I can't be bothered to dig out any prediction threads, but I think that its safe to say that United is doing better than anyone thought they would. (The word for those who may claim that they expected this is liar.) Obviously, some things have been better than we thought they would be. However, some things have probably been the same and some things have been worse. So what are they? Better Midfield. I really expected to struggle more with Carrick and Scholes as the regular CMs. Its easy to say we haven't faced any tough teams, but look at the league; after Chelsea and United its pretty barren. There's a test coming on Sunday. I can't wait. Attack. I thought we'd miss Ruud a little more than we have. Some of the stuff has been scintilating. Its made it so much easier to be happy for Ruud in Madrid. I'd take our front six over anyone else's. The January Boys. Vidic and Evra are both on their way to justifying their purchases. Almost everyone's first choice lineup includes these two. (But wait, Fergie is a transfer dummy.) As expected Carrick. He's been what I thought he'd be. I'm curious as to what he'll do on Sunday, but I like him against 94.74% of the league. Defense. They've played at the level they should play. Last year they were worse than expected and now they seem to have shaken off the inconsistency. (The less said about three-fourths of the backline falling asleep on the goal on Saturday, the better.) Worse Depth. I know its because of injuries, but other than Fletcher I really don't trust anyone coming on. We really need Ole and Park to come back and for Smith to get in shape. Its on the knife edge right now. This forum. This isn't United directly, but so many petty squabbles, fanboys and spazzos threaten to swamp this forum. We're one-third of the way through an excellent season and the participation has been poor, myself included. Let's rally and get things rolling again.
Like the idea and I'll probably do something more specific and in depth later on but for now... Attack: About where I expected it bar 2. Giggs and Ronaldo have been the best wingers on the planet and they're or have been papering over the cracks and weaknesses of our strike pairing, but I'll get to them later. We've got goals from our front men although they don't seem to be firing at the same time which is good, but they do seem to come in clusters for each guy. The good news is, Rooney's got a 3rd of his proper goal tally for a season despite missing a few matches and being badly out of form for much of it. He may have another lean patch or two, but at least now we know that if Saha and Ole are healthy while it occurs we'll be better than simply surviving. Saha has been a mixed bag as expected. He's been the worst striker on the planet in 1v1 situations which was expected but he's not been as good as he was last season however I think he'll turn it up a notch when Rooney is flying again. Midfield I'm on record in several threads as stating we needed to give Scholes/Carrick a chance and that they'd be more than adequate against 95% of the league. Nothing we've seen this season goes against that. They may struggle more when our wingers don't have superlative games but we are what we are. Giggs' play has been refreshing he's really a very dangerous player for us in almost everything he does. Shockingly, the same can be said of Ronaldo with the added bonus of the latter playing a whole lot more team defence and almost compltely cutting the negative parts of his game out. They, more than Scholes or Carrick or Saha or Rooney or Vidic or Evra or Rio or VDS are the reason we're top of the league. We could/would have expected Scholes to be very very good and some of us might have guessed that Carrick wouldn't be a sieve in CM or that Rooney would bag some goals or that Saha would lead the line well. We couldn't however expect Giggs to be MOTM for a 1/3 of our games thus far and 2nd in maybe a 1/3 more. The same of Ronaldo, no one expected him to be the revelation he's been and the combined efforts of both wingers is what makes us an elite team. Our strike force has been above average and our defence water tight but there are 10 teams in the league you could say that for. Defensively we're about where we should be. Evra has been very solid since settling and Vidic/Rio is looking like a very solid pairing. VDS has been stellar up until the last one or two games. Maybe we could rest him a spell in Europe or in the FA Cup. Depth is bad, but not shocking. We loaned and sold 2 forwards and were depending on 2 forwards who had major long term injuries to recover from.
