Manchester Derby Post Match Chatter [R]

[Motterman]

But thats what I am saying. We have some major problems with this team. The center-defense and center-midfield. Thats two really big problems right there. Hopefully this new center back will solve our center-back problem but who the hell knows. We need two new center midfielders. The others are not up to scratch anymore. Simple as that.

Regarding my point about the 1990 team, what I am saying is that this current team is the worst since then. Here are the teams:

90-91 - Won European Cup Winners Cup
91-92 - Came close to winning the league before faltering in the final month
92-93 - Won the Permiership
93-94 - Won the Premiership + FA Cup
94-95 - Lost the Premiership on the last day and lost in the FA Cup Final
94-96 - Won the Double again
96-97 - Won the Premiership
97-98 - Didnt win anything due to the transitioning of the "Cantona role"
98-99 - Won 3 trophies
99-00 - Won Premiership
00-01 - Won Premiership
01-02 - Came second to Arsenal
02-03 - Won premiership after a big comeback
03-04 - Won FA Cup

So which of these teams was actually worse than the one we have now(04-06)?

Carry on.

[Dark Savante]

Well for a start Ted, the CWC doesn't even exist anymore. And if you're gauging teams solely on winning things then you aren't being realistic. As I said 'in the real world, we sit atop the league despite our flaws' in the real world we are 1pt ahead of the dips and would be in a tight title race. But for the anomaly, billionaire plaything. the team is not doing as bad as you're suggesting.

[listen_up_fergie]

We've actually done pretty well in the league considering we've only had two true central midfielders since Keane's injury and subsequent departure. And of those two, one is arguably past it and was off-form till a few weeks ago and the other is still young and developing. We've also been missing last season's player of the season, and started off the season with a fair number of injuries especially in defence.
We've reached the Carling Cup semis, which really isn't that big a deal, but still...
I wouldn't worry too much about the FA Cup...its becoming customary for us to have 0-0 draws with lower league opposition. No big deal, we could still make the finals like last year.
The CL exit was a disgrace, and by far our biggest disappointment this season. Could things have been different if Keane was with us a few months more? Possibly.

[Invincible]

Well for a start Ted, the CWC doesn't even exist anymore. And if you're gauging teams solely on winning things then you aren't being realistic. As I said 'in the real world, we sit atop the league despite our flaws' in the real world we are 1pt ahead of the dips and would be in a tight title race. But for the anomaly, billionaire plaything. the team is not doing as bad as you're suggesting.
Usually I agree with what you say, but this time I have to give a friendly.... Hell no! What are you talking about...'in the real world?'???? This is the real world. Chelsea Football Club now define the real world. What do you do? You adapt, and raise your game that's what you do. You dont throw away your captain in the middle of the season. You dont ship off your brightest midfield prospect to a Championship, then Eredivisie team. It's pathetic, complaining about Chelsea and blaming them for our failures. We defined the real world in the 90s. We had the best English and foreign talent in the league therefore we were the best. We had the best stadium, best team, best manager, we were the best. Now Chelsea hold all those titles except for best stadium. Therefore we aint winning crap, and we aint gonna win crap until we start matching them tit for tat.

How can you say we're not doing 'as bad' as Ted was suggesting? You're right we aren't, we're doing worse than he's suggesting. How in the bloody hell we let Man City beat us is beyond me. Oh wait I know why...BECAUSE WE PLAYED LIKE GARBAGE...and why do we play like garbage? I dunno, ask Fergie Wergie and his buddy Queerarse...maybe they'll tell you what the hell goes on in training. How can you have a back four that gets outjumped by Vassel and Andy Cole? What the pissing hell kinda crap is that? In terms of organization and composure, our defence is utter trailer park trash. I at 5''7 can win more headers that Rio and Silvestre. Gary Neville is slow no matter how much you guys adore him, and whoever fills in at left back is rubbish anyway be it Slickrick or Oh Sh!t.

