2013-14 English Football Season

[Loony BoB]

The whole team isn't playing badly. :p But the defence didn't hold a line, and again, if you think they need a manager to tell them that, then what the fuck, man. They're only a multi-title winning defence.

Yes, the manager isn't doing brilliantly but the players are the ones giving him the problem. Following up SAF, you expect a "downgrade" no matter what. I do think Moyes is a good manager and I do think he's capable if we give him the time. But the players need to do him a favour and remember how to play.

So says this couch potato manager. :p

[Heath]

I don't disagree at all, the south is a hotbed of grot and poverty. Also what are you talking about Cardiff is a metropolitan utopia compared to Neath and Swansea and when I started working here I genuinely couldn't get over how much nicer the place was.

I've never been further north than Welshpool (apart from Wrexham once or twice to play cricket against them (they have a very nice ground)

The North isn't much better - it's also very poor. I genuinely didn't realise by quite how much until I went to university and started living in England.

I've only visited anywhere in Wales south of Aberystwyth once, and that was to go to Cardiff. I went to the Senedd which was very nice. And I only went to Aberystwyth about twice.

On topic: Yeah, that Manchester United, eh?

[Psychotic]

The whole team isn't playing badly. :p But the defence didn't hold a line, and again, if you think they need a manager to tell them that, then what the smurf, man. Well, yeah, I do actually. The manager is the one who sets the defensive system and drills it into them in training every week. If you noticed it, why didn't Moyes notice it at half-time and tell them to pull their fingers out?


Following up SAF, you expect a "downgrade" no matter what.Yeah, you do, but not that much of a downgrade. The likes of AVB, Mancini and Benitez would be a downgrade on Fergie but they'd still be an upgrade on Moyes. I'm not saying any of those should've been made United manager for obvious reasons but you get the point I'm making. Evidently Roberto Martinez is an upgrade on Moyes ffs!
I do think Moyes is a good manager Why? Not being flippant. If you look at his first few years, up to the point where he got CL qualification, I'd agree. After that they've not made any progress, served up turgid football and flopped in the cups year after year. They stagnated, and Moyes hadn't got any fresh ideas. Along with Stoke and whoever Sam Allardyce was managing, Everton were the worst team in the league to watch. That kind of football can help you punch above your weight but it simply is not the style of play for a team challenging at the top. As I've said before, I really enjoy watching Everton now even though I'm not supposed to.

[Heath]

Did you actually watch much of Everton the last couple of seasons? If you think we played turgid football which was awful to watch, then you obviously have higher expectations of Everton than me. Moyes played a lot of safety first, 4-5-1 but I'd characterise that as more the style in his early, rather than later, Everton career. Compare a team with Thomas Gravesen, Duncan Ferguson, and Steve Watson with one which had Arteta, Pienaar, and Landon Donovan. I know which I'd rather watch. Moyes' teams play decent football. He's not Arsene Wenger (or dare I say it, Roberto Martinez), but he's hardly Tony Pulus or Alan Curbishley.

[Loony BoB]

To be fair, Martinez is living with Moyes' players just as Moyes is living with SAF's players. You point to the manager, I point to the players. You can't judge a manager on a single season because they aren't the manager's players. A manager is more than just the bedding season.

As for Everton, I think everyone knew he was working with a budget that none of the other big clubs were dealing with and was punching above Everton's weight. Now Martinez is doing the same, but if United had signed Martinez as the manager everyone would have said exactly the same things they've said about Moyes, with a few changes. Unproven at a big club, etc. Instead of "No trophies" it'd be "Only one trophy, never stayed at a club for longer than a couple of seasons so uncertain over long term capability."

I still think it's too early to say what's going on with United. He's not signed any of the players he wanted, our first choice defence is a complete unknown and the only certainty is aging considerably, as are Rio and Vidic. Scholes has gone. It's a trouble that needs to be solved, and a certain Ed Woodward smurfed that up big time, not Moyes. Unless the manager has taken on the chairman responsibilities now.

[Psychotic]

Did you actually watch much of Everton the last couple of seasons? If you think we played turgid football which was awful to watch, then you obviously have higher expectations of Everton than me. I'm not going to claim to be the Everton expert, no. I saw the odd game - I think I saw one v Chelsea and another v Spurs, but obviously what I did see were the derbys and his approach to them: 10 men behind the fucking ball. Now, in the era when we were Champions League regulars fair enough, but it carried on even when we were midtable dross. And, well, I don't want to have to mention the Cup semi. He choked. Big time.

Regardless of that though, you will know far more about Everton than I do so if you tell me it wasn't always like that then I'll take your word for it and retract my turgid claims.
but he's hardly Tony Pulus or Alan Curbishley.I sort of think he is. :shobon: Pardew, Allardyce, Moyes, Mark Hughes.


To be fair, Martinez is living with Moyes' players But is he? Everton's best players this season have been - and Heath can feel free to weigh in if he wishes! - Coleman, Lukaku, Barkley, Barry and Delof...I'm not even going to try to spell it. 3 of them are Martinez signings, and Barkley barely got a sniff under Moyes - he's had more games under Martinez than 3 years under Moyes.

And yeah, I do point to the manager as opposed to the players. This is the sodding squad that just won the league! Minus an ancient Scholes, add Fellaini, Zaha and Januzaj and it's the exact same squad. If anything, it should be better. If it's just the players, you can't tell me that Ferguson would be languishing in 7th right now. I refuse to accept it.

[Loony BoB]

I'm not saying it's just the players, as I said, it was always going to be a downgrade - but the things that they are struggling with are not the things I would expect to change between seasons. This isn't a case of poor selection, this is a case of our defence in the last match not understanding how to hold a line all of a sudden. Your manager controls how hard you attack and whatnot, sure - he also controls the selections and such things. But the players themselves were capable of smurfing up in previous seasons and in this match they were punished heavily for it because they did it to absurd degrees. I wouldn't have held SAF responsible for these smurfups either.

"Pardew, Allardyce, Moyes, Mark Hughes" - come off it, mate. None of them achieved what Moyes has, and if they ever got a sniff at it, they couldn't pull it off a second season. Hughes did okay at Blackburn for a while, but never as high as Moyes was.

[Psychotic]

None of them achieved what Moyes hasWhat has Moyes actually achieved?

[Loony BoB]

A better points per season average than the rest of that lot by some distance, I'd imagine, with a very light budget to work with. Probably the best points-per-pound manager in the league for managers that have been around for more than one season at a PL club...?

[Psychotic]

Probably the best points-per-pound manager in the league for managers that have been around for more than one season at a PL club...?Fourteenth best, as it happens. (http://transferpriceindex.com/2012/02/all-time-best-managers-versus-transfer-expenditures-an-mxir-analysis/) You're a man who loves statistical analysis so you might enjoy that - sets him pretty much the equal of Mr. Allardyce. You might also enjoy this lovely analysis on the man himself (http://transferpriceindex.com/2011/07/the-declining-fortunes-of-david-moyes-an-mxir-analysis/) and how after a good start he began to underperform based on the funds available. But hey that would go against the myth set out by his mates in the media.

Got any more achievements for him? ;) Perhaps ones more fitting of a club of Manchester United's stature like the ones Jose Mourinho, Carlo Ancelotti or Rafael Benitez (all available this Summer!) have.

[Loony BoB]

I didn't say 'based on transfer expenditure', and the fact that it's the big club managers that dictate that list makes it a laughable example of which manager has done the best with limited finances. Even bloody Mancini is high up on it (although admittedly only four spots above Moyes, it should be noted), and we all know he spent more than a pretty penny!

Anyone who has played Football Manager knows that while a good transfer kitty is nice, there is a massive difference in the revenue a club has when you drop from the Uniteds, the Liverpools and the Arsenals (let alone Chelsea and City) down to the clubs that actually struggle to find a way to pay for a player's wages.

The biggest surprise on that list is indeed Sam Allardyce, though. Never thought he did that well. 14th of 162 PL managers? Huh. Who knew? I will also point out the conclusion of the same writer who put together that article...


For Everton to truly compete with the Big Six they need a much bigger stadium and other sources of revenue to support the spending that is required. In a drive to balance their books and look for additional investors, Moyes and the club will have to go back to the days of a starting XI that costs around £45M and enjoy the financial benefits of weekly wages that are also at lower levels.

In the comments on his article on Moyes, he even concedes that there are definite flaws in the system he is using, such as the Rooney situation. It is a very good system for analysing points per transfer fees paid for players, but does not take into account overall financial situations at the club, nor does it even consider how much net spend was used - only total outgoing expenses.

