Veron was world class.
We should have given him another year, especially when Beckham left.
We should have given him another year, especially when Beckham left.
Sir Alex v Neil Custis on Veron
- Thread starter Berbaclass
- Start date
More from the great Neil Custis
I buzzed like feck when we signed Veron, he was one of my favourite ever players. Loved watching him play in Italy when it was on the telly. The problem was he was competing with the treble midfield, and he was never going to get in over Keane and Scholes, which meant he was shunted out wide right which was never going to work. Some of his passes were outrageous. If he was about these days, he'd be talked about in the same way as De Bruyne and Bruno.
Custis put in his place is always a good thing. A complete and utter hack who has helped to turn sports journalism into entertainment tabloids. Delighted Fergie destroyed him, hope ETH does the same.
Rose tinted glasses in regards to Veron. Would constantly dawdle on the ball and give away silly passes.
I remember reading something about how Veron developed a little bit of a "Zidane complex" at the time. There were rumblings in Europe that we had gotten the discount option and Madrid had gone top shelf in Zidane.
He lost a bit of the intensity he had in Italy as he wanted people to focus more on his technical ability as they did with Zidane. Not sure how true that is but he definitely seemed to start as an all action player then lose a lot of that over time.
Thing was that when Veron just arrived we tried to start playing 4-5-1 with Scholes behind RVN in order to accommodate Veron and set up differently for Europe. It just didn't work in the league and we didn't start clicking that season until we reverted back to 4-4-2 with RVN and Ole upfront. So suddenly we had just two spaces in the middle again.
But aside from some very good games early on, Veron just wasn't good enough - or right enough - for us to earn his position in the center.
The braveness was negated by the fact he was saying it in falsettoHe says he wrote nothing about fights and Fergie was clearly pissed off about that being written and then his next question is whether there was a bust-up. Brave or stupid?
Veron was one of the best midfielders in the world for Lazio, at a time when Serie A was still better than the Premier League. The Italian league was also tactically better than the Premier League, with teams commonly using three man midfields. Veron arrived in England at a time when English teams still favoured two-man midfields. Veron wasn't out of his depth qualitatively, he was just a modern player struggling in a country that had one foot still in the 90s.
Fair points.
Worth remembering though that Fergie was trying to move away from the traditional 442 by the time he signed. We started playing 451/433 a lot more, especially in Europe. The issue was, a you say, that definitely didn't suit some of the other players.
Post Beckham, a 433 (with Veron playing alongside Keane and Scholes) could have worked.