And oh boy...the central midfield, dont even get me started...It doesn't exist, period. There is no central midfield. This leads me to my other point...our closing down. IT IS PATHETIC. OUR PLAYERS RUN AWAY FROM THE PLAYER WITH THE BALL...WHAT THE FCK??? We defend extremely deep for absolutely no reason, we let the opposition do stuff to us, then we bitch and moan. How do you defend deep, then try to play the offside trap in your own box? Were these imbeciles raped by Mr.Stupid in jail? Ubelievable.. I think I might have to start my own rant thread because there's so much more I want to say right now.

[Dark Savante]

Usually I agree with what you say, but this time I have to give a friendly.... Hell no! What are you talking about...'in the real world?'???? This is the real world. Chelsea Football Club now define the real world. What do you do? You adapt, and raise your game that's what you do. You dont throw away your captain in the middle of the season. You dont ship off your brightest midfield prospect to a Championship, then Eredivisie team. It's pathetic, complaining about Chelsea and blaming them for our failures. We defined the real world in the 90s. We had the best English and foreign talent in the league therefore we were the best. We had the best stadium, best team, best manager, we were the best. Now Chelsea hold all those titles except for best stadium. Therefore we aint winning crap, and we aint gonna win crap until we start matching them tit for tat.

The real world, a world where clubs do not have an entire squad of comparable standard to the starters...where SWP and Carvalho can see bench-time, where the only thing seperating a club from any players they want (despite the fee) is a lack of prestige, where a club has an unlimited budget not generated by themselves via gate or marketing. I could go on.

These are not normal circumstances despite what anyone wants to say -there's never been anything like it, ever. And it has arrived at a time when we are in transistion. Yes, that horrid word. The time when our best players of the recent past are near to the end of their career. Where a slimey little man and his family own this club and have the potential to actually 'end it' - these are not great times to be fighting a £300m toy. But we are not doing as bad as people are making out.

It's fair enough to be disappointed when we play badly, when imbeciles like O'Shea and Silvestre are listed on our teamsheets, but a sense of perspective is essential. We are a real club, we have real problems when our first team doesn't function right or has injuries. We can't just replace like for like as if nothing has happened. We don't go out and get 'emergency' cover just in case a few of our players are out for 4-6weeks (ANC)...the list goes on, and it is only 1 club that does any of it...in world football... even at our very best in the 90's to replace (a 5man bench) with players that do not diminish the quality of the 1st team would have cost us ??? A replacement Keane, Stam, Giggs, Schmeichel (fair dues with the strikers) how much would that have cost us? We've never done it and we never will.

We need a new central midfield for a start.. a realistic title challenging pair would cost at least 35m when all is said and done plus wages...let's say Diarra and Ballack...or Gattuso and a Van Bommel type player..with Scholes (the comparable bencher) as cover. Then the LW?? Genuine top notch is a Vicente..even in the biggest expenditure year in our history we didn't put out an outlay like that why in the hell would we be able to do that now? In truth we rely on youth (again - just as in the 90's) topped up with outside talents coming good. Plus a few bargain buys turning into legends. See Ole or Scmikes.. the basic forumla for us has never changed. A few top class buys plus what we develop.

There will be no more record buys for us because of the Glazers. The youth may not get the chance they should because of the rat race..and we are already starting to tighten the purse strings in a time when we need them more than ever to compete with a toy squad.

I'm not defeatist at all,head-on we beat them and in the big games we can always take 3pts, but maintenance over a season or even the ability to nip bad form in the bud, requires a bencher to come on and be the same standard as Rooney or Ruud or Scholes or Rio. Over a season this will always be our bane, we cannot keep up winning streaks and performance with the squad we have. Maybe this is something people don't want to hear, but as far as I'm concerned it is the cold, hard reality we face. We can buy 1gem at a time, we always have, but buying 2 or 3 at a time is beyond our budget and at this time to compete head-on over a season we'd need to buy 3gems in one go.

