Manchester United Thread

Mutd supporters were very confident a few weeks back. I thought it was prematurely ...Every good run sooner or later is followed by a few bad ones. I think Rooney has loads to offer , although the rebel in him is gone he's become a business team player sort. It's called ' maturity' lol

I think being United and England captain has ruined Rooney, he now has a huge commercial responsibility to behave and be a role model which has taken the edge from his game. He's obviously struggling at the moment and I think would benefit from being out of the team for a while.
 
I think being United and England captain has ruined Rooney, he now has a huge commercial responsibility to behave and be a role model which has taken the edge from his game. He's obviously struggling at the moment and I think would benefit from being out of the team for a while.

I think we agreed :) mutd are not far from the top . So all these talks about dark days is a result away from brilliance .
 
I do agree that Rooney isn't complete trash, and he can still provide great plays for the team and when needed, I think he will still play great. However, there's too many distractions for him right now, I think it won't hurt to bench him for a few games and let him refocus. Some players can play it through and then get the rhythm back, but it doesn't seem Rooney is able to do that, He might need to step back, and then go all in again after some rest. however, i don't think the press will be over him at all if he's ever benched and LvG will never do that to his Captain.

I like Reus, but I'd rather read that we have a winger, or cb or striker coming in than another No.10 central attacking midfielder....
 
I think a player capable of playing from '10' or even left or right is the player we need.

Memphis for all his critisism should be our left winger going forward, we scouted him, we've invested heavily into signing him and now let's develop him, Mata is fine cutting in from the right IMO and Martial as our no.9 is self explanatory.

a Bale, Muller or Greizmann who score plenty of goals is what we need.
 
Antoine Griezmann would be a nice addition and could suit the team well and Thomas Müller is beyond any doubt. Last week I read an interview from him. In terms of his working life he stated, a move to the EPL woud make sence because of the salaries. And to be fair, I thought to myself, it was an faithfully way to telling the truth.

Atm I can't see him leafe Munich, but well, who knows? Maybe he fallows Pep and both transform our circular movement into something Bayernesque. Ah well, dreams... :)


At the end, I hope we score a goal tonight and ending up winning.
 
Have been pondering if I'm just being a spoilt fan, or if we're really that bad?

In the prem this season we are:
20th in terms of chances created
17th in terms of shots

We've had 100 fewer attempts than Arsenal. That is INSANE!

From Sqwaka:Just to stick some stats in, these are our chances created per match:
12-13: 11.53
13-14: 10.24 (-11%)
14-15: 10.29 (1%)
15-16: 7.36 (-29%!!)

In other words, the Moyesiah presided over about a 10% drop, LVG basically didn't improve it last season but has slashed it by 30% this year.

Put another way, compared to our 'dull football' of Fergie's last season, LVG has us creating 36% fewer chances per match. Good lord.
 
Well on average we score 1,4 goals per match but only conceding 0,7 goals. In many ways this ratio make me happy. If we fallow the Italian way, a goalless draw is the "perfect" game. So in one way, we are close.

What I'm trying to say, is, that we need to shift our perspective after the Fergie era. And to be fair, on a quite and reflective moment I'm quite happy with LvG approach, only in some moments and some situations during a game I would love to see more hunger for goals. And sometimes I miss the fun. The players needs to smile.

Like I say before, atm we are playing like a spintop - circular movement. Pep shifted his Munich side from circular movement to a onwards circular movement. This is what we need.
 
Mutd are the biggest club on the planet . Sussed !
Best business model✔️
Global appeal ✔️
Record finances in a yearly ✔️

Don't agree with that.

As much as i hate to concede it: Real Madrid are the biggest club on the planet. They have by far the most global appeal. IMO they must one of the only clubs to attract players only because they are Real Madrid.

Of course their businees model sucks (it's even fraudulent IMO), but they are a much bigger club than United.
 
It's not that important.
It's sure that United is among the clubs with the biggest global appeal.

I remember a study being mentioned in a book (but it is some years ago), according to that study, at the time the club with the biggest global appeal was Juventus...

This is lees than 10 years ago.

I was surprised about this.
 
Best business model: PSG/Manchester City - You spend whatever you want, build uber-squads of amazing players, and win leagues - all without worrying about sustainability

Global Appeal: For fans, United is probably numerically bigger because of its support in the two most populace countries in the world. In terms of football professionals, no doubting that Barca/Real are still slightly higher in terms of prestige. Ourselves and Bayern sway back and forth for 3rd imo, depending on the cycle.

