Difference being that most people on here actually acknowledge that our midfield just isn't as strong as the rest of our team and has been the weak part in an otherwise excellent squad for the last 3-4 years, and therefore want the club to actually do something about it. You can continue to be positive and happy, and derogatory to anyone who doesn't hold your ridiculously over the top stances on our midfield because "we won this and that and therefore I'm correct", but it's pretty clear to everyone else, including our manager and board, that it's not up to the standard required.
Calling someone a scumbag classes as a quality put down?quality put down.
Twig 1 - 0 Cina
Lampard and Ramirez are their first choice midfielders. Unlike us they'll play with three midfielders and Oscar is much more a midfielder than Rooney. They also have Mikel and Essien there as covers if one of their midfielders gets injured, while they also have that Dutch player (which I admit I haven't seen playing more than two games, but people seem to rate him). While they don't have anyone as good as Carrick, I think that both Lampard and Ramirez are way better than Cleverley. And they have enough cover for that position we don't have.
In Cider's book, yes.
Chelsea's Mourinho, now there was a good team.
Yeah, it was to the point and carried a classic timelessness. Put downs needn't be particularly witty or original to be effective and this one was vintage gold.
But we've got nothing to test that against. We have a tough enough time as it is when carricks there, we don't know what jones would be like actually holding. I know he did some for Blackburn but that was differently he was almost a 3rd cebtreback.
Yeah that's what I've not understood. Not getting a recognised name is not something I'm too hung up on, it would be great but I don't think we need it to win the title. But a young understudy for carrick, someone who can come in and do his job in the way jones and smalling can come in, in defence surely can't be that hard to identify and sign. That for me would make the squad just that bit stronger and stop us being so reliant on carrick.
Buying a young midfielder would be a continuation of the errors we have been making these past few years, imo. How? Cuz if we get a young midfielder and he doesn't immediately come good, we'll be thinking he'll come good next season, and the next and so on...This is why it seems to me that we are desperate to sign midfielders who are sure to do well.
I'll agree about this, but being this late on transfer market I would be over the moon if we sign one of McCarthy/Kongodbia. While we cannot guarantee that they'll be world class players, I think that they'll provide much better cover for Carrick than anything we have. Of course, the best scenario would have been to sign one of them and a quality partner for Carrick (Cesc, Thiago, Modric, Gundogan) but that seems to be impossible now. Heck, if we sign even Fellaini (whom I wouldn't want at all two months ago) I would be happy cause we would ensure that a potential injury to Carrick wouldn't destroy our season.
Cause he looks a bit shit there, and Allardyce and Hodgson aren't the best examples you could have chosen. Anyway, both SAF and Hodgson have used him there either in case of emergencies or like last season against Madrid when we were playing against a better team (again because of midfield) and we had to defend for the entire two games. Jones played as a destroyer there but it's very debatable that we want to play like that for a majority of games.
Can´t really judge about the others, but Leitner would not have been any help for United. He was just loaned to Stuttgart for two years in hope that he gets more playing time there than in Dortmund. His situation would not be different at Old Trafford.
I think that the others have already answered most, but I will take this post as an example for something I realized some time ago and could be a reason for not signing any quality midfielder. In terms of CM quality, the EPL is in difference to basically every other squad part not really that well-placed. This may come in handy for United in terms of the title race, but a club like United should at least look to challenge for the CL.
That is the problem I can't understand with people who say that Jones is good in midfield. If we play Barca and Real tomorrow I would be happy to see him in midfield doing a man marking on Ronaldo/Messi. But for the other 50 games of the season, he is lost there. Unless we try to become an ultra-defensive team or change our style completely, playing with a diamond with Jones and another three more creative midfielders in midfield. With 4-4-2 (4-2-3-1) Jones is not suited to the midfield job for 95% of the games in a season.
You can win trophies even if some areas of your team aren't really top class.
I think Fergie would have been succesful with Thiago. Personally i think we lost out to Thiago for waiting around too long. Moyes seems very undecisive concerning transfers. While SAF was always quite resolute with his dealings. If he was sure about a player, and there was an opportunity to get him (like a release clause) he would never have waited to seize it. SAF always rated Thiago, he tried to sign him in 2011, i think he would have acted a lot quicker and with more resolve to get him at United before Bayern started sniffing around him. I red somewhere Moyes wasn't sure about him, and i think he lost time negotiating about the price because he refused to pay a few million more to resolve some contractual issues with the clause. Also we lost time because we had to wait until Moyes was settled in the job before approaching him, the transfer window was already open a couple of weeks by then.
Yep I also think we would have signed Thiago if SAF was in charge, he would have probably given a personal phone call or something like that to convince him.
In all seriousness, it's been said that Moyes has instructed for an overhaul of the scouting system.
