Luke Shaw | Deal done! Almost...
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Well Buttner was on his way to Southampton in August 2012 before we have bought him
How would people feel about going into next season with a defence of:
Rafael, Smalling, Jones, Vidic, Evans, Shaw, and Fabio
Is that enough? Do we buy another established or promising player? Or we do promote younger players?
Obviously, this is if we manage to sign Shaw and Ferdinand, Evra, and Buttner do all leave. Most clubs would be fine with having two players for each defensive position (we can even drop Valencia or Fletcher to Right Back if it came to it), but I have to say, every single player there (that is currently a player of our own) seems very injury prone. It seems like we'd need an additional defender in the squad compared to most teams.
Rafael, Smalling, Jones, Vidic, Evans, Shaw, and Fabio
Is that enough? Do we buy another established or promising player? Or we do promote younger players?
Obviously, this is if we manage to sign Shaw and Ferdinand, Evra, and Buttner do all leave. Most clubs would be fine with having two players for each defensive position (we can even drop Valencia or Fletcher to Right Back if it came to it), but I have to say, every single player there (that is currently a player of our own) seems very injury prone. It seems like we'd need an additional defender in the squad compared to most teams.
Well Fabio's off, so you may as well replace him with Buttner.
With Fabio on his way out it certainly wouldn't be enough, we'd need more adequate cover for Rafael and if we lose Buttner too than more cover at left back too. Central defence would need a fifth body too whether that is promoting Keane or bringing someone else in I don't know. Vidic's future is far from certain and we'll only get another season maximum from him, we'll not get much money from any potential sale so letting him go isn't out of the question.
We'd be one defender too light I think, we need one more left footer. To be honest I'd just keep Buttner as back up to whoever we buy as first choice left back, though I've managed not to develop this irrational hatred of him that so many on here have. Wouldn't be against completing the overhaul and replacing Vidic with someone younger/prime age (doesn't necessarily have to be a superstar signing).
Pointless discussion though as Moyes is determined to get rid of Fabio for some retarded reason and there's many reports that he's not even a fan of Rafael.
Ah I see! I'd only heard of Fábio going on a loan deal to be honest, didn't know he was in for a permanent transfer. Was hoping it'd be him staying and Buttner leaving, ah well.
Not enough for me. there is talk of both Vidic and Fabio possibly leaving, leaving only Rafael, Jones, Evans, Smalling and Buttner.
The concern i have is despite many believing our young CB's are the best around, if vidic goes, who do we see as the next CB partnership? Pick any pair From Jones, Smalling and Evans, and consider would that be good enough to maintain a serious title challenge along with a reasonable run in the CL?
In my view, not a chance. None have yet proved themselves capable of being top quality CB's either individually or as pairings, so for me we need an established CB signing, or preferably convince Vidic to stay on for a couple more years. Shaw would be great to replace Evra, but i feel we do need more to improve our defensive performances.
Have to be careful replacing our experience. We have already seen many examples of buying in replacement players for older ones and despite the initial hype, very few turn out to be as good as those you are getting rid of.
Remember Nani and ando to replace Giggs and Scholes? Didn't quite work out as planned, and i don't see Smalling, jones or Evans as anywhere near the class of Rio. Even when he was their age, he was far better than they are and more established too.
Would love a new CB, but to play next to vidic not instead of him, as i don't feel the ones we have are good enough....yet!
Rafael, Smalling, Jones, Vidic, Evans, Shaw and Michael Keane is one man short in my opinion.
If Valencia is going to continue his career here he should be played as rightback if he is gonna be played at all so I will be happy if the following is our defenders next season
Valencia, Rafael, Jones, Vidic, Smalling, Evans, Evra, Shaw
Valencia, Rafael, Jones, Vidic, Smalling, Evans, Evra, Shaw
On this season's evidence, Rio and Vidic would not feature in the best pairing we currently have at the club, and they're only going to decline further. There is no benefit to keeping players purely because they're old and so have 'experience'.
They're never going to become good enough if we keep holding them back in favour of squeezing every last drop out of our "experienced" defenders. If we're concerned about their quality, buy a top centre back and partner one of them alongside him.
Think most of us would be happy with adding Shaw to what we already have Magnus, but Vidic and Evra are out of contract this summer and could easily move on. If that's the case we will have lost the massive experience and influence of Rio, Vidic and Evra, and are left with only youngsters. Not enough to mount serious challenges for the top prizes in my view.
And how exactly do they prove themselves when people such as yourself deem it wise to block their path and keep on buying ahead of them? What's the point in investing in youth? These guys aren't even young anymore. They're ready. If we play two out of the three of them with some consistency and accompany them with a midfield that is worthy of the club, they will prove themselves to be good enough. I'm more confident in Smalling and Jones' potential partnership than almost any thing at the club. The talent, raw ability and previous demonstrations of defensive class are so, so obvious.
Essentially, what I'm saying is that I think you're wrong. If you haven't seen the defensive ability and potential of Smalling and Jones then I'm baffled. It's so, so obvious it's unreal. I think people watch us concede goals - not necessarily you here - and blindly reel of brash thoughts with little thought behind it. The reality of our defensive situation, compounded by Sir Alex's damaging over reliance on experience, is that we could have had Thiago Silva and Chiellini at the club and we'd still ship goals. We concede far too many shots at goal, have done for some time, and the constant rotation, some it forced, has inhibited the true worth of these players. Defending is a team game, and until Moyes can get us playing like one then the same questions will remain. Smalling had to make 24 clearances the other night. That's madness.
