Has our injuries been worse this season than during the past decade?
I don't think we would finish below 2nd if Sir Alex is still around.
Where would you be in the league if Ferguson was still in charge?
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I don't think we would finish below 2nd if Sir Alex is still around.
He's a big player to replace though and there's no guarantee that replacement would've settled in straight away.
Beyond that, he'd still have needed to sort out some of our other problem positions, no? Plus there's no guarantee he was going to be handed a massive budget to do that either. More "value" signings were likely.
Then, with Rooney gone, how much would RvP's injuries have impacted on the team? It was constantly noted last season that we were extremely dependent on both RvP and Carrick, after all.
Yeah there's no way we'd have 69 points, that's just bat-shit crazy. We'd probably have 67 or 68 points.
We'd be top of the league. These silly dropped points wouldn't have happened and I think against bottom half teams alone we've wasted 15 points and the avoidable ones against Everton/Tottenham etc would have us sat at the top.
Sir Alex replaced our best ever player and we lost the league by 1 point.
If Moyes was allowed to spend 65m, there is no reason to assume Sir Alex wouldn't have been.
This time last season we made 80.
I mentioned Moyes because he's brainwashing the United fans now (with his actions and his stupid statements) and he's even beginning to tarnish SAF's legacy.
No, even if we lost Rooney (which would be the only real change). We lost Ronaldo and Tevez in the same year ffs without real replacements, and we still didn't struggle the next year! How long have you been a United fan? (Not trying to take a shot at your loyalty by the way, but how can a United fans forget this quickly what SAF has done in the past? With pretty much the exact same team we have now.)
And by the way, in case you didn't notice, Moyes still has Rooney.
There is no way our squad right now is any worse than our squad last year. I fully believe we would have been up there, and finished the season 1st or 2nd at worst is SAF was still here.
I think we'd have coped without Rooney if Fergie was still here. Problem is the only place to sell him to would've been Chelsea. In which case they'd probably have won the league.
I know I was just referring to the person who defended calling us being in the top two 'la la la' and then said we'd probably be third, when there's currently only two points difference.
Chelsea 1st, United 2nd...
Comapred to
Liverpool 1st, City 2nd,.... United 7th
I know which scenario I'd prefer.
Fergie would have made a decision about Ferdinad and Vidic too. Essentially we've wasted a season of 'restructuring' because the manager obviously had never heard of Manchester United before he arrived and needed a whole season to work out some players are getting on a bit.
You failed to notice that i mentioned it is Moyes incompetence that is magnifying the issues.
I havent forgotten what Fergie has done. I also remember that Fergie rebuilt the side 3 or 4 times and when he did it took a couple of seasons each time. I think we were at the point of having to rebuild a team. I think this would have been the season the hardcore rebuilding would have begun. Have you forgotten that we rebuilt a number of times and that we went without the title a few years each time?
We had a stronger team at that point though. Right now we're the weakest we've been since Kleberson was in his pomp. Plus doing it once doesn't change the fact that replacing key players is very difficult.
SAF has been working under financial restrictions for years now, so I wouldn't be so sure that would have changed. I would have thought that a new manager coming in to Old Trafford would automatically be given extra funds to make his mark on the squad, which doesn't mean SAF would have been given the same chance.
You're either underestimating Sir Alex or brainwashed by the Moyes Apologists and their shitty squad theory. Our squad is no worse than the likes of Chelsea or Liverpool and Sir Alex (or Mourinho) would have us right at the top challenging for th title.
Ferdinand and Vidic still had a lot to offer last season, Carrick was arguably the best CM in the country and RVP and Rafael performed at a far higher standard all season. None of them have consistently done anything of note this season and it's not all down to Moyes. I'm not fan of him, but it's silly to blame every single thing on the man.
My comment about us being shit after the Madrid tie was tongue in cheek, but our performance levels did drop. Not that it's of any relevance now though.
Nope, I said before the start of the season that we could easily finish third even if everything went well. Our weaknesses have been building for a while, just look at how our team has declined since the last time we won the CL. A rebuild was coming and even SAF couldn't guarantee a league win every time he rebuilt the side. This isn't me looking back on things with the benefit of hindsight, even with SAF here I'd have said he had to invest in the squad in a big way.
I'm certainly no Moyes apologist either, I never thought he was the right man and I want him gone. That doesn't mean we're nailed on league winners without him though.
To be fair, keeping players past their peak as first choice was one of Fergie's biggest problems in the last few years, and he shown no sign of moving away from that. Though they were still decent last season, Ferdinand and Vidic were still effectively first choice at the end of his tenure, Evra hadn't been defending properly since 2010 but was getting a free pass year after year.
