The team

[Livvie]

Barthez/Carroll/Lopez
Gary Neville
Rio
O'Shea/Blanc
Silvestre
Beckham
Butt
Veron
Giggs
Ruud/Ole/Forlan

And on last night's showing, I still think Forlan would be excellent cover for either Beckham or Giggs - he has the pace and movement to create.

Add Scholes and Keane to the equasion.

That team is good enough to win stuff. Or at least challenge.

There's something else wrong at the moment - self-belief/confidence, lack of morale. That's what SAF needs to work on imo. Though it's not to say we don't need strengthening - the thought of more injuries is scary.

 

[thumper]

The one thing we dont lack is self belief. Thats there in abundance and maybe too much abundance. The team has to learn to dig in an fight again.

We also need pace up front, thats our main problem IMO

 

[uranushk1]

We need to return to our attacking football and play more directly. The front players must move more and co-operate more. Use one-two, one touch football to compensate for our lack of dribbling skill and pace. "If you are not good enough, you must work harder" -- this saying is always right.

 

[bananaman]

the problem is we dont have the strength in depth we used to have. Simple as that,

we used to be able to bring on sheringham, scholes people like that , proven internationals,
now we bring on forlan, chadwick etc, no disrespect to those players but when united were scoring goals near the end of matches it was because we brought on players that were instantly recognised and feared.

how demoralising would it be for a team to see people like that coming on when you have run your socks off chasing becks and people around a pitch.
we just cant inject that fear into teams anymore.

 

[sin65]

How about trying a midfield of

Forlan--Becks--Butt---Giggs

While Keano and Scholesy are out.
Beckham plays infield mostly (and so did Giggsy last night) giving us a lack of width,Diego is fast and creative and needs more time on the pitch and although I am a big fan of Seba I think when the team needs speed and urgency (second half last night)His style of play is detrimental to the attack.

 

[MancFanFromManc]

I've been a big fan of Veron's too. Last night you could see his confidence evapourating. Sad to see and not what you'd expect from a World Class player. At times he was happier to give the ball to Phil Neville even when he had space.

His ball to RVN (when he nearly broke the bar) was sublime, but he's not doing that nearly enough.

I saw Giggs, Beckham and Phil Neville all give him encouraging 'pats' during the game. They all know he's suffering.

SO ARE WE!

It wasnt all his fault of course, a number of players are out of the groove at the moment.

RVN couldnt have trapped a bag of cement last night. In fact he could trap a ball further than he could kick it !!

 

[sin65]

Originally posted by MancFanFromManc:
<strong>
It wasnt all his fault of course, a number of players are out of the groove at the moment.

RVN couldnt have trapped a bag of cement last night. In fact he could trap a ball further than he could kick it !! </strong><hr></blockquote>

When RVN first came he looked out of pace with the PL but got better as the season went on.
Seba looked excellent in the first half but in the second when we needed our old fast paced movement his style of stopping the ball and looking for a perfect pass halted the attack and even had him losing the ball to Bolton players.