I was fuming.
Rafael da Silva: Van Gaal called me and said "You can leave. The meeting lasted 1 minute"
- Thread starter RedDevil@84
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
Only issue I had with him was fitness. Would play him over Valencia and Darmian everyday
He was too cavalier for LVG
Seems to me like people miss Rafael more due to him loving the club, rather than being a great player.
He was a good player. The idea that was sold him for Darmian sickens me to this day.
Because our RBs have been setting the world on fire and we have won multiple titles since he left. Also, LVG demonstrated via winning he should have been given the car keys to make those sort of decisions and deciding our future...
He never was Evra level to be fair. Loved him and together with Hernandez he was my favorite player in that post Ronaldo era, but Evra at his best was on a different level. Rafael was very good in 12-13, probably our third best player after RVP and Carrick, and he was quite good at 10-11 until his injury and consequently losing his place to Fabio. Other than that he was very hit and miss, and not very reliable, exciting as he was.
Titles are the league, not cups as far as I’m concerned. I personally think league titles and where we finish in the league is how we should be judged, not on cup competitions.
I do think LVG got Rafael wrong, and whilst his signings have not really worked out - he did at least shift out a load of crap players. He did so with absoubtly no sentiment, and was much needed on the whole.
Feck me! And people rave about the likes of Smalling??? Wow!
I really don't get it, he is barely good enough for Lyon and people want him back.
He did shift Nani, Hernandez, Welbeck, Rafael, Evans, RVP. Were they actually worse than Rojo, Blind, Darmian, Schweinsteiger, Schneiderlin, Depay, Falcao, Di Maria and Martial? Martial and Blind are the only two who have made significant contributions since we signed them.
For most part, LVG signings have been sideway moves when we sold a player for cheap and signed a player around as good but much more expensive. We spent circa 30m on Rojo and Darmian, got less than 10m for Evans and Rafael, and by doing so slightly weakened the team.
LVG knew feck all.
He wagged his finger at Tevez and scored 2 or 3 spectacular goals. Nothing else matters.
I dont rave about Smalling either
Old sentiments die hard on this forum, we regularly see posts and threads on the likes of Rafael, Nani and Chicharito followed up with “Bring him back” or “we could do with him now”, etc. Understandable given their presence in our last successful spell, but when you look at how their careers have gone since leaving...
Nah man, it is more we replaced them for a shitload of money with players of equal quality during LVG. Money that should have been spent on improving the team was spent on replacing okayish players with okayish players.
No arguments there. But if any of the three I mentioned were still with us now, they’d barely get a game.
Are you calling me heartless?
I have fond memories about all these players but Rafael spent his entire career as a promise, he never really achieved it and when he left he never convinced his club that he was good enough, Lyon have been on the market for a RB every windows since he joined them. I will always like the young and promising Rafael but he isn't that player anymore.
Christ.
They all had good seasons but in the end weren’t good enough people forget that
I fixed that for you.
Gary Neville worse than Rafael is something that I didn't expect.
Was very good at his best but he looked off the pace the season before we sold him.
Rafael ain't worse than Valencia or Darmian, heck, he has shown much more than Darmian. Nani up to 2 years ago was probably better than whatever we have (nothing) as a RW.
Selling Rafael for 2m and signing Darmian for 12m was spending 10m on at best, a sideway move.
He is absolutely worse than them, Jallet was better than he was.
Rafael’s definitely better than Darmian, although I’d have John Curtis or Richard Eckersley back at RB over Darmian, as pointless a player I’ve ever seen at United. Valencia, I can kind of see see how some might judge it in Raf’s favor, but I personally wouldn’t, there’s quite a big gap in quality and consistency IMO, and I think Mourinho would agree. And Nani wouldn’t last two minutes in a Mourinho squad.
A lot of players drop on quality when they join a much smaller team, same as a lot of players never make it in a bigger team. I doubt that we would have been worse with Rafael than with Darmian.
It is a pointless debate though, neither of them makes much difference (though Rafael in Fergie's last season was spectacular).
Rafael was miles better than Darmian and a whole lot better than Valencia going forward. It was LVG though so no surprise Rafa was sold. I've never seen a more pointless player than Darmian.
I liked Rafael, but he's not that good is he? Seems a bit nostalgic, this.
Care to elaborate? We had a possession based identity which although didn’t lead to end to end games it did mean we played Liverpool & City off the pitch when it worked well. If you can’t see that then you’re just going with the blinkered narrative that LVG was terrible. He gave us our pride back after being a punching bag for most teams under Moyes
We are talking about what they've done at United.
Not really, people are saying that they would take him right now and that we shouldn't have let him go. It's not a comparison of Rafael at his best.
Can we bring him back just for kicks?
Can we bring him back just for kicks?
I love this man.
As much of a fan I am of Rafael, I can honestly say that's the first time I've heard him speakCan we bring him back just for kicks?
I was sat close to the Da Silvas in the UCL final in Moscow. They were in the United end, bless them.
Always loved Rafael, top player.