Re: Liverpool Thread
are you seriously using sissiko, agger, gracia and reina as examples?!?!?!? I mean i think there is something to your results in europe, but i think its because of the great team concept rafa brings to the table, not the players he has bought... BTW how much did ronaldo cost United? Evra? Park? Vidic?
total bollocks which is nothing less than i expect from mancs
don't get your point with sissoko, agger, garcia & reina, they've what we've been able to bring in with the funds available, all of them under £10m
reina at 24 has a very bright future, 55 clean sheets in his first 100 games (total record is 56 in 104) is better than ray clemence's record playing in a far superior team, if he was at chelsea or the mancs there'd be a wankfest in the media over him, instead he gets very little credit outide of liverpool and you get retards like andy gray coming out with shite like anybody could play in goal behind our defence
same for daniel agger, he's made mistakes but is still learning but i've seen enough already to think that barring serious injury or a major drop in confidence/form he'll be at the heart of our defence for the next 10 years which is a bargain at under £6m
sissoko is a fucking beast, he'll never be the greatest footballer in the world but when we need to play a high tempo game closing the opposition down quickly there's not many better, his 2 performances against barcelona were outstanding and is something united could've done with against milan, just a shame he's suffered 2 bad injuries over the past 2 seasons which've slowed his development
garcia has been inconsistent but was needed to bolster the shambles of a squad that rafa inherited, he's scored some vital goals and i doubt we'd have won the european cup without him and has been missed since he got injured in january so no complaints at around £6m
rolnaldo cost just over £12m i think, £8m more than we were offered him for only 10 days earlier, vidic and evra have both been good value and park has been ok but the difference with united has been the players that came through the youth system all around the same time in the mid 90's, they're coming towards the end of their careers and will be difficult to replace, add to that the money united have been able to spend, so far this summer united have signed 3 players, one who cost the same as our transfer record and 2 more who cost more, in the past they've been able to spend more on individual players than we have so it's no suprise that results are better
league results haven't been great under benitez but during his first seasn we suffered injuries that would've caused any team problems, his 2nd season was a big improvement finishing 9 points behind the champions, we weren't a million miles away and off the top of my head i can remember games against 'boro and charlton where we dominated and created chance after chance but failed to score, both finished 0-0, a 1-1 draw against birmingham where we threw away the lead late on and losing 1-0 at old trafford to a last minute goal, thats 7 points which would've put us in touching distance and i'm sure if i look back over the fixters there's more where we were unfortunate, i'm sure the mancs can look back at games that season and say the same such is the fine line between success and failure
last season was poor but i can't help but feel our final points tally was slightly skewed, after we knocked barcelona out of the european cup we went almost into free fall in the league, the players were definately focusing on just one competition and the weakened teams we put out towards the end didn't help things much, us and arsenal were really never in danger of finishing outside the top 4, maybe if spurs hadn't had such a poor start to the season then there would've been another team pushing us which would've given us the kick up the arse we needed over the last couple of months of the season, we definatly should've finished 10-12 points better off than we did
the "want everything now" attitude of modern football fans pisses me right off, how many united supporters on here remember the majority of united's support wanting slur exlax out during his 4th season? i was at old trafford in march 1990 and although united were in the fa cup semis they were still calling for his head, 3 seasons later they won the league and haven't looked back, benitez inherited a shambles of a squad which needed massive rebuilding so the funds have never been there to splash out £20m plus on individual players, what he has achieved in his first 3 seasons has been fantasic considering the amount of work he's had to put in
benitez isn't beyond criticism though, i think he's not positive enough away from anfield, the majority of this league is technically shite and i think he shouldn't give a fuck about what other teams are going to do, just send the players out intending to steamroller the opposition, it's what united do and i think that has created an air of fear about them where teams go out against them expecting to lose, we certainly don't have that and the big games aside i think it's something that plays a big part
imo we're not a million miles away with the squad we have now, i don't think we need to or will go splashing stupid money on megastars, what we really need is one or two players with the right mentality
