Manchester United Thread

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I guess the added benefit of tonight is that will force Moyes to try to accelerate those contract negotiations and he'll likely be a fixture for the rest of the season.

a new contract with the famous shirt number please! :...
 
Dust off #7, fire Young for breaching contract (signed under false pretenses Ashley claimed to be a footballer) - and give the whole damn contract to Adnan.

That second goal was quality. The dive was not so much. Not necessary.

Still, barely beating the worst team in the league 2-1 is not great. Obviously better than a loss, but this team needs something, and it needs it fast.
 
Thump

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Haha I hope he says yes to Albania too. Don't want to see Belgium winning the WC (sorry Gerd). It's funny how much the big players seem to have something similar about the way they move vs the rest. Watching Januzaj and RvP track the field and control the ball bears some resemblance even tho the latter is in poor form atm. Both show a similar kind of confidence and strength on the ball. We just need Vidic to get past his slump and Rafael to get back to where he was last season though..
 
It's not even sure our national team will go to the WC. We still need one point. Our next match is in Croatia and Benteke, Kompany and Felaini are injured. Both Courtois and Hazard are uncertain. De bruyne and Alderweireld aren't playing for their team...i can see us loose in Croatia.

Januzaj will play for Albania, but Bakkali will play for Belgium ( he is very good too).
 
I was going to say I hope Ferguson has a word in his ear about playing for England but then I remembered the old fart is Scottish

Welcome back to the top half btw, lads. ;)
 
Well our defense is still incredibly crap, Rio was awful last week and Moyes dropped him from the entire squad, brings in Vidic and he's just as bad!

The front 4 weren't clicking on all cylinders but I doubt you can keep all four quiet and that's impressive to have, was Januzaj yesterday but the other three can all win matches individually themselves.

seems like certain positions in the team seem fine and then suddenly turn shit without any notice, we need a CB and that midfielder to control the tempo.
 
Sorry, to burst in here, but a lot of team needs to get a look in.

I will be hated for saying this, but: Nani, Young, Cleverley, Anderson, Evra, Ferdinand, Vidic should start looking for new clubs.

We cannot compete for top 4 with squad like this. Not without Ferguson on bench and his clever talks, clever press conferences and clever pressuring on referees ;).

Just look at Liverpool now. Arsenal started to look deadly with Ozil. Tottenham stopped being 1 man team and imo are far better now than when Bale was there. Chelsea strengthened too :(.

Don't want to even talk about City :LOL: (fucking pace abusers! :P).

There is also one thing. Last year when we won the league, Man City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Pool were in crisis (either coaches done terribly and were on bad terms with players or there was still rebuilding going on, or some team lost their best player :) (cough van Persie)).

Now comes the hardest part for Moyes. He needs to build HIS own team without looking at anyone opinion.

And please let Fellaini play IN ONE ROLE and not all over the place :LOL:.
 
This season is crazy.

We've picked up 1 point from 3 of our toughest fixtures, are in the midst of a crises, lost to frigging WBA at home.

And we're 3 points behind City, 4 behind Chelsea.

Difficult to understand.
 
To be fair, WBA are very good at the moment. It's more logical to loose against WBA than lossing 0-3 against West Ham United...

Without exagerating his impact, a player like Januzaj might give United some extra vitality. He is too young to play week in week out imo, but his progress may be an inspiration to other players.

I guess in the end Man Utd will stil compete for the title...after all, the other contenders are also loosing points galore.


PS: any thoughts here about Nastasic' foul on Lukaku in the first half of the mtach against Everton. Evertond were denied a crystal clear penalty there...would have been a whole different match. Not sure if City would have won it...
 
This season is crazy.

We've picked up 1 point from 3 of our toughest fixtures, are in the midst of a crises, lost to frigging WBA at home.

And we're 3 points behind City, 4 behind Chelsea.

Difficult to understand.

that´s what i love about PL, nobody can be sure yet...probably until the very end..
 
