comment by Reddevils double (U12215)
posted 6 minutes ago
RR / beers - agreed. Still not quite there at CB or CM and considering these were the priorities for many this window (as well as a LB) I am reluctant as I'm sure many would be to say this window has been beyond our wildest dreams.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Whatever
Youve been whining all Summer to anyone who's listen saying we wouldn't be signing anybody else after Shaw and Herrera
Comment deleted by Site Moderator
Macca - No I haven't. Iv been saying we need to pull our finger out and get on with getting the CB and CM we need.
Some of us aren't blinded by the signing of a superstar when it comes to assessing what our squad still requires.
Seriously, what is the point of signing all those luxury players at over the odds cost? None of them (apart from Mata) have EPL experience,
-------------------------------
Yeah
Southampton were in the Championship I suppose
comment by Reddevils double (U12215)
posted 2 minutes ago
Macca - No I haven't. Iv been saying we need to pull our finger out and get on with getting the CB and CM we need.
Some of us aren't blinded by the signing of a superstar when it comes to assessing what our squad still requires.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
You were moaning about being conerned about United's 'inability' to sign TV not long ago
looks bloody stupid now doesn't it
Personally, I think LVG would have been a better appointment straight after Ferguson than he is now.
Stability is a double edged sword, you have been blessed with lightning striking twice with Busby and Ferguson being two of the greatest managers of all time though.
Your last paragraph is spot on by the way rr, I wrote a long article about this very subject and said that stability doesn't always (and actually very rarely does) have to come from the manager in order for a club to be successful.
IAmMe
Thanks for your post but isn't there a tension between arguing against short-termism and slating the signing of foreign-based players on the rationale that they will take longer to get used to the Premiership?
Personally, I find it hard to see the evidence that the purchases we have made are ill-considered. All four improve our options in areas of the squad where we our resources are stretched or quality is too low. They haven't resolved every such area but they are all steps in the right direction. Perhaps more will be made in the next six days.
If we end the window without every issue resolved, that will be a shame but we can't say with any authority that it is as a direct result of other transfers we have made. It may take a couple more windows to bring in all the players LVG wants to shape a coherent squad. Look at Mourinho's business since returning to Chelsea: he improved his side last summer but didn't transform it; Matic came in January; Fabregas and Costa this summer; now it looks like the team he wants. And he had more preparation time last summer than LVG has had since the WC.
melton
It's possible I read your article and forgot reading it but took on board some of the points you made.
This is exactly the kind if short termist approach and mentality warned about by the OP.
-----------------------
The drivel you come out with on these boards defies belief.
I'm happy with a potentially top class LB who's 19, a potentially top class CM, at 24, a young CB who plays for Argentina, and you accuse me of acting short term and then claim Scweinsteiger is the answer to the long term, at 30?
It's up there with your claim we didn't need Kroos because we have Hernandez
Good article, I'd like to pick up the following paragraph though:
"investments that paid off 3-4 years later, lots of instances of players already at the club who were ready to take over when former greats moved on or retired."
This is a huge part of our problem, the players who should be in line to take over the great players who have retired or left the club, are simply not as good as their peers.
Players like Evans, Smalling, Jones, Cleverly, Hernandez, Welbs, Ando ect, out of these I think only Jones, Smalling and Welbs have a chance of being a good enough squad player for the club, only Jones has the ability to become a first 11 mainstay (for me).
Then the likes of Young, Valencia, Fletcher, Carrick, who are all at the age they should have already stepped into the greats shoes, but are simply not good enough to do so.
We need to offload the majority of these players, and replace them with players good enough for the first team, which then relegates the likes of Jones, Smalling and Welbs to being used as good squad players able to step into a first teamers shoes.
Until this happens, I don't see us ever catching the likes of City and Chelsea who have 2 players for every position good enough to start
I'd consider it a big compliment if you did rr! I said that more to just confirm that your way of thinking on this is very similar to mine.