I'd have liked a manager with some bollocks who was prepared to replace the oldies right off the bat, although he'd have only have got criticism for getting rid of the 'vital experience' in the squad.
Yes, but this is not the stage where we would be rebuilding. We already have a young squad and a solid foundation.
This is what SAF had to say about our squad the day he left:
"It's a young squad, a lot of good young players. They're going to get better, a lot of them, and the big test is can they win it three times in a row as we've done before? I hope the boys can do that."
Add to that what SAF would have added in the Summer, no way SAF would have let this squad drop below 2nd this season.
When we won the CL we were the best team in Europe, it doesn't take the best team in Europe to win this Premier League, as you can see by how City was easily dispatched by Barca.
I didn't say Sir Alex will guarantee a league title, but I said we'd finished in the top 2 like he's done for almost a decade. But as things stand, 2nd and 3rd doesn't make much difference...
I also didn't call you a Moyes Apologist (Iknow you're not).
Still not even close to an excuse. Ferdinand and Vidic already started struggling in the last few years. Vidic incidentally appeared in only half the games in the league last season (19 games only). We've always dealt with those problems. Smalling, Jones, Evans always filled when needed to keep us competitive.
We actually even had cases of extreme injury crisis that we had to play Carrick at CB at times with this squad, and we still didn't fall on our faces.
We've actually lost bigger players from this squad (Ronaldo, Tevez, even Haregreaves), but we still stayed competitive with this squad. There is not even the slightest of signs that we were close to a downfall. We had an (almost) title winning team in 2012 and we added RVP to them, which pushed us to winning the league with ease. No way we should re-write all that now and assume we were already witnessing an end of an era just because Rio, Vidic and Carrick aged 6 months.
Calling people Moyes apologists is such a bullshit argument, its a really lazy effort. There are very few people defending Moyes the coach on here. The overwhelming majority are critical. People who dont think we would have come 1st or 2nd if Fergie was still here are not Moyes apologists and last season there was an awful lot of people commenting on the cracks in our squad. The people who believe we have flaws in our squad dont think its a shitty squad, they merely think it has weaknesses.
Two weak angles to take are 1. calling people Moyes apologists and 2. spinning, the people who think we have flaws in our squad to become people think we have a shitty squad.
It's true that we don't need to be at CL winning standard to win the league, my point was that we've been declining since then. At some point that decline had to come to a head and I think this season was it. I suspect we'd have seen a bit of a rebuild if SAF had been here during the summer, Moyes' arrival just delayed it by a year.
I think we'd be around about where Arsenal are, so we're only really disagreeing over a five point difference. It's the people who seem certain we'd be top that confuse me, don't get how that's guaranteed at all.
Tbh the only really good thing about Moyes reign so far is that it has pretty much guaranteed there'll be major investment in the squad. If it's under a different manager then all the better.
If SAF was here, either Ronaldo or Bale would also be here... So maybe 10-12 points above and in the top8 of the UCL..
Hence I did not call people Moyes Apologists, I said they maybe brainwashed (influenced) by the Moyes Apologists and their shitty squad theory.
It would be last season all over again, except this time the distance down to 2nd place would be a bit shorter(because everyone has improved). There's just no clear number one this year. Liverpool, Chelsea and City are equally strong, but none of them are brilliant. Even if our team isn't brilliant either, Fergie had the power to make it so.
I rate them all quite highly, but lets be honest, their injuries are becoming a pain in the arse, it feels like every time we get one of them back fit, the other two get injured again. Even under SAF it was a problem, but he had Rio and Vidic still performing well. This season, the Rio/Vidic partnership has been completely broken and it's sad to see. Again though, you can't blame Moyes for key players declining.
We aren't witnessing the end of an era solely because they've hugely declined this season, but it's safe to assume that it's a big part of the problem. Those three players are a huge part of what we were all about, they were part of a very strong core. I actually think that some people are daftly underestimating the importance of them.
The difference is that Sir Alex has done it so many times it's quite reasonable to expect he'd get it right again to have us top of the league. With the way City was dropping points in away games early on, it's no unreasonable to believe Sir Alex would have us leading this league right now.
I'm not even sure I'd want to see Moyes given a big budget, if the board insists on giving him another season, I'd rather we write off next season as well than let him blow our entire budget and leave the new manager with no money to spend.
There is a difference between players ageing, and players declining.
When more than half of the team is declining (old and young) the finger will have to point at the manager rather than the players.
Especially in defence, it's all about the system, and organization. There were always players who were under-performing under Fergie, but then he'd find an alternative way or cover, or managed to pull them out of their slump..
Did we forget Ferdinand's awful display against City in our 4-3 win? That was in 2009! Rio and Vidic has never been the rocks they were for us in 2007/2008. But we knew how to use them, rotate them, and replace them when needed.
