Unpopular Opinions Thread

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I'd usually agree. However
(a) he's the best manager in his league again. In my opinion anyway.
(b) This is the best run club he's been at. Madrid are a 'circus', Porto have a ceiling, and Inter was always short-term.
During his first stint, Chelsea as a whole was new to operating as a 'big' club. They're now there, and I think the owner is even smarter. If you put the best aspects of his previous clubs into a pot - that's what he's got now.

I also think he's here for the long haul, and this is shaping up to be his best squad ever.
He also has years of Premier League experience over the rest.

Mourinho at Chelsea is one of the big reasons I'm not holding my breath for titles in the near future.
Obviously, I still hope he we do, and we probably will have a good chance at some point, but Sir Alex leaving has taken away most of the bullishness. He was the man, whereas, to me, van Gaal is just one of a number of managers at a similar level.
 
Sky1981 said:
LOL. Overrated???

If he's overrated, then everyone is overrated. IMO Maradona is overrated, Messi has been sublime every season he plays, maradona only plays well on that a couple of highlight season, too little to be crowned as BPITUniverse
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Thanks for proving my point that he's overrated.
 
Brophs said:
1. Rafael is too old to still be this inconsistent and this injury prone. He should be fearing for his place.
2. One or both of Smalling or Jones aren't going to make it as first choice players with us. I don't think they suit LVG's style. Evans is also going to lose his place quickly unless he starts staying fit.
3. I was never that thrilled to have bought Falcao
4. On LVG, I think he'll do a good job but I think he may have gone past his peak as a manager.
5. I think we'll be lucky to get a couple more seasons out of DDG before he's off home. I fully expect us to make a complete balls out of our next keeper purchase.
6. Rojo's probably not very good.

Aaaaaand breathe (and wait for the inevitable abuse)...
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  1. Definitely agree. Rafael is a good player, and I like him, but it's about time he faced proper competition for his place. There are plenty of superior right-backs out there.
  2. Agree again. None of the three are reliable enough, for me, to ever step up and become consistent starter's for Manchester United.
  3. I was happy, he's a world class striker. I'm unconcerned if it doesn't work out though, as it's only a loan.
  4. That's probably fair, although he did enjoy an excellent summer with the Netherlands.
  5. Our history of purchasing goalkeeper's isn't the Mae West, and it tends to be a difficult area to address. I've no doubt in my mind that de Gea will eventually leave, lets hope we don't make a balls of bringing in his successor.
  6. He's been so-so, but he's adapting to a new league. From what I have seen of him, I'm undecided. I actually believe Blackett may well develop into a better left-sided centre-back over the next couple of years, with regular game time.
So yeah, not so unpopular. With me anyway.
 
I struggle to give much of a shit about Falcao. I know it's wrong but I can't root for him like I do many other new signings at the club. If he's good then great. If not, oh well.
 
Kag said:
I struggle to give much of a shit about Falcao. I know it's wrong but I can't root for him like I do many other new signings at the club. If he's good then great. If not, oh well.
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Probably because he's a loan signing. If he does well, good stuff and we'll likely sign him. But did we ever really need him? Probably not. If he doesn't do well, good bye and good luck.
 
KiD MoYeS said:
Probably because he's a loan signing. If he does well, good stuff and we'll likely sign him. But did we ever really need him? Probably not. If he doesn't do well, good bye and good luck.
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Yeah, perhaps. It's a weird one, for sure. I really need to see him fit and starting week in, week out for more than 60 minutes to truly understand the kind of player he is to be here.
 
I am decidedly neutral on Falcao as well. I wanted us to keep Welbeck so actually if Falcao fails to perform it will be all the more annoying.

My other ones;

We should have sold Rooney (no specific time, just within the last few years).

Fellaini will be an important player for LVG.

Rojo won't make it (ie won't become a solid first choice CB for us).
 
I honestly don't care that Anderson is still here and makes in a week what I do in a year. I find him amusing, and it's not like he's causing any harm to the team. I doubt we'd say, "let's not sign Vidal because we have Anderson" or "lets not play Pereira and instead play Anderson".
 
manutddjw said:
I honestly don't care that Anderson is still here and makes in a week what I do in a year. I find him amusing, and it's not like he's causing any harm to the team. I doubt we'd say, "let's not sign Vidal because we have Anderson" or "lets not play Pereira and instead play Anderson".
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Anderson started the MK Dons over Andreas so exactly that has already happened. He also played played in an U21 match over Rothwell and Pearson and in both of those matches he was embarrassingly shit. He also came off the bench against Burnley where someone else could have and he actually came on before Adnan.
 