This is the beauty of football though, there is no guaranteed right answer or way of doing things, all are potentially valid. At this current moment in time, you are experiencing some of the side effects that other clubs experienced during Fergusons tenure - going through continuous transition and try and stay competitive. Taking nothing away from Ferguson, what Moyes and LVG are experiencing is very similar to a lot of Fergusons rivals at the time did.
Due to the stature and position that Ferguson has left you in though, I don't see this as anything other than a short term transition.
Just to add quickly though, I don't think your squad is anywhere near as bad as a lot of people on this board do. Your issues to me since Ferguson left are tactical more than anything else - Moyes last year was overly negative and now you are using a completely new system.
comment by meltonblue (U10617)
posted 15 seconds ago
Just to add quickly though, I don't think your squad is anywhere near as bad as a lot of people on this board do. Your issues to me since Ferguson left are tactical more than anything else - Moyes last year was overly negative and now you are using a completely new system.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Which is even more negative on the limited amount of evidence we've seen so far
Hopefully, 433 awaits now we have Di Maria
If we play 5 defenders against Burnley, with Di Maria as a wb and Januzaj in CM, I'm gonna scream
BB
You make a good point, one which should qualify my suggestion that Fergie let go of the long-term planning towards the end of his tenure. In a way, his dealings in the last 3-4 years of his reign were similar to his lifelong formula: buy up the best in young British players and Premiership-proven performers, with an added smattering of foreign stars. Unfortunately, the crop of Young / Jones / Smalling / Valencia, the homegrown Welbeck and Cleverley and the imported flair of Kagawa and Anderson haven't so far staked a claim. Perhaps it's just a bit of poor luck. If two of those players had progressed really strongly, the whole situation would probably look a lot rosier now and LVG would be making final touches rather than stretching to cover up gaps all over the side.
Macca, I said last night,
LVG inherited a jigsaw puzzle with a couple of missing or broken bits to it. Rather than just fill those bits, he's decided to create an entirely new more complicated puzzle just to prove to everyone he can solve it.
It strikes me as a bit egotistical so far.
Exactly RR, I don't think it's that Fergie didn't think of the future, I think the players that were signed are simply not the standard he'd maybe have hoped.
Jones, Smalling, Kagawa were all players signed, imo, with the full intention of being at the club for 10+ years.
Melton, great points as usual.
'Taking nothing away from Ferguson, what Moyes and LVG are experiencing is very similar to a lot of Fergusons rivals at the time did.'
I guess I was trying to get at this very idea in the OP that while the transition could have been dealt with better, some of the problems are inevitable when changing leadership and what we're going through right now, though unfamiliar to United fans, is quite common in football as a whole.
...
'I don't think your squad is anywhere near as bad as a lot of people on this board do. Your issues to me since Ferguson left are tactical more than anything else - Moyes last year was overly negative and now you are using a completely new system.'
Naturally, we are always more melodramatic about our own clubs. As I said in my post to BB above, if just a couple of the players currently perceived by common wisdom as 'dead wood' stepped up and proved themselves as United quality players, that would pretty much transform the whole outlook of the squad. A lot of that roster got plenty of playing time in teams which won league titles and competed at the business end of the CL. Add the new signings, a better mutual understanding of the Philosophy, growing confidence all round and some of that dead wood will start playing football the way it did under Fergie. (Some of it will be chopped up and sold too - here's not the place to debate who survives the hatchet.)
comment by meltonblue (U10617)
posted 2 minutes ago
Macca, I said last night,
LVG inherited a jigsaw puzzle with a couple of missing or broken bits to it. Rather than just fill those bits, he's decided to create an entirely new more complicated puzzle just to prove to everyone he can solve it.
It strikes me as a bit egotistical so far.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
VC just said the same on another thread Melts
We simply do not need to play a formation we have yet to learn properly against a Burnley side we should be giving a drubbing to with the players at our disposal.
comment by Busbybabes (U9083)
posted 2 minutes ago
Exactly RR, I don't think it's that Fergie didn't think of the future, I think the players that were signed are simply not the standard he'd maybe have hoped.
