Neatly put. I agree. The only thing the 2013 team had over our current lot is a clinical world class forward and the greatest manager of all time.I think we have the potential to be better than the 2013 Team. But I also think the opposition also improved a lot since then.
Even if were not there yet, we are as close as we can be. In any normal season we would have been 1st or close 2nd.
We have a strong mentality even when we dont play good(apart the City game). Our players are fighting for the club and to win.
Fergie's last year wasnt a brillaint footballing season. It was fine, but more close to where we are today than to the great Fergie teams of the past. Today we have more talent, unfortunetly the league has gotten a lot more competitive. It's not a 2-3 horse race anymore(well this year it a 1 horse race), but whenever a season starts you can never guess who will be champions.
In the later years of his career Fergie was pretty pragmatic too. you only have to look at his use of players like Park and O’Shea, who were deployed to negate the threat of the opposition and not to strength our own. In games against Arsenal he set up with a similarly pragmatic approach. We would play very narrow and deep, to force Arsenal to play wide, forcing them to cross.We're not nearly back to where Fergie left us because we don't play with the positive SAF ethos. We are still fairly negative and defensively oriented, which sort of suggests we may never return to the old ways but instead, if we do manage to win a league or CL, it will be in classic Mourinho style.
But he committed numbers forward and was nowhere near as risk-averse as Mou is in big games. I can remember an FA cup tie against Arsenal with Rafael and Fabio on the wings, Gibson and O'Shea in midfield and he still went out and attacked them, won 2-0.In the later years of his career Fergie was pretty pragmatic too. you only have to look at his use of players like Park and O’Shea, who were deployed to negate the threat of the opposition and not to strength our own. In games against Arsenal he set up with a similarly pragmatic approach. We would play very narrow and deep, to force Arsenal to play wide, forcing them to cross.
He also went on a run of 6 results where we didn’t score more than 1 goal, despite having Tevez, Rooney, Nani, Berbatov and Ronaldo at our disposal. In 12 games we managed to score more than 1 goals only twice. Imagine if the same thing happened here under Jose? I wouldn’t argue that Jose isn’t more pragmatic than Fergie was, but Fergie wasn’t the attack devoted manager he was made out to be.But he committed numbers forward and was nowhere near as risk-averse as Mou is in big games. I can remember an FA cup tie against Arsenal with Rafael and Fabio on the wings, Gibson and O'Shea in midfield and he still went out and attacked them, won 2-0.
That run was after the 6-1 loss to City wasn't it?He also went on a run of 6 results where we didn’t score more than 1 goal, despite having Tevez, Rooney, Nani, Berbatov and Ronaldo at our disposal. In 12 games we managed to score more than 1 goals only twice. Imagine if the same thing happened here under Jose? I wouldn’t argue that Jose isn’t more pragmatic than Fergie was, but Fergie wasn’t the attack devoted manager he was made out to be.
Let’s not forget we have been without our most creative and important player in almost all of the games we’ve played against top opposition. I think if we had more creativity in our side, particularly someone who can replace Pogba when he’s unavailable, he would’ve gone into those matches a lot more positive. I’m sure he’ll look to rectify that weakness in our squad over the coming seasons.
No.That run was after the 6-1 loss to City wasn't it?
Fergie may not have been Kevin Keegan level reckless when it came to the balance of the team but nowhere close to the caution of Mourinho.
No it was the 2008/2009 season. But the 6-1 lose to City conincided with a run of 7 games where we failed to score more than 1 goal. I might be wrong as my memory is somewhat hazy with these things but I can’t remember a run like this under Jose, can you? Fergie knew when to shut up shop just like Jose, except he usually had the luxury of the best side in the league (of his own building of course) to do it. Again Fergie wasn’t as pragmatic, but the levels in pragmatism weren’t nearly as different in the two managers as is being made out.That run was after the 6-1 loss to City wasn't it?
Fergie may not have been Kevin Keegan level reckless when it came to the balance of the team but nowhere close to the caution of Mourinho.
Should have caught that, dang.No.
That was in 2011/12. Ronaldo and Tevez were long gone by then.
08/09 was a masterclass of grinding out success. Jose would have been proud.
This is very pessimistic Damien. We have Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal at home, all matches that we should win. Against City it doesn't matter much if the match is home or away, and Spurs are arguably the weakest team from top 6. I think that we should aim at least 10 points from those matches.Wouldn't say so yet. Need to see how we do over the next couple of seasons but two trophies last season and our current position is pretty damn good. Would want us to do better against the top teams (in latter Fergie years and the two Van Gaal years we tended to get around 18 points from 30) but we're getting there (7 points in first half of season compared to 5 last season - will probably end on 12-14 compared to 10 last season) and remains to be seen how we do in the CL but our record in Fergie's last two seasons there was pretty poor (knocked out in group stages in 2011/12 and knocked out in last 16 in 2012/13 though we did face Cakir).