Finances: United crush it where they can. Only reason Real/Barca are within a sniff are because of the crazy skewed La Liga TV deal. Commercially, we're a monster.

What should be more concerning is that United is undoubtedly in the top 4 clubs in the world for prestige, money and power - yet have finished 7th and 4th in the last 2 seasons in just the domestic league, won 0 cups and done nadda in the CL.
 
Also. If there was any doubt about the appeal stateside : I went to the United Real game at the big house in Ann Arbor and it wasn't even close the number of Utd vs Real fans. Marca's photoshopped aerial image at the time to make it seem like there were more white than red shirts is absolutely disgusting.aa I said before.. It wasn't even close.. At all.
 
Excellent, the England/pointless f*ck you FIFA friendly injuries have now struck United, after bouts of Liverpool and Arsenal.

In all honesty, these mid-season friendlies are going to end soonish. The clubs have all the money and all the power, and losing their assets to such a ridiculous thing as a mid-November jolly against Spain is so f*cking pointless.

Hearing Hodgson played Smalling for an additional 20 minutes after he hurt his hamstring. Class Woy.
 
These friendlies are not pointless at all, beach.
You know what is pointless, the the preseason tours on other continents that the big clubs do every year...these are utterly pointless.
 
Oh good, another injury from pointless friendlies.

Well, I guess at least the France match had some kind of non-football importance.

Still, these mid-season friendlies are simply garbage. Useless for planning for tournaments, useless for fitness, useless for absolutely everything football wise except for Football Association and FIFA revenues. Oh.
 
Like i already said, those friendlies aren't useless.
Players get stronger in those matches against other good players, and that is something that particularly English player can use.

You also need those useless friendless as a team to gel as preparation for big tournaments.

Of course one might say that from the point of view of clubs, those big tournaments are useless too. But what do we see after each of these tournaments? The best players are bought by the biggest clubs (James Rodriguez would never have played for Real Madrid without the WC, same for Daley Blind and LVG for United). After these tournaments you even see lots of completely useless transfers, clubs who bought players that suddenly were good at those tournaments and afterwards never lived up to the hype.

And then there is another thing clubs can do if they want to avoid that their players be implicated in those useless friendlies: don't buy internationals.

In United case that would have meant no Cantona, no Schmeichel, no Ronaldo, no Van Persie. I'm sure you would have been much better off without them.

I realise that i exagerate to make my point and that the above paragraph is nonsense...i'm only trying to make my point.

Recently United has a history of too many injuries. Do you really think the national teams are to blame?

Fans are glad that their clubs buy internationals, but the moment they are bought, they should play for their national teams. You have to realise that this is impossible and that even these seemly useless friendlies are very important.
 
No problem with international matches, or tournaments. At all.

Problem is with international friendlies mid-season. You say they're important as 'preparation'? Really? Do you want me to make a list of some of the players that have featured in them in recent years? Kieran Richardson's 2 international goals? Dave Nugent? I mean, how about Eric Dier?

Maybe I understand less about being a professional anything, but doing something for 90 minutes half a year before an important event - then never doing that thing again with the same people - is hardly going to leave a lasting imprint.

These friendlies exist to make money. Managers frequently give caps to players in them who will go on to never get other caps, because they're just friendlies. Players show up, have a jolly for a week in November, then go back to 'real' training.

Preparation for a tournament takes place in the camps a few weeks before it. There's very little point in doing otherwise. You think what Hodgson tells Harry Kane on Sunday is going to override what he now hears everyday at Spurs for the next 8 months? Of course not. Further, given how often players are injured, probably a third of plyaers playing this weekend will not be available next summer across Europe.

It's all a crock. OF course, these same players could have received an identical injury playing for their club. But that's the point. It would be professional footballer gets injured doing his job. Not playing in a friendly to line the coffers of the FA.
 
I don't agree Beach
Trying out new players is exactly one of the reasons those friendlies are usefull.
Problem is that you are talking about England. Hardly the most efficiënt led national team through the years and various coaches.
 
I actually agree that these international friendlies aren't useless.

It gives the manager who does not get a chance to see his players play for months a chance to tinker with line-ups and philosophy. It allows managers to once in a while get players in to talk to them about how to play.

Clubs have that luxury all the time, but for national teams, this only happen once in a while. So it is very important in that sense.
 
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