Jones, Smalling, Kagawa were all players signed, imo, with the full intention of being at the club for 10+ years.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
BB
Fans have to take Jones' age, injuries, being played all over the place into account. They happened all from a young age when he should have been developing as a CB. Being shunted to RB and midfield for United at only 20, cannot have been easy.
He has time on his side. This is the first season the guy actually takes up a squad place
Macca - "You were moaning about being conerned about United's 'inability' to sign TV not long ago - looks bloody stupid now doesn't it"
Not really macca. I never doubted we would sign players. What concerned we was the delays in getting these players in. We wasted time going for TV, a player arsenal were never going to sell to us and preferred a move to Barca anyway. Had we moved for Rojo sooner maybe we would have done better at Swansea Sunderland and MK dons? Same goes for di Maria and anybody else we may yet bring in.
Bottom line is, less than a week to go, £134m spent and god knows who will be RWB, CB or CM come Saturday.
comment by Busbybabes (U9083)
posted 17 seconds ago
Exactly RR, I don't think it's that Fergie didn't think of the future, I think the players that were signed are simply not the standard he'd maybe have hoped.
Jones, Smalling, Kagawa were all players signed, imo, with the full intention of being at the club for 10+ years.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I think it is taken for granted that most signings are intended to be long term ones. There are exceptions of course, usually age related, but that doesn't mean it will always work. However, Jones and Smalling were both excellent signings. Two of SAF's better latter year ones, and both likely (and deservedly) to be there for 10 years or more. Kagawa was a knee jerk response and was probably a misfired speculative punt.
Naturally, we are always more melodramatic about our own clubs. As I said in my post to BB above, if just a couple of the players currently perceived by common wisdom as 'dead wood' stepped up and proved themselves as United quality players, that would pretty much transform the whole outlook of the squad. A lot of that roster got plenty of playing time in teams which won league titles and competed at the business end of the CL. Add the new signings, a better mutual understanding of the Philosophy, growing confidence all round and some of that dead wood will start playing football the way it did under Fergie. (Some of it will be chopped up and sold too - here's not the place to debate who survives the hatchet.)
---------------------
Maybe here is the place
http://www.ja606.co.uk/articles/viewArticle/269621
BB
Exactly RR, I don't think it's that Fergie didn't think of the future, I think the players that were signed are simply not the standard he'd maybe have hoped.
Jones, Smalling, Kagawa were all players signed, imo, with the full intention of being at the club for 10+ years.
-----------------------------------
RVP is a player he bought for himself rather than for his successor, I guess. Then again, for all his long-termism, Fergie never used that as an excuse to be less than competitive in the present.
In the increasingly competitive Premiership, perhaps it was the failure to give the younger players the experience they needed (cf. extended careers of Giggs and Scholes) as much as their shortcomings that undermined the transition to the post-Fergie team.
There must also have been an element of luck, e.g. Fergie had no way of foreseeing the issues with Rafael, Smalling, Jones and injuries; Anderson and burgers; Cleverley not kicking on from the impressive start to the 2011-12 season.
As ever, bald statements like 'Fergie lost it towards the end' are simplistic. Slight errors of judgement combined with development curves not continuing as predicted bring us this situation. RE: exchange with Melton above, we operate with fine margins at the top of the game, and a few incremental gains in the squad / improvements among those players could result in sum improvements which look much bigger.
Sign in if you want to comment
Stability
Page 2 of 4
posted on 27/8/14
comment by Reddevils double (U12215)
posted 6 minutes ago
RR / beers - agreed. Still not quite there at CB or CM and considering these were the priorities for many this window (as well as a LB) I am reluctant as I'm sure many would be to say this window has been beyond our wildest dreams.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Whatever
Youve been whining all Summer to anyone who's listen saying we wouldn't be signing anybody else after Shaw and Herrera
posted on 27/8/14
Comment deleted by Site Moderator
posted on 27/8/14
Macca - No I haven't. Iv been saying we need to pull our finger out and get on with getting the CB and CM we need.