Probably gonna be an unpopular one so I'll stick it in here...

I'm not convinced that Falcao was a LvG signing. Much like the Mata signing during Moyes' reign, I think he may've been a club/Woody signing to make a statement of intent.
 
JUPITER said:
Probably gonna be an unpopular one so I'll stick it in here...

I'm not convinced that Falcao was a LvG signing. Much like the Mata signing during Moyes' reign, I think he may've been a club/Woody signing to make a statement of intent.
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Can see your point. Woodward loves the commercial side of things and two of South America's two most recognisable players on United's books would help them gain more popularity in that part of the world. I do think though Falcao wouldn't be at United without van Gaal's blessing.
 
Mitchell Nicholas said:
Can see your point. Woodward loves the commercial side of things and two of South America's two most recognisable players on United's books would help them gain more popularity in that part of the world. I do think though Falcao wouldn't be at United without van Gaal's blessing.
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Yeah, I should've added that really. I don't think that Van Gaal would've turned his nose up at getting Falcao - I'm just not entirely convinced that he was a targeted and specified signing by Van Gaal.
 
The constant debates about Messi and Ronaldo as to who's better has become tiresome.
 
Rojo and Blackett are not good enough to regularly start in the LCB spot for us. Both of them are suspect defensively.

We need to drop this 4141/442 diamond/352 experiments and start with 2 holding mids until we can find better defenders and a proper box to box midfielder, no matter who has to sit on the bench.
 
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Kag said:
I struggle to give much of a shit about Falcao. I know it's wrong but I can't root for him like I do many other new signings at the club. If he's good then great. If not, oh well.
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He was a signing too far. This makes itself felt emotionally, too.
 
JUPITER said:
Probably gonna be an unpopular one so I'll stick it in here...

I'm not convinced that Falcao was a LvG signing. Much like the Mata signing during Moyes' reign, I think he may've been a club/Woody signing to make a statement of intent.
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That's not a bad theory actually. It would make sense. There were those links with Cavani too. Seems Ed really wanted a big name striker.
 
Falcao made sense to me. We needed someone who could score 25 goals a season. Van Persie is past it and Rooney isn't going to do that when played deeper. If Falcao doesn't work out we'd need to get another striker at his peak. You need an Aguero or Costa to win things; or a Van Persie of two years ago.
 
JUPITER said:
Probably gonna be an unpopular one so I'll stick it in here...

I'm not convinced that Falcao was a LvG signing. Much like the Mata signing during Moyes' reign, I think he may've been a club/Woody signing to make a statement of intent.
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I'd be surprised if Falcao was an LVG signing. He never played RVP with Huntelaar and has no great history (apart from Alkmaar) of pairing strikers together.

I think Mata was probably a Moyes signing, though. He was fantastic at Chelsea and Moyes probably figured he could play on the right if we had RVP and Rooney available. I know I did.
 
manutddjw said:
I honestly don't care that Anderson is still here and makes in a week what I do in a year. I find him amusing, and it's not like he's causing any harm to the team. I doubt we'd say, "let's not sign Vidal because we have Anderson" or "lets not play Pereira and instead play Anderson".
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Are you on the wind up? This is a football not a sit-com. Anderson's a free loader, and no one likes those.
 
3-5-2 isnt the problem. The problem is the supply to our strikers and a big part of that is our wide players (Young and Valencia) arent threatening enough. Young cant cross with his left and slows attacks down when trying to get on to his right foot. Valencia has one move to beat players and is easy to cover. Our crosses from out wide are awful and so our variety going forward is poor. By the time the ball is fed to our strikers they have had the space they have created for themselves killed off because of the slow delivery from out wide.
 
