Its funny how the game you brought up as an example was against Liverpool and not United, which was the comparison wasnt it? Were Duff and Robben healthy for the Pool Game anyways? Duff is more of the right wing than robben, robben>Giggs, Lamps>Scholes, makelele>Keane
What I'd like to see is soccernet/espn address to quality of their reporting. Do they really think we're so caught up in the silly season that they can print one thing and then a week or two something completely opposite without the readers noticing? I don't mind rumors but this is just getting annoying. What's next? Emre to join Sunderland? Rednapp returning to Pompey? Morihno to admit that he's spinless snake that would cheat in any way possible? Pure craziness.
Kenyon is in France. Essien will be done and dusted by Thursday. Seriously, are we going to play our hand in the transfer market now or what?
Bit early in the off season for you to be so bold. Such a triumphant statement would be more apt for CL registration day.
Not really. I had genuinely thought given the "we spent next summer's kitty on Rooney" and two players coming in you were done.
Rooney being part of "next summer's kitty" was almost as believeable as Smith and Heinze being the only purchases for last summer. Or us not planning to buy a striker in January 04.
I assume you're hoping to be proven wrong - we shall see. However, given the lack of transfers this year and the fairly quiet transfer market, I wouldn't be all that surprised if you were mostly done. Plus, all of last year's calculations were BG - Before Glazer.
To be perfectly honest I wouldn't be surprised if we are done now. We've plugged the two glaring weaknesses in our squad. Particularly given the healthy state of the reserve team. The only other thing we could do is bring in a central midfielder. But to be honest I suspect that will happen next summer. When Keane is fit he plays it is that simple, so if we brought in a new midfielder either he is sitting on the bench for a year waiting for Keane to retire, or Scholes is, or we re-jig the formation and play with one striker, or whatever. It only makes sense to replace Keane when he's actually gone, unless there is some amazing unmissable player on the market right now who we can't afford not to buy. I don't see one.
Initially, I wouldn't be surprised to see Gl*zer bring in a big name to quell the masses and make him look good for a little while. In fact I don't expect the takeover to affect much on the pitch for at least the first season, maybe the next as well. We might be done this summer, but then that's what we assumed last season until the final week.
That could be a bad idea though, waiting for Keane to retire before finding his successor. Someone who wants to be the engine of a team like United will almost certainly need a year to adjust to the team's playing style, the nuances of his teammates, and possibly even the English league itself if he is a foreigner. That kind of CM role isn't really the kind of role where you can simply slot in and pretend that nothing ever changed. When the run of play is expected to go through you, its a lot of responsibility. If SAF is to be believed, David Jones is pegged for that spot. I haven't seen the kid play, but obviously people at the club think highly of him. For our sake, I hope they're right. If not, we'll need to splash out for that position in the way we have twice previously.
That's assuming there's a "big" name out there to be had. However, no one's selling that kind of a big name at the moment.
The only thing hopeful at this point is that sources from within the club are supposedly predicting the signing of Ballack--the same sources who were talking about the sale of Beckham well before it happened. How much that means, I'm not sure. But yes, there don't look to be nearly the moves this season that there have been in the past, even if I do still expect another big move to Old Trafford. Of course, other than a Keane successor, most fans are fairly happy with the personnel we have at this point in the first team and youth squad.
What would you do with Ballack? He can't play with Keane and Scholes. Good luck there - I'd have thought Veron would have been enough. At any rate, I don't think Ballack will move, but if he does, he will at least teach Cronaldo how to dive more effectively.
Keane won't be around forever, and we need someone to play the two-way midfielder position that Keane quite frankly hasn't played much since 2002. The danger, as you stated, is that he becomes another Veron, especially given his tendency to lack toughness when it counts most.
So you're going to rotate him and Keane? Good luck there............ Ballack needs to run the show for his club - that's why he was unsuccessful at Bayern at first. With Keane, he won't get the chance.
Who's saying he won't get the chance to run the show at United? And who mentioned rotation? Keane in 2005 is a different player from 2001--hopefully both he and SAF recognize that.
Our major transactions have always happened late in the window, usually August even, so there are no chickens to be counted yet.