Exactly.
SAF this season
- Thread starter marjen
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Well, Carrick and Jones partnered each other in defence, and it was Carrick who gave Blackburn one of the goals.
Also, it meant partnering Rafael and Park in CM. If anyone had suggested that as a solution before the game kicked off, I'd say they would have been laughed off the website. And rightly so.
They suggested Evra and Jones - doesnt make it that much better though
It's perfectly feasible that mistakes from Fryers or Evra in central defence would have led to further chances and goals. And Fergie, rightly imo, wouldn't have gone into the game expecting Carrick to make that mistake (there was an element of luck about that goal anyway).
Laughed off this website? With the alternative being Valencia, our most dangerous player from out wide in recent weeks, in CM and Rafael at RB? If you say so.
And that's the key point with the team selection in general. With the resources that Fergie had available to him there wasn't anything he could have done to make it ''that much better''. I think that's pretty obvious unless you're one of the people who has spent the last few days pretending that Antonio Valencia is actually Andres Iniesta in disguise or that Zeki Fryers is the second coming of Paolo Maldini.
He is well within his rights to go with his instincts Pogue, but in effect he threw 3 points away that day with his recklessness. If we had won we would all be marvelling at his genius. He didn't, he fecked it right up and threw away the precious momentum he is always harping on about as being so vital to any teams progress.
If you are happy with that fine, but don't moan when others are not.
So don't try changing the argument from one saying the selection had no bearing on the result which i have argued aginst all along. To one where Fergie should be allowed to take risks.
No-one is suggesting he should play the strongest team in every game, i am arguing against him picking the weakest possible team and then fecking about with the positions for any PL game.
He could have picked a stronger CM if he had wanted to using the players he named in the squad, he chose not to.
He chose to play 5 players in positions they're not comfortable playing in. That's half of the team...and it showed. What we gained from it was, as far as I could see, nothing more than not having to play a relatively inexperienced defender...in defence. As it happens, the same inexperienced player who Fergie was very recently touting as "pushing for a first team place"
It's not scapegoating. It's looking at why we lost and whether it could have been avoided. It seems fairly obvious to me, as it did when I first saw the team, that we could have played a better side than we did. Significantly better. Either arrogance or poor judgement from Sir Alex cost us the game, or rather was at least an unignorable factor in why we lost.
And in anycase, if you're saying criticising Sir Alex is taboo, then you'd better jump on the back of anyone criticising a player's performance too, as believe it or not the players try their best in each game as well as Sir Alex. Then we can all just sit around whinging about referees and conspiracies in the enforced belief no one within the club ever does anything wrong or makes a mistake...Red(and White)Cafe.
Don't understand why the City result is relevant. They lost away to a team in good form. We lost at home to the side bottom of the league. Not hard to work out who's dropped the cheaper points in a season where it looks like every game will count.
Jones was the only one dealing with Yakubu anyway (and Yakubu was giving him a going over), so I don't get why it was so vital Carrick play in defence ahead of a young defender.
So much more vital than playing him and Valencia in midfield? and Rafael in defence, and not having a striker stuck on the left wing despite having two natiral wingers on the pitch? No, sorry, Fergie fecked it up, even IF all of those not selected were genuinely unavailable.
I'd even say it's unfair to criticise him for not using Rooney or Gibson as we don't actually know what the situation was. It's possible if they missed a training session that they simply weren't deemed fit or prepared enough to be involved.
I find it strange as people have no bones picking a player apart for a poor performance. So either there's some hypocracy going on or people genuinely think Alex Ferguson is incapable of getting anything wrong, even when it's pretty blatant.
Remember against Bayern in the CL when Rafael got sent off, and we played a limping, injured Rooney for over an hour, despite him picking up the injury early in the first half...then subbed him off for John O'Shea and tried to use Nani as a striker, desite having Berbatov on the bench? I remember arguing with people on here who considered the fact we lost to begitimately be Berbatov's fault, but not in any way Ferguson's. It gets very bizarre sometimes.
I can absolutely understand that. But his desire to avoid that ought to have been trumped by his desire to avoid Park and Rafel in centre mid, in front of Carrick at centre-half. As noods says, it's one novice and one player out of position versus five players out of position - one of whom is effectively a novice as he's never played there before.
And besides, it seems he could have picked Gibson. In which case, his inflexibility and stubbornness probably cost us the points.
It's always amazing how authoritarian people are on here. Fergie has been responsible for decades of glory and we all adore him. But like anyone, every now and again he makes a bad judgment call. No-one's saying it's unacceptable to lose the odd home game against shit sides. They're just discussing how it came about, and it seems unlikely that it was unrelated to Fergie surrendering midfield before the game began, with a ropey defence behind it.
