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What has happened to SAF

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posted on 1/10/12

Reading through the OP, one thing struck me: all of those past periods were accompanied by quite a lot of incredulous fans going on about Fergie losing his mind / losing the plot / being past it.

I have to say, I too have been desperate for strengthening and rejuvenation in midfield for some time. On the other hand, I have the humility to recognise that I'm just an amateur observer, whereas Fergie has been the master of his profession for a long time. I also have the memory of several previous points in time when the combined wisdom of pundits and fans considered he was wrong, after which he delivered more trophies.

Perhaps we finally are right this time. But I don't think managing an FC is as simple or black-and-white as many of you lot seem to believe. It involves balancing dozens of different factors against each other. Every one of us lacks a 20th of the experience and information that Fergie has at his disposal. I'm therefore very cautious of complaining that he has missed something 'obvious' to us.

posted on 1/10/12

The first half performances against Galatasaray/Pool and Spurs have been one of our worst in lasy 6-7 years.
We deserved a 3-0 thrashing at Pool, somehow the gods were smiling on us and we came away with a 2-1 win.
Spurs were so so mediocre and we lost to them at home....just pathetic.
Galatasaray were dominating us on every part of the field and were unlucky to go back without anything from the match. They certainly deserved something.
Everton murdered us, Southampton took lead twice, Fulham scored 2 against us at home.......how can this keep happening.
It happens once its a blip, it happens twice maybe some players need to up their game but when this happens 5-6 games running....deffo the manager is at fault.
If he thinks players are letting him down...well u have a squad for a reason. Drop the underperformers.
If u think we are being tactically outfoxed, change the tactics but for Gods sake do something.
Carrick/Scholes know that no matter how they play, they are still manager's only option in the league then where will they get the motivation from , our strikers have such a tough competition, same for wingers but midfield selects itself.
This is just madness.....

posted on 1/10/12

we made bids for both lucas and hazard though RR, so there is money there, as Fergie himself has stated.

the problem is, as long as he continues to offer giggs and scholes new contracts, the less chance there is of us adding to the midfield, as we would have too many on the books.

i blame fergie and the players in equal amounts.

i blame fergie for offering them the contract extensions in the first place, and the players (more so giggs) for not having the balls to say "im not good enough anymore" like Neville did.

posted on 1/10/12

Things change and teams wise up as to how to combat him. Too often was Scholes given too much space to control the tempo of games. This season he's not getting this and it's evident.
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This is applicable for all players not only Scholes, giving any player too much space on the ball is bad news, be it scholes, carrick, anderson or even giggs, and if teams decide to press then obviously it will be more difficult, I don't think that's necessarily a discredit to Scholes' game.

In regards to your comment about his fitness, I can agree he obviously isn't going to last too long in a game at 37 but when he does play he is arguably our best centre midfielder, I am not saying that he should play the 90 minutes every game but should be used sparingly. I personally would like to see Carrick and Anderson in the centre from the off and then perhaps bring Scholes on at the 60/70 minute mark.

posted on 1/10/12

duncanedwards_legend

This 'Scholes required six months off' point isn't scientific. Do you have stats and a medical or sports science background to back it up? If not, perhaps you should preface the comment with 'it seems to me'.

By the way, it wasn't a bad midfield performance that lost us the away game at City, but a defensive lapse.

posted on 1/10/12

comment by Red Russian (U4715)
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Yes I 100% agree this

posted on 1/10/12

I personally would like to see Carrick and Anderson in the centre from the off and then perhaps bring Scholes on at the 60/70 minute mark.

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i agree with this, but if not needed, leave him off.
the less we can use him the better, not because he isnt capable, but more so as it will prolong him throughout the season.

posted on 1/10/12

Red Russian (U4715)
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Sorry, but you're making the matter more confusing than it really is. Ignore past and previous and all the great things Sir Alex has done over the years and watch what you have witnessed with your own eyes over the past few weeks. Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes do not have the legs to play effectively for 90 minutes. If the manager can't see this then, yes, he is missing something very, very obvious. It's that obvious that every single manager in the league is setting their sides out against us and doing exactly the same thing each time. Some have won, some have lost. But every single one of them has managed to come away from the game feeling as if they won the midfield battle. This is obvious.

posted on 1/10/12

Nor meaning to wum here but look at the players you refer to: Hughes/Kanchelskis/Ince, Beckham/Ruud Ronaldo/Rooney.

Hughes and Beckham were home grown, the rest were bought in. One of the most difficult things in managaing a successful team is managing the sucession to another successful team. Something for example Liverpool did in the Shankly, Paisley era, and screwed up in the Dalglish, Souness era.

So the drift of the article is why is the succession (apparently) going wrong here? And the answer has to be because players of the required quality are not being acquired or developed (or perhaps retained - Pogba).

posted on 1/10/12

comment by Red Russian (U4715)
posted 1 minute ago
Reading through the OP, one thing struck me: all of those past periods were accompanied by quite a lot of incredulous fans going on about Fergie losing his mind / losing the plot / being past it.

I have to say, I too have been desperate for strengthening and rejuvenation in midfield for some time. On the other hand, I have the humility to recognise that I'm just an amateur observer, whereas Fergie has been the master of his profession for a long time. I also have the memory of several previous points in time when the combined wisdom of pundits and fans considered he was wrong, after which he delivered more trophies.

Perhaps we finally are right this time. But I don't think managing an FC is as simple or black-and-white as many of you lot seem to believe. It involves balancing dozens of different factors against each other. Every one of us lacks a 20th of the experience and information that Fergie has at his disposal. I'm therefore very cautious of complaining that he has missed something 'obvious' to us.
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A very very sensible post.
Kudos
But there is 1 thing which bugs me, during those times in 04-05 we had Rooney and Ronaldo, potential superstars.
We were unlucky with Scholesey's eye problem, but there was a definite plan at work. When Keane left he messaged to Neville that Rooney and Ronaldo will win us European Cup.
But the footballing landscape has changed drastically since then, the emergence of Barca/Spain has put more emphasis on midfield than Defense/Attack which were always SAF's strong points.
These days most of the young midfielders are athletic, fit. adept at short passing, adept at pressing the opposition. Even if SAF decides to buy 1 or 2 good midfielders, most of the ones available will be in the mould of the one's i mentioned.
What plan does he have in place to solve our midfield concerns.....
SAF is gr8 but not a magician, he cannot make such a big problem dissappear at the click of his fingers. This is a medium-long term project, but he has taken backward steps in the last 2 years.
That is not progressive thinking/moving with the times.

posted on 1/10/12

comment by duncanedwards_legend (U11713)
posted 5 minutes ago
we made bids for both lucas and hazard though RR, so there is money there, as Fergie himself has stated.

the problem is, as long as he continues to offer giggs and scholes new contracts, the less chance there is of us adding to the midfield, as we would have too many on the books.

i blame fergie and the players in equal amounts.

i blame fergie for offering them the contract extensions in the first place, and the players (more so giggs) for not having the balls to say "im not good enough anymore" like Neville did.
-------------------------
This is even more alarming.
We have money but SAF is more interested in spending it on wingers/no10's instead of the midfield.
Gr8 going cheif....

posted on 1/10/12

This 'Scholes required six months off' point isn't scientific. Do you have stats and a medical or sports science background to back it up? If not, perhaps you should preface the comment with 'it seems to me'.

By the way, it wasn't a bad midfield performance that lost us the away game at City, but a defensive lapse.

--------------------

did scholes have an extended break??

yes he did and it doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out that this would benefit a player pushing 40.

as for the city game( which i didnt mention ) your right, it was a defensive error that led to the goal.

but the fact our midfield couldtnt retain possession or make anything happen further up the pitch certainly didnt help us.

if you cheaply give the ball away to city, they'll eventually score, defensive error or not.

posted on 1/10/12

I think it's a certainty we will sign a quality youngster in the next 12 months or so, our attempts for Hazard and Lucas tell us that much.

What worries me is that, every time Anderson and Cleverly have shown form, they have been dropped the following game, it's baffling.

posted on 1/10/12

The reason we have not spent money on the midfield is because we have loads of them and Sir Alex genuinely believes the likes of Scholes and Giggs are enough and can still contribute. He is both right and wrong. He has the midfielders in the sqaud that could be the answer; he's just playing the one's that are not the answers. This is the problem.

posted on 1/10/12

I don't think we can judge these players on a couple of isolated games, I think we need to look at them over an extended period of time. Duncan to judge the players on the city game, which is arguable the hardest in the calendar is a strange one, I bet if you looked at possession stats for us you will find that we have dominated it in almost all games.

posted on 1/10/12

'The first half performances against Galatasaray/Pool and Spurs have been one of our worst in lasy 6-7 years.'

----------------------------------

Worse than some of the CL games last year? Worse than the uninspiring start to the 2010-11 season, with the loss to Burnley and fluky 1-0 wins? Worse than the worst bits of the 2005-6 season?

We have a lot more poor patches than we tend to remember. Fans cling on to the glories from the past but other than that live in the present, meaning we always seem to feel that when we are struggling a bit it is the 'worst ever'. Actually, I think the difference between success and failure at the top level is quite fine and it sometimes doesn't take much for things to click into place (or out of place). E.g. for all this talk about midfield personnel, I think that when Kagawa and the midfield 2 get to understand better how they can work together, how they should be positioned relative to each other, the kinds of movements they should expect from each other, this could have a significant effect on the coherence of the team, the way it keeps the ball, the way it knits together the units.

comment by VCG © (U13761)

posted on 1/10/12

How anyone can honestly say they think our midfield doesn't cost us simply amazes me, if we had a truly top midfielder then we would have a complete side but at the moment (when players are fit) we've got two very good keepers, a good defence, good wingers and awesome strike force.

We are just weak in the middle, everyone and his goat can see this.

posted on 1/10/12

What worries me is that, every time Anderson and Cleverly have shown form, they have been dropped the following game, it's baffling.
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your right mate, as daft as it sounds, fergie has his favourites, and it shows.

giggs - constant poor performances

evra - poor for last couple of seasons

fletcher - is there any other player in the history of the club who was given as much time as fletcher was.

and then on the other hand you have the "non chosen ones"

nani - dropped on a regular basis, despite perfoming as well as valencia ( scapegoat for fans also)

anderson - never gets a chance to play when he should ( see recently)

rafael - dropped after nearly every mistake he has made prior to this season.

de gea - made 1 mistake this season and dropped.

posted on 1/10/12

This is applicable for all players not only Scholes, giving any player too much space on the ball is bad news, be it scholes, carrick, anderson or even giggs, and if teams decide to press then obviously it will be more difficult, I don't think that's necessarily a discredit to Scholes' game.
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I couldn't disagree more with this. Teams know that if Scholes has time on the ball he will beat you up. This is why he is not getting any. If we were playing Djemba-Djemba in midfield, believe me, the rush to get in his face wouldn't nearly be as much. Teams know that Carrick wilts under pressure and Scholes can be contained just by closing him down and running past him. This is what's been happening and what will continue to happen the longer they play together.

posted on 1/10/12

Duncan to judge the players on the city game, which is arguable the hardest in the calendar is a strange one, I bet if you looked at possession stats for us you will find that we have dominated it in almost all games.
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i never origianlly mentioned the city game, RR brought that up mate

to be honest tho mate, the entire set up was wrong that game.

we went with the intention of playing on the counter, and fergie gave park his first start in 3 months on the wing.

i mean come on, as a winger park was average at best, let alone after coming back with a 3 month injury.

the idea of hitting someone on the break, is to do it with pace on the wings.... never going to happen with park on one of them.

you could tell how wrong his tactics were, because as soon as he made changed and brought on welbeck, valencia and young, we started to look like creating something.

posted on 1/10/12

Kagawa_26 - Cleverson!

So many time over the years I've heard everyone saying that something is 'obvious' (and often I've agreed with them), only to often find in the end it wasn't obvious, that player X turned out to make a great contribution, or that it suited player Y's development to be introduced more gradually than we impatient fans wanted.

As I said, I agree with the gist that Scholes + Giggs in the team when playing a two-man midfield leaves us short of legs. But I'm reluctant to go along with an arrogant assumption that we know better than a suddenly blind and incompetent manager.

comment by VCG © (U13761)

posted on 1/10/12

Did we even test Joe Hart once ?

Apologies if we did but I don't recall any chances in that game.

posted on 1/10/12

If we were playing Djemba-Djemba in midfield, believe me, the rush to get in his face wouldn't nearly be as much.
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This is because he is by no means the same quality of player, are you saying you would rather have Djemba Djemba in midfield instead of Scholes because they wouldn't chase him down. The fact that Scholes must be closed down at all costs is a testament to his ability, I'm sure teams would also close down Cleverley or Anderson as well, do you not agree?

posted on 1/10/12

The City game was lost before it even started. I'm getting the impression that people want to pin the blame on Smalling. That isn't the case. The team selection and ghastly mental approach to the game was what cost us. We went to the Etihad, not to win, but not to lose. That isn't Manchester United.

comment by VCG © (U13761)

posted on 1/10/12

RR I think not a single person on here claims to know more than Fergie, but if you talk to other fans they are just as baffled as some Utd fans are with his selections sometimes.

I suppose it's early days this season, but there is a lot to be concerned about.

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