If you could pick one player from United history...

[facund]

For me given we have been so consistently inconsistent : Denis Irwin and I know it's a different choice to the obvious candidates but sometimes I just like the unassuming quiet footballer who is not wrapped up in themselves, very rarely gave the ball away, very rarely had a bad game just dependable and done the right things at the right time.

Came here to say Irwin. The way we are playing with very little natural width means our FB's need to be top notch. Irwin could offer dependable defending, a calm head, a mean set piece delivery and reliable crossing to either side of the defence. Look at the number of times our FB's get in to decent positions and create nothing out of it, Irwin would be massively helpful.

 

[JaffyJoe]

Scholes

 

[sullydnl]

Keane. Perfect fit in terms of what the squad lacks personality-wise and at least a very good fit in terms what the squad lacks player-wise.

 

[Woeisme]

But then again, it should be easier to find a Keane-type of player

It's been 11 years since he left us and we haven't come close to finding anything similar to him. Very hard to find.

Leadership and grit are overrated.

Yeah, Look how we have done without it

 

[golden_blunder]

Keane

simply because of his will to win, and how he dictated the control of the game

 

[djembatheking]

The self-appointed Commissioner of Football

 

[paulscholes18]

Duncan Edwards

 

[oriole]

Scholes and honestly: Solskjaer

 

[Tiber]

Ronaldo. No doubt whatsoever

Have you seen his goalscoring record?

 

[Frank Grimes]

No.

Edit:Sorry wrong thread.

 

[Reddevildans]

Gary neville..need a steady and reliable right back and who's also a passionate and determined man on the pitch.

 

[woodhouseparkred]

Roy Keane, Paul Scholes, Cantona and Beckham. There are others like Ruud and Neville and Ferdinand, but Roy Keane has to be the number one choice simply because he brought to the team. If you didn't do your job (you could be Beckham, Ronaldo, Ruud or any others at that time) you would know about it, either on the pitch or in the dressing room. He wasn't scared of upsetting the big names because it wasn't the name or salary that counted for him, it was how we performed as a team. He wanted more than 100%, he wanted every player to play as if it was a cup final. No other Manchester United player had that aura. I don't mean to be rude, but over the last few years, we have been captained by fannies i.e. Wayne Rooney who cannot be compared in any way shape or form.

 

[what a mess]

Eric the King , collar up , chest out and let him at em

 

[AXVnee7]

Ronaldo would win us the league

 

[WalkerTheRed]

Robson was my first thought. Just prefer him to Keane for some reason.

 

[Theon]

I would take Keane in most situations, but for this team in particular its a no-brainer.

It's not just his leadership qualities but the impact he would have in possession - we lack that drive/purpose on the ball that Keane brought to the midfield.

 

[Spoony]

Robson or Keane.

 

[RedTillI'mDead]

I can't see how this has got more than one or two responses.

Ronaldo is such an obvious pick. Wins matches single handedly. If not him then Best or if you believe the hype Duncan Edwards.

At the end of the day goals win games and a potent finisher will win you more games than any other addition.

Granted you could take a team like the current Barcelona team and wouldn't pick Ronaldo given the already phenomenal front 3 they have. Any other position is more likely to give you bigger marginal gains.

But we've been fairly lacking consistent finishing or in some games the creative killer edge. Ronaldo can do both even if it's creating goals for himself!

Literaly feels a pointless thread. A best xi would be more interesting albeit probably done a million times already, but again is only marginally interesting given the treble winning squad broadly pick themselves and any changes wouldn't exactly be ground breaking, as maybe one or two obvious changes.

 

[SuperiorXI]

Roy Keane is the hardest man in the World on this forum.

 

[MadDogg]

As much as I'd love the opportunity to see Best/Charlton/Edwards/Robson for myself, it's too difficult to pick someone that you haven't seen in this kind of question. So it becomes a very simple question. What do we need more - Keane or Ronaldo?

They both bring an incredible drive to win and to be the absolute best that they can be. After that, Ronaldo has the immense individual ability. The goalscoring, the player who will make opposition teams fear facing us. That will raise the confidence of the rest of our players, and simply the ability to single-handedly win games. Alternatively, the leadership and pure will to win that Keane bought. Making sure every single one of our players raised their levels and when the going got tough would be the one who would drag us through games, dominating that midfield.

