I cannot decide if you're WUMming or not.
To use Basketball terminology, what do you guys think the "Estimated Wins Added" numbers would be(this season) for this lot? EWA: the estimated number of wins a player adds to a team’s season total above what a 'replacement player' would produce.
Buttner
Rio
Vidic
Giggs
Valencia
Young
Anderson
Nani
Bebe
Evra
Macheda
Lindegaard
Kagawa
Hernandez
I'd suggest they're likely fairly low. Suggesting that they could be effectively replaced.
Perhaps Kagawa, Hernandez and Vidic are in the positives, but not by a lot.
I agree about kagawa and januzaj, those two and mata would be the players is base my entire squad around, but they are also two of the players who bust a gut and look like they DO care and have desire and fight in them, so probably not the best exampleSo they suddenly went from being professionals who wanted to win every bloody game to not having a desire to win in 1 season? So many of them at one go? Surely you see that cant be true?
Sir Alex is on record saying his team doesnt give up till the whistle, they believe they can win from every situation. These are the same players who you think lack the inbuilt desire to win.
Truth is, talent and desire to win isnt always enough as our season has shown. Tactics and setup play a huge role. The mindset the manager passes on to the squad too. If you were a United player and saw both Valencia and Young starting in a game vs Olympiakos while the likes of Kagawa and Januzaj sit on the bench, what impression would you get? What impression would you get when your manager blames everything from luck to having a go at some wild conspiracy theory from the FA as reasons for the disappointing league position?
I cannot decide if you're WUMming or not.
89 points last year, only 9 of them against City and Chelsea. 80 would still have us around top if not champions this year.
No they should be higher up the table, around fourth/third in my opinion and I'm not sure moyes is the right man for the job anymore after backing him all season but the way that the players are just passing the buck is unacceptable. I'm reminded of something keane said in his book, something along the lines of too many players are coasting, thinking don't worry, scholesy will rescue us, or seba will pull something out of the bag instead of making things happen. That is what we are seeing now, not enough players prepared to take some responsibility and get stuck in, if moyes were to get the boot now I'd have no complaints but more than a few of this squad have shown their true colours as a bunch of spoiled prima donnas and who ever the manager is there needs to be a clear out. Saf shipped out ince sparky and kanchelskis because he realised things were on the slide despite all of them being part of a double winning side only weeks before, I'll say it again, last season means nothing
I don't expect us to win the league or CL with the current team without Fergie. We are so far behind the likes of Bayern or Real Madrid it's silly to suggest that we should be winning CL.
I'd have thought it'd be comfortably top 4 and beating teams like Olympiakos (who are good but not top class) mind.
Macheda and Bebe don't even play. Have they even been registered for the PL?
Buttner is truly awful.
Vidic and Evra can still do the job even if they aren't as good as they used to be. They need replacing but for Vidic we should have that within our ranks.
Young and Valencia shouldn't be starters.
Lindgeaard, Kagawa and Hernandez are all good players. So should be Nani if he pulled his shit together.
I think they don't have any confidence in the manager or the coaching staff. Moyes says he takes the blame, then puts the blame on the performance, therefore blaming the players. If he was seriously taking the blame he would admit he chose the wrong team.Well said Sarni. It's laughable that some people really think this is all down to players not being good enough.
I agree about kagawa and januzaj, those two and mata would be the players is base my entire squad around, but they are also two of the players who bust a gut and look like they DO care and have desire and fight in them, so probably not the best example
Not arguing with any of that. Young Valencia carrick evra cleverly rio vidic giggs nani and buttner would all be out if I had my wayHe is. He's one of Moyes's biggest critics on here.
I think they dont have faith in the manager and its showing. Whatever their early doubts might/might not have been, these players must see Moyes for what he is and that's not good enough for United. Subconsciously, that does play a part. Is it good? No it isnt but its bound to happen.
All of that said, yesterday being a poor performance was called by quite a few here even before the game had kicked off. We'l struggle to play good football with both Valencia and Young in the team. Its that simple. Fellaini might not be great, but atleast he has balls, Clev goes hiding when the going gets rough. If 3 of your front 6 are like that, a team will struggle and it did. Its the manager's fault to see that and take steps. Also, its his fault that he's designed our play around our weaknesses.
I don't really mean physical effort, I cannt think of how to describe it, it's just a general air of players coasting........Thing is mate, busting a gut etc have long been something we've given too much importance to. Its vital yes but not as much as some would want to believe. Valencia couldnt trap the ball yesterday when under pressure, lost it continuously time and again. Whether or not he bust a gut to chase it after that is immaterial. Same with Young. They arent good enough. Whether or not they worked hard counts but not as much.