When Scholes is out who do we have left? O'Shea, Fletcher and Smith..if you want to challenge for a league title none of the 3 of these should be starters and even from the bench they should see sparse time on the field throughout a campaign...how much money does anyone think it'd take to fix this with title-challenging CM's? The same goes for Silvestre..he's about the same standard as Huth...how many games a season would you expect to see Huth start in?

I hope this guy Vidic is money. After that we are one CM and 3quaity cover players away from maintenance of a run over a whole campaign as far as I'm concerned. If you want me to be brutally honest about what is required to take the title now then I'd say Howard isn't good enough cover, nor are O'Shea, Richardson, Fletcher, Park and Smith. Giggs and perhaps Scholes should be on the bench next to Brown, Saha, Evra.

Pique, Rossi and Jones would get next to no chance of a game next term as they would rarely, if ever be on the bench. These things...just aren't how a real club works and I doubt we will be taking these extreme measures either. We have a budget (who knows how high it is) youth are essential for our future, You can't just not play them. imo to chase a squad like theres this is how cut-throat we would have to be. I have no interest in that for Manchester United.

[bigtoga]

01-02 - Came second to Arsenal
02-03 - Won premiership after a big comeback
03-04 - Won FA Cup

So which of these teams was actually worse than the one we have now(04-06)?Why are you lumping last season's team in with this season's team? I think last season's team, until proven different, was worse than this season's team.

[johno]

Wow... a lot of gloom and doom from a bad result. I know its been a bad year. However, that's in terms of results and we all know that on the day results don't always go to the better team and if we are watching this team week in week out we should not question the talent of this team.

While we are clearly in transition with the replacement of Keane on the horizon and Giggs' career in its twilight we've done ok. We're on pace for something near 80pts. That's not a bad effort at all. We can't say the team is crap because Chelsea have been phenomenal. We have to say Chelsea has been phenomenal.

Bashing Rio is silly. He's missed the fewest games to injury of any player we've had since he got here. When he did miss a long stretch, due to an unfair suspension we saw just how bad we were as a team without him. To even suggest that he's not important, or Great is folly of the highest quality.

We can look back at this game and say we lost to City, but the fact is, had I played centerback today next to Rio we'd probably have drawn the match.

Silvestre was at fault for the opening 2 goals and other than that, despite being putrid in central midfield we were holding our own. Its not like we were played off the park at all.

Fergusson is past it though... he's still got good instincts to an extent but some decisions he makes are appauling. How could he possibly think that Silvestre was a better player to keep on rather than Evra? How, despite how well Richardson played CM for WBA last season could he look to O'Shea to partner Fletcher in several matches this season, especially after O'Shea has looked like rubbish in every single one of those outings?

How could he let us go this shallow in central midfielders and then pick up 2 defenders and not pick up a central midfielder?

I don't think our team is weak. I think we've underperformed at bad times, but we are a good side, one of the best in the premiership and if Fergie makes some better decisions, or we get a better manager in here, we've got the talent to challenge Chelsea.


@ DS...

I think you are being a bit harsh on Park. He's been very effective when he's played and while he might not be a 40 game starter I think he's definitely a possitive effect on the team and certainly worthy of a bench spot.

and its waaaaay too early to pass judgement on Evra. I think he's got a chance to make LB spot his own.

[Dark Savante]

@ DS...

I think you are being a bit harsh on Park. He's been very effective when he's played and while he might not be a 40 game starter I think he's definitely a possitive effect on the team and certainly worthy of a bench spot.

and its waaaaay too early to pass judgement on Evra. I think he's got a chance to make LB spot his own.
If people want realism then you have to consider what we are up against. This is Chelsea's wide rotation 'set'

Robben
Cole
Duff
SWP

This is ours:

Ronaldo
Giggs
Park
Fletcher

Add on the EPL rules of a 5man bench and the fact Giggs is hit and miss, Fletcher is poor out wide and Park does not score goals. plus what I said about needing a winger of the quality of Vicente to truly have a class wide pairing (Vicente-Ronaldo) Park would rarely even see the bench as Giggs would be sitting there.