Some of us aren't blinded by the signing of a superstar when it comes to assessing what our squad still requires.
posted on 27/8/14
Seriously, what is the point of signing all those luxury players at over the odds cost? None of them (apart from Mata) have EPL experience,
-------------------------------
Yeah
Southampton were in the Championship I suppose
posted on 27/8/14
comment by Reddevils double (U12215)
posted 2 minutes ago
Macca - No I haven't. Iv been saying we need to pull our finger out and get on with getting the CB and CM we need.
Some of us aren't blinded by the signing of a superstar when it comes to assessing what our squad still requires.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
You were moaning about being conerned about United's 'inability' to sign TV not long ago
looks bloody stupid now doesn't it
posted on 27/8/14
Personally, I think LVG would have been a better appointment straight after Ferguson than he is now.
Stability is a double edged sword, you have been blessed with lightning striking twice with Busby and Ferguson being two of the greatest managers of all time though.
posted on 27/8/14
Your last paragraph is spot on by the way rr, I wrote a long article about this very subject and said that stability doesn't always (and actually very rarely does) have to come from the manager in order for a club to be successful.
posted on 27/8/14
IAmMe
Thanks for your post but isn't there a tension between arguing against short-termism and slating the signing of foreign-based players on the rationale that they will take longer to get used to the Premiership?
Personally, I find it hard to see the evidence that the purchases we have made are ill-considered. All four improve our options in areas of the squad where we our resources are stretched or quality is too low. They haven't resolved every such area but they are all steps in the right direction. Perhaps more will be made in the next six days.
If we end the window without every issue resolved, that will be a shame but we can't say with any authority that it is as a direct result of other transfers we have made. It may take a couple more windows to bring in all the players LVG wants to shape a coherent squad. Look at Mourinho's business since returning to Chelsea: he improved his side last summer but didn't transform it; Matic came in January; Fabregas and Costa this summer; now it looks like the team he wants. And he had more preparation time last summer than LVG has had since the WC.
posted on 27/8/14
melton
It's possible I read your article and forgot reading it but took on board some of the points you made.
posted on 27/8/14
This is exactly the kind if short termist approach and mentality warned about by the OP.
-----------------------
The drivel you come out with on these boards defies belief.
I'm happy with a potentially top class LB who's 19, a potentially top class CM, at 24, a young CB who plays for Argentina, and you accuse me of acting short term and then claim Scweinsteiger is the answer to the long term, at 30?
It's up there with your claim we didn't need Kroos because we have Hernandez
posted on 27/8/14
Good article, I'd like to pick up the following paragraph though:
"investments that paid off 3-4 years later, lots of instances of players already at the club who were ready to take over when former greats moved on or retired."
This is a huge part of our problem, the players who should be in line to take over the great players who have retired or left the club, are simply not as good as their peers.
Players like Evans, Smalling, Jones, Cleverly, Hernandez, Welbs, Ando ect, out of these I think only Jones, Smalling and Welbs have a chance of being a good enough squad player for the club, only Jones has the ability to become a first 11 mainstay (for me).
Then the likes of Young, Valencia, Fletcher, Carrick, who are all at the age they should have already stepped into the greats shoes, but are simply not good enough to do so.
We need to offload the majority of these players, and replace them with players good enough for the first team, which then relegates the likes of Jones, Smalling and Welbs to being used as good squad players able to step into a first teamers shoes.
Until this happens, I don't see us ever catching the likes of City and Chelsea who have 2 players for every position good enough to start
posted on 27/8/14
I'd consider it a big compliment if you did rr! I said that more to just confirm that your way of thinking on this is very similar to mine.
