That's the key at the minute, lets hope he stays injury free.
SAF has ALWAYS encouraged and played youngsters. The fact that he has played Anderson and Cleverley at the start of the season, and mentioned Pogba too, shouldn't disguise the probability that United were strongly interested in each of Sneijder, Nasri AND Modric. It would appear that we didn't sign them because the first two wanted excessive wages and Modric wanted Chelsea.
It sounded like we had the desire to get Sneijder, and that he would come. And we sure as hell had the money.
Do tell, what's he like?
Plays at Lyon, exactly the same role as Gourcouff. Can spearhead attack, make runs etc but is best as an advanced playmaker, imo. Got a great shot on him and is useful on freekicks, too. Might be too late to get him cheaply now as Gourcouff hasn't really shined at Lyon so Pjanic will be getting more attention. Has dropped off the radar lately because he was benched as Lyon had signed Gourcouff, but he only needs gametime to develop into a fine player.
I feel awful breaking this to you, but...
seems like I wasn't following deadline day as well as I thought I was! It's a good move for him, he'll get games at Roma in a strengthened side. I'd suggest everyone keeps an eye out for him, he'll go places.Playing so advanced I'm surprised he didn't get more than 4 goals and 2 assists in 39 games in all comps last season in France.
It will be an interesting one to follow, remember a lot of positive things being said about him not too long ago.
If I remember correctly, last season most of his appearances came either off the bench or played out of position. Puel even tried Gourcouff and Pjanic together in a midfield 2 at one point, which didn't work well. I'd recommend placing more empathis on his stats for the 09/10 season, which was when he widely came to prominence as a big talent
Giggs will be 38 this year so yes, Fletch is a DM so I don't know. Carrick hasn't not really delivered at a consistent level for years and he's slow so HELL YES.
It should be a lesson for the club not to aim too high in terms of transfers. Whether we like it or not we can't afford certain type of players. Lets hope that the talented but inconsistent Brazilian and the player loaned to Wigan last year can do the trick not only against Ramsey and Livermore but also against the true giants in CM. I have faith in both Cleverley and Anderson but under such conditions (we're relying so much on them) does look a big gamble.
At this point in time SAF must rely on Anderson-Cleverley while adding Fletcher to them when more steel is needed. They are actually the only two players who may sort the mess in our CM at long term.
I don't think we will use 4-3-3 much, if at all, this season.
As long as it doesn't disrupt the squad, I don't mind us flirting around, stirring up interest and seeing if we can get a play to lower his salary demands to play for us. We like the publicity as much as Sneijder did, me thinks.
The only renowned world class player we had ever signed was JSV who signed with us to avoid a rumored long term football ban (during that time it was rumoured to be around 2 yrs) due to the false double citizenship scandals. Its really a waste of time to insist on these type of players. They are above our wage structure standards and since they can play anywhere across Europe they won't reduce their salary. Time would have been better spent if we aimed for players in our league.
Can I get a show of hands of those that said we definitely would?
tbf though had it not been for Cleverley who was very much a question mark prior to 4 weeks ago I guess we could of quite possibly bent over backwards to bring that bloke from Inter in
I have to put my hands up, I said "we'd be crazy not to sign a midfielder", however, due to the form of these two I was actually not too bothered yesterday, obviously I still wanted up to bring someone in but at the back of my mind I was thinking.... a big buy could leave Tom out in the cold, do we really want that.