As for Evra, I agree he could make the slot his own, but for now Heinze is the tried and tested, proven world class 'LB' and in a title run he'd be my preference to start. Thus Evra goes to the bench (if he's lucky- see Giggs taking his spot)

[Father Ted]

Well for a start Ted, the CWC doesn't even exist anymore. And if you're gauging teams solely on winning things then you aren't being realistic. As I said 'in the real world, we sit atop the league despite our flaws' in the real world we are 1pt ahead of the dips and would be in a tight title race. But for the anomaly, billionaire plaything. the team is not doing as bad as you're suggesting.

But this is the real world. Chelsea should not get a "Go Directly to Trophy" card. If you're satisfied being second best good for you. I'm not.

Fine, lets take Chelsea out of the equation, lets look how well we played in Europe this season. Are you happy with the way we played suposedly inferior teams in the Champions League? We had an easy looking group yet we finished bottom. We were absolutely atrocious in the CL this year.
Throw in some abject performances in the EPL (boro, blackburn, birmingham), we have been very poor this year.

It's not just because we lost to City. Derby games can be a venture into the great unkown sometimes, but overall it's been very bad this year.

[Dark Savante]

But this is the real world. Chelsea should not get a "Go Directly to Trophy" card. If you're satisfied being second best good for you. I'm not.

Fine, lets take Chelsea out of the equation, lets look how well we played in Europe this season. Are you happy with the way we played suposedly inferior teams in the Champions League? We had an easy looking group yet we finished bottom. We were absolutely atrocious in the CL this year.
Throw in some abject performances in the EPL (boro, blackburn, birmingham), we have been very poor this year.

It's not just because we lost to City. Derby games can be a venture into the great unkown sometimes, but overall it's been very bad this year.
I didn't say I was happy, did I?
But I'm not one to overreach or not see reality. If you want to challenge Chelsea in the cold light of day then my lengthy post is how I see that being achieved. Outside of that I think people are living in a fanatasy if they think we can cope with a whole season without an extremely strong squad.

The CL goes back to the CM's. You simply cannot survive in Europe with the central midfield (or CB, Silvestre) we have. Simple as that.

[Sofabloke]

I think even with the Glazers and our current financial situation, we cannot and should not bother aiming for a target of trying to 'compete' with Chelsea. That situation is beyond us and I would question if we would want to go on a big spendathon an spend 200 million on two teams to win the prem - it is not the Man Utd way anyhow.

The target I would like to see is us getting back to being the most exciting team in the prem and the best to watch. This is the Man Utd way. I feel this would give us the odd trophies the Abramovich millions have failed to secure.

I don't think we are that far away. Assuming Vidic & Evra work out then our defence is now 90% there (the other 10% is selling Silvestre). Our attack has been there for a while. Our wide players are inconsistent though skilled (Giggs, Park, Ronaldo) and need to spend some training time working on the basics (see below). Our central midfield has the bench covered, but is missing one regular box-to-box dominating player and someone to rotate with Scholes.

What we need to do;

- keep buying gritty players of the like of Gabby and Rooney who look geniunely p*ss*d when we loose and will give all for the club - in our early days one oposing manager said when you played Man Utd you just looked at the type of players in our team and eight of them looked like boxers, you knew you were in for a fierce game

- keep trying some of the younger talent again this is 'the Man Utd way', SAF has been a bit shy of giving some of the youngsters a go, we seem to have a lot of talent rotting in the reserves

- spend more time on the training ground, we really should be practicing our corners, crosses, free-kicks both attacking and defending, we are embarassingly bad at these and have been for a couple of years

What we need to stop doing;

- playing players out-of-position, Silvestre is a left-back converted to play central defence, Giggs is not a striker, Rooney is not a winger, Fletcher is not a winger, Alan Smith is not a midfielder, O'Shea is not a football player ;)

- quality, stop trying to make up the numbers and only buy proven quality (Miller anyone?)

