because holy trinity!! .... definitely think some people have slightly inflated memories of that era. Yes we scored on some pretty devastating counters, mostly because of Ronnie's blistering pace and willingness to bust a gut and sprint 70 yards. But they didn't click all that often, and were definitely some ways apart from Klopp's current front 3.
Rooney, Ronaldo, Tevez
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FA Cup quarter final rewind on BBC right now. These three losing to Redknapp's Portsmouth in 2008 will never ever not be galling. Amount of times we went close and couldn't get the ball in the net is insane.
For this is the reason many of us will never forgive Tevez. Leaving to City was hardly a poor decision at the time considering, but he way he did it with ZERO dignity was pathetic. Kettle face cnut.Never really felt Tevez was all that great for United and played better at City and Juventus. It was a strange relationship where he it never felt like he was our player. After he left he continued to disrespect the club and Sir Alex
They just had the Utd vs Portsmouth FA Cup tie from that era on the BBC. We had Rooney, Ronaldo, Rooney, Scholes, Nani all playing and lost 0-1. It was the game Ferdinand ended up in goal.
Fair enough mate, I just loved that season and all those players equally. They never failed to impress and always had that special quality to get the team over the line. Tevez despite his rep was pretty much unknown to many fans and we always love cheering on those types of players, he surprised everyone and was playing his heart out that season.
Tevez's time at United is overrated by many. He was very good the first year and pretty woeful the 2nd and then he left.
Very good summary of Tevez and his agents antics. He's a mercenary feckwit of the highest order, one of the worst in football. Was a great player for City and Juve at times but also probably one of the most unprofessional around.
Agree, Rooney was awesome, in that season, I watched that bloody mess of a quarter final in F.A cup v Pompy, hammerd them and lost 0-1 to a pen, keeper sent off, I'd forgotten about that, we would have won the FA cup as well that season. Tevez was great went for the money, we all new that. Great team we had then .
They were all great players and match winners. Honestly felt we could win every game at that time. I loved Tevez then but obviously can't stand him now.
Rooney and Tevez were brilliant, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Rooney was the heart and soul of the team. The very definition of a United player. Their intensity did wonders for the team. Ronnie that season became Mr goals. Tevez worked really hard and also had quality.
Berba ruined that team. Due to them we could play an athletically challanged midfield. Also Ronnie could take breaks defensively and hang about up the pitch and be the point of the break. What also change was our ability to turn the ball over high up the pitch and go into an immediate attack.
Why some have some range of opinions as to how good they were or weren't is because they were awful in front of goal. Rooney and Tevez at that time weren't lethal, certainly not in the way they later became. I remember a game against Villa where they literally could've both scored 5 goals each but didn't.
Berba ruined that team. Due to them we could play an athletically challanged midfield. Also Ronnie could take breaks defensively and hang about up the pitch and be the point of the break. What also change was our ability to turn the ball over high up the pitch and go into an immediate attack.
Why some have some range of opinions as to how good they were or weren't is because they were awful in front of goal. Rooney and Tevez at that time weren't lethal, certainly not in the way they later became. I remember a game against Villa where they literally could've both scored 5 goals each but didn't.
To be fair, that's because Saha barely played the second half of the season. Kept getting injured.
Yeah his injuries were really frustrating. Another side effect of that (and injuries to our back line) was that it seemed we were running on fumes in the last few weeks... Literally staggered over the line
It really felt like we were going to throw it away towards the end. I vividly remember that day we came back from 2-0 down at HT to win at Goodison, and Bolton scored a late equalizer against Chelsea. Absolute rollercoaster of emotions.
I wonder how the next decade would've differed if we kept the 2008 team together.
You mean if we kept Tevez and Ronaldo.
Yup. Looking at some of the 08 season highlights brings back memories of how prolific this team was.
Doesn't us offering him 25 mill and him getting 45 from City say it all?? Who of us wouldn't take the City offer??
Have they ever dominated a game playing together ? I remember more they scoring in different games
They were more of good individual players than say how Yorke and Cole gelled together.