The key to our progress is our flowing attacking football. This is due in part to our defense which allows us to play very smooth, unpredictable and blitz-fast attacking football. The start was getting VDS who pretty much assures us that we can count on him, whether our boys are up for it or not. With Rio alone in the defense, it has always been prone to making more mistakes. All he needed was another solid CB. I thought Heinze would provide that but he was played on the left instead and has done a fine job, however didn't contribute much to our attacking. Vidic was the key purchase I thought. Probably the best purchase behind Rooney and Ronaldo in the past five years. Having Rio and Vidic in the back, and VDS behind them, it's SO incredibely assuring that our midfield can get involved in more attacking. Having Evra hit his great form doesn't hurt either. Unlike Heinze, he's a natural winger or WingBack. He allows Giggs to drift into the midfield and subsequently for our formation to change midgame, and make our attacks that much more unpredictable. We no longer need a straight up DM who can sit infront of the back four to protect it. Our defense makes sure it protects itself. Carrick slots in right there to give us EVEN MORE flexibility when it comes to our attacking. Besides our fullbacks constantly running up and down the flanks, providing width and crosses, Giggs and Ronaldo give us much more than their roles say. They can drift into the center, and even interchange. Carrick sits still and fires high or low passes from deep,. Scholes does so on the ground. Rooney is the still the key role. He can draw back, get involved on the wings and run up to support Saha. He'll be even more of a playmaker than Scholes is for us now. Then we have Saha whose inclusion really kickstarted the change. We all know what the difference between him in the team and Ruud in the team is. he provides us with more options and most importantly allows the players around him (Giggs,Rooney, and Ronaldo) to do what they do best. No long do our wingers have to pinpoint a #9 who waits for the ball in the box at all time, but instead every player gets involved and we've seen it already this year, we have so many different goalscorers already. Saha is physically domineering, like Ruud he can bully his way into the box, and his athletic abilities help him perform all kinds of tricks to break free in there. He may lack a certain sharpness that Ruud had, but even when he doesn't score, our team is structured in a way that one player can take over from another immediately. That's all for now.
I share the same sentiments, but I'd add to the list: Better Cristiano Ronaldo: made an impressive step up when I honestly thought he'd have a rough season. Darren Fletcher: for the first time, I'm fully convinced he'll be a prominent player for United in years to come. Performance against Liverpool was amazing IMO. Paul Scholes: I always expect so much of him, he's such an immense player in my eyes. Yet so far this year he has managed to excede my expectations, he's been BY FAR the best midfielder in the league, rewinding the clocks. Absolutely amazing. As expected Solskjaer: he's performed brilliantly when called on, exacltly what I expect from a player of his ability. Kuszczak: looked decent when called on, but eclipsed by van Der Sar. I'm not too convinced he's Edwin's immedate replacement, looks like he'll be a great keeper 5-8 years down the line though. Worse Kieran Richardson. I've been waiting for that step up for a while now, and I now conclude it's not happening.
I can certainly say that I expected us to play this swashbuckling, attacking style. I have no problems saying I expected that. Why? Because it's what we did all through the end of last season when Saha replaced Ruud. Now that being said, I certainly couldn't have, save in my wildest dreams, imagined that we'd be having the success that we've been having so far, and long may it continue.
Hate to jump in on this but this is a two edged sword. How many good crosses have gone to waste this season? Hell, in the last match alone Saha let 2 good crosses go to waste and Ronaldo 2 as well and in the game before that Rooney did the same. Two edged sword, that's all.
I agree with what you're saying. That's pretty much a fact this season. However, when Rooney misses several chances, there's always Saha to compensate for it with a goal. When Ronaldo missed two chances, Rooney was there to score a brace. There seems to be a general trend of players taking over when others aren't performing particularly well (whether it's drop of form or bad luck). That's the stuff great teams are made of.
Better: 1. Central Midfield - Didn't have high hopes for Carrick-Scholes pairing, but its worked out well so far. 2. Attack - Scoring and scoring. 3. Performance against lower table teams - We've won several games we probably would have dropped points in last season. 4. Ronaldo - Really stepped up his game this season. 5. Ole - Contributed much more than I would have expected. Worse: 1. Depth - Enough said.