[Teso Dos Bichos]

- keep trying some of the younger talent again this is 'the Man Utd way', SAF has been a bit shy of giving some of the youngsters a go, we seem to have a lot of talent rotting in the reserves

You surely mean away on loan?

[Sofabloke]

The loan thing has been a step in the right direction, problem is that with the exception of Richardson, the ones who get loaned out seem to be those two steps from the first team rather than one.

In days of old, once we had won the title, the youngsters used to play the last few league games <stares off in the distance reminiscing>.

[Crest_of_the_stars]

I think there's definitely some issues in the way the team actually plays.

I dont like the current tempo to our game, or the fact we labour so badly when we try to break down teams who are sitting back with 10 men.

Partly I think this is a lack of width and decent delivery. I wouldnt mind someone besides Rooney shooting from distance once in a while either. Except Ronaldo who shouldnt bother shooting outside the box ever.

At least if you put a good effort on target from 25-30 yards, the next time you go forward the opposition defence knows there is a threat and has to come forward to close you down, which creates some space. That and more width to our game would help.



That aside, at least its only the midfield that needs sorting out. In defenders and strikers we are set for years. What we need is 2 or 3 quality midfielders. Scholes and Park cut the mustard, the rest of our midfield set i'm not sure can hack it when put up against Chelsea's set.

[Dark Savante]

I'm glad we're having this conversation and getting this all out in the open. Perhaps it will quell totally unrealistic expectation until these requirements are met.

First two undeniable facts that any team that has or wants to win the league must have.

1. Your central midfield has to be top three perhaps even top two in the league. This is an undisputable fact, one which can be looked up and compared to all the teams that have won the Premier League since its inception.

2. The average age of the CM pairing or trio is no more than 28. (pretty sure of that - since the PL began at the very least)

These two things have to be met first and foremost. The engine to the team has to be superb, precise, clinical and able to close out games for the majority of the season.

In my lengthy post I stated that even Scholes would be benched (and used as the comparable quality sub) if I were being coldly realistic, with a totally new CM pairing being bought in. This alone would cost 35million if we're talking championship winning quality...none of this buy and hope potential...genuine top notch central midfielders.

The other major point is that Chelsea are racking up record breaking pts totals because of the squad they have.. not just the 1st team. This must be noted if anyone expects us to genuinely compete. People talking about Park, Smith, Fletcher etc being near a team hoping to have a bench comparable to the starters are not paying attention. If you want to keep up with Chelsea these players barely get any benchtime let alone PT as Scholes and Giggs should be sitting on the bench occupying any possible seat any of those players could hope to have. As I said before, young talent wouldn't get a sniff either...just like it wont at SB. This is stone cold realism as far as I'm concerned. Chelsea are a team that has Duff, SWP sitting on the bench doing ******** all or not even making the bench - which team in English history has ever had wingers of the quality of Duff and SWP doing sweet F.A for half a campaign? ..their seasonal point tallies are not coming about by accident. To compete with that you have to be able to match that squad(not team, squad) over a season.

No team has ever racked up the pts totals Chelsea had last season or will get this term, because no team has ever had a squad like that. People expecting us to rack up (for us) unprecedented pts tallies without getting a top notch squad (16) have no concept of what is actually happening with that team (squad) or why they are getting these numbers. Give them a great 1st xi and a decent bench like everyone else has and their pts totals would be around the 80's...just like everybody elses.

[Sofabloke]

I think DS this raises the question of whether we should try to compete with Chelsea on their terms - ie spending £200 to buy two teams with no through the ranks talent.

Personally I don't think we should on two counts;

- we can't (ie our current financial situation)

- we shouldn't want to (ie not the Man Utd way)

If a russian billionaire wanted to buy our club, spend £200 million on two complete new teams and buy any player the nearest competitors show any interest in then I would not be happy. This is purely football as business and tramples all over our traditions of youth, attack/attack/attack, local talent, style of play.