Sort out the midfield, play like a unit, and yes, if we could guarantee the fitness of both Smalling and Jones then I'm more than confident in saying we'll eventually have one of the best, if not the best, central defensive partnership on the planet. If we try it and they fail then so be it. However, spending £30m on them without a genuine opportunity to stake a claim would be an absolute disgrace, whereby I'd go to the lengths of knocking the "let's buy and develop young players" rhetoric on the head.
If Vidic leaves then we should bring in experienced defensive cover to act as exactly that. Cover. We should look to do the same if Evra leaves, and bring in Shaw as the main man.
Must have been, surely Southampton wouldn't of turned down 22m for a young LB?
I'm surprised we havent heard more about this, more than one reliable journo have said we have bid. Not that we are 'preparing bid' but have actually bid.
Maybe the 'reliable' journos became unrealiable.
Maybe not as a pairing, but vidic is still the best CB we have, and therefore must form one half of any pairing we choose. Yes we could buy someone else, i am not against that, but preferably not to replace Vidic. Imo it would just be another unknown quantity to integrate into the first team alongside with our young CB's.
I just feel it would be far wiser to keep Vidic and buy someone else with experience who can be our go to pairing for now while the others gain more experience, but could also offer similar assurance when vidic is unavailable. Surely better than throwing inexperience and new faces together and hoping for the best.
SAf should have done this far earlier regarding Rio, we would now be in a far stronger position if he had gone for Cahill for only £7m, but he didn't and so here we are.
I wouldn't be calling it bollocks.
Miguel Delaney has suggested the offer has been on the table for a few weeks and we are yet to get a response.
Miguel Delaney has suggested the offer has been on the table for a few weeks and we are yet to get a response.
Didn't they do the same with Bale? Just ignored our offer and accepted the Spurs one. C*nts.
Apparently, yeah.
Probably no-one to respond to the emails now Cortese is gone!
Seems all this guy does is piggy-back on other journo's stories. Wouldn't have him down as trustworthy.
If that's the case they are a bunch of shit bags. That's not one bit professional at least give a response.
I hope you are right, that would be the ideal scenario, but unfortunately there are no guarantees. So the wise move would be to have the best of both worlds instead of throwing all your eggs in one basket. Whenever you get rid of established influential players you have to have players ready to take over, and not just regarding talent, but to provide that influential presence too. Are Smalling and jones really ready for that? Imo no. They have not yet played often enough at CB for Utd to be comfortable being the main men. Any effective defence has a main CB the other defenders take their lead from. With us that man would be Vidic. Vidic's FB takes his positioning from Vidic, Smalling for example would also take his lead off vidic, and Smallings FB then takes his lead from Smalling.
Without vidic in the equation, who is our main CB the others will take their lead from? where is the leader? We see this with City when Kompany is out, and the reason's why City are poorer in his absence are far more obvious to me, than Smalling or jones suddenly being ready to take over Rio and vidic!
I can see some logic in your argument, but in my view it puts a hell of a lot of pressure on players who are not experienced enough to cope with it. You risk devolution of players if the results don't go well and the pressure intensifies. You need experience to cope with that type of expectation and scrutiny. We saw this with Evans years ago, and he has not yet recovered to become the top class CB many predicted he would be.
for what it's worth i agree with most of your comments about the defending being a team effort, and a proper functioning midfield protecting the CB's would be a massive help. But SAF preffered to play Rio and vidic whenever possible, to cover for the deficiencies in midfield. This has limited the opportunities for smalling or jones to get any decent run alongside an expereinced CB, and their development as CB's has been delayed as a result. That's why i suggest they are not ready. A midfield can only offer so much protection, the CB's still need the knowledge and the assurance that comes along with that to do their jobs effectively as a unit when required.
That is my concern, yes i may be wrong, but from what i have seen in the past, when you have such periods of uncertainty at a club as we have now, then you don't want to compound that uncertainty by shipping out all of your older players and bringing in even more unknown quantities, especially in defence. Losing Rio and Evra is quite enough experience and influence to lose from our defence for one summer thanks very much!
Maybe this time, we leaked the news to the media, so both the player and perhaps other people in the club would be aware of what's going on.
The Gareth Bale thing was all over the news as well, much more than this is. I remember there were articles on BBC even talking about him being our summer signing and how he would fit in the team at left back. Ferguson confirmed the bit about them not responding to our offer IIRC.
But i don t remember anyone saying that they had an offer on the table from us
A bit unfair mate. Miguel is a decent guy and doesn't tend to be too far off the mark.
Anyway, no doubting we want Shaw. I think we will try and push this one through now
We've not had a great time of it with Southampton in the past.
Cortese leaving is pretty important
Anyone who forgets how good he once was is just ridiculously fickle.
I say this somewhat tongue in cheek but he almost used to run games from left back...particularly when Ronaldo was here.
I'd not seen a left back be that much of a driving force in this league until Evra came good. Between 2007 to 2010 he was ridiculously good.
I don't think last year Evra was that bad as some are making him out to be, for me last year he was certainly better than the 2 years before. Even this year he's still top player, of course not what he used to be but one of the top left backs in the league.
Comparing him to the highest point of his career is what brings opinions down.
He was generally very good last season. This season he has been poor though, no question about that. But that applies to Vidic, Carrick, and more so its a squad-wide issue.
I have just put £200 on Luke Shaw to Manchester United in January transfer window
Bloody hell you must be loaded
On what basis?
ridiculous bet 
You'd be lucky to get 2/1 on that.
You'd be lucky to get 2/1 on that.Kiss 'em good bye.
Why would you do that?
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