Disagree. This is a team with serious weaknesses. Of the hypothetical team picked in the OP we'd need to look at improving on Carrick, Fellaini, Evra, Evans and whichever of Jones/Smalling are picked beside him. That's before we even get into the quality of the players backing them up.
For some reason the majority of the caf wants to blame either the players or Moyes when in fact both are at fault. Moyes should go, certainly, but that doesn't make this team acceptable either.
I agree Kagawa, Lindegaard, Hernandez and Vidic are solid players, who perhaps add value to the team in terms of wins, but you shouldn't entirely ignore the Macheda/Petrucci/Bebe/Buttner's etc, given that they are costing us money.
Just to stick within the terminology I suggested, I sincerely think(of the first teamers) Nani, Valencia, Young, Anderson, Rio, Cleverley and Giggs would have been in the negatives if evaluated upon EWA, they would have cost us wins due to poor play(and taking games away from other players). Is that an unfair assessment?
Yup. People are desperate to paint things as black and white to support whichever agenda they're peddling. If they've been dead against Moyes from the start then our squad gets hyped up, if they think Moyes needs more time then the squad gets slagged off.
The reality is more complex. There's been obvious flaws in our squad for years. Some of which came very close to a head last season, despite the way things turned out in the end.
Fergie's "next" team was going to be built around players like Hernandez, Kagawa, Anderson, Nani, Cleverley, Welbeck, Smalling, Evans, Jones and Rafael (arguably Pogba and Morrison too). For various reasons every one of them may turn out to be a big downgrade on the players they are supposed to replace. The simple fact that none of them seem able to stay fit for more than half a dozen consecutive games is a massive problem. Compare and contrast with the likes of Carrick, Scholes, Rio, Vidic, O'Shea, Fletcher and Evra who were far more reliable, physically, at the same age. This was evident last season too. It's not new concerns that none of us were aware of under Fergie.
I'm naturally optimistic so always hoped that most of those players would suddenly kick on and fulfil all their potential. As doubts about them continue to grow, however, the scale of the rebuild required gets bigger and bigger. I still think they might come good but if they don't, we're in serious trouble. No matter who's in charge.
Of course none of this has anything to do with whether or not Moyes is doing a good job. Which is something that posts like the OP seem unable to grasp.
The amount of attacking talent we have is impressive. The likes of Kagawa, Mata, Januzaj, Rooney and van Persie would be starters for most top sides across Europe.
Yes, but if your squad players are crap don't play them. I'd understand if we didn't have better than Valencia or Young available - we do though, just refuse to use them.
Klopp at Dortmund or Simeone at Atletico don't have good squads, they base their game around 14-15 players. They don't pretend that poor players are better than the good ones by playing them consistently though.
It has nothing to do with Moyes. It is not Pogue's fault that you can't grasp that.Yep, indeed, players being extremely far from their best and visibly lacking in confidence has nothing to do with the manager because you've decided so.
It would seem that given our players propensity for injuries though we're forced to play these awful squad players.
Obviously, Dortmund and Atletico have limited squads due to the size of their clubs. That said, they're not(I think) exactly the right comparison to make. In terms of clubs we're undeniably right at the upper echelon, with the Barcelona/Bayern/Real's in financial terms, given that they're the squads we should be comparing ourselves with.
If we do that, we can see that our squad(and the players within it) are remarkably lacking in quality compared to the backups present on those teams, where the likes of Coentrao, Isco, Illaramendi, Shaqiri, Martinez, Song and Sanchez are in effect squad players, all of whom would be regular starters for us. I think given that it's fair to call our squad depth awful in context. Obviously, compared with Villa, we're great, but compared to teams of the same general standing in world football as us, financially and historically, we're poor.
It's a squad that needed about 3 signings in the summer in order to compete for/retain the title... much like most squads need about 3 signings in the summer in order to continual improve.
That's one thing I don't get... Fergie was always a fan of continual improvement - even though that fell by the wayside a bit towards the end of his tenure - and it's fairly standard practice to improve your squad year on year.... regardless of what achievements were made the season prior.
Yeah, his last few seasons in charge don't look great in hindsight when it comes to his work in the transfer market.