SAF took a gamble and it didnt pay off in this instance. On other occasions it has and he has been hailed as a genius - the cup game against Arsenal last year springs to mind.
It cant work out every time. Otherwise it wouldnt be a gamble. Plus, then we wouldnt be able to sigh knowingly at the end of the season and say: "United eh? We always do it the hard way."
It cant work out every time. Otherwise it wouldnt be a gamble. Plus, then we wouldnt be able to sigh knowingly at the end of the season and say: "United eh? We always do it the hard way."
By the same rule Fergie's comments on Rooney suggested he was injured rather than disciplined GCHQ. So really you can't put any real faith in what Fergie says, it is simply a question of politics. He will say whatever he deems appropriate to justify his actions, how much of it is true is up for debate.
Imo he picked the team he wanted to pick rather than the team he had to pick due to circumstance, as many of you had suggested.
At the end of the day if Rooney and Gibson went out and didn't train well, he can't drop one and not the other just because it suits him. For me SAF made a mistake with the Starting XI but he made the right changes at half time and the players didn't get the job done.
Even hindsight doesn't support that opinion, bearing in mind we dominated possession for 90 minutes (>60%) and lost due to sloppy defensive errors.
I also disagree with your inference that anyone who doesn't think Fergie dropped a bollock in his team selection believes he is some kind of infallible genius, who never makes any mistakes ever. In the context of the game and the limited options available to them, I don't think his team selection was anything like as fool-hardy as some of the more hysterical opinions in this thread seem to imply. He took one or two calculated gambles in the team he selected and is so much better informed than any of us gobshites about the capability of the players concerned it just seems daft for people to wade in saying Fryers would have done a great job in central defence or Valencia would categorically have out-performed Rafael in midfield, without significantly weakening our right flank.
This doesn't, by any means, absolve him of any responsibility for what happened.
I personally think the decision to (allgedly) drop Rooney and Gibson over a late night out 4 days beforehand was an over the top punishment and the single biggest factor in our defeat. Start Gibson and Park in midfield, with Rooney instead of the abject Javier Hernandez and we'd be a vastly superior side. I think they deserved some sort of reprimand but not something so clearly detrimental to our league campaign. There must have been another way to teach them a lesson.
It was down to the training performance after rather than meal if reports are to believed, I think SAF was right to drop them on that basis. Obviously in hindsight we think he could have been a bit more pragmatic but we should have been able to get the job done without them and would have had we not made so many individual errors.
If the rumours are to be believed the night out was on december 26th and they were hungover on the 27th. Even if they spent the whole day chucking their rings up, they'd have been right as rain by Jan 1st. They're young lads in their 20s. They don't get two or three day hangovers the way old cnuts like me do.
By all means punish them, using whatever creative means possible. Not making them available for selection on a day when we had so many other key players unavailable was cutting off his nose to spite his face.
That wasn't the point though, I believe, on SAF's part. If you are training the day after you shouldn't be going out 'til late, SAF said Rooney missed a few training sessions too, for me it's a bad message to send out when a senior player like Rooney can turn up to training and not perform well and get away with it. Same applies to Gibson who should be desperate to save his United career. What message does that send to the younger players?
For me SAF made a pointed statement with his bench. It was like he was saying to his young players that if they put the effort in they'll reap the rewards but if you don't, no matter how good you are you will have to face the consequences. You can't have double standards.
Pogue you are such an exaggerator. It was not one or two calculated gambles. It was 5 players playing out of position.
Furthermore no-one claimed Valencia would be categorically better than Rafael, but he would ahave been a better option, because he is more experienced and has played there before, whereas Rafael has never, ever played there.
Agreed. At last.
Ideally that is probably a fair assessment, but Fergie could have banned Wayne for repeatedly neglecting training, and warned Gibson considering the limited options we were alleged to have.
He weakened our team with his stance and we lost as a result. Surely he could have posponed the punishment for a game or so. That would have been more in the interests of the club, than immediately weakening our side to prove a point, which cost us 3.
As i said though i don't believe his hands were tied. In my view he picked a carling cup team for a weakened opponent and it backfired. He picked the team he wanted to pick, not the only team he was able to.
Hmmm perhaps, SAF dropped Rooney out of the firing line for Liverpool this year and Everton last year, he's dropped many a big player before. It's always about doing what's right in the long-term rather than the short-term.
To be fair to SAF though we did have a team out there that could have won the game (eventually) but there too many individual errors that cost us. Berbatov gave away a soft penalty, Rafael let the ball run out for their throw-in which led to the 2nd goal and De Gea should have dealt better with the 3rd. None of these were down to the balance of the team. The balance was fixed for the 2nd Half but we still fell short.
