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Turning nasty, eh! You sounded like you have a twisted brain and unnecessarily lectured other. Why not just answer some simple and straight forward questions instead of sprouting insult?? You still failed to answer my question: Before RvP joined United, were you a gooner? Yes, or no? If no, before RvP joined United, which team did you support?
I'd say he got more out of that squad. A year before toe to toe with real Madrid, a year and 67m later...
Im a United fan since 1997 when i got taken to the match Feyenoord-Man United when i was 8 years old because my team won a tournament and this was our reward. Before that, i used to apparently have an Ajax spread on my bed. So no, never ever in my life have i been fan of Arsenal.
can you point me to the quote where scholes said that about ander? As far as I know, scholes quotes on herrera werent that bad and people just insinuated he was putting down Herrera's quality.
I'm on my phone at the moment so I can't get the link but it said something along the lines of them (Herrera and Shaw) are good players but not the level of Kroos.
Was that the headline or his actual quotes? And okay. just link me when you find it
It was on his paddypower blog if you want to try searching for it. It was just a quote rather than a headline, basically iirc it was just one line saying how shaw and Herrera were good signings but he wants to see united in for kroos as he's better (he spent a while on the same article waxing lyrical about kroos)
Okay thanks.
What's funny is his performance against Roma was better than all our midfielders could manage last season.
absolutely . the gulf in quality was immense.
Just need another quality midfielder beside him and I can see him being one of our most important players.
Yes, it's much better example. Fernandinho was box to box in Shakhtar, and Yaya was defensive midfielder in Barcelona. However, that doesn't mean they'd play in exact roles in their new club, City, and they didn't. Vidal has quality to protect defense and but only that, he's very useful in attack. Keane was box to box as they come, and most of people see him as destroyer. I can't say they are 100% wrong, that was his main job, but he had many other qualities that separated him from generic destroyers such as Gattuso or Makelele.
I'm afraid you're mistaken, again, and its becoming extremely difficult to take seriously your claims to have any real knowledge about Bilbao or Herrera. Herrera was the right sided centre midfielder in Bielsa's system, however Valverde used him as a #10 in a 4-2-3-1. Anyone who watched Bilbao last season would have seen this. In fact Spanish football experts, such as Graham Hunter, say Herrera's early season struggles were down to him learning how to play as a #10 (link). Other Spain watchers like Guillem Balague have argued that #10 is Herrera's best position (link). That is an opinion I disagree with, as does Herrera himself (link), I simply provide these sources as proof that you're wrong to deny Herrera played as a #10 under Valverde.
That's ok considering we have been playing without a midfield for a good few years!
Where have i said im some kind of Herrera expert, i don't follow him at all specifically? All i said was i follow La Liga every week and seen a good amount of Bilbao matches and found Herrera to be a sloppy passer at times. Do you also want to show Herrera's passing attempts next to that beautiful number 13?I'm afraid you're mistaken, again, and its becoming extremely difficult to take seriously your claims to have any real knowledge about Bilbao or Herrera. Herrera was the right sided centre midfielder in Bielsa's system, however Valverde used him as a #10 in a 4-2-3-1. Anyone who watched Bilbao last season would have seen this. In fact Spanish football experts, such as Graham Hunter, say Herrera's early season struggles were down to him learning how to play as a #10 (link). Other Spain watchers like Guillem Balague have argued that #10 is Herrera's best position (link). That is an opinion I disagree with, as does Herrera himself (link), I simply provide these sources as proof that you're wrong to deny Herrera played as a #10 under Valverde.
I'm not going to continue debating with you about Herrera' position. Based on the incorrect claims you've made about Ander, I simply can't believe that you know him as a player like you say you do. If I'm honest, you're coming across as a guy who saw some stats about passing completion on a webpage and decided to set yourself up as an Ander Herrera expert. For example, you talk about Herrera not knowing when to play the killer ball. The image below, courtesy of Sky Sports (link), shows in 2013/14 Herrera played as many successful through balls as Iniesta though. I take it you think Iniesta has a good understanding of when to play through balls? Therefore we should be able to agree someone who matches Iniesta's success in playing them is doing something right:
Plus, as we've already discussed, Van Gaal has said Herrera is one of the best passers at United and if anyone should know its him. I'm sure Van Gaal values possession as much as you say you do, if not more.
Ander Herrera is a top class midfielder. He is not sloppy in possession. He does not lack decision making or judgement when on the ball. Is he the finished article? No. However, the criticisms you're making of him are very wide of the mark. I'd be surprised if anyone who has watched Herrera on a regular basis would agree with any of the lines you're trotting out about him actually. The more you claim to know about Ander Herrera the more you come across not knowing much about him at all.
His passing was a bit sloppy against Roma, that's for sure.
Its not my conclusion based on those articles its the conclusion based on the evidence of my own eyes, which have clearly seen Herrera in action more than yours. Those articles were just evidence that Herrera has played as a #10, which you denied by saying Herrera played in a middle three in front of Iturraspe holding. I notice you're no longer peddling that line.
I haven't seen tons of Koke, to be honest. The few times I saw him play last year, he was very controlled and calculating, and barely broke out of a jog. Almost the perfect Xavi impersonation, with more physicality, but still in a measured way.
The bolded bit is the key part though Pogue. If people saw his performance differently than that statement above then is it really double standards?
I've no doubt they would argue that they saw the performance differently. Not all bias is conscious. In fact, most isn't.
Sure but then where does your position fall within the whole spectrum? unbiased?
Well I'm open to the possibility that Cleverley could still be a good player for us. So that puts me in a relatively unbiased minority, when it comes to judging his performances, certainly.
Didn't he have great stats for tackling in Spain? Don't think he could rack up those sort of numbers if he was rubbish at tackling. Been a bit reckless for United so far, I agree. Could be down to over-enthusiasm as much as a lack of sharpness. He'll be as keen as anyone to make a big impact in his first few games.
Not sure. If we play the 352 I don't think we'd need a true #6 to sit back, as I think with Mata, Herrera and an energetic CM (Vidal/Strootman) we have a lot of intensity and tenacity in pressing and winning the ball high up the field would be far more beneficial, as opposed to a sweeper to clean up, as one of our ball playing CB's (Evans/new signing) could perform that role.
Sort of. I know I've seen him get some of those diving sliding tackles right for Bilbao, but at the same time so far in pre-season he's done it the moment the ball is lost and never really got near winning it back. You can see why he's had a problem with picking up yellow cards.
I would say from the type of tacklers we're used to seeing in PL, probably more unorthodox in his tackling but from the stats I checked, he makes a fair amount and wins most of them.
I think Cleverley could be a good player for us also but I didn't think he was that great either on Saturday. I would say decent as best. I thought Ander had better moments than Tom so if there was a scorecard, I'd score him slightly higher but not too much. More football to be played anyway.
Meh. Splitting hairs here to try and work out who had the better game. They were both bang average really. Certainly close enough to make the scorn aimed at Cleverley contrast sharply with the excuses rolled out to defend Hererra.