And like I said, we had even bigger injury problems when SAF was in charge. We even had to play Carrick at CB at times. But in all those times SAF still manage to control the situation, and find the appropriate solution, and what made that possible for him is because we had a very good and big squad.
Don't see how everything would have suddenly changed 4 months later.
This thread has already been done
Knowing Fergie, he would have sold Rooney and bought a non striker in a different position and changed the way the team plays. Maybe Shinji of RVP / Welbeck and it would have probably benefited us (much like when we sold Ruud and bought Carrick)
I say we would be challenging for the title tbh. All those home games he would have won which gives us an extra 15 or so points.
I say we would be challenging for the title tbh. All those home games he would have won which gives us an extra 15 or so points.
[QUOTE="Shark22, post: 15378983, member: 64385"]Ferdinand and Vidic still had a lot to offer last season, Carrick was arguably the best CM in the country and RVP and Rafael performed at a far higher standard all season. None of them have consistently done anything of note this season and it's not all down to Moyes. I'm not fan of him, but it's silly to blame every single thing on the man.
My comment about us being shit after the Madrid tie was tongue in cheek, but our performance levels did drop. Not that it's of any relevance now though.[/QUOTE]
Is there any reason to suggest that they wouldn't have been performing as well as last season on this season? Or does 3-4 months aged them so much (especially the 23 years old Rafael) and now they have lost their legs?
My comment about us being shit after the Madrid tie was tongue in cheek, but our performance levels did drop. Not that it's of any relevance now though.[/QUOTE]
Is there any reason to suggest that they wouldn't have been performing as well as last season on this season? Or does 3-4 months aged them so much (especially the 23 years old Rafael) and now they have lost their legs?
I find it amusing how some say that SAF would have done better in the transfer market. I'm not sure he would've even gone for Thiago (if his record in the previous 5-6 years is taken into account.)
What he would have done is not allowed the sense of lethargy that we've seen this season to kick in. I think the writing was on the wall with this team, even last year (we played some bland football over the last few years of SAF's reign.) But his record speaks for itself and I honestly can't imagine that we'd have finished any lower than 4th (which would have been awful for him.)
What he would have done is not allowed the sense of lethargy that we've seen this season to kick in. I think the writing was on the wall with this team, even last year (we played some bland football over the last few years of SAF's reign.) But his record speaks for itself and I honestly can't imagine that we'd have finished any lower than 4th (which would have been awful for him.)
How do you know that? SAF had plenty of opportunities over the last few years to do that and stubbornly refused. Why do you expect that it would've been any different last summer? I also think it's a bit much to say that Moyes 'sabotaged' our midfield transfer plans.
Somewhere in the top three at this stage, watching Rooney score goals for Chelsea. Kagawa would be a starter by now, playing behind Van Persie or Welbeck, if RVP's injured, and showing his quality consistently.
I am not sure whether Ferguson would not have bought Fellaini but its possible we'd have sold Nani as well, and either got another winger in or Zaha would have gotten more games.
The only silver lining about Moyes being in charge is that we have Juan Mata but who's to say Ferguson wouldn't have gotten him in?
I am not sure whether Ferguson would not have bought Fellaini but its possible we'd have sold Nani as well, and either got another winger in or Zaha would have gotten more games.
The only silver lining about Moyes being in charge is that we have Juan Mata but who's to say Ferguson wouldn't have gotten him in?
Yes he did!!
2nd or 3rd.
I agree that Fergie criminally neglected the midfield issue for last 3-4 seasons. But I do think if he had stayed he would have bought at least one midfielder, simply because Scholes was retiring. Last time he choose to bring him back from retirement, that was not an option again.
In any case, the point of a management change should have been to correct some of the mistakes Fergie made in recent years, not open up a mountain of others.
I doubt Fergie would have even have thoughts of selling Rooney to Chelsea, he would have flogged him abroad. This is the same man who wouldn't let Heinze go to the dippers
Anyway, we'll be top. RvP would still be happily scoring goals and not sulking like he did most of this season
Anyway, we'll be top. RvP would still be happily scoring goals and not sulking like he did most of this season
From whatever we have read and listened to in the summer, Thiago was one of our main deals. Almost a done one till Moyes came along and threw his weight around saying he has not done enough research on Thiago to know whether he wants him. The same Thiago who was widely known as a supremely talented player. I know that it might not be the whole truth but we can only go by what has been reported.
Moreover, I don't believe the club did not discuss potential targets with Moyes before he officially took over. How can a man, who claims to have such a big appetite for football, not know about Thiago's qualities? Even if he was not sure, why would he not trust the scouts who have been here for years as he did not have his own system in place?
It bordered on unprofessionalism if true.
Safely and conservatively speaking, just above. Liverpool......