It's ridiculously hard to choose between them. One moment I'm leaning towards one, the next I'm leaning towards the other. Right now if I had to choose one I think I would go for Ronaldo. Maybe.

 

[woodhouseparkred]

As much as I'd love the opportunity to see Best/Charlton/Edwards/Robson for myself, it's too difficult to pick someone that you haven't seen in this kind of question. So it becomes a very simple question. What do we need more - Keane or Ronaldo?

They both bring an incredible drive to win and to be the absolute best that they can be. After that, Ronaldo has the immense individual ability. The goalscoring, the player who will make opposition teams fear facing us. That will raise the confidence of the rest of our players, and simply the ability to single-handedly win games. Alternatively, the leadership and pure will to win that Keane bought. Making sure every single one of our players raised their levels and when the going got tough would be the one who would drag us through games, dominating that midfield.

It's ridiculously hard to choose between them. One moment I'm leaning towards one, the next I'm leaning towards the other. Right now if I had to choose one I think I would go for Ronaldo. Maybe.

What would happen if Keane and Ronaldo had played at Manchester United today, given the way that Ronaldo takes a great deal of shots in spite of there being teammates who are in better goal scoring situations? Remember, it is goals that count and I dare say that if Ronaldo had passed the ball half the time that he had taken his shots and missed, then Real Madrid would have won the league a great deal more. He is good individually, but it isn't rocket science to know when to pass the ball if a team mate is in a better position. It is somewhat arrogant in a way i.e. I have more of a chance of scoring from 35-40 yards rather than my teammates who are 6 yards out and have an open goal. It is why I would never have Ronaldo in any of my top 5 players. I would even have Sir Bobby Charlton, Bryan Robson, George Best and Ruud. It is just a shame that Shearer didn't join us when he had the chance, since he would have been on 300+ goals instead of 260.

 

[Roger777]

Robson all day long. Roy Keane was a brilliant player and leader of men but also, was fortunate to be playing with some great players (Cantona, Scholes, Giggs, Schmichael etc) Robbo never had that luxury and carried this club for over 10 years through thick and thin, playing with injuries for years and still performing out of his skin.

 

[wolvored]

The best player I ever saw at Utd was Robson. Imagine a 25 year old Robson. Captain Marvel. Pass, Tackle, Shoot, Head the ball, and a leader of men. Box to box for 90mins. A game winner on his own. The fact he came back from 2 broken legs and wasnt frightened to go straight in the tackle again. Did all this on 12 pints of beer from the night before, and on a quagmire of a pitch, not the billiard tables they play on nowadays.

 

[Andy_Cole]

Cantona

 

[woodhouseparkred]

The best player I ever saw at Utd was Robson. Imagine a 25 year old Robson. Captain Marvel. Pass, Tackle, Shoot, Head the ball, and a leader of men. Box to box for 90mins. A game winner on his own. The fact he came back from 2 broken legs and wasnt frightened to go straight in the tackle again. Did all this on 12 pints of beer from the night before, and on a quagmire of a pitch, not the billiard tables they play on nowadays.

Just to correct you @wolvored, he broke his left leg and then it was refractured again two months later. He has also broken his right ankle, had a dislocated shoulder which popped out on numerous occasions. With respect, I don't think there are many players in the Premier League or La Liga for that matter (Maradona is an exception to that particular rule) who would want to come back after all that, only to play on terrible pitches. We can call him what we like, but for me, he was the hardest player in the league and he had no peers.

 

[wolvored]

Just to correct you @wolvored, he broke his left leg and then it was refractured again two months later. He has also broken his right ankle, had a dislocated shoulder which popped out on numerous occasions. With respect, I don't think there are many players in the Premier League or La Liga for that matter (Maradona is an exception to that particular rule) who would want to come back after all that, only to play on terrible pitches. We can call him what we like, but for me, he was the hardest player in the league and he had no peers.

I stand corrected. Your right he had no peers, not even Keane comes close.

 

[Mike09]

Vidic. We won 5 PL in 7.5 years with him. What a signing.