It has the potential to be the best Premierleague season yet.

but, Man City and Chelsea seem to be getting stronger and after the last 7-8 years with Arsenal I will always have my doubts unless we get into April in a good position :PP

Spurs had that home loss against West Ham, but it could be a minor blip and I expect Man U to start getting better and better.

Liverpool look a different prospect though and with SAS they could do very well.

So it could end up the same, but hopefully not :-)

Its exciting though.
 
Spurs weren't playing their best match, but imo they had bad luck with the first 2 goals. The third one was a great, but didn't make a big difference...

You win some and you loose some (and that is sometheing most United fans are not used to).
 
With the average age of fans in Premier League being 41, I'd assume most Man Utd fans were around when Liverpool were dominating English and European football.
 
I'd think it's younger like 25-35 . The mid 80's was a very long time ago. The Italia league were more followed back then. I get your point :)
 
Indeed I think there needs to be a sense of perspective for us.

I was born in 1990, SAF won his first trophy for us that year and since then there's barely been a moment since that we haven't won something.

I'm willing to give Moyes time and settle for a time without trophies if there is tangible progress in the squad and the style of play. It'll almost be refreshing in a way to see how the other 19 clubs in the league have mostly lived for the past 20 years :P

That said it is depressing at times the way we've been playing this season. It's no different to the awful performances we've turned in since 08/09 but at the same time knowing you've got a rookie manager and rookie CEO doesn't inspire confidence that we'd turn any bad form like we would under SAF.
 
Your last point really is the key for me. I think most United fans are realistic about where the squad is and how relatively strong it is compared to other clubs in the league and around Europe.

But some of the simple stuff is just so poor lately. The fact that we don't seem to have a coherent game plan is the biggest concern. 22/23 crosses in the first half against Sunderland were met by a defender. That's hardly surprising when they had at least 3 defenders in the box, and only RVP was playing in there. Rooney was stranded outside the box, and Janujaz and Nani were generally the ones out wide crossing it in.

If you're strategy is to get it down the wings and whip it in, that's fine - that's a strategy. But if you do that, you need to make sure all parts of the team are built around that. You need to make sure your attacking midfielder/second striker is always in there too. You need your CMFs to rotate around to provide cover for overlapping full backs.

But we only did parts of that. That's the most worrying thing.

Say what you want about managers like Allardyce, but at least every player out on that pitch knows exactly what they're supposed to be doing. There is a single plan, and the players have been drilled with it.

Under Moyes (and to a large extent Fergie was the same) the strategy appears to be: pick XI players, tell em to go play football.
 
I never liked Ferguson, but on numerous occasions he proved that he was tactically astute manager who did have a plan. People are too harsh for him.

Jesus, i'm actually defending Ferguson here, but it seems that people have only bad memories of Ferguson, Giggs, scholes and others. Don't forget that they were an essential part of the best Manchester United team ever...
 
Fergie deserves every plaudit we give him but also criticism for leaving Moyes with an unbalanced squad he'd pushed too much out of and for the poor quality of football we've been playing since Ronaldo left.

Central midfield was a position we should've sorted seasons ago and even a couple of seasons we had Pogba coming through who would've stayed if Fergie had given him more game time.

I also wonder if it's a coincidence that some of our younger players have got better loans at other clubs where they are getting plenty of game time compared to when fergie was here and they were wasted on the bench of Wigan or Sampdoria.
 
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Central midfield was a position we should've sorted seasons ago and even a couple of seasons we had Pogba coming through who would've stayed if Fergie had given him more game time.

That wasn't true the second he signed with the moral vacuum that is Mino Raiola. No solution that wouldn't involving lining his greasy, scum-filled pockets was ever going to happen. And I think United knew it.

Raiola are worse than journalists. And that's a very, very low circle of hell to be occupying.
 