RvP was a class signing but in how many transfer windows before that one did we sign a player who was a clear improvement on who we had already? You would arguably have to go all the way back to Evra and Vidic. Which is very strange for a manager with a track record of signing so many really great players.
I always thought it would be justified over time when all the young players we signed for their potential came good. If they don't, though, our reluctance to spend big will look pretty negligent.
It has nothing to do with Moyes. It is not Pogue's fault that you can't grasp that.
#Moyes4eva
The way he neglected obvious midfield targets was baffling. He's responsible for the way we are now heavily IMO.
But his responsibility goes as to why we are so far behind Barca and Bayern that we were superior to in 2008 or even 2011 (when it comes to Bayern). He's not responsible for the side being mid-table in Premier League and on the verge of going out to Olympiakos in a rather embarrassing manner.
RvP was a class signing but in how many transfer windows before that one did we sign a player who was a clear improvement on who we had already? You would arguably have to go all the way back to Evra and Vidic. Which is very strange for a manager with a track record of signing so many really great players.
I always thought it would be justified over time when all the young players we signed for their potential came good. If they don't, though, our reluctance to spend big will look pretty negligent.
Think back over the last few years. Do ye not remember people complaining about the quality of our side? Constant talk we were in decline? Our weak midfield? Lack of creativity? Zombie passing? Meekly surrendering the league to City? Constant talk of how screwed we were if players X and Y were out for an extended period? Constant complaints at our lack of ambition in the transfer market? All of this with SAF at the helm.
These problems have been building for years and they're apparent when I look at our squad.
Moyes didn't create these difficulties, he's just overwhelmed by them. We can certainly get in a better manager but it'd be stupid to pretend these problems will just follow Moyes out the door.
People complained that our team wasn't the best in Europe (or last year wasn't even in top 3). Now we are worse than the likes of Everton, Spurs or the might Olympiacos who had just lost their best player to fecking Fulham.Think back over the last few years. Do ye not remember people complaining about the quality of our side? Constant talk we were in decline? Our weak midfield? Lack of creativity? Zombie passing? Meekly surrendering the league to City? Constant talk of how screwed we were if players X and Y were out for an extended period? Constant complaints at our lack of ambition in the transfer market? All of this with SAF at the helm.
These problems have been building for years and they're apparent when I look at our squad.
Moyes didn't create these difficulties, he's just overwhelmed by them. We can certainly get in a better manager but it'd be stupid to pretend these problems will just follow Moyes out the door.
Oh, Pogue doing a Pogue. What a surprise!Try and deal with the content of posts and talk about football, you cretin. Everyone's in a bad mood and you're about as funny as cancer so I wouldn't bother with the attempts to be funny.
Of course he isn't. That's entirely Moyes fault. Like I said, you can discuss the two issues in isolation. Is our squad fundamentally flawed? Is it being badly managed? At the moment, you'd have to say yes to both questions.
People complained that our team wasn't the best in Europe (or last year wasn't even in top 3). Now we are worse than the likes of Everton, Spurs or the might Olympiacos who had just lost their best player to fecking Fulham.
It is a big difference.
Not winning the UCL? Fine.
Losing from Olympiacos? Absurd
Not winning the lague? Acceptable.
Not challenging for the league? Bad.
Not qualifying for UCL next season? Very bad
Not even challenging for it? Terrible.
This player isn't worthy of winning UCL and maybe not even winning the league (we can say that Fergie was worth 5-10 points). But not even challenging for the fourth spot? The team is much better than that. Losing from Olympiacos? THe team whose only player I knew was a crappy old Valdez. These players are so much better than that.
Fergie was arguably much better at signing potentially great players than signing already great players though, at least in the last decade or so. I actually think the main reason he neglected midfield so much is cause he had such a shite record with them in contrast to wingers and forwards.Yeah, his last few seasons in charge don't look great in hindsight when it comes to his work in the transfer market.
RvP was a class signing but in how many transfer windows before that one did we sign a player who was a clear improvement on who we had already? You would arguably have to go all the way back to Evra and Vidic. Which is very strange for a manager with a track record of signing so many really great players.
I always thought it would be justified over time when all the young players we signed for their potential came good. If they don't, though, our reluctance to spend big will look pretty negligent.
No one expected us to win CL and people would understand that we cannot win the league. If we were 3rd - 4th in the league and beaten by a good side in CL I doubt many would oppose.
Ultimately we need a manager who can get the best out of this lot and gradually improve the team to a point where it might eventually become competitive against proper European giants, don't you think?
We're several levels below where we should be though.