This is the beauty of football though, there is no guaranteed right answer or way of doing things, all are potentially valid. At this current moment in time, you are experiencing some of the side effects that other clubs experienced during Fergusons tenure - going through continuous transition and try and stay competitive. Taking nothing away from Ferguson, what Moyes and LVG are experiencing is very similar to a lot of Fergusons rivals at the time did.
Due to the stature and position that Ferguson has left you in though, I don't see this as anything other than a short term transition.
posted on 27/8/14
Just to add quickly though, I don't think your squad is anywhere near as bad as a lot of people on this board do. Your issues to me since Ferguson left are tactical more than anything else - Moyes last year was overly negative and now you are using a completely new system.
posted on 27/8/14
comment by meltonblue (U10617)
posted 15 seconds ago
Just to add quickly though, I don't think your squad is anywhere near as bad as a lot of people on this board do. Your issues to me since Ferguson left are tactical more than anything else - Moyes last year was overly negative and now you are using a completely new system.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Which is even more negative on the limited amount of evidence we've seen so far
Hopefully, 433 awaits now we have Di Maria
If we play 5 defenders against Burnley, with Di Maria as a wb and Januzaj in CM, I'm gonna scream
posted on 27/8/14
BB
You make a good point, one which should qualify my suggestion that Fergie let go of the long-term planning towards the end of his tenure. In a way, his dealings in the last 3-4 years of his reign were similar to his lifelong formula: buy up the best in young British players and Premiership-proven performers, with an added smattering of foreign stars. Unfortunately, the crop of Young / Jones / Smalling / Valencia, the homegrown Welbeck and Cleverley and the imported flair of Kagawa and Anderson haven't so far staked a claim. Perhaps it's just a bit of poor luck. If two of those players had progressed really strongly, the whole situation would probably look a lot rosier now and LVG would be making final touches rather than stretching to cover up gaps all over the side.
posted on 27/8/14
Macca, I said last night,
LVG inherited a jigsaw puzzle with a couple of missing or broken bits to it. Rather than just fill those bits, he's decided to create an entirely new more complicated puzzle just to prove to everyone he can solve it.
It strikes me as a bit egotistical so far.
posted on 27/8/14
Exactly RR, I don't think it's that Fergie didn't think of the future, I think the players that were signed are simply not the standard he'd maybe have hoped.
Jones, Smalling, Kagawa were all players signed, imo, with the full intention of being at the club for 10+ years.
posted on 27/8/14
Melton, great points as usual.
'Taking nothing away from Ferguson, what Moyes and LVG are experiencing is very similar to a lot of Fergusons rivals at the time did.'
I guess I was trying to get at this very idea in the OP that while the transition could have been dealt with better, some of the problems are inevitable when changing leadership and what we're going through right now, though unfamiliar to United fans, is quite common in football as a whole.
...
'I don't think your squad is anywhere near as bad as a lot of people on this board do. Your issues to me since Ferguson left are tactical more than anything else - Moyes last year was overly negative and now you are using a completely new system.'
Naturally, we are always more melodramatic about our own clubs. As I said in my post to BB above, if just a couple of the players currently perceived by common wisdom as 'dead wood' stepped up and proved themselves as United quality players, that would pretty much transform the whole outlook of the squad. A lot of that roster got plenty of playing time in teams which won league titles and competed at the business end of the CL. Add the new signings, a better mutual understanding of the Philosophy, growing confidence all round and some of that dead wood will start playing football the way it did under Fergie. (Some of it will be chopped up and sold too - here's not the place to debate who survives the hatchet.)
posted on 27/8/14
comment by meltonblue (U10617)
posted 2 minutes ago
Macca, I said last night,
LVG inherited a jigsaw puzzle with a couple of missing or broken bits to it. Rather than just fill those bits, he's decided to create an entirely new more complicated puzzle just to prove to everyone he can solve it.