Stack said:
3-5-2 isnt the problem. The problem is the supply to our strikers and a big part of that is our wide players (Young and Valencia) arent threatening enough. Young cant cross with his left and slows attacks down when trying to get on to his right foot. Valencia has one move to beat players and is easy to cover. Our crosses from out wide are awful and so our variety going forward is poor. By the time the ball is fed to our strikers they have had the space they have created for themselves killed off because of the slow delivery from out wide.
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I disagree about Young. He was what made 3-5-2 work for us because he was unplayable on the left. Coupled with the presence of two predators in the middle, one of whom (Falcao) can bully defences, this is what got us goals out of nothing. Only when Young was shifted to the right to accommodate Shaw's return and then got injured did 3-5-2 become less effective. As things stands now we should be playing a system with a back four.
 
Stack said:
3-5-2 isnt the problem. The problem is the supply to our strikers and a big part of that is our wide players (Young and Valencia) arent threatening enough. Young cant cross with his left and slows attacks down when trying to get on to his right foot. Valencia has one move to beat players and is easy to cover. Our crosses from out wide are awful and so our variety going forward is poor. By the time the ball is fed to our strikers they have had the space they have created for themselves killed off because of the slow delivery from out wide.
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Your being harsh on Young.He's been very good lately and his injury going to hurt us. But agree that the formation alone isn't the only problem
 
Stack said:
3-5-2 isnt the problem. The problem is the supply to our strikers and a big part of that is our wide players (Young and Valencia) arent threatening enough. Young cant cross with his left and slows attacks down when trying to get on to his right foot. Valencia has one move to beat players and is easy to cover. Our crosses from out wide are awful and so our variety going forward is poor. By the time the ball is fed to our strikers they have had the space they have created for themselves killed off because of the slow delivery from out wide.
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And what about our non-existant supply from the midfield?
 
We should adopt 4231 as our main formation again and drop Rooney.

We have better 9s, better 10 and he isn't a proper midfielder.

None of our defenders are good enough for a club like United. Shaw potentially, but the rest? No. If they were available no top side would touch any of them.

Di Maria, Mata and Carrick are our best outfield players, and we should build the team to suit them.
 
Bwuk said:
We should adopt 4231 as our main formation again and drop Rooney.

We have better 9s, better 10 and he isn't a proper midfielder.

None of our defenders are good enough for a club like United. Shaw potentially, but the rest? No. If they were available no top side would touch any of them.

Di Maria, Mata and Carrick are our best outfield players, and we should build the team to suit them.
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I think most sides would take Smalling too. Perhaps not to start, but certainly to be a squad member. Same with Rafael.
 
We have a bunchof very good defenders, but we make them look like shite because they’re main playmakers in the system we’re using.
 
Bwuk said:
We should adopt 4231 as our main formation again and drop Rooney.

We have better 9s, better 10 and he isn't a proper midfielder.

None of our defenders are good enough for a club like United. Shaw potentially, but the rest? No. If they were available no top side would touch any of them.

Di Maria, Mata and Carrick are our best outfield players, and we should build the team to suit them.
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Arsenal wanted Smalling as part of the Vermaelen deal, didn't they?
 
Mciahel Goodman said:
That's quite an outdated unpopular opinion -- it was really en vogue circa '10-'13
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Perhaps it's time for it to make a comeback. You could argue that, by being static when we're in possession in the attacking third, Carrick constrains our ability to play vertically - essentially commits us to a horizontal, "zombie passing" approach. Just a thought.
 
Rojo will prove his worth
Adnan won't make it
Falcao will become main striker next year
Giggs will leave United next year to manage another team
Moyes will prove himself and become Newcastle manager next year.
 
SalfordRed1960 said:
Rojo will prove his worth
Adnan won't make it
Falcao will become main striker next year
Giggs will leave United next year to manage another team
Moyes will prove himself and become Newcastle manager next year.
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For Januzaj, do you mean he won't make it at United or he just won't fulfill his potential at all?
 
Barney said:
Moyes would be mental to take another dead end job especially at a club with 0 ambition. Also, the more Van Gaal struggles the more Moyes' reputation is healed.
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Let's see at the end of the season how he has done. I don't see the struggles in quite the same light as others. I just see boring football, which I am hoping will start to fade away (please).

I think it is strange that everyone keeps saying shite this, shite that, yet there are a good 16/17 clubs who have done worse than united to date. So maybe it is just a case of the PL is pretty shite this year.
 
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