This season and last.

[Ever hopefull]

The more i see our play this season, the more i am beginning to wonder whether our problems last season ran far deeper than we first thought.
Last seasons failure has been blamed on our defence, but maybe that problem was meerly masking something that runs far deeper.
Look at the evidence if the defence was the real problem then we should now be winning games by better margins, or indeed just winning.
Don't get me wrong, the defence was a problem last season and the addition of Rio has not soved all the problems but it has made a big difference.

I'm not saying i know what the problem is but maybe we need to start really looking at the big picture.

 

[Tareq]

they don't win leagues n Sept, N the 98/1999 season we'v lost at home to borough & we lost 3-1 at Wednesday.....we have a busy treatment room,this justifies to some extent our below bar performances,,,,what worries me is that the youth academy is not producing the likes of Scholes , Giigs & Beckham .

 

[Kinky Melinky]

No I think Ever Hopefull has a good point. I mentioned this in another post. Tonight we only conceeded 1 goal and should have put away more based on last years' results but it's not happeneing. Why this is the case is beyond me - perhaps teams are learning how to handle us ? <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

 

[Neil Thomson]

Originally posted by tareq abd albari:
<strong>they don't win leagues n Sept, N the 98/1999 season we'v lost at home to borough & we lost 3-1 at Wednesday.....we have a busy treatment room,this justifies to some extent our below bar performances,,,,what worries me is that the youth academy is not producing the likes of Scholes , Giigs & Beckham .</strong><hr></blockquote>
They are actually, Timm, Richardson and Fletcher are fairly comparable.

 

[Ever hopefull]

Originally posted by Kinky Melinky:
<strong>No I think Ever Hopefull has a good point. I mentioned this in another post. Tonight we only conceeded 1 goal and should have put away more based on last years' results but it's not happeneing. Why this is the case is beyond me - perhaps teams are learning how to handle us ? </strong><hr></blockquote>

That could be a reason, but why have we become so predictable and the Arse have become the team playing with flair

 

[Ever hopefull]

Originally posted by tareq abd albari:
<strong>they don't win leagues n Sept, N the 98/1999 season we'v lost at home to borough & we lost 3-1 at Wednesday.....we have a busy treatment room,this justifies to some extent our below bar performances,,,,what worries me is that the youth academy is not producing the likes of Scholes , Giigs & Beckham .</strong><hr></blockquote>

You don't win the league in sept but can lose it.

 

[buzet44]

the difference my friends is where once when chasing a game we had Solskjaer to bring on as sub we now have only Forlan.
But I hear you cry......Solkjaer was already playing.
No matter...the point is the strength in depth of the attack is no longer there.
We need to be operating with 4 top drawer forwards on a match day.
We cut back from 4 forwards to 3 because of our midfield strength. How ironic with Keane and Scholes being out for at least 6 weeks we are now short up front, in midfield and...most criminally.....still in defence. Spend everything the PLC budget will allow on a top class player like Rio...fine...but just ignore that we still needed at least 2 other defenders and another forward.
Sometimes this club is too intent on making the big splash PLC dividend hiking transfer and not looking at what the team actually needs.

 

[Ever hopefull]

Originally posted by buzet44:
<strong>the difference my friends is where once when chasing a game we had Solskjaer to bring on as sub we now have only Forlan.
But I hear you cry......Solkjaer was already playing.
No matter...the point is the strength in depth of the attack is no longer there.
We need to be operating with 4 top drawer forwards on a match day.
We cut back from 4 forwards to 3 because of our midfield strength. How ironic with Keane and Scholes being out for at least 6 weeks we are now short up front, in midfield and...most criminally.....still in defence. Spend everything the PLC budget will allow on a top class player like Rio...fine...but just ignore that we still needed at least 2 other defenders and another forward.
Sometimes this club is too intent on making the big splash PLC dividend hiking transfer and not looking at what the team actually needs.</strong><hr></blockquote>

I agree. SAF seems too intent on spending massive amounts on a single player, rather than address the whole issue.
Compare us with the Arse or Livershite
Man Utd: Veron, Van Nistlerooy, Rio, Blanc
Arse: Wiltord, Pires, Campbell, Llunjberg, Edu, Gilberto, Lauren
Livershite: Riise, Dudek, Babbel, Diouf, Diou, Barros, Hamman, Kirkland

If you add up the total values of these transfers for each club they probably roughly the same. There will be players from all clubs that i've missed but the point is pretty easy to see

 

[uranushk1]

Originally posted by Neil Thomson:
<strong>
They are actually, Timm, Richardson and Fletcher are fairly comparable.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Chadwick and Stewart were on the bench in recent two matches but Fergie never used them even when the match went wrong. Somehow I afriad Fergie no longer has too much faith in our own youngsters. Yes you may mention O'Shea as an counter-example but I think it is because the injury crisis "forced" fergie to use him rather than fergie is really very confident to use him. What do you think?

But on the other hand, I think the failure in our transfer policy is even more fatal than we not producing good-enough young players. You can see Arsenal also didn't produced many local stars (Cole being the only one under Wenger) but they can use their limited budget to build a successful team. While we had a 28m completely wasted on Veron, and another 30m spent on Rio -- who is an excellent player, but has cost too much and one player cannot solve everything. I hate to say it, but I think we have been completely beaten by the Gooner in the transfer market.