from the left. I think we'll play plenty of games in a 4-2-3-1 with either Rooney or RVP heading the line and a striker in a wide role.

Every example you've given there has involved wingers. your initial formation involved playing no wingers at all, my argument is that we'll always use at least one winger if they're fit, in non league cup/shitty FA cup games anyway, simple as that.

EDIT: In the 08 final, Ronaldo was on the left because Chelsea used Essien at right back, he may have moved up top quite a bit, but he always does that.
 
I heard that RvP has already had a medical at MUFC, but failed it ....

The doctors said he has a serious back problem after carrying Arsenal for over a year.
 
Only if our wingers aren't fit or need a rest.

But that I disagree on, our manager loves a tinker too much, he simply won't be able to resist the temptation of trying all three.

For the record again as you know I love Nani and want him to start every game.
 
--------------DDG--------------

Rafael---Smalling---Vidic---Evra

---------Carrick----Clev-------

---Kagawa---Rooney---Nani----

--------------RVP--------------

That in my view would be our best 11. We can feck about with personnel here and there, Welbeck for RVP, Young for Nani, Scholes for Cleverley etc, but however we view the personnel i predict a much narrower style of play with more emphasis placed on creating in central areas than we have seen before.

We will still have the option of width, but far more capacity to cut in from both flanks at the same time. It is definitely what i see for Europe. We were overrun by almost everybody in Europe playing with only 2 central players last year, and i expect far more bodies consistently operating in that area this time around.

In the PL we will undoubtably still play 4-4-2 in some games, but we now have far more options and variety to the way we choose to set up. That for me is the key factor, and with the type of players SAF has been looking to bring in, i fully expect far less predictable set ups with far less central vulnerability than last season.
 
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