I think a few things need to be straightened out here in this thread. The team did not improve BECAUSE Ruud Van Nistelrooy went to Madrid. The team improved because of the following:
- Ronaldo realised how good he was and went on to have an absolutely brilliant season. It is debatable whether this was because he was no longer restrained by Van Nistelrooy.
- Patrice Evra and Nemanja Vidic established themselves as absolutely first class players. This was nothing to do with Van Nistelrooy's departure.
- Michael Carrick was bought and slotted into our midfield wonderfully.
- Paul Scholes came back from injury and gave us the midfield we'd been lacking for years.
- Louis Saha started the first half of the season like a man possessed. Van Nistelrooy's departure enabled him to play but we could've done with him in the team once Saha picked up his routine injury.
- Giggs was a completely different player and had a brilliant season. This was nothing to do with Van Nistelrooy.
A lot of things went right last year all at once. It's bizarre to say that last year occurred because of RVN's departure. The mistake people in this thread are making is that he stopped our play from flowing. This is bollocks. People seem to be under the impression that he was an Inzaghi type player who scored tap ins and nothing else. Van Nistelrooy's control was absolutely top notch and i mean fecking brilliant. His composure was something else and his abilty to head a ball and hold a ball up was also brilliant. He could also pick out a pass when necessary even if his position on the field somewhat limited the amount of times he did this.
Madrid are currently playing wonderful football and they also won the league last season in Van Nistelrooy's first year. I cannot imagine what he would've done in this team we have now as opposed to the team he was carrying a few years back. Obviously keeping him was almost impossible due to the breakdown in relations between him and Ferguson so you can't really say it was bad judgement on the part of the management. He had to go which was a shame for both parties.