EDIT: You mention Jose Mourinho, Carlo Ancelotti and Rafael Benitez for a second time after previously admitting yourself that you understand why they didn't go for them? C'mon, dude. Available does not mean a better candidate.

EDIT: After analysing the list a little more, once you take away the managers who have had the luxury of big money at Liverpool, United, City, Chelsea and Arsenal (I would mention Spurs, but there are no Spurs managers above Moyes, ha)...

1. Frank Clark - Nottingham Forest, early 90's, non-comparable.
2. David O'Leary - Leeds United, noted for overspending in a way that is not financially stable.
3. David Moyes - Hi!

[Psychotic]

Well of course it's not a perfect analysis but at the same time it's still researched and calculated to a higher degree than you or I are willing to do, and as such is more accurate than our perceptions of any manager. Either way, yes, better clubs have better budgets and it's a world of difference between them and the teams further down the table... which is precisely why the man is out of his depth!

Also, I know why Benitez wasn't possible, but why not Mourinho, and definitely why not Ancelotti? Why not try and nick Jurgen Klopp off Dortmund? Heck, what Pellegrini did with Villarreal actually matches the pro-Moyes media brigade's vision of what Moyes did with Everton, why not him? Roberto Martinez...? Fabio Capello? Sven, even? While we're talking about England managers, even Steve McClaren has achieved more success than Moyes ever has... and he was assistant at United when they won the treble. ;)

[Loony BoB]

Ancelotti is currently managing Real Madrid, and it may well be that managing Real Madrid is a more attractive job than following up Sir Alex Ferguson. I think he was booked some time ago for this job, too, much like Mourinho was booked some time ago for Chelsea and Moyes was booked some time ago for United.

Mourinho struggles to create attractive attacking football (look at how quickly he has undone the work turning Chelsea into an attractive attacking team last season... this season they have found themselves more and more lacking as time has gone on), prefers to take on short term "projects" and let's face it, he was always going to Chelsea, everyone knew it.

Capello is too old.

I would not have minded any of the above, but I never would have imagined them to happen. Same goes for Guardiola. Martinez was doing okay at the time United were picking their manager, sure, but he had done far, far less than Martinez had done. It should also be noted that while he did lead Wigan to the FA Cup, Wigan were also relegated days afterwards.

The end result, though, is that United wanted Moyes and it's fairly safe to say the people who picked out Moyes had a lot more brain for this than we do. They wanted someone who could provide long term stability at the club and someone that managed things from top to bottom, and that's the kind of person Moyes is. I don't know how true that is for other managers, but Moyes was considered the best fit for United, and given that he's always been touted as one of the candidates for years, I'd say he deserves his shot.

As if you actually think Sven and Steve are better candidates. Didn't you look at the link you just posted earlier? Where are they on that table? :p

[Psychotic]

Oh a cost-effective PL table for 11/12 Ask Norman: The cost-effective Premier League table - ESPN FC (http://espnfc.com/columns/story/_/id/1087025/ask-norman:-the-cost-effective-premier-league-table?cc=5739) if you'd like to do it your way. I can't find one for last year, but yeah. Your boy languishing in 8th. Guess who the manager of the team #1 on that list manages now :D
As if you actually think Sven and Steve are better candidates. Didn't you look at the link you just posted earlier? Where are they on that table? :pSven's higher than Moyes on it xD McClaren has had a lot of success abroad and that isn't recorded on it.

[Loony BoB]

Oh, right, I forgot Sven was in charge of City during their big spending days. Pretty sure he was also considered a failure given how much they spent. :p

Single season stats are not a huge interest to me, let me know which managers end up top over the long term.

Oh, wait, you already posted that list and Moyes was the top candidate of those that weren't managing "big clubs", are still managing today and didn't lead their club into financial ruin. :shobon:

EDIT: Sunderland make more money than Newcastle? O_o

EDITRA: Ohhh, that's "Squad Cost" once more. Dude, that's not "doing it my way", that's exactly the same as the previous way you were doing it. xD

[Old Manus]

We're missing Cuchulainn to be the guy who stands just behind BoB and nods his head while occasionally mouthing "Ya wee :bou::bou::bou::bou:."

[Loony BoB]

Cuch is usually a few steps in front of me saying exactly that, in capital letters. ;)

[Psychotic]

Cuch thinks Moyes is a barrel of wee ballbags and he'd be on my side!

[Bubba]

Well the FA Cup was merely a distraction from all the other competitions we're going to lose in.

[Old Manus]

Now you can concentrate on staying up :smug:

[Old Manus]

<img src="http://home.eyesonff.com/images/eoff_smilies/emot-smug.gif" width="300" >

EDIT okay who turned off HTML :colbert:

[Loony BoB]

Yeah, that happened a while ago. We started with signatures around half a year ago and carried out a phased disabling of HTML throughout the forums, which was completed shortly before the server move.

[Psychotic]

Davey M saying United will not invest in January either. Are you insane? I appreciate it's not necessarily his decision so my question is aimed at whoever's it is. Whoever we want will be available in the Summer! Yeah great but if you're not in the top 4 they won't come to you. Liverpool had bids for Mkhitaryan, Willian and Costa all accepted and all three players turned us down. Daniele De Rossi came out and said he'd have killed himself if he had signed for United. It's only going to get worse if they don't make the CL. On the plus side for them though, both United and Moyes are famous for having strong post-January pushes.

Talking about Liverpool for a nice change, we also need to make a couple of good signings in January, similar to the boost that Sturridge and Coutinho gave us last year. The squad is absolutely paper thin and we've had a lot of injuries - Gerrard, Sturridge, Agger, Sakho, Enrique and Flanagan are currently out, and we've had plenty of other players who have been out on the sidelines too. Of the entire first team squad I think only Henderson, Mignolet and Lucas have been available for every match. When you're having to send on a 19 year old left back for his first team debut on the left wing when you're 2-1 down to Chelsea you know you're in trouble. Oh and someone needs to reassess whatever the hell it is we're doing to our players in training.

[Loony BoB]

He didn't say they won't, to my knowledge, he said it's unlikely because it's tricky to bring in players during this transfer window, something which I thought everyone knew about. The players he's after may well be tied to their CL club and want to wait 'til the end of the season, and one can expect that the agents (let alone players) won't be keen to book into United while there is a lot of uncertainty over next year's Champions League. They'll want to know for sure they aren't leaving a CL club for a non-CL club.

But, for what it's worth, the new chairman is person I hold to blame for last transfer window's absolutely farce. Woodward is awful compared to Gill. Seriously. The guy might be good at the commerce and debt management end, but when it comes to player purchasing I have no faith in him whatsoever.

If you find out how to not get players injured so much, please let us know! xD

[Bubba]

Definitely.

If we aren't gonna make any purchases in this transfer window then it would just be nice to have a squad that doesn't have half it's players in the treatment room.

Current Top 4 to be exactly the same come the end of the season. Just in a different order.

EDIT: In regards to Liverpool, they just seem to have a change of attitude this season. They've always been a team that create chances but it's been their consistency that lets them down. I reckon they're good enough to take third spot this year ahead of Arsenal.

[DK]

the whole "I'm want to play CL football" line that players like to trot out irks me. "oooh I want to play in the CL so i'm going to wait for a call from barca or real or milan!! sorry liverpool/etc"

Okay then so if you're that desperate to play CL football why don't you offer your services to Shaktar? They're in quite a bit. How about Olympiakos! They've pretty much been ever present in the last 20 odd years. No? Thought not. Piss off. Knobheads.

also i have no real desire to talk about david moyes but I found this doing a search for something unrelated, and I'm not really agreeing or disagreeing with the sentiment or claiming that this paper is worth listening to, but, well...when the daily mail gives more respect to people called Abu Mohammed Bin Hamza coming over here and taking our benefits and council houses and plotting to kill us all jihad praise allah...I'm just saying, you've had to have sunk pretty low. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2534438/Martinezs-Everton-ready-Champions-League-Moyes-brainwashed-fans-thinking-8th-good-enough.html)

[Loony BoB]

It's an interesting article, although I'd be quick to ask Martinez what he thought about Wigan getting relegated under his management if he doesn't think you need money in order to succeed. FA Cup or not, they stayed up in previous seasons.

[Psychotic]

The problem with Wigan is that whenever they had good players like Baines, Moses, Valencia and even the likes of Hugo Rodagella, other teams would nick 'em (Wigan not being very glamourous of course) and they'd have to rebuild every year, causing them to be awful up until the last few months of the season once they'd finally gelled.

