Could Uniteds embarresing defeat to City be the final nail in the coffin for Uniteds lacklustre squad? I think so and many United supporters agree that this season United have gone the direction of Liverpool two seaons ago, i.e. Achieved success last season but failed to capitalise on it by building substatially on their squad and so are left with substandard players like Quinton Fortune, Philip Neville, Darren Fletcher, Wes Brown, Diego Forlan, Kieran Richardson and dare I say it Cristiano "one trick pony" Ronaldo. Yes, a number of these players I have mentioned are still young but don't match up to the players that Arsenal or even Chelsea have in their squad and the rest barely got a sniff at Uniteds starting 11 a couple of years back. A few years ago people would look at Uniteds bench and say "Look at the quality they have in depth" now it's more like "Who, what age is he?". As Alan Hansen said "You'll never win anything with kids". At the time he said this United brought in the likes of Beckham, Scholes, Butt, Gary Neville and Giggs was in his prime. Now where's the talent coming from this illustrious Academy? and the young players at the club just aren't up to scratch, yet to be playing at the top level! The only notable graduate from United academy in the past three years has been John O'Shea! United missed out last season on two possible major signings Ronaldinho and Duff. This season they've already missed out on long-term target Arjen Robben and have purchased a striker who has been on form for 5 months out of three years. What United need to challange Arsenal next season is a major signing of VanNistlerooy proportions, somone who'll have an immediate effect on the team unlike someone who will come good, at the top there's very little time for experimenting with unproven talent. Ferguson tried to pull off another 95-96 Kids winning season and has got eggs violently smashed in his face!
How can you pick on Kieran Richardson when he's barely played in the first team this year?? How can you tout John O'Shea as some great youth team success when he's been p*ss poor this season? He only had one decent season after messing around in the reserves and in Belgium for years and got overloaded with hype. United suffered for the loss of Ferdinand. They need him back, plus another centre back, add another winger and they're sorted. A Keane replacement is the only difficult task on top of that, but it's not urgent yet.
I was merely using Keiran Richardson as an example of the players United have in their first team squad now compared to Chelsea and Arsenal. John O'Shea has not been "p*ss poor" this season, he's having aquite average season in fact. Just cos he isn't playin as well as he did last season, which was brilliant by the way, doesn't necessarily meen he has been p*ss poor, you can't nutmeg Luis Figo every week you know and by the way if you could read my post so well you seem to have failed to notice that I never mentioned John O'Shea as being a "great success"! You name another player out of Uniteds Academy in the past 3 years who has made an impact on their first team then if what John O'Shea has done isn't an impact on the 1st team! These problems you mentioned a centre back and a winger they didn't come over night at United, they've been there since the start of the season and Ferguson failed to solve them adequately. All fairness they did lose probably their main defender but the good sides are prepared for something like this to happen, if Ferdinand had've been injured Ferguson wold have had less time to get sorted but instead he had all January to bring in a stop-gap like he did with Laurent Blanc, who did well for the first few months he was there and filled in nicely. Once again Ferguson made a major error by not doing so!