I know others will feel differently and respect that opinion too.

[Invincible]

I hate to be cynical...but what good is the "Man Utd way" if it's not working right now? People love to hang on to ideals..ideals that they believe is true even if it doesn't work in the current situation. Why do most men constantly kiss up to women, try to buy their love and get rejected 90% of the time, yet keep doing it? Why dont they just try something else? Because that's how they believe it should be.

If we continue believing in this idealistic "Man Utd" way, Chelsea will keep doing it the "Chelsea way" and singing their way to the title. Now it's obvious that we can't compete for them in the splash cash like crazy fight, but it's really down to some really poor decisions in the past and more recently by Ferguson that has us in this crappy situation. Surely Ferguson knew that Keane and Scholes combination was coming to a close soon? When Keane turned 30, Frank Lampard was available, Michael Carrick was tearing it up, and Joe Cole was around. Surely he could've had at least 2 of those players yet he opted to splash the cash on Veron to chase after his champions league dream.

The fact of the matter is players were available when we were at our top, but he slipped up. He didn't see the writing on the wall and he let numerous potential midfield stars get away, and now that we're in debt and no longer the top dog, we're struggling. Releasing Keane is one of the dumbest things he could've done...ever. You just dont do that in the middle of the season, not a player with that kind of effect on the team. Now he's up hot sh!t creek without a plank to row his boat amongst the faeces.

For me, what I would do is sign 2 or 3 central midfield players in or close to their prime for next season. They will start most matches, and when we're winning games comfortably, we bring on our youngsters to get a taste of controlling a game, not duking it out in the crapionship. We might have to take on more debt, but wont we get that money back and more if we win meaningfull trophies?

[Father Ted]

...

No team has ever racked up the pts totals Chelsea had last season or will get this term, because no team has ever had a squad like that. People expecting us to rack up (for us) unprecedented pts tallies without getting a top notch squad (16) have no concept of what is actually happening with that team (squad) or why they are getting these numbers. Give them a great 1st xi and a decent bench like everyone else has and their pts totals would be around the 80's...just like everybody elses.

I agree with everything you said in your post. It is true that we cannot match Chelsea's depth. However our team is still poor this season compared to other years. My big hope for this year is not to win the FA Cup or the League Cup but to just finish second. Above Liverpool. If they finish above us that will be very hard to me to take.

Slight off topic, I wonder if the likes of Duff and SWP enjoy their roles with Chelsea.

[Dark Savante]

I think DS this raises the question of whether we should try to compete with Chelsea on their terms - ie spending £200 to buy two teams with no through the ranks talent.

Personally I don't think we should on two counts;

- we can't (ie our current financial situation)

- we shouldn't want to (ie not the Man Utd way)

If a russian billionaire wanted to buy our club, spend £200 million on two complete new teams and buy any player the nearest competitors show any interest in then I would not be happy. This is purely football as business and tramples all over our traditions of youth, attack/attack/attack, local talent, style of play.

I know others will feel differently and respect that opinion too.

I agree. Unfortunately, some would see us as people who have 'given up.' To me, as I've always maintained, if Chelsea do not win the league every year until someone else can make a squad of at least 16, that can compete it will be a disgrace.

I just want to see us do our thing 'the united way' and see the incredible kids we have come through and perhaps then challenge them head on with players that we developed from base level plus the odd stellar buy mixed in with a few buys who indeed exceed expectation.

[Dark Savante]

I agree with everything you said in your post. It is true that we cannot match Chelsea's depth. However our team is still poor this season compared to other years. My big hope for this year is not to win the FA Cup or the League Cup but to just finish second. Above Liverpool. If they finish above us that will be very hard to me to take.

Slight off topic, I wonder if the likes of Duff and SWP enjoy their roles with Chelsea.
Well...I bumped that particular thread about them today and that is indeed my biggest concern this season too :(

SWP in particular, should feel like a muppet.