They are what we thought they were!!! What we thought they were. We played 'em in preseason, who the hell takes the third game of preseason like it's bullshit? They are who we thought they were!!! Now if you wanna crown 'em, then crown their ass. But they are what we thought they were!! And we let 'em off the hook.
I'll get into detail later, but one thing I want to say is every single player in our starting XI has been phenominal at doing their job at one time or another. Rooney is catching fire now, so thats a great thing. Fletcher also is good form when the season started. Oshea hasnt been bad in his cameo's at fullback, but he could do better. The only first teamers who have really ********ed up are Richardson and Wes Brown to a lesser extent. He had a good chance to stake a claim for the CB partnership besides Rio, but he didnt do as well as he should have.
Better Our style of football. Absolutely superb,sensational, boner-worthy at times. The opening 10 minutes against Bolton was just....unbelievable. Not a single bad pass, triangles everywhere, one twos.....my God we bent Bolton over and gave it to em with no Vaseline. Patrice Evra. I knew he'd improve if we gave him time, but I didn't know he'd become this. Sure he has a weakness, but who cares when he attacks so damn good? He's capable of some fantastic tackles, not to mention his ability to beat an oposing fullback. I also like how he almost ALWAYS comes out on top when he's surrounded by players in those little scrambles on the touchline. Just when you think he's about to lose possession, he somehow gets out of it, whether it be a backheel to a teamate, or one of his fancy moves, he makes it happen. Ronaldo! My homie. My bro. My buddy. I was starting to lose faith in him after this summer, but man did he shock me this season. He's taking every bit of abuse, and dealing it out in spades. From verbal and mental, to straight physical abuse. I mean, in the game against Shitefield United, that Shitefield peasant fullback shoved Ronaldo right into the advertising board. Ronaldo simply shook it off and got on with the game. I felt like killing that Shitefield United player. I think clubs should petition their fans to stop booing Ronaldo, because obviously it's having the opposite effect. He's KILLING the opposition. Darren Fletcher. Wow, looks so much better. It's insane. He seems so much quicker in the way he does things, so much quicker and polished in his play. Worse O'Shea:... Silvestre:If this was FM2007, most of his stats would be in negative numbers right now. Rick James' Illegitimate son:Worse 'winger' I've seen in a long time.
I have to agree with all the posts above but how did we get this far down the thread without a mention for Super Gary Neville. Both he and Scholes have been magnificent so far. I believe Nev's attitude is infectious and him running himself up and down tirelessly down that right wing is a shining example to the youth and the team as a whole... Isn't it weird how Rooney and Ronaldo seem to swap form, when ones got it the other loses it to be honest an out of form either player is better than 70% of the premiership!
I was initially worried about this, afraid that they cannot co-exist. Now I think that they end up altering their games depending on the other. I dont know if its conscious or not but its really working to our benefit.
Better: 1) The tremendous start to the season, never did I expect this start. Even though I'm an extremely optimistic fan at times, I did not expect this at all. 2) Ronaldo - has been extremely amazing this season. 3) Flegend, 'nuff said 4) Ole - didnt expect him to start as well as he did 5) Carrick + Scholes...didn't expect them to work after the start of the season but I was proved wrong, again. 6) Good form in the CL has been nice to see as well. 7) I'm mentioning him far too much down the order but I think Vidic has been sooo much better this season. Worse: 1) KRich and Silvestre...no, just no! 2) Paper thin squad...last season we had real depth in our strike force, with Saha/Ruud and the excellent reserve team we had who could have made the step up when needed as Rossi did against Burton Albion. 3) Did not expect to lose against Southend or get dumped out of the CC this early. Concerns: 1) Gary Neville - against SU he just wasn't closing down the player who was potentially gonna cross, he just wasn't willing or had the energy to do it. Lead to the first goal in my opinion. 2) Gary Neville - he's making those runs really well but they are no use as long as he cannot finish or convert those passes from those runs onto assists. How many assists does he have this season from those runs he makes? The rooney goal was a cross, not a run inside from him. Still it's nice to see, but what's the point of him getting so close to goal if he cant finish at all, just reduces his energy levels IMO. 3) Gary Neville - the calf injury's beginning to worry me like there was no tomorrow.... I still dont know about John O'Shea, he can still **** up coz basically, he is JOS. I think that's all!