How can you point to individual errors as the cause for our defeat, yet not accept that playing 5 players out of position in an experimental and unfamilar set up, had no bearing whatsoever on the players capacity to make mistakes?
From my way of thinking playing players in roles unfamilar to them directly increases the capacity for mistakes to be made. Even when he changed it at HT, the performance had already been affected and we were chasing the game at that point at home to the worst team in the division.
Surely you can see how bundled all together it all contributed ot an uncertain and disjointed performance, and an avoidable defeat.
It also makes no sense to deal with it later with Newcastle and City away as our next 2 fixtures, you can't wait until to Bolton on Jan 16th to punish him for something 2-3 weeks ago.
Yeah I'm surprised by the possession stats, but as you know the stats don't always show the full story. If a lot of their attacks were quick counters, that doesn't mean they didn't slice through us too easily.
I think that's the implication of all the hindsight and scapegoat stuff. If it's reasonable to be critical of team selection after a loss, how can we do it in a way that doesn't involve 'hindsight' - given that we don't know the line-up until shortly before the game? If it's acceptable to look for causes for a bad performance, how can we do it in a way that isn't 'scapegoating'? Aside from all just posting vague generalities that don't make for very interesting discussion.
Not sure anyone's saying Fryers would have done a great job. The question is, which would have been the worst of two evils - one novice CB, or several players playing out of position, including one who'd never played there before, and one who's in the same position the novice CB would have been in?
I know if Fergie had played Fryers, I certainly wouldn't be on here arguing that he should have used Carrick there and played Park and Rafael in centre mid. And I doubt you would either - you'd have been defending his selection against all comers.
Spot on
Berbatov defending from a set-piece has nowt to do with Rafael in the middle, Rafa was RB when he failed to clear the ball and De Gea not catching the ball has nowt to do with us chasing the game. Obviously the events that lead up to the goals might have something to with them but it doesn't stop the players dealing with the situation correctly at that time. The unfamiliarity of players with positions shouldn't stop them dealing with these innocuous isolated situations. You could see the main problem in the First Half was the final ball, despite our imbalance we had a lot of possession. All of this is in hindsight, had we won, we'd all be praising SAF's strong man-management.
How can we know anything is 'spot on' without knowing what actually happened?
It's either very harsh and pretty stupid of Fergie, or what actually happened is worse than was reported and they totally deserved to be dropped. Who knows?
One thing I'd say about the punishment - must be very hard to be dropped and forced to watch your mates have to work harder and eventually lose because of you. If this gives Rooney a good kick in the arse and gets him focused through the rest of the season it may turn out to have been no bad thing. Surely the upside of this punishment is that he'll want to come back and play well for the team?
It's either very harsh and pretty stupid of Fergie, or what actually happened is worse than was reported and they totally deserved to be dropped. Who knows?
One thing I'd say about the punishment - must be very hard to be dropped and forced to watch your mates have to work harder and eventually lose because of you. If this gives Rooney a good kick in the arse and gets him focused through the rest of the season it may turn out to have been no bad thing. Surely the upside of this punishment is that he'll want to come back and play well for the team?
Put it this way about Gibson. You have a massive injury crisis and you are forced bring back a player who was on his way out, as a player this is your last chance to make it at one of the biggest clubs in the World. If I was the manager and I saw this player turning up to training and playing shit after a night out when he has an opportunity to save his United career (slight exaggeration), I wouldn't hesitate to show him the door. As Baldwin said though we don't know what actually happened, I don't think SAF would be that harsh though.
Agreed. But what if the alternative was playing Ji-Sung Park and Rafael in centre midfield, in front of Michael Carrick?
Of course, it goes without saying the Gibson discussion is speculative.
It's a desperate state of affairs for both sides when the result comes down to whether Darron Gibson was available.
I'd be pretty pissed off and still tell him to swivel, SAF was always taking a risk but he was applying the same standards as he always has done.
Does anyone know what SAF said about Giggs? I felt leaving Giggs out completely was an error, he could have split mins equally between him and Anderson.
If what Armchair speculates is true then I kind of admire Fergie for having the bottle to go with the above line up and not only dropping Gibson but likely selling him to Everton today... Armchair makes a fair point - if it's your last chance to impress at United then you don't turn up worse for wear when the team need you that badly.
I'd have played him, then sold him... that way I'd have punished/got shot of him, while at the same time not having to play Park and Rafael in CM.
Park and Rafael, lads! FFS!
Park and Rafael, lads! FFS!
Obviously not ideal but I don't believe it was key reason for our defeat, it was contributing factor yes but not the key.