In happier news, Leicester top of the Championship. It would be incredible to see the Foxes back in the Prem. All this talk of Man United signing Koke amuses me. I got him on loan for Leicester in FIFA 12 and he tore up the Championship along with the mighty Darius Vassell and David Nugent. ...oh god Leicester are the new Cardiff and it's all going to go tits up again isn't it.

[Loony BoB]

Speaking of Koke, damn, Athletico are tearing up La Liga this season!

[Psychotic]

Yeah it's nice to see a change over there. Shame the same can't be said for the Bundesliga, with Bayern systematically dismantling Dortmund player-by-player.

[Loony BoB]

The sad thing is that I fear Real & Barca (amongst others) may inevitably do the same to Athletico.

[Psychotic]

Told a big United supporting coworker that Moyes had been sacked and Fergie would take over for the rest of the season. I shall remember the excitement in his little face as he sprinted over to his PC to check BBC Football, quickly replaced by disgust when he was only greeted with a gigantic picture of Andy Carroll until the day I die. :jess: He was not best pleased that I built his hopes up like that... and he feels the same way about Andy Carroll as our very own Old Manus does.

[Heath]

Sunderland to be a new Birmingham?

[Bubba]

It's definitely true that luck is against you whenever you're playing badly. That was never a penalty. Plus, when I had money on 1-1 I'm doubly annoyed. There is just a complete lack of belief in the squad. I don't see things getting much better in the near future either.

The one bright spot of the night was young Januzaj though. That boy is gonna be world class.

[Cuchulainn]

That really was some dive by Adam Johnston though.

Anyway, I am numbed to our troutness. No words here can hurt me. It's like it's 1989 and I'm 11 all over again watching this dross. I'm going to the same safe place now that I went to then when all the glory hunting Liverpool supporters at school gave me regular trout. There's beer in this safe place. beer and cushions.

Also.

50100

[Shoden]

Oh dear, Man United... What on earth is going wrong :O
I'm HOPING Sunderland do lose in the second leg though, a few of my *cough* Sunderland supporting fr- acquaintances, have been foaming at the mouth with the idea they're going to win silverware... and stay up. :p

Shame Newcastle are so poor in the cups and all. :( CARDIIIIIFF T_T

[Old Manus]

I think this is the first time in my life I can say I'm looking forward to playing United at Old Trafford this weekend. Win or lose, we already won.

It's Chelsea away the week after for the Red Devils...

[Loony BoB]

I don't worry about Chelsea any more than I worry about any other club at the moment. We've lost to sides in the relegation scrap and beaten Arsenal while they were flying high. We've crashed out to Sunderland and Swansea in the national cups, but we've beaten Leverkusen for our best ever away win in our Champions League history. Chelsea? *shrug* Doesn't matter who it is right now, we could win or we could lose. xD

[Bubba]

We've crashed out to Sunderland and Swansea in the national cups

Still got the second leg to go yet! Though if our recent home form is anything to go by then you're probably already correct.

If Rooney and Van Persie are still out when we played Chelsea then I fear there will be only one outcome.

[Heath]

Well, at least West Ham didn't lose 5-0 twice in a row. Though apparently Dzeko thought they had. Bad maths clearly endemic at City.

[Rocket Edge]

I think Jamie Redknapps article said it best that we need an overhaul of the team. We have no proper midfield players or a solid defense anymore. Carrick while good moves like a 40 year old and takes far to much time to make up his mind, plus has tendencies to go missing in games. Fletch is great but just back. The rest are just squad players. The only player who is good enough at the moment is Adnan. Our defense is trout also. It's almost comical at times. Evans isn't good enough. I'd take even someone like Jagielka and expect him to be solid.

The replacements? We need two central midfielders, two CB's (with Vidic going at the end of the season), and a winger. Get out the checkbook Moyes and don't kneejerk into signing the likes of Fellani just because you think the fans expect it. The likes of Oscar, Arteta, Mata didn't cost a bomb - they were from good scouting.

Still believe Moyes can turn it around but there has been many times this season where I think we have no shape and its just route 1 all the time by giving it to Valencia. Our full backs dont even overlap half as much as they used too. Rafael doesn't at all. We need people brought in in January if we expect to get into top 4.

[Loony BoB]

Also, when it comes to signings, don't be afraid to pay "ridiculous" money if you want a ridiculously good player. If (and this is a massive if, I personally don't think it was true) Fabregas was actually available, we should have simply paid whatever was being demanded and be done with it.

Woodward is just the pits when it comes to CEO-ing with player transfers.

[Rocket Edge]

Exactly. Never really understood that one. We pay just shy of 30M on Fellani when another 20 would probably have gotten the Fabregas deal done. No brainer.

[Psychotic]

Oscar cost £20m and Mata £23m. That's a fair old whack! Though I guess you couldn't get a Fellaini or a Carroll for it...

[Old Manus]

You could just about get a Henderson though.

[Cuchulainn]

One of Ferguson's biggest weaknesses was the transfer market. We bought some fucking dross.

Bebe, Mame Biram Diouf, Eric Djemba-Djemba, Kleberson, Manucho, Anderson, Zoran Tosic, Owen Hargreaves, Fangzou Dong, Liam fucking Miller, Bellion.

There's more I'm sure. I won't include flops. No one can really predict those so you can't really blame anyone but fucking hell. That list above. Shoot em all.

[Psychotic]

You could devote a whole chapter to goalkeepers.

[Loony BoB]

I'd say Obertan was a bigger fail than Anderson. Still, as much as you can point to Fergie over those guys, you can also point to his successes. Over time, some will work and some won't... I don't think any manager is perfect in that area. But I can't think of many times he would have said "Fabregas isn't worth £50m, but Fellaini is worth £28m."

[Cuchulainn]

His flops outnumber his successes mate. I'll got back 10 years to make a point. When I say 'Shit' I don't mean theyre shit players, I mean they were shit for us.

David Bellion Sunderland £2,000,000 July 2003 SHIT
Eric Djemba-Djemba Nantes £3,500,000 July 2003 SHIT
Tim Howard New Jersey Metrostars £1,200,000 July 2003 SHIT
Cristiano Ronaldo Sporting Club £12,240,000 August 2003
Kleberson Atletico PR £5,930,000 August 2003 SHIT
Giuseppe Rossi Parma Free July 2004 SHIT
Liam Miller Celtic Free January 2004 SHIT
Louis Saha Fulham £12,825,000 January 2004
Alan Smith Leeds United £7,050,000 May 2004 SHIT
Gabriel Heinze Paris Saint-Germain £6,900,000 June 2004
Gerard Pique Barcelona £5,000,000 May 2004 SHIT
Fangzou Dong Dalian Shide £3,500,000 January 2004 SHIT
Wayne Rooney Everton £25,600,000 August 2004
Ji-Sung Park PSV Eindhoven £4,000,000 July 2005
Edwin van der Sar Fulham £2,000,000 July 2005
Ben Foster Stoke City £1,000,000 July 2005 SHIT
Nemanja Vidic Spartak Moscow £7,200,000 January 2006
Patrice Evra AS Monaco £5,500,000 January 2006
Michael Carrick Tottenham Hotspur £18,600,000 July 2006
Henrik Larsson Helsingborgs Loan January 2007 SHIT
Owen Hargreaves Bayern Munich £17,000,000 July 2007 SHIT
Tomasz Kuszczak West Bromwich Albion £4,000,000 July 2007 SHIT
Nani Sporting Club £17,300,000 July 2007 SEMI-SHIT
Anderson FC Porto £20,400,000 July 2007 SHIT
Carlos Tévez Corinthians Loan August 2007
Federico Macheda Lazio Free September 2007 SHIT
Manucho Petro Atlético Unknown August 2008 SHIT
Rodrigo Possebon Internacional Unknown August 2008 SHIT
Rafael da Silva Fluminense £2,600,000 August 2008
Fabio da Silva Fluminense £2,600,000 August 2008 SHIT
Dimitar Berbatov Tottenham Hotspur £30,750,000 September 2008 SEMI-SHIT
Zoran Tosic Partizan FK £7,000,000 January 2009 SHIT
Ritchie De Laet Stoke City Unknown January 2009 SHIT
Antonio Valencia Wigan Athletic £16,000,000 June 2009
Michael Owen Newcastle United Free July 2009 SHIT
Gabriel Obertan Bordeaux £3,000,000 July 2009 SHIT
Mame Biram Diouf Molde FK £2,000,000 July 2009 SHIT
Chris Smalling Fulham £10,000,000 January 2010
Javier Hernández Deportivo Guadalajara £6,000,000 July 2010
Bebe Guimaraes £7,400,000 August 2010 SHIT
Anders Lindegaard Aalesunds FK £3,500,000 November 2010 SHIT
Phil Jones Blackburn Rovers £17,000,000 June 2011
Ashley Young Aston Villa £16,000,000 June 2011 SHIT
David de Gea Atletico Madrid £18,000,000 June 2011
Shinji Kagawa Borussia Dortmund £12,000,000 June 2012 SEMI-SHIT
Nick Powell Crewe Alexandra £4,000,000 June 2012 SHIT
Robin van Persie Arsenal £24,000,000 August 2012
Alexander Buttner Vitesse £3,900,000 August 2012 SHIT
Ángelo Henríquez Universidad de Chile £4,000,000 August 2012 If seen please do not approach but contact Old Trafford immediately)
Wilfried Zaha Crystal Palace £15,000,000 January 2013 MISSING

[Old Manus]

Phil Jones Blackburn Rovers £17,000,000 June 2011 shitfixed

[Loony BoB]

Gerard Pique was not shit for us. I remember he had one bad game - and I think he played at right back - but beyond that he was brilliant. SAF didn't want to sell but Pique had made up his mind already. I would take him over any of our current central defenders.