It strikes me as a bit egotistical so far.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
VC just said the same on another thread Melts
We simply do not need to play a formation we have yet to learn properly against a Burnley side we should be giving a drubbing to with the players at our disposal.
posted on 27/8/14
comment by Busbybabes (U9083)
posted 2 minutes ago
Exactly RR, I don't think it's that Fergie didn't think of the future, I think the players that were signed are simply not the standard he'd maybe have hoped.
Jones, Smalling, Kagawa were all players signed, imo, with the full intention of being at the club for 10+ years.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
BB
Fans have to take Jones' age, injuries, being played all over the place into account. They happened all from a young age when he should have been developing as a CB. Being shunted to RB and midfield for United at only 20, cannot have been easy.
He has time on his side. This is the first season the guy actually takes up a squad place
posted on 27/8/14
Macca - "You were moaning about being conerned about United's 'inability' to sign TV not long ago - looks bloody stupid now doesn't it"
Not really macca. I never doubted we would sign players. What concerned we was the delays in getting these players in. We wasted time going for TV, a player arsenal were never going to sell to us and preferred a move to Barca anyway. Had we moved for Rojo sooner maybe we would have done better at Swansea Sunderland and MK dons? Same goes for di Maria and anybody else we may yet bring in.
Bottom line is, less than a week to go, £134m spent and god knows who will be RWB, CB or CM come Saturday.
posted on 27/8/14
Spot on rr
posted on 27/8/14
comment by Busbybabes (U9083)
posted 17 seconds ago
Exactly RR, I don't think it's that Fergie didn't think of the future, I think the players that were signed are simply not the standard he'd maybe have hoped.
Jones, Smalling, Kagawa were all players signed, imo, with the full intention of being at the club for 10+ years.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I think it is taken for granted that most signings are intended to be long term ones. There are exceptions of course, usually age related, but that doesn't mean it will always work. However, Jones and Smalling were both excellent signings. Two of SAF's better latter year ones, and both likely (and deservedly) to be there for 10 years or more. Kagawa was a knee jerk response and was probably a misfired speculative punt.
posted on 27/8/14
Naturally, we are always more melodramatic about our own clubs. As I said in my post to BB above, if just a couple of the players currently perceived by common wisdom as 'dead wood' stepped up and proved themselves as United quality players, that would pretty much transform the whole outlook of the squad. A lot of that roster got plenty of playing time in teams which won league titles and competed at the business end of the CL. Add the new signings, a better mutual understanding of the Philosophy, growing confidence all round and some of that dead wood will start playing football the way it did under Fergie. (Some of it will be chopped up and sold too - here's not the place to debate who survives the hatchet.)
---------------------
Maybe here is the place
http://www.ja606.co.uk/articles/viewArticle/269621
posted on 27/8/14
BB
Exactly RR, I don't think it's that Fergie didn't think of the future, I think the players that were signed are simply not the standard he'd maybe have hoped.
Jones, Smalling, Kagawa were all players signed, imo, with the full intention of being at the club for 10+ years.
-----------------------------------
RVP is a player he bought for himself rather than for his successor, I guess. Then again, for all his long-termism, Fergie never used that as an excuse to be less than competitive in the present.
In the increasingly competitive Premiership, perhaps it was the failure to give the younger players the experience they needed (cf. extended careers of Giggs and Scholes) as much as their shortcomings that undermined the transition to the post-Fergie team.
There must also have been an element of luck, e.g. Fergie had no way of foreseeing the issues with Rafael, Smalling, Jones and injuries; Anderson and burgers; Cleverley not kicking on from the impressive start to the 2011-12 season.
As ever, bald statements like 'Fergie lost it towards the end' are simplistic. Slight errors of judgement combined with development curves not continuing as predicted bring us this situation. RE: exchange with Melton above, we operate with fine margins at the top of the game, and a few incremental gains in the squad / improvements among those players could result in sum improvements which look much bigger.
Page 2 of 4