 

[woodhouseparkred]

I stand corrected. Your right he had no peers, not even Keane comes close.

We can say all we like about the Ruuds, the Ferdinands, the Keanes, the Ronaldos or even Giggs, and even though I preferred Keane, it was a very close call to be honest. To come back from a broken leg, refractured 2 months later and then have a broken right ankle and a dislocated shoulders speaks volumes about his character. When I hear of players not wanting to play because they are out of condition, they should remember that; as you rightly stated, they play on billiard tables and not on grounds where the pitch was all snow, or frozen because of a lack of undersoil heating. We can talk about Ronaldos scoring prowess, but if you had put him in a team that was playing in the early 1980s with frozen pitches, I don't think he would have played through fear of getting tackled. This is why they were hard those days, since they had to be, they had no choice.

 

[Fingeredmouse]

Best or Ronaldo. The best players are the most useful players. Leadership and grit are overrated.

Keane was also one of the best players.

 

[Fingeredmouse]

Vidic. We won 5 PL in 7.5 years with him. What a signing.

I think his defensive partner was even better.

 

[Long Ball]

Given the way that fergie always built from the back, and that we are missing abit of a hard nutter don't mess player, I'll vote for Vidic.

Whilst some may rightly point out others will have a bigger impact, I'm just following the great mans way and who am I to argue with him?

Regarding other points about keane, we did okay in 2008 without him. Perhaps the game is moving on from his type. And what we really need is goals, so I'd pick scholes, cos he scores goals....from midfield too

 

[Mike09]

I think his defensive partner was even better.

To me Vidic was the best centre back we ever had. I rated Rio as world class but i don't rate Rio as good as Vidic. I remember back then we had Rio with Silvester or Brown as centre back and we couldn't won a single PL in 3 years even though we were blessed with players like Keane, Scholes, Giggs, and RVN. The impact that Vidic offered to us was bigger than Rio IMO.

 

[berbatrick]

To me Vidic was the best centre back we ever had. I rated Rio as world class but i don't rate Rio as good as Vidic. I remember back then we had Rio with Silvester or Brown as centre back and we couldn't won a single PL in 3 years even though we were blessed with players like Keane, Scholes, Giggs, and RVN. The impact that Vidic offered to us was bigger than Rio IMO.

I chose Vidic too, but I chose him because he can be a 1-man brick wall inside the box. Rio is capable of otherwordly domination but Vidic = all crosses are meaningless.

 

[Devil81]

This team needs a Keane like character.

 

[Treble]

Yeah, Look how we have done without it

This response would make sense if we had a player like Best or Ronaldo but not a leader on the pitch. But our only world class player is the keeper. Pogba is not there yet and Ibra is declining. Even in his pomp Ibra wasn't close to being as good as Ronaldo.

The team lacks world class players, not leaders. Barca have had one of the best teams ever and no-one of the players is a leader like Keane or Robson. It is enough that they have the best forwards in the world and a system of play. Same with Real. Leadership is incredibly overrated on here. Keane was a fanatstic player for United but he ain't Ronaldo or Best. Not even close. He's just one of many class players in history.

Edit: Who is Liverpool's leader now? Henderson? They don't need one, they just play well. Coutinho is fantastic but not a leader by any means.

 

[Amar__]

Obertan.

We lack bald players who confuse opponents.

 

[MoBeats]

Keane, although I can imagine he'd last two minutes with some of this lot.

 

[Glideman]

For me it has to be either

Keane - we need leaders
Rio - at his peak he could sort this defence out
Ronaldo - for obvious reasons

I think it's a testament to how the quality of players for Man United has declined, I could probably name 10+ former players who could walk, heck tap dance into the starting XI with little debate

 

[John Blund]

Chicharito or Solskjaer. I don't feel we got an impact player on the bench anymore. Even when we have Mkhi, Matrial or Rashford sitting there.

Or O'Shea. He could play all over the pitch.

 

[RedMilo]

George Best or Cristiano Ronaldo, as they are the only two players who could elevate us to another level. Agree likes of Keane or Robson would be huge but there are so many none utd players in the squad it would take more than just leadership, still a lot to do is evident.