Berbatov was not shit, although he was frustrating. But then, so was Ronaldo a lot of the time.

Lindegaard hasn't been shit. Probably the best backup keeper we've had that I can remember, as much as I did love Scrabble (who also had potential but was never going to get a run while we had VDS).

Disagree about Kagawa being even semi-shit.

Powell, in the very few games he has played for us, has been a worthy squad player at worst and a remnant of the old Gerrard at best. Can score great goals and is competent considering his age. I can see him being a third/fourth choice midfielder for us in the future (keep in mind we generally have six or seven at our club). If he does well, maybe even better.

Buttner hasn't been shit. I'm told he was one of our better players in recent games and in the early games I saw him play in, he was great.

Jones definitely hasn't been shit for us this season, Manus.

[Psychotic]

BoB you are such an optimist about your team. You remind me of a Liverpool fan, God Bless You. I've actually heard a couple of United fans say they'll come back and win the league next season.... could next year be Their Year? ;)

On Kagawa, here's a quote that's been doing the rounds on the internet from Alex Ferguson: "In moments he could be sublime. Talent-wise there was absolutely nothing wrong with him. He had two fine feet, he could run, his control was magnificent, his vision was brilliant - he just couldn't fit into the team."

He's talking about Juan Sebastian Veron, but, yeah.

Mind you it's obvious that Park, Kagawa and especially Dong were bought to shift shirts in Asia. I'm not saying they were bad footballers - well, the last one certainly was! - but it was clearly a huge element of why they were signed. Dong cost £3.5m... how much Manchester United merchandise was shifted in China because of him? More than £3.5m? Probably. The Liverpool PR machine is doing a large number on some 14 year old Indian kid we have, setting up an official LFC India Twitter and everything. Gotta play the game - and I don't mean football.

Incidentally I saw ITV's the Bundesliga show the other day and I spied Mame Biriam Diouf knocking in a few goals. I thought he seemed quite handy :shobon:

[Cuchulainn]

Bob do you actually watch the games?

[Loony BoB]

Not every single one, but most, yes! For those I don't get to see, I watch highlights and I read up on what people and the media thought of their games.

To put Kagawa - a Bundesliga player of the year - and say "he was bought to sell shirts" is insulting and borderline racist. I mean, you may as well say that Ronaldo by Real Madrid was bought to sell shirts, considering that's exactly how they pay his wages (when they bought him, they declared it doesn't matter that he cost £80m because they would make that back in shirt sales alone).

I'd say Park proved over many years that he proved himself just as much.

Dong I can't argue against. xD

And yeah, Diouf has been touted as a potential target for Newcastle or Spurs, I think... I forget.

EDIT: Rose-tinted glasses? Maybe, but I'm certainly not going around saying we can win the league. No chance. Next year? God knows. I'm not expecting it. Obviously every fan hopes, though. I'm naturally optimistic, though, not just about football. I just try to see the best in situations. As for the players, I stand by it all. :p

[Cuchulainn]

I've already stated that Kagawa (an others such as Forlan and Veron) are good players, they've just been shit for us.

[Loony BoB]

I think it's harsh to say he's been shit for us. He's barely had a run because of the Rooney & RVP obsession, but in the games he has played he's had no more off days than the likes of RVP as far as I'm concerned. RVP has days where he basically does nothing, so does Kagawa. RVP has games where he does amazingly, so does Kagawa. RVP has good runs, but Kagawa is never allowed to have a good run because even when he scored three (or was it four?) goals he was dropped for the next game if I recall correctly.

[Psychotic]

I never said that was the only reason why they bought Kagawa and I never said he was a bad footballer, get off your high horse. :greenie: Race doesn't come into it. However, if you think him being from the lucrative Far East market is not a factor in why they chose him over other players, especially given United's track history of buying players located in that key market, then you don't understand how football works as a business. :p

And yes, that is exactly why Ronaldo was bought by Real Madrid. It's precisely why they've bought Beckham, Owen and Gareth Bale - they know the media hype that comes with buying a British player. United and Real are two clubs that are all about the marketing - and it works. I wish Liverpool's marketing machine was as slick as United's in the early 90's as maybe the club wouldn't have had 20 years of nearlys and almosts.

[Loony BoB]

So basically what you're getting at is that Kagawa and Park were bought for their shirt sales no more than pretty much any other high profile player? Why not mention the non-Asian players when you bring that stuff up? That's why I feel it was a borderline racist (not outright racist, otherwise I wouldn't have said "borderline", I know you aren't racist) comment. You seemed to corner it to an Asian thing instead of mentioning the many other high profile players that are bought every day by all kinds of clubs as if it were an unusual thing.

I don't think it was the reason Kagawa was bought over other players, though. Many people see the Bundesliga as the best league in terms of "how it should be" these days, and to buy the best player in one of the best three leagues in the world is not "oh, it's just because he sells shirts more than the others." I'd like to know which others were available for an equal price and wage while maintaining the overall football quality that Kagawa had. He was the best player in the Bundesliga and we got him for a bargain for someone of that stature. I can't think of anyone else that, at that point, would have offered as much bang for our buck outside of players being bought on a free (hi, RVP).

[Psychotic]

Well to clarify, certain teams seem to have certain markets they are targeting. United love Asia, Real Madrid's president loves the British media (and it, Liverpool are randomly hugely popular in Norway and Denmark, hence why we seem to have Norwegians and Danes in the squad - haven't had a Norwegian in a few years actually, need to rectify it!

Kagawa did indeed tear up the Bundesliga but then I think if he was German, United might not have gone in for him. They still might've, we'll never know, but if you think it wasn't factored into their decision to buy this player who, however good he is, clearly does not fit into the United style of play, you're naive. It's not racism on my part, it's racism on United's :p I'm just observing and noting their behaviour.

Still, you may be able to justify him and maybe even Park (though he should've been shifted a couple of years before he was. Though I guess I could say that for half the United midfield. How the hell is Anderson still a United player) as players but you can't Dong.

[Loony BoB]

Kagawa did indeed tear up the Bundesliga but then I think if he was German, United might not have gone in for him.
This is possibly true, but only because getting a German player out of the German league is about as tricky as getting an English player out of the English league. Home grown rules and all that.


They still might've, we'll never know, but if you think it wasn't factored into their decision to buy this player who, however good he is, clearly does not fit into the United style of play, you're naive. It's not racism on my part, it's racism on United's :p I'm just observing and noting their behaviour.
I don't know if that's true, I think he does fit into United's style of play quite easily. The fact that he's scored a hattrick in his first season, scored more goals than any other midfielder last season despite having a low number of starts compared to the others, is constantly begged to get more starts from the fans and also was one of the starring players in our best performances this season says that he is very much a United player. Kagawa's problem is that him doing well requires he and Rooney playing and interchanging and it is very rare that SAF played them in tangent because of RVP's fantastic season, and as for Moyes, well... I don't know! He won't play the player who was our best person on the pitch during our best performance on the pitch under Moyes. This is a criticism I do hold against Moyes.

Still, you may be able to justify him and maybe even Park (though he should've been shifted a couple of years before he was. Though I guess I could say that for half the United midfield. How the hell is Anderson still a United player) as players but you can't Dong.
I don't think anyone in the world would say Dong was anything but a shirtseller. xD I do wonder if he even managed to sell many shirts.

[Heath]

I don't think anyone in the world would say Dong was anything but a shirtseller. xD I do wonder if he even managed to sell many shirts.