Tevez’s departure overshadows what he did at Utd I think.
Tevez’s departure overshadows what he did at Utd I think.
Well, he was just throwing back Fergie's 'not in my lifetime' line about City winning over United if I remember correctly, so thought it was fair even if the club had to apologize for it. I don't mind it when there's a little drama and when you take shots at people considered untouchable for whatever dumb reason. But I get why fans would feel that way, he knew what he was doing.
Definitely would have won 2 CL. City wouldn’t have won the league in 12. Then the drive from Ronaldo would have rubbed off the teammates making them better too. The future ones. Imagine Rashford and Ronaldo
. Though Rashford and Martial probably wouldn’t be here.Quite a huge difference, not even comparable.
Im sick of hearing this quote taken out of context....Sir Alex was asked about the prospect of City being a bigger club than United....Not if City would win the league.
Ah, I've always heard it was about the championship when that picture showed up. Well then if that's true then that's quite silly from Tevez, one championship is not going to change decades of status quo.
Tevez was on a par with Rooney. Tevez was double the player Berbatov could ever wish to be.
It's impossible to understand why Man City had no worries investing in Carlos with his 3rd party ownership, yet Man Utd walked away from the deal due to that reason. Maybe Fergie didn't want to empower the agent too much.
Signing Berbatov ahead of Tevez set the club back a few years in terms of levels of pergormances
But the problem was that he played best on the same position as Rooney, But when you have a player of that level you should tweak you tactics to fit him in. I'm not including Ronaldo as he left in 2009, 1 year after the CL w8n
It's impossible to understand why Man City had no worries investing in Carlos with his 3rd party ownership, yet Man Utd walked away from the deal due to that reason. Maybe Fergie didn't want to empower the agent too much.
Signing Berbatov ahead of Tevez set the club back a few years in terms of levels of pergormances
But the problem was that he played best on the same position as Rooney, But when you have a player of that level you should tweak you tactics to fit him in. I'm not including Ronaldo as he left in 2009, 1 year after the CL w8n
Nani Carrick Scholes Giggs
Tevez
Rooney
Subs - Berbatov, Park, Fletcher etc
Tevez
Rooney
Subs - Berbatov, Park, Fletcher etc
Tevez was nowhere near as good as Rooney for us. Even in his one good season he was still by far the weakest of the three, and then in the second season he threw a sulk, played like shit and started publicly bitching. If he got his head down and actually fought for his spot we probably would have seriously tried to keep him and he would have remained first choice, but he showed his true colours.
Ferguson put a lot of importance on the personality of the players, and Tevez showed in his second season with us and also later on with City that he was a very toxic self-obsessed person. Maybe Berbatov wasn't the right player to replace him with, but in hindsight I'm not disappointed with fecking him off. He went on to be a much better player at City and Juve but he also caused a massive amount of trouble at City (not sure if he pulled anything at Juve).
That's true actually but it wasn't because he was toxic, like Di Maria he hated the weather and was never happy in Manchester. He never caused trouble at other clubs. I remember him saying once after he signed for Juventus that he would never again return to Manchester even for a holiday. So I guess Fergie was right, but Teves was a joy to watch when he first arrived. A real street footballer who was good enough to have played for Barca or Real
nah. great player but comfortably the worst of the 3.
Thinking back on it, was malpractice that we allowed Ronaldo AND Tevez to leave the same summer. We knew Ronaldo was going to leave a year in advance. We should’ve done everything possible to secure Tevez for the long term.
Evra said Tevez > Rooney.
I think United did all that they thought was possible and reasonable based on all that they knew, including how unprofessional he was before he left. And his agent was/is an asshat. Why should the club do everything possible for particular players when said player isn't doing everything possible in their control to be a professional, especially when there was still a lot to accomplish after one or two years. Tevez left, was part of one of the best if not best United sides ever and that's where he peaked as a pro in terms of his club winning the CL...then didn't reach that with his next clubs. Fantastic player, his style suited United to a T, but that's over with.
Tevez was on par with Rooney or similar level when both players were at United. However, Rooney was the better player when both reached their best season & prime. Overall if we judge based on whole career, Rooney was much better player.
Tevez always have bad attitude when the manager didn't pick him. But when the manager picked him, he always give 110%. His work rate when playing matches is on par with Rooney, and often I see his work rate above in some matches and also rarely I see him dive.
Tevez didn't start much game in first half of the season 08/09 which probably triggered the option to leave the club. However, I think Tevez set his mind when Sir Alex decided not to pick him in the final CL which I think we should have start him. At the end of the day, we should have signed him permanently earlier. But the most disappointed thing is not to sign him but not to replace him. Owen was just not a proper replacement and cost us the league title in 09/10.
Tevez always have bad attitude when the manager didn't pick him. But when the manager picked him, he always give 110%. His work rate when playing matches is on par with Rooney, and often I see his work rate above in some matches and also rarely I see him dive.
Tevez didn't start much game in first half of the season 08/09 which probably triggered the option to leave the club. However, I think Tevez set his mind when Sir Alex decided not to pick him in the final CL which I think we should have start him. At the end of the day, we should have signed him permanently earlier. But the most disappointed thing is not to sign him but not to replace him. Owen was just not a proper replacement and cost us the league title in 09/10.
He never said that. He picked Tevez in his XI because he's his friend and he see Tevez similar to Rooney.
Tevez was much better at City than he was at Utd. He did well enough but there was some disappointment at the time over how technically erratic he could be. Can't agree he was on par with Rooney while both were at Utd, he was very much a poor man's version of Rooney.
I watched the 08 CL final earlier. Jesus, we like to make things hard for ourselves. We battered Chelsea in the first 40 minutes of that game and probably should've been 3 up when Lampard scored that jammy goal.
Agreed.
Seems to me that because of the way Tevez left and the Fergie poster incident, it has distorted people's views of how good he was for us.
Ok, as a trio, Ronaldo, Tevez and Rooney didn't have as many combinations as the Liverpool front 3 but the team won in one season what it will take Liverpool to win in 2 seasons and played a different style in a different time.
The workrate of Tevez and Rooney helped to allow Ronaldo to be his incredible best without the defensive responsibilities. Different players and different way of playing to Liverpool so it's a false equivalency.
Tevez was superb for us and I was gutted to see the club mess him about and then let him leave.
The fact United did try at the last minute to sign him probably points to the sudden realisation of the arrogant approach being taken to assume he wouldn't want to go anywhere else and we'd have our own way eventually... then the PR spin on the initial sum not being good value... blimey, we signed up to those terms and won the Champions League with him lasting more of the final than Rooney, being instrumental in getting Drogba sent off and scoring a huge penalty.
As much as I liked Berbatov, he set the team backwords in his first season. So much so that Fergie began dropping him after Christmas and I remember the BBC showed a heat map illustrating how the biggest casualty of the Berba signing was Ronaldo's average positioning changing from centre forward (mostly) to deeper and wider ...... shock horror, his goal ratio dropped off massively until Berba was dropped and Fergie tried to recreate the system from the previous season.
As for Berba... he did really well in latter seasons but the fundamental issue is that both him and Rooney dropped deeper and slowed down the attack occupying the same positions on the pitch. This is evident with Rooney's best goal season a year or two after when he was released from sharing and could be the sole focal point....
And while I get the logic that Berba was too good for Fergie to let him go to City, it seemed mad to me at the time to spend a club record sum on the verge of a financial crash on a player that fundamentally broke the attacking structure of a double winning team.
Tactically, one of Fergie's biggest mistakes in my opinion. All teams need evolution but he went too far then tried to undo his mistake after just a few months.
I'd say it's the opposite if anything. Rooney was quite obviously the better player while they were both at Utd, but an argument could be made that Tevez at City and Juve was as good as Rooney ever was.
On Tevez - His subsequent spat with Mancini a couple of years later ostensibly proved Gaz's comment to be correct. He was a drama queen who wanted things to be his way, and sulked when it didn't happen.