I agree that City's performance this year is an anomoly. Not matter how good you are, you tend to drop points in some shitty matches were it just won't click. Hell, they still might start doing that in the 2nd half of the season. United should be ready to pounce in that case, or at least finish strong as a worthy second and build on it next year.
I added the 8m that we paid Monaco when he got to 25 goals last season in a past post, no one gave a toss. At end of day the club paid 36m for Martial in 2015 with the price potentially rising to 56m with future add ons. I think he needs to be Ballon d'or winner and a few other clauses with national team etc need to be met to reach that full 56m but at present we have actually spent 44m on him. I honestly believe that's where it will stay.
An alternative nonrevisionist narrative/take on the respective squad strengths with the arrival of pep/mou would be something like:
Beginning of the season you thought City would finish 4th with us in 5th. So not exactly miles ahead.
Agree. That's what's frustrating. We've got the players. We've got the biggest name in management. Yet we consistently turn out the same poor performances. It's not just the games we get caught out either, there have been quite a few we've got away with.
This guy is a Bluemoon legend.
The article you linked is good. However its a little disingenuous to pick that city team as well as ignore the two years of preparation for pep's arrival which included buying players known to match his style.
Exactly!! Take Spurs for example. Last 5 fixtures they have won 4 very very convincingly against teams we struggled against. Their one loss was against City. That’s a blip, against the best side in the league no less. Now look at us.
Yeah true. That's what's so short sighted about the "we're 2nd" group. They keep saying it like we've finished 2nd. They actually compare our current position to last years final position.
That’s what I’ve been saying. The whole “we are second” pisses me off.
to be honest there's a lot of nonsense in that
I think he’s joking mate. But he is missing much needed perspective.
Well said, that article was nonsense.
The people that say we are miles behind are actually the people that are defending Jose. The “doom mongerers” are the one pointing out that we have a very good team that should be performing better than it is.
I tried that mate and couldn't find a quote from this summer from Mourinho where he claims he would need more transfer windows to challenge for the title. I doubt he said that before the season. He might say it now, though..
Define better? The only poor result was the surprise league cup exit and that has happened under many managers. I think the Jose criticism is excessive. We’ve made progress under Jose and the squad has improved massively. There’s still work to do though.
Don’t think anyone would argue results have been impressive, performance is a totally different thing and performance has not been good at all. It’s nothing to do with people being spoilt, it’s people from years of watching football being able to look at a team and understand what “performing well” is. We struggle to link 3 passes together, or control tempo’s, be able to put our stamp on a game, create space. Just very basic things that you’re taught growing up playing football and somehow our team seems to lack any of these abilities.
Ha ha very true.
Yeah exactly, another one they don’t seem to understand is that “performance” and “result” are separate things. But you’re absolutely spot on, the reply you’ll get is either a comparison to City or getting told off because you only feel this way because of City. It’s like they are unable to think, honestly I think some brain washing has occurred. They can’t understand that people can look at play and understand that it’s not very good.
Before Pep and Mourinho took over, martial was far better then both Sane and Sterling. And Jesus. Rashford last season was better then Sterling. Aguero, Silva, kdb, sure, so the point still stands as only Pogba can counter de Bruyne there (and even then he's nowhere near as consistent). But generally, rashford and martial are similar potential wise to those and outperformed them before this season, so that's not a good argument as the only difference is their manager with his style is getting the most out of them.
Point is Sterling had already shown he was capable of challenging for the league when he was at Liverpool. That's why City purchased him for 50 million. The arguement is the quality of the players inherited by Jose and Pep. Hazard having a poor year has nothing to do with his quality and what Conte was inheriting at Chelsea for example.
Sterling wasn't in that boat at all though. They challenged for the title that year because Suarez was an exceptional player and raised the level of everyone else. Sterling has a good season as a young player but he wasn't a top ready made player already, just like Rashford or martial werent. Since that season til now Sterling was very much looking like just a pace merchant but with no end product and poor technique. It's not a case of him having it and losing it, he was just a young player doing well initially but in no way being one of the main parts of that Liverpool side. You can't just say everyone part of a title challenge means they are good enough to be key players for one. Looking at them individually, Sterling wasn't on the same level as Martial or Rashford, until this season where Pep transformed him. It's entirely on Pep getting the most out of him. Not saying Jose isn't doing well with rashford and martial, just that his system doesn't get the most out of players like that like Peps does. Which is why people can't say "they had Sterling, got sane/Jesus" as part of a ready made players. It's just the systems and coaching which is being the main separation between their youngsters and ours this season. De Bruyne you can counter with Pogba, but Silva and Aguero is obviously where they had the advantage. They had a bit of an advantage in that they had 2 world class players in before Pep took over (Silva was really inconsistent and looked to be aging), but people overstate how big that advantage was. Reality is is that Peps just rebuilt them much more quicly and in a much better way then Mourinho is doing at United, once they took over at an almost even slate.
You are underating Sterling's contribution to Liverpool's title challenge. Yes he was a main part of that Liverpool side. He was the most hyped young talent in the world.
Martial was never as good as them. We were rubbish with him up top in 15/16 before Rashford came on the scene. People forget that. He was our top scorer cause LVG had virtually nobody else to score them. Rooney was shocking that season, Depay was a flop and Fellaini/Mata only popped up with the odd goal every now and then.
What about watching the past 4 years of our football? For some it's like the years of watching Moyes and LVG breakdown our club are forgotten. We've been mismanaged from the top down post-Fergie and our transfer strategy was scatter-gun at best.
Same thing has happened before under Ferguson. It's nothing new. He just managed to correct it before it became terrible. Now this is Mourinho's challenge.
With respect, this is shocking revisionism.
How is it idealism? LVG proved it could be done. Rashford and Martial thrived when played as forwards instead of wingers. They aren't stars yet, but would terrorize the premier league defenses when played off each other. Martial more of a creator, with Rashford stretching the line as a poacher. We'd be far better off having spent that 75m (plus addons) on a position of need which is a wide superstar or even proper wingbacks. Pair in a veteran forward to bring-on in games where they aren't performing and we'd have a pretty solid team this year.
LVG proved it could be done? He fecking destroyed us.
Did you not watch Martial & Rashford with LVG? Regardless of his failures with the rest of the team, he showcased the talent Martial & Rashford have being played in the right positions. But our new manager decided to take two forwards and play them as wingers with limited FB support, because why risk changing your style to put your players in their best positions, when you can spend a ton of money to overhaul the team and then have the luxury to complain you didn't have enough money.
Yes I saw our team being built around Martial. It's not going to happen now. Besides we were fecking shit under van gaal.
Yeah us being terrible under LVG, wasn't because Martial or Rashford were being played as forwards. The issue was the rest of the team was played out of position & the tactical philosophy being too slow & conservative.
Part of the reason Martial had such a standout season was because the team was geared to getting him space and 1 on 1 with fullbacks. It's not going to happen now. Van Gaal's nonsense of playing players like Blackett because they were left footed was part of his whole deluded philosophy.