I haven't been rushing out to buy a shirt with a Dong on it.

[Psychotic]

If Suarez can score on a wet January day away to Stoke he is officially the best player in the world. On current form he's already destroying Messi and Ronaldo's goals-per-game this season (this is not a troll, he genuinely is hammering them) but that's not important. What is important is scoring away against Stoke and I don't know if he can do it. We're trout against Stoke.

[Heath]

As an Evertonian, it naturally pains me to say it - but Suarez is probably the best player in the league this season. I don't think Liverpool are a one-man team, but I'd be interested to see where they'd be without him.

Stoke away isn't an easy game. We literally scraped a point there with a penalty in the last minute.

We've got Norwich at home, which is always one of those games which looks superficially easy but probably won't be. They ruined my birthday last year by beating us 2-1 in a game I assumed we'd win reasonably comfortably.

[Bubba]

I stand by what I said in that Januzaj is world class. When he hits puberty then the premier league better watch out.

To the game, we were poor first half. Better second half and an early goal always helps. Not holding out much for a result at Stamford Bridge next weekend but you never know.

[Cuchulainn]

If Suarez can score on a wet January day away to Stoke he is officially the best player in the world. On current form he's already destroying Messi and Ronaldo's goals-per-game this season (this is not a troll, he genuinely is hammering them) but that's not important. What is important is scoring away against Stoke and I don't know if he can do it. We're trout against Stoke.

He is nowhere near as good as those two. Behave yourself.

[Loony BoB]

Yeah, I wouldn't put Suarez even close to Messi or Ronaldo, but when it comes to the league as it is right now, I don't think there's much "probably" about it, I'd say he's easily been playing better than anyone in the league this season so far.

[Psychotic]

If Suarez can score on a wet January day away to Stoke he is officially the best player in the world. On current form he's already destroying Messi and Ronaldo's goals-per-game this season (this is not a troll, he genuinely is hammering them) but that's not important. What is important is scoring away against Stoke and I don't know if he can do it. We're trout against Stoke.

He is nowhere near as good as those two. Behave yourself.If he was a Man United player you'd proclaim him as better than Maradona.

[Cuchulainn]

If Suarez can score on a wet January day away to Stoke he is officially the best player in the world. On current form he's already destroying Messi and Ronaldo's goals-per-game this season (this is not a troll, he genuinely is hammering them) but that's not important. What is important is scoring away against Stoke and I don't know if he can do it. We're trout against Stoke.

He is nowhere near as good as those two. Behave yourself.If he was a Man United player you'd proclaim him as better than Maradona.

There's been plenty of United players though our many many championship wins and I've said that about none of them bar the only one previously mentioned.

Suarez is a talent. Best in the premier league but he's nowhere near Ronaldo and Messi. Suarez disappears in most big games. I seen a stat about his goals this season alone. I think there's only against TWO teams in the top half of the table (Everton & Tottenham) which hints that there's a bit of a flat track bully about him.

Until he shows up in big games regularly he'll always be just below the best in the world. He's a phenomenal talent regardless, however. Complete rat faced, racist :bou::bou::bou::bou: of a ball bag, but a talent nonetheless.

[Old Manus]

Re Kagawa. I watched him today and he was absolute dog. I'm not even bitter either. I've never paid much attention to him until people on twitter started baying for Moyes to start playing him, and now I have no idea why.

[Cuchulainn]

he's a top, top player who excelled in Germany at the highest level. It's just not working out for him with us for reasons unknown. It happens. Some great players don't work out at some clubs.

[DK]

Luis hands down the player of the season so far and any discussion to the contrary is wrong. Got nothing else to add. Luis is a badman.

[DK]

in other news, big andy returns with a jihad beard, west ham win, kiss his lips James Hornby :colbert:

[Psychotic]

If Suarez can score on a wet January day away to Stoke he is officially the best player in the world. On current form he's already destroying Messi and Ronaldo's goals-per-game this season (this is not a troll, he genuinely is hammering them) but that's not important. What is important is scoring away against Stoke and I don't know if he can do it. We're trout against Stoke.

He is nowhere near as good as those two. Behave yourself.If he was a Man United player you'd proclaim him as better than Maradona.

There's been plenty of United players though our many many championship wins and I've said that about none of them bar the only one previously mentioned.

Suarez is a talent. Best in the premier league but he's nowhere near Ronaldo and Messi. Suarez disappears in most big games. I seen a stat about his goals this season alone. I think there's only against TWO teams in the top half of the table (Everton & Tottenham) which hints that there's a bit of a flat track bully about him.

Until he shows up in big games regularly he'll always be just below the best in the world. He's a phenomenal talent regardless, however. Complete rat faced, racist :bou::bou::bou::bou: of a ball bag, but a talent nonetheless.If we're going to use the "this season" caveat, then in goals-per-game he's outscored Ronaldo and Messi by some way. Let's talk about the last 18 months though...

Suarez goal vs Manchester City - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK23c7TJPMk)
Liverpool VS Chelsea Suarez Goal - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeNA4pY5DKc)
Suarez goal v arsenal 30/1/13 - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcI5tkk7c-A)

In the past couple of seasons he's scored against 5 of the top 6 teams in the country. He plays for the 6th. :monster:

[Cuchulainn]

I said he's a great player mate. He's not better than Ronaldo and Messi. Simple. He never will be. He falls into the group just below that with Ribery, Ibra etc.

Right now it's between him and Hazard for player of the season. We'll see how the second half pans out.

[Psychotic]

Ooh, good call. I think Zlatan is probably better than Suarez, I do love Zlatan. Wish he played in the Premier League. Anyway I'm just saying this stuff because we're shit against Stoke and I need some football related enjoyment in my life this weekend okay :(

[Old Manus]

in other news, big andy returns with a jihad beard, west ham win, kiss his lips James Hornby :colbert:The beard is surely in place as a means of using the extra counterweight to stop him falling over.

[Bubba]

Well, you need luck to win the league. City definitely got that today.

...and Liverpool just now.

[Psychotic]

I don't think it's lucky to have Crouch and Adam score against you :argh:

[Bubba]

True... it's been a cracking game so far though! Bring on the second half.

[Psychotic]

Like I said, we suck shit against Stoke. :monster:

[Cuchulainn]

Raheem Stirling's quite the diver. 2 games today decided by shit refereeing.

If fact refereeing all season's been shit

[Psychotic]

What a fucking game. Jesus christ. On edge the entire time. A really good result - shame about the defence being pap.
Raheem Stirling's quite the diver. Well, I guess as a United fan you'd know all about diving. Man Utd's Januzaj is No 2 in list of Premier League's all-time divers | Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2532542/Adnan-Januzaj-second-booked-Premier-League-player-simulation-just-14-games-Manchester-United.html) :greenie:

[Heath]

I'm quite looking forward to seeing that game on Match of the Day 2 this evening! Fair play to Stoke for giving it such a good go though.

[Cuchulainn]

What a smurfing game. Jesus christ. On edge the entire time. A really good result - shame about the defence being pap.
Raheem Stirling's quite the diver. Well, I guess as a United fan you'd know all about diving. Man Utd's Januzaj is No 2 in list of Premier League's all-time divers | Mail Online (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2532542/Adnan-Januzaj-second-booked-Premier-League-player-simulation-just-14-games-Manchester-United.html) :greenie:

That's some Whataboutery there mate.

[Psychotic]

Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? :p

In all honesty though, yeah, dive. Very soft penalty. Still, I don't feel bad. Stoke are the smurfing worst team and deserve to be smurfed over. I know we had a cast iron penalty against Stoke not given last season, and Huth stamped on Suarez's chest and got away with it in the same game. troutty decisions will forever plague football. You win some, you lose some. We owed Stoke that. We owe Chelsea a few too. I think Everton are owed a few against us though, sorry Heath :shobon:

[Jess]

Tiote's amazing disallowed goal. :mad2:

[Heath]

I think Everton are owed a few against us though, sorry Heath :shobon:

I agree - though in fairness we've both had some dodgy decisions in derby matches; look at last season's Goodison derby when you had a legitimate goal disallowed. I think (what a surprise!) that Everton have been the unluckier though.

Clattenburg didn't referee another Everton game after the 2007 derby (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/7043002.stm) for 5 years, and didn't referee a game at Goodison until a few weeks back, against Southampton, I think. Still got booed all game though. :D

Edit:
Tiote's amazing disallowed goal. :mad2:

Having just watched MotD2 - I agree with the commentator. The only way it could be classed as interference by the other Newcastle player was if Hart thought Tiote's shot was going to hit him. That's really harsh, and I'd say ducking out of the way of the shot is not interfering, really.