Good news for Valon, Januzaj called up by WIlmots for our national team and he refused...
The kid can actually choose for several national teams: Kosovo, England, Turkey, Albania, Belgium and Serbia.

This rule is complete and utter shite. I'm not saying this because he will probably not play for Belgium. The choice should be between both Belgium and Albania (perhaps Kosovo), but why Serbia, Turkey and England (apparently his parents have ties with Turkey or Serbia).

Yesterday Anderlecht's manager was interviewed about Januzaj, he said that tis kid is really protected and nurtured by his parents the way it should be. Both had a very good job in Belgium, but the chose for their son. Januzaj went to Man Utd apparently because of his education and not because of football or money. Van Holsbeek also said that he had never met a more mature 16 year old.
Former player Van Himst and other people who follow Anderlecht say Januzaj is the biggest talent that has ever been playing for Anderlecht. Most people will not remember this, but in the 70's (when Van Himst played), Robbie Rensenbrink played for Anderelcht. At he 1978 WC Rensenbrink was the best player of the tournament and was seen as the best player in the world...this to put Januzaj in perspective.
 
From what I've read and what Gerd has pointed out, is that this kid is very down to earth. quite different from Pogba or even Rooney. Which is a rare thing in this generation of footballers. If he is able to focus and not let all of these distractions from the press, the FAs and all that hype get to him, he could be a really tremendous talent. I remember you guys raving about him before he even made his debut here so I'm not too surprised to see him play well when given the opportunity (last weekend).

But then, SAF said recently that Beckham could've been a tremendous talent if he focused on Football, but that all changed...so we'll see. Maybe he can learn from Scholes how to be quiet, down to earth and focused on football and football alone.
 
Gerd it's just matter of time :-P , he already refused Belgium u19 and u21 many times now was time for 1st team to get refused , Albania NT said that we are doing everything we can for have Januzaj in place where he belong (Of course Albania NT lol) but they haven't invite him because they are waiting for "right moment" , I guess they don't wanna be refused so they are making sure before they officially invite him

Well it's between Albania and Belgium , others NT like England turkey or Serbia are just bullshit rumors , this guy will NEVER go play for any of them .

He's Albanian and he should com and play for his blood , it's about proud and about your own nationality so if this guy feel Albanian (and I'm sure he does , so does his family) should com and play for Albania !
 
This rule is complete and utter shite. I'm not saying this because he will probably not play for Belgium. The choice should be between both Belgium and Albania (perhaps Kosovo), but why Serbia, Turkey and England (apparently his parents have ties with Turkey or Serbia).

I read that he has grandparents who are from Serbia and Turkey, so under FIFA laws this is allowed. In my opinion England is the invalid one. Essentially they are saying (when he's 24-25) he will have lived in England for 5 years and so get residency and be able to play for them. I can understand him being allowed to play for Albania, Turkey and Serbia as that is down to his country of birth and parentage. I can understand him playing for Belgium since he moved there when he was very young and lived there for many years - essentially he went to school and grew up there. But to me England is wrong, he only moved to England for work/footballing reasons. It's like the Diego Costa for Spain issue, Marlos for Ukraine and Cacau for Germany. If a player didn't grow up (i.e. get education) in the country, if he wasn't born there, if he doesnt have parents (or grandparents) from there, if was already (pretty much) an established footballer by profession before he moved there, and this profession was the reason for moving, then should he really play for that country?

Taken to an extreme you can end up with a national team full of players who have just been essentially imported as ready-made footballers. Qatar is the best example of this, as well as the more well known Sebastian Soria, Marcone and Fabio Cesar (guys who had been with clubs like Defensor, Venezia, Napoli, Udinese before they moved to Qatar let alone got citizenship) in the last 2-3 years they have played players from Ghana, Senegal, Iraq, Yemen, 3 from Kuwait. It's risking basically making international football another derivative of club football, where economics is king and the richest country
attempts to pick the best players.
 
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