Got to thinking last night and here's the result... Miracle - its not a word you'd describe any of this season's performances with. However, our consistency has been tremendous. Early to say it for certain, but better than its been for years. To have achieved this with a thin squad and having just lost 2 key players in Roy and Ruud its no small feat. We've done it by establishing a starting XI and sticking with it. Lets start off with this team's weaknesses. Up front we're a bit on the thin side depth wise and we need a #9 or for Rossi to earn som PT alongside Rooney and do well. Worst case scenario we've got to buy a servicable #9 to back up Saha. Central Midfield - we're 1 prem class DCM away from having a very very very good XI and even without the elusive Mr. Pink we've managed to secure a stable, productive, effective CM unit. Wings - we've got just 2 healthy wingers on the team in Ronaldo and Giggs. One of them is injury prone and old. Fletcher did a decent job standing in at times this season but we've got to add a quality winger as we've had Park out for a long time and cant expect him to contribute right away when he returns. All of those needs are there - but they've hardly hindered us thus far. We've been able to play to our strengths and they're considerable.... Fergie's assembled a very strong team. We have 4 proven Premiership Center Backs and 2 bright prospects. We have quality at both FB positions and experience as well. I think defensively we've got a unit equal to any other assembled in the prem. We have quality wingers, the best tandem in the league and a very good front pairing. All in all, our first XI and 2 or 3 of our squaddies are better than most of the league skill for skill on paper. However, we've always had a highly skilled team. What we've lacked in the past was a bit of glue. We're playing with a cohesion that's created some results that we've not really been worthy of. I'm not naive enough to say that the departures of 1 or 2 players have turned the team into boyscouts and best friends but it would be and has been remiss of me to ignore the impact that a "subtraction" can make. Yes, I'm doing it... I'm admitting that we've become a better team without Ruud in some respects. I'm not willing to say we're 100% better in all respects but in many ways we've achieved synergy and while our parts individually probably don't compare to the team last year, the sum of our parts this season is equal to or if not better than what we had in the past. Pick your jaws up off the floor - I've not gone mad. I think Keano being gone has certainly done a lot for our midfield fluidity and I think while we aren't yet the super team that we need to be for lack of a super talented DCM. We've not missed Keane on the pitch in the slightest. We've missed his inspiration certainly, but the footballer he'd become was no longer vital to us and we've "replaced" him in that regard. Moreover. We have an exuberance to our game that in my mind I'm not sure we'd have had with him (and Ruud) in the side. Don't get me wrong... we are more than 1 or 2 players away from being a CL shoein or a team that should win the league year in year out. For all our exuberance and ability to wow the crowd and blow past defenders and score - we are tactically naive. I think that's not something we can avoid as our attack is led very much by Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo and with wreckless style of Saha our 3 front men are not what you'd refer to as polished pros. The good news, and there's loads of it is that firstly, Rooney and Ronaldo are both very young as are several key members of our team. Rio and Vidic can play together for a long time, Evra who is coming into his own has years left at the top, Carrick who we've yet to see the best of is as close to 20 as he is to 30 and there's all the chance in the world that we're going to have a strong XI without too much turnover for quite awhile. There are things that we need to do. Obviously we need to make up numbers in the squad in 2 or 3 positions but we've got lots of youth and even if this season isn't the ultimate success, when you look at the squad we line up 3 years ago and compare it to this one it seems as if we've come a long way in every regard except Europe and I really think that's a puzzle that we'll solve when Rooney and Ronaldo mature.
I think Fergie has also changed the teams mentality. Last season where it looked like our fringe players were just going trhough the motions, now its looks like every single player is giving 100%. Not to mention the fact that he has made us physically stronger, and mentally stronger. Evidence of that are the Blackburn, and Bolton games.