[Psychotic]

Watching motd. Tiote decision was awful and I was expecting to come into this with sympathy for them but fuck that, Newcastle deserved it. They then spent the entire game kicking the City team and the ref let them do what they want out of guilt. The foul on Nasri was one of the worst I've ever seen. When shirt tugs and two kicks doesn't bring him down Yanga-Mbiwa deliberately fucking scissors him and it looks like Nasri has been severely injured. Disgusting.

Also Alan Pardew and his cockney screaming at the ref had tears rolling down my face.

[Heath]

Also Alan Pardew and his cockney screaming at the ref had tears rolling down my face.

Oh absolutely. It's up there with Drogba's post-CL semi final outburst a few years ago.

[Shoden]

The insanity of the ref decisions of that game was beyond a joke D: the disallowed goal decision let the pressure build and build. Surprised None of our players got sent off after crippling what, 3 of their players?
Either way to come out with just a 2-0 defeat to a team worth about 100x that of our own isn't too bad I suppose.
Pardew's outbursts were... something xD he called Pellegrini an old c- (OOPS)

[Psychotic]

Glad Ronaldo beat Messi for the Ballon D'or - he deserves it more. Deserved it last year too. Still, Xavi and Iniesta in the world team of the year? Christ, it's not 2009 anymore. Did no-one watch the ungodly spanking Bayern delivered? Schweinsteiger, Toure and Kevin Nolan are all more deserving.

[AssassinDX]

I agree with you, although Kevin Nolan might be taking it a bit far. It's Barca brown-nosing for the sake of it really, but at least Ronaldo got the recognition he deserves this season. In years to come when I look back on the Messi vs Ronaldo debate I'll most likely side with Messi overall, but this year Ronaldo has murdered him in almost every statistic.

[Loony BoB]

Ramos, too. I'd say it's more "Real Madrid & Barcelona" brown nosing than anything. Those two clubs seem to have some man in FIFA ensuring they are safe to pretty much everything. I'll respect them a lot more when they aren't effectively the Celtic & Rangers of Scotland. Well. Before Rangers crashed. You know what I mean. :p

I will say however that it just makes Athletico's achievements all the more impressive.

[Psychotic]

Athletico haven't achieved anything yet. :p Hey BoB, who was the last non-Barca/Real team to win the Spanish league? And who was their manager? He must've been pretty good.

[Loony BoB]

Yeah, I know! Still someone who completely lost it in front of a worldwide audience not once but twice, though.

EDIT: Perhaps "lost it" is a tad extreme. He "had Keegan moments"?

EDITRA: Also, say what you like about Athletico, but their W/D/L ratio is insanely good at the moment.

[Old Manus]

I have no idea but somebody told me that that team of the year thing is voted for by players, and it happens that neither the Germans nor the Brits care that much about it. As much as I hate Suarez, it's horseshit he isn't in the team though. Shit, I know it's Ronaldo and Messi, but fuck it, play with four forwards. With those up front you don't need a defence.

[Heath]

I have no idea but somebody told me that that team of the year thing is voted for by players, and it happens that neither the Germans nor the Brits care that much about it. As much as I hate Suarez, it's horsetrout he isn't in the team though. trout, I know it's Ronaldo and Messi, but smurf it, play with four forwards. With those up front you don't need a defence.

I don't know how the team is voted for, but the Balon d'Or is a mixture of national team captains, coaches, and media:

The full votes are available online. (http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/ballond'or/playeroftheyear(men)/02/26/02/68/fboaward_menplayer2013_neutral.pdf) (:hattip: Grauniad (http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/jan/13/ballon-dor-ronaldo-v-messi-v-ribry-live-report))

Steven Gerrard, as England's captain, gave Suarez his third choice, while the other two English voters were Henry Winter for the media, and Roy Hodgson. Only two PL players between their nine votes - Suarez by Gerrard, and Hodgson picked Van Persie as his third choice.

As far as I can tell, each country is weighted equally.

Also: Gareth Bale in 'coming top in two out of three sets of Welsh votes' shocker.

[Loony BoB]

Essentially, all the PL clubs need to do in order to really get things moving towards a PL member being in the running is to start bringing in a lot of international captains to the PL, meaning those that favour players in their own club/league will vote for PL players.

So, let's bring them all in, starting with Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. Actually, might just leave it at that.

[Cuchulainn]

Glad Ronaldo beat Messi for the Ballon D'or - he deserves it more. Deserved it last year too. Still, Xavi and Iniesta in the world team of the year? Christ, it's not 2009 anymore. Did no-one watch the ungodly spanking Bayern delivered? Schweinsteiger, Toure and Kevin Nolan are all more deserving.

I agree with Nolan but you can go tae fuck with Schweinsteiger and Toure

[Loony BoB]

On a random note, Final Fantasy Football - Uncyclopedia, the content-free encyclopedia (http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Final_Fantasy_Football) gave me quite the chuckle.

"WAGs stands for White-mages And Girlfriends"

"For instance, many of the best players are unaffordable early on, and traditionally every team must include at least one Cid."

"Back Row (DF) - The back row are your defenders, and thus, you may want to give them your best armour. The most overlooked of football players, they spend much of the game hanging around at the back, relaxing. Their only real skill is steal, which allows them to steal the ball, though at later levels they can also use mug, a technique that is not supported by the Football Association."

[Rocket Edge]

The team of the year is a joke and has been for the past few seasons. It's just basicly players voting for their team-mates, yet the English players don't even seem to take it seriously. Delighted Ronny won though he deserved it.

Lets pick our own teams of the year:

GK: Neuer
DF: Alaba, Kompany, Koscielny, Lahm
MD: Messi, Bale, Ozil, Ronaldo
FD: Suarez, Van Persie

That was just off-hand. :p

[Bubba]

GK: De Gea
DF: Evra, Vidic, Smalling, Raphael
MD: Young, Carrick, Cleverley, Valencia
FD: Rooney, Van Persie

[Shoden]

Glad to see Newcastle play and not have a bad decision off the ref deny them a potential game changing goal.
That last minute free kick from Cabaye was glorious and more importantly I must ask what's wrong with Andy Carroll :( what have West Ham done to him?
Oh and what's with the name change? XD

[Old Manus]

It seems that clearly and obviously diving when being challenged by a keeper is now not only perfectly acceptable, but even the right thing to do according to football commentators.

[Bubba]

Liverpool weren't at their best yesterday but also, that's the best I've seen Villa play all season. A draw was probably the right result even though that was never a penalty.

Today feels weird already. It's the first time for as long as I can remember watching Utd that I give us no hope of coming away with any points. The best we can hope for is to try and stifle them, maybe catch them on the counter with Valencia, Wellbeck and Januzaj. Honestly though, we 're not solid enough at the back to stop them from scoring.

[Cuchulainn]

I'm just going to put on my mid-80s white away kit again. Yea it's a boys size but fuck he consequences I'm already back there mentally.

Every season hoping for a decent cup run...Moyes. What a fucking clueless wanker.

[Heath]

Oh, that cruel moment when you think you've won it with an injury time winner and the goal is (rightfully) ruled offside. :(

[Psychotic]

Finally! Something more exciting in this transfer window than Grant bloody Holt! £35m for Mata? Iiiiiiinteresting. I did say United needed to splurge in this transfer window! However, I wonder if he may be Kagawa 2.0. Great player but I can't help but wonder where he'd play in United's system and think they'd be better off buying a more central midfielder in the mold of Yaya Toure so that they never have to play Tom Cleverley again! Either way, I'm glad SOMETHING of note is happening.

[Loony BoB]

I think Mata is more versatile than Kagawa, and certainly more acclimatised to the English game. Twice player of the season at Chelsea is nothing to turn your nose up at, and we do need a quality winger and a consistently creative midfielder which is something he can cover both of. Would still like to see an amazing central midfielder but I actually agree with Moyes that if they simply aren't available right now then we shouldn't rush anything through.

My only concern with Mata is that it seems he is frustrated at a lack of first team opportunities and I always question when we buy someone because they can't get a game elsewhere. It becomes a question of whether we are looking for not the top players but the next level down. Still, I think Mata being 25 years old with two player of the seasons in the bag for Chelsea means that he's not "lost it" just yet.

I still would like to see some other signings than Mata, but I can accept that sometimes these things just aren't that simple, particularly during the January transfer window and particularly when many are cup tied in UEFA and many are simply wanting to wait and see where United end up after 38 games.

I can see Chelsea simply shrugging and saying "no" throughout this transfer window at the very least, though.