I would agree to a point AC, but i would also point out that putting players outside of their comfort zones, is not conducive to them playing at their usual level. Which i felt affected the whole team throughout the game.
Secondly im not too sure about the blame on individual errors. Samba and Berbatov had a bit of a tussle and the decision went against Berba, not really a lot he could do apart from let him go. If the ref had been watching closer 10 seconds earlier, the decision should probably have been a free kick against Samba.
Rafael i concede could and should have done better, but De Gea flaps at cross shocker? Hardly surprising really, i would even suggest had Vidic and Rio been playing he probably wouldn't have even bothered to come for that ball.
For me it was an all round poor team performance brought on by too many players playing out of position all at once. Yes there were mistakes that led to goals, but our all round display over 90 mins was as much too blame for that defeat as any individual errors, and i personally blame the line up for that.
Fair enough, I think it's time we move on. if Twitter is to believed we could be having this discussion again in a few hours but with different players.
EDIT: Twitter is not to be believed fortunately.
EDIT: Twitter is not to be believed fortunately.
I was suggesting exactly the same scenario Giggs/Park first half, Anderson/Park in the second, until Bryan Munich informed me he had been deemed unfit to play. By who is another question entirely.
Players play with knocks all the time, and i feel had SAF believed it was a needs must scenario against someone stronger than blackburn, i believe he still would have been involved.
I fully expect him and a few other of Saturday's unavailables to be back in the mix for tonight's game, so let's at least hope that a bad result on Sat for whatever reason, motivates the lads into a much improved performance and hopefully 3 points tonight.
I'm sure we can all agree on that part at least. Even Pogue!
Very surprised no one has bumped this thread by now in the aftermath of today's game.
Showed why he's still number one for me today - orchestrated the build up beautifully, picked the right team and had them absolutely ready and prepared, and while talking afterwards reminded everyone he's still in charge and on top of everything.
Can't think of anyone who could have done any of that today.
To everyone criticising his recent selections - that first half performance was his response. He had so many performances from people out there and they were able to give their best.
Now, on 8th Jan, he's within touching distance of City, has just dealt them a blow, and against every single odd he has his players fit and fired up for the 2nd half of the season.
I thought his ITV interview was phenomenal today after the match - cataloged the game with encyclopaedic detail, showed honesty, and real strength in criticising his players after a victory. In a week when he's been roundly written off in the media, it was some response.
Showed why he's still number one for me today - orchestrated the build up beautifully, picked the right team and had them absolutely ready and prepared, and while talking afterwards reminded everyone he's still in charge and on top of everything.
Can't think of anyone who could have done any of that today.
To everyone criticising his recent selections - that first half performance was his response. He had so many performances from people out there and they were able to give their best.
Now, on 8th Jan, he's within touching distance of City, has just dealt them a blow, and against every single odd he has his players fit and fired up for the 2nd half of the season.
I thought his ITV interview was phenomenal today after the match - cataloged the game with encyclopaedic detail, showed honesty, and real strength in criticising his players after a victory. In a week when he's been roundly written off in the media, it was some response.
He's gone daft again.
Used a wide player in the middle on Thursday, and left three central midfielders on the bench. Nearly costing us our place in Europe for a second time in one season.
Today he's only got one wide player in the team, but two on the bench, and three central midfielders in the team? Plus by the looks of it, Hernandez in a target man role?
I am not understanding. This was entirely avoidable with the players available, and playing players in their positions is kind of quite important...that's why players have positions.
Our best two runs of form this season have been the only two spells during the season when we've stuck to playing the same system from one game to the next, with players in their positions. Funny that.
Used a wide player in the middle on Thursday, and left three central midfielders on the bench. Nearly costing us our place in Europe for a second time in one season.
Today he's only got one wide player in the team, but two on the bench, and three central midfielders in the team? Plus by the looks of it, Hernandez in a target man role?
I am not understanding. This was entirely avoidable with the players available, and playing players in their positions is kind of quite important...that's why players have positions.
Our best two runs of form this season have been the only two spells during the season when we've stuck to playing the same system from one game to the next, with players in their positions. Funny that.
How'd you have set up?
Giggs could be on the wing for all we know, as could Welbeck. It could conceivably turn out to be at least a relatively orthodox formation with those players.
Giggs behind Hernandez, Nani and Welbeck on the wings, then two centre mids and four at the back...
We'll see how it pans out.
Giggs behind Hernandez, Nani and Welbeck on the wings, then two centre mids and four at the back...
We'll see how it pans out.
It'l be a fluid system with giggsy drifting left/playing through the middle and welbeck drifting in from the left/playing centrally just behind hernandez. The rest are obvious. Young isnt in the best of forms so it isnt really a surprise.