Is it just me, or is Cristiano Ronaldo the poorest Man Utd signing for years?

[accidental_giraffe]

Not trying to get up people's noses here, but from what I've seen, Cristiano Ronaldo is utterly crap. He can weave and do strange little tricks yes, but he is almost incapable of passing the ball even the shortest of distances!! Actually, a lot of Man Utd signings have been a bit on the crap side over the last 6 or 7 seasons... strange..

1. Diego Forlan - nuff said
2. Jesper Blomqvist - very ordinary (but £5.5m)
3. Juan Seba Veron - under performed
4. Eric Djemba-Djemba - butt/keane/scholes way
better
5. Kleberson - again, nothing special

I can't understand how Ferguson thinks he's gonna replace players like Beckham, and Keane when he retires/leaves with players like Djemba and Ronaldo... am I wrong or do Man Utd fans agree??

[toby]

hey giraffe,

welcome to the boards. look i know that not all of the new signings have contributed significantly to this point but c'mon. we are judging a bit too soon. though i like these 2 players, i will agree with you about veron and maybe forlan. the former never seemed able to command the pace of the match from the midfield as manutd had hoped and the latter, though he has put some balls into the net the past 3 matches, seems careless with the ball.

ronaldo is coming around, he is gifted with great ball handling skills but is only 18 and in his first year in the prem. he still has lots to learn (1st and foremost, reduce frequency of the falling down bit). the same can be said of bellion. from what i hear he is progressing well with the reserves. dj-dj, is earning more time but he must supplant someone in the crowded yet strong midfield, not an easy task (injuries have given him playing time). and as for kleb, the dude has been out since the beginning with injuries. he's had no chance to contribute.

i actually think united have begun to develop these new players for major contributions in the future.

[accidental_giraffe]

I agree with you re: Kleberson, injured practically instantly.

I think i've gone against C Ronaldo cause of the hype but I dont think he's got the natural talent, I mean he can beat players a la Zenden, but he cant deliver AT ALL.... a la Zenden lol.

I think Alex Ferguson is too big headed to admit mistakes, and the only reason he sold Beckham was cause he didn't like him personally... by the look of things

Also, not that Football shoudl be about business, but selling Beckham will hurt the club big time financially, they may gain £25m now but Shirt Sales in the far east (especially) was worth way more than that

I feel Man Utd could've got better players for the money they spent - Celtic managed to buy Henrik Larsson for £600,000, Didi Agathe for £5,000

Bolton got Jay Jay for free, think Man Utd could get better players if they hadn't panic-buyed - cause the Ronaldinho thing fell thru I feel they kinda thought "We have to buy someone.... NOW!"

All the best for the future with them though, if Ronaldo turns out to be brilliant then great buy!

:)

[haven]

Wow! We have a troll! Don't get that many non-Arsenal trolls here.

To address them case by case.

1. Forlan is actually a fairly good player. Not worth 7.5m certainly (although today's financial climate makes that look worse)... but he does score goals, particularly when he gets time. If you want to point to this as a bad signing, fine... I'll buy that as reasonable.

2. Jesper Blomqvist - didn't get too much, I guess... fine, reasonable.

3. Veron - played great in the CL, played mediocre in the EPL. Paid a great deal for him - but Man Utd did get half of it back. Of course, 15m for 2 years of decent service is a bad deal... I'll agree there.

But after that, you descend into lunacy and/or trolling. THe 3 new signings:

Kleberson? WHo the *#*#*#*# knows. He's been in two games. He's shown some clever skills... and that he's not well-adjusted yet. We'll see.

Same pretty much for Ronaldo... except he actually does look pretty good. Takes good free kicks, fantastic footwork, his short passing is pretty good... shown some creativity. He's got some problems... but he's 18. We'll see in two years. To criticize now, especially since he's looked excellent in 3 of the games he's played in (and only bad in two) is absurd and irrational.

Djemba-Djemba - Keane better? Yep. Also in his 30's. Scholes better? Yep. Different position, idiot. Butt better? I'm not sure about that already. And Djemba-Djemba is younger. And more athletically gifted. He's looked poor at times, but also looks creative, a good tackler, fast, and smart. Sorry, this buy already looks good at the price.

And... dude? You're not mentioning Tim Howard.

I love the way you point out other teams best buys... then point out Man Utd's worst... and say "gee, Utd doesn't buy well!" That's absurd (word is wearing thin).

What about:

Howard
Solksjaer
RVN (worth every penny and about 13m more or so)
Fortune

Or we could get into the youngsters that have been poached for very little.

And of course, you didn't mention the very worst buy in recent times: Rio Ferdinand. I can see a rational argument for every other player (even Veron... he was considered by some to be the best midfielder in the world at the time)... but Ferdinand really was ridiculous. Everyone knew that Leeds were hurting, if not the extent of their problems. And Ferdinand, although he had an excellent world cup, was considered by nobody to be the best defender in the world. Cheaper buys could have been had - including Ferdinand, in January.

[haven]

Originally posted by accidental_giraffe

Also, not that Football shoudl be about business, but selling Beckham will hurt the club big time financially, they may gain £25m now but Shirt Sales in the far east (especially) was worth way more than th:)

Thanks for proving you know nothing! Knowing nothing by itself, is fine. Knowing nothing and being critical? That's bad.

Utd have a contract w/Nike regarding shirt sails. That's locked for a substantial period of time (far longer than Beckham will play). There were limited performance related bonuses in the contract - but that were unlikely to be obtained, with or without Beckham. So losing Beckham meant... practically nothing, as far as shirt sales.

Come again when you know something!

[johno]

Sometime more than 11 years ago, "Who does Alex Fergusson think he is? He can't run a team this way."
(Later on) "Come on, so much youth in the team that will never work"

If you remember correctly Beckham's career was almost over before it began, the Red Card incident.

People criticized Ole Gunnar for being to slow, etc. He is one of the best minds and better players in the EPL.

Regardless of what you think of our signings after 11 games, you must use caution. The last group of youngsters that ManU introduced into the team include. Becks, Scholes, Giggs. For a time, they were each the best in the EPL at their given position, Scholes and Giggs still are.

Last Point! Never, ever, ever question Sir Alex, he and ManU have only won 10 out of the last 11 EPL titles, how many has your team won?

[Motterman]

First, it's a little unfair to label the newbie as a troll. Yeah, he came in a little strong and blasted Sir Alex's transfer dealings, but Fergie has made plenty of good signings over the years to forgive any 5 bad ones you want to pick out.

We were forced to buy Ronaldo this year because other teams were rumoured to be after him and we probably would have missed out if we hadn't moved early. We wanted to give him another year at Sporting Lisbon, but with Queiroz probably aware of how we rated him - it was better to move early.
Secondly, and we've covered this in other threads, Ferguson really didn't plan on playing Ronaldo as much as he has, but injuries to Solskjaer, Scholes, and Keane have forced us to play him a little earlier than probably planned and definitely more than what he'd planned at this stage of the season. At the end of the day, Ronaldo is still a young and exciting PROSPECT at the very least. I'd say not to blame the media for all the hype when he was exalted as the next Giggs, etc. as when you play for United, you are always under the microscope and when a player sneezes it's on all the back pages...

[billyireland]

Originally posted by mtkillamanjohno
Last Point! Never, ever, ever question Sir Alex, he and ManU have only won 10 out of the last 11 EPL titles, how many has your team won? 8 of 11:)... Still, I do agree with you

[lond2345]

how old is Ronaldo again? i think you need to shut up

[ehtorg]

I'm sure opinions differ on this, but I thought Jesper Blomqvist played an important role in ManUtd's march to the 1999 treble. I recall he played well in several games and filled in nicely for giggs every so often. His injury really took him out of things after winning the treble but I don't think that is reason enough to label the guy as a bad signing. I think he served his purpose of a giggs back-up and did so well enough that United was obviously successful that year. Also, I think they only paid 4.4M for the guy. The one thing I remember most about Jesper was that he always ran around with his hands tucked in his long sleeve jersey... you know, like little kids do when they play. Kind of funny.

[billyireland]

Okay, I can name a bad signing: Jordi Cruyff

[haven]

Originally posted by Motterman
First, it's a little unfair to label the newbie as a troll. Yeah, he came in a little strong and blasted Sir Alex's transfer dealings, but Fergie has made plenty of good signings over the years to forgive any 5 bad ones you want to pick out.

Man, you're intent on depriving me of all possible anti-trolling activities :(. I mean, trolls don't usually rack up post counts large enough to not be called newbies, ya know.

And what really irked me wasn't the fact that the post was critical and largely pretty mistaken. What annoyed me was the evident bias, namely:

1. Referring only to other teams' best signings but only Utd's worse
2. Conclusory statements about players that he's seen... well, in the case of Kleberson, at most twice or so.

I guess the Beckham-shirt sales mistake could have been innocent... but I'm just so sick of people bringing that up, when it's just not true.

[Motterman]

Originally posted by haven
Man, you're intent on depriving me of all possible anti-trolling activities :(. I mean, trolls don't usually rack up post counts large enough to not be called newbies, ya know.

Yeah, well, I don't want to chase off newbies from BigSoccer (it's part of my Admin job description ;) )

But anyhow, I think he's just trying to wind us up so that we are motivated to kick his arch-rival's arse on the morrow...

[Motterman]

Originally posted by billyireland
Okay, I can name a bad signing: Jordi Cruyff

Ralph Milne, close the poll.

What? No poll? Grrr.....

[soccerfreak #1]

No, No, No. Ronaldo just seem to be some kind of germanophobic. He just can´t play young german right backs(Hinkel, Volz)..............

just kidding.

He will surely make his way, and with SAF he has a coach that will keep him from losing the ground under his feet if he finaly will make some good games(and he will for sure). He is the right player at the right club. It will work out, definitly.

[gildarkevin]

Originally posted by billyireland
Okay, I can name a bad signing: Jordi Cruyff

Actually that can just be rewritten as:

"Great Name, Bad Signing. Jordi Cruyff".

[billyireland]

Originally posted by gildarkevin
Actually that can just be rewritten as:

"Great Name, Bad Signing. Jordi Cruyff". Funny little story here, and correct me if I'm wrong... this ManU reject was arguabvly THE key player in an Alavesa side that got to the UEFA Cup final and lost 5-4 to Liverpool in the 2nd last minute of injury time (and thanks to an OG, at that), the UEFA Cup beign the "big" title that Liverppol won out of the five they did that season... aaaahhh, the anfiled glory days

[Motterman]

Originally posted by gildarkevin
Actually that can just be rewritten as:

"Great Name, Bad Signing. Jordi Cruyff".

I don't know what it is, but I keep thinking he should have played for Newcastle. :D

[Achtung]

Originally posted by billyireland
Funny little story here, and correct me if I'm wrong... this ManU reject was arguabvly THE key player in an Alavesa side that got to the UEFA Cup final and lost 5-4 to Liverpool in the 2nd last minute of injury time (and thanks to an OG, at that), the UEFA Cup beign the "big" title that Liverppol won out of the five they did that season... aaaahhh, the anfiled glory days

PLASTIC TREBLE!!! :D

[Emre5]

He is still 18, has lots of time to learn the United system of play.