EDIT: In other news, 6-8 weeks out for Lucas is a massive blow for Liverpool considering how they struggled without him in the recent Villa game, he really turned them around. In other other news, Mancini gives a massive gift to headline writers around the world as he writes everything but "on Rock and Roll" out for them.

[Old Manus]

This could be Chelsea's Fabregas/Nasri. Why sell one of your best players to a rival who only needs one or two big players to usurp you? I don't think Chelsea need the money.

That said, unlike Arsenal with Fabregas, Chelsea seem to be doing just fine with him picking out splinters. I'm also interested to see how Moyes would fit him into his system. If AVB, Benitez and Mourinho couldn't figure out what to do with him, I don't hold out much hope for David Moyes.

[Loony BoB]

AVB/Benitez/Mourinho couldn't work out what to do with him? I dunno. I think Mourinho knows what to do with him but prefers Hazard and Oscar in those positions so that's that. Mata managed to get 20 goals and 35 assists last season in 60 games and he's got 3 goals in 10 games for Spain last year, too. I wouldn't say this is a player that managers can't figure out what to do with, because whatever they did with him it sure seemed to work last season/year.

[Bubba]

Hmmm... I honestly didn't expect any kind of business for Utd this window. We would definitely be paying over the odds. The rejection from Chelsea will be reasonably swift, I reckon. There's no way they'd let him go for less than £40M. Still, I think our situation is desperate enough that we should pay it though.

Like BoB says, he's proven in the Premier League. He's not particularly defensive minded which isn't the best. Unless Fletch returns to full fitness, we're also gonna need a holding midfielder as well. Anything to protect our back four which is the worst I've seen for Utd in a number of years. Mata will help the cause but there's too many other areas requiring improvement for it to have a massive effect.

I'm not convinced Chelsea will sell at all.

[Loony BoB]

I genuinely don't think £35m is over the odds in today's market, unless you're basically saying the obvious thing that every single player out there is bought over the odds when purchased by a big enough club.

I agree that Chelsea will likely say no, but then, there are already rumours about that Mata is heading up for a medical. God knows. I'd be delighted if we do get him, though, regardless of him not being a holding midfielder. When you need 3-4 great players, the first one is merely one less player we need.

[Psychotic]

My only concern with Mata is that it seems he is frustrated at a lack of first team opportunities and I always question when we buy someone because they can't get a game elsewhere. It becomes a question of whether we are looking for not the top players but the next level down. Still, I think Mata being 25 years old with two player of the seasons in the bag for Chelsea means that he's not "lost it" just yet.I would say he only can't get a game because he doesn't suit Mourinho's style of play. What do Hazard, Willian and Oscar have in abundance? Pace and power. Mata's more of a silky gentle kind of player.

Still, this also goes against your desire for a winger. Mata aint a winger in the United sense - bombing up and down the wings, spamming crosses like it's going out of style. He's a "winger" in the Benitez sense in that he's an AMF who cuts inside. I've never seen United utilise a player like that except for when they stick Kagawa out there. United would have to totally revamp their playing style if putting him on the wing is the goal. Not that it's necessarily a bad thing, mind you, but it's not a change that will happen overnight. On that subject, I also don't get the comments about Rafa not knowing what to do with him because he was Chelsea's best player under Rafa and spoke out about he brought out the best in him. YES I'M A RAFA FANBOY I PAY ATTENTION TO THESE THINGS OK :shobon:
This could be Chelsea's Fabregas/Nasri. Why sell one of your best players to a rival who only needs one or two big players to usurp you? I don't think Chelsea need the money.One theory doing the rounds is Financial Fair Play. If you've got £35m-£40m coming in you can immediately go and spunk it on Falcao or whatever shiny bauble is in this week.

[Heath]

I was also going to disagree about Benitez not getting the best out of Mata. Then I realised that sounded like praise for Benitez.

I think I need a lie down and a cup of tea :(

[Old Manus]

:tumbleweed:

[Crop]

Ugh.

[Cuchulainn]

When I started supporting United Liverpool fans were the glory hunters.


ANYWAY

Breaking News: Juan Mata has been arrested after attempting a U-turn on the M6

50961

[Shoden]

Well then... What a penalty shootout that was...

[Bubba]

In the words of Patches O'Houlihan... it was like watching a bunch of retards trying to fuck a doorknob.

[Loony BoB]

Negative notes: Last night, from the 60th minute onwards, was probably the worst I have seen a proper first team play at United in a decade or so of watching them. It was that bad. It wasn't through lack of hard work by some players, but sadly - Smalling excepted - those players were not having a good night (hi, Hernandez) despite their efforts and their passes and control were horrid. They body language displayed by our team was at times pretty bad, too. There was notably a distinct lack of leadership in the side - the only player I saw consistently ordering other players around was Jonny Evans. I have no idea how good he is as a leader, but we need more players capable of doing that. Januzaj, Hernandez, Kagawa, Welbeck, Buttner, Rafael, Smalling... none of these guys are likely to be motivating the others or chastising them when they cock up, they're just not those kind of players. Fletcher and Carrick, not sure. De Gea has his moments but he's not that strong just yet. It was one of those rare occasions when I was really hoping Giggs would get brought on.

Neutral notes: The first 50-60 minutes weren't amazing but there were strong attacks and we weren't at our worst, either. I will point out that we were most definitely at our best when Kagawa was in the hole. It wasn't Rooney-level quality he provided, but he provided the best final ball of any of our players. Januzaj had the best moments of our attackers by some distance when you consider "quality AND quantity", but he struggled massively when put into the hole at the time when Kagawa was put on the wing, and he made some really poor mistakes to balance out the quality. Kagawa was taken off on the 60th minute, and suddenly we would get to just outside their box and kind of pass it sideways a lot, nobody was making a run and nobody was making a great pass. It was painful to watch.

Positive notes: We still won the match. If it were a Premier League game we'd have won 1-0, if it were a Champions League tie we'd have gone through before extra time kicked in, and the second they hit a goal in we didn't give up and we snatched one back immediately. Also, this Mata stuff is looking like it will actually happen! Juan Mata (get it?) sorted, just about five other Matas to take care of after this.

Was a rough game to watch, really hard to take watching us play that badly. I tried to focus on Mata's probable signing and on NZ's victory over India in the cricket, of which highlights were playing just before the United match on Sky. Yay!

EDIT: Dammit, not again. I'm closing that other thread, I keep getting confused. *moves a couple of posts over*

[Bubba]

Dammit, not again. I'm closing that other thread, I keep getting confused. *moves a couple of posts over*

:shobon:

[Psychotic]

I think this could have a big impact on United. The players who missed penalties - and De Gea, who made that clanger to let Sunderland back in - are all relatively young and yet also some of, in my opinion, United's best performers this season. I've never seen a worse penalty shoot out and the pressure on the club is clearly weighing heavily on them right now. I wonder if that failure is going to destroy the confidence of a couple of them for a while and turn them into Fellainis.

[Loony BoB]

It can be a real confidence destruction but I do believe that most of them have gone through some pretty devestating losses and come back stronger from them, too. Most of this group were there when we lost the title in the last minutes two years ago, let's not forget.

Any professional football player should be well aware how much of a lottery penalty shootouts can be. I don't think any of them would suddenly think themselves that much lesser a person because they failed to get one specific penalty on target. Not to mention that few (none?) of them are actually our preferred penalty takers - they are traditionally RVP, Rooney, Giggs and Nani. None of them were on the pitch, sadly.

[Psychotic]

You don't have to defend them, Daniel, it wasn't a criticism. :p Any human being would feel awful, no matter how many times they've gone through that sort of thing.

Anyway, I don't get how you can say shoot outs are a lottery and then say a reason for defeat was because your best takers weren't on the pitch ;)

[Shoden]

Sunderland are a team who will crunch at the hand at any opportunity given, seriously they're so easy to underestimate and laugh at and they can just as easily snatch a well fought albeit mucky victory from the jaws of defeat. There's been street parties and everything round here because they won the semi finals and personally I'd like to see them smothered by Man City in the finals but, it goes to show that some teams can be the unlikeliest victors... even though Man U played terrible and I was laughing sadistically and evily at the whole thing... :p
Hrrr... SORRY... ITS TRUE...

Oh and did any one see the news article about the drunkard phoning the police demanding to speak to Sir Alex Ferguson after? XD had me in tears laughing!!

[Loony BoB]

Anyway, I don't get how you can say shoot outs are a lottery and then say a reason for defeat was because your best takers weren't on the pitch ;)
I just did! I can achieve the impossible if I try hard enough, that's what I learned from watching TV.

[Psychotic]

Just believe in yourself!

Anyway, Johnson now following Lucas and indeed half the squad to the treatment table. In fact in think our entire first choice back 4 is out now, no wonder we've been shipping goals like crazy. Skrtel is a player who will either have a season where he is an unstoppable beast, or one where he casually invites the opposition strikers round our goal for tea and a hat trick... and this season is the latter. He's still miles better than the hapless Cissokho who makes me long for Djimi Traore he is actually that poor.

And yet... no transfers in! Even a loan til the end of the season would do! What the smurf is going on? Prediction: unless LFC bring in two or three first team players in this window, all the good work we did at the start of the season will be undone and 7th is the best we can hope for.

[Loony BoB]

I think so long as Suarez is fit, anything could happen for Liverpool. If he got a long time on the sidelines then I think it would be a test on par with RVP & Rooney's absence at United. Depends on how long, though.

[Bubba]

Yeah, I still think you're strong enough to make the top four. It depends on how serious Everton and Tottenham's challenges are. I can't see either of them finishing ahead of you.

At least it's only defence where you're having issues. Our only strong area of the pitch (other then De Gea) is up front where we have Rooney and Van Persie.

Oh wait, no we don't.

[Psychotic]

I think so long as Suarez is fit, anything could happen for Liverpool. If he got a long time on the sidelines then I think it would be a test on par with RVP & Rooney's absence at United. Depends on how long, though.We're alright without him - so long as Sturridge is fit! Sturridge scores just as often as Suarez does, although he's also had injury blights. Suarez seems relatively tough in comparison with Sturridge.

[Loony BoB]

I know your strikeforce is alright without Suarez because you have Sturridge, just like you could argue we're alright without RVP because we have Rooney, but 'world class' compared with 'alright'... well, you know it as well as I do! I'm just saying that your defence isn't what has won you most of your games this season, as often you've leaked goals... the key football fact is that you've simply outscored the opposition. This is why I think you're still going to challenge no matter what so long as Suarez is about, and that if Suarez went out, you might suddenly find things rather different, Sturridge or not.

[Psychotic]

It's a fair point. To explain where I'm coming from though, if you look at the games where Suarez was banned (last season and this season) for The Cannibalism Incident, we actually did really well and won a lot of games - with Sturridge banging them in. I don't think we're so reliant on Suarez as you might think. Of course, if I had to pick one to be injured and one to be playing then it's no contest, but I don't think the season would go to trout purely because of that.

[Rocket Edge]

Linked with Kroos now it seems. Not gonna happen though.

Really couldn't be any happier with Mata coming in! :hyper:

I think our priority now should be the defense. A LB and possibly a CB is needed (would like us to go for Cointreao). Ideally Alaba but I'd honestly say he'd cost more than Bale. I have great time for Evra but he doesn't track back like he used to and we always get caught on the break - seen it so often this season. I'm going to do our possible starting line-up just because I like too :p

...................De Gea.....................
Rafael..Vidic..Evans/Jones..Cointreao
.............Fellani.....Carrick/Fletcher..
......Mata........Rooney.....Januzaj....
......................RVP......................

[Old Manus]

David Ngog

i want to cry

[Loony BoB]

Linked with Kroos now it seems. Not gonna happen though.

Really couldn't be any happier with Mata coming in! :hyper:

I think our priority now should be the defense. A LB and possibly a CB is needed (would like us to go for Cointreao). Ideally Alaba but I'd honestly say he'd cost more than Bale. I have great time for Evra but he doesn't track back like he used to and we always get caught on the break - seen it so often this season. I'm going to do our possible starting line-up just because I like too :p

...................De Gea.....................
Rafael..Vidic..Evans/Jones..Cointreao
.............Fellani.....Carrick/Fletcher..
......Mata........Rooney.....Januzaj....
......................RVP......................
Much as I love Vidic, he's on the way out for me. Like Rio, he's slower and the opposition see weakness in him, they know they can get around him, particularly on the break. Our best defensive partnership this season? Smalling & Evans. Five games, and we won all five with two being clean sheets. Admittedly one of those wins was the draw against Sunderland last game, but yeah. Mix that in with Jones being often touted as our best central defender this season and you look at Vidic/Rio and think "...what are they supposed to be offering us now?"

Smalling has the best record in central defence for us this season overall, as his partnerhips with other CB's have also performed better than those without him. Very underrated chap.

[Psychotic]

David Ngog

i want to cryTo the tune of "Hi-ho" from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Ngog, Ngog, Ngog Ngog Ngog, He tucks his cock into his sock, Ngog! Ngog Ngog. You're welcome.

Why does every Man United's fan potential line up include Coentrao? I don't get it. :p Also like with Liverpool, United have great attacking options but the defence and deep in Midfield don't look all that convincing.

We're going to lose to Bournemouth. I can feel it. I smurfing hate cup games against lower league opposition. The entire coverage is about OHHHH THERE'S GOING TO BE AN UPSET, and your players clearly don't give a trout because it's Bournemouth - but them and their fans do because Liverpool is a big name. Even if you win, nobody is impressed.

[Loony BoB]

Why does every Man United's fan potential line up include Coentrao? I don't get it. :p
Obvious reason is obvious: We're heavily linked with him. I don't think it's because it's their #1 choice in the world, it's because it's a realistic possibility.

[Bubba]

I smurfing hate cup games against lower league opposition

You can gladly have our luck in FA Cup draws by getting Premier League opposition. Every. Smurfing. Time.

[Cuchulainn]

...................De Gea.....................
Rafael..Vidic..Evans/Jones..Cointreao
.............Fellani.....Carrick/Fletcher..
......Mata........Rooney.....Januzaj....
......................RVP......................

51131

[Shoden]

Welp. Cabaye's gone, Newcastle and their reputation for not buying replacements for top players strikes again, oh dear. We could have easily challenged for a Europa League spot if we at least kept the same.
Personally I hope it gives Pardew the idea to try a new formation that involves Ben Arfa so long as his ego isn't in overdrive every game. Great player though when he wants to be.
Just. Depressing really, the midfield was Newcastle's only real strong point this season, OH WELL.

[Old Manus]

Ngog wasn't a horrible rumour. I'm going to the Fulham game tonight and am half expecting us to have signed Ryan Babel and have him sitting on the bench. This is our Liverpool karma.

[Heath]

Well, at least that misery is over for another season. Going to drown either myself or my sorrows.

[Psychotic]

I won't rub it in, but I do have to say one thing. "Are you Moyes in disguise?" = chant of the season :lol:

[Old Manus]

My favourite part of tonight (apart from based shelvey) was not realising Dempsey was even playing until he got taken off in the 70th minute. Fulham were poor.

[Psychotic]

To be honest with you I usually forget Fulham are even in the league until we play them. Fulham are long overdue a relegation, just such an utterly boring team filled with old men.

[Cuchulainn]

I won't rub it in, but I do have to say one thing. "Are you Moyes in disguise?" = chant of the season :lol:

fraid not. That Grammy still goes to west ham fans when getting beat 6-0 singing "you're nothing special, we lose every week". Self deprecating ones will always win.

Loved United fans singing "We are staying up" in the Stretford End last night.

[Loony BoB]

Regarding our central defence: Smalling & Evans have now played six matches in central defence this season and we have won every game, although this did include the recent 2-1 "match win, tie loss" against Sunderland. A loss, but they didn't partner up for the away game which is where we really lost that tie as far as I'm concerned. They've got 6/6/3 for games/wins/clean sheets, too. I think we should just stick with them for a while now, time to let Rio & Vidic be backup (Jones can remain a DM/DC option and our "third choice central defender"). Let Rio leave at the end of the season, too, as let's face it, the guy no longer warrants his paycheck. But I really hope we give Smalling & Evans a chance to continue their successful run. If they've yet to let us down, I'd say there's no reason to mess with 'em just yet.

Also, RVP is unbeaten in games he's scored in since joining United. Not bad.

Nice to see both Rooney & RVP back at the same time Mata joins us. If we can solidify our back line (RB/LB the bigger concerns for me) and get a quality CM that can play deep, we'll be sorted.

[Rocket Edge]

Pretty much. Our attack is looking great again but if only we can hold it together at the back. If we do I'd be 100% confident of taking 4th.

[Bubba]

City are starting to look formidable now. I really think they'll be able to take care of Barcelona over two legs in the Champions League. Tottenham were robbed of a goal that was clearly onside. Also, that was a great tackle by Danny Rose yet what do City get? A penalty and a sending off.

I think they still would have won comfortably without those decisions... but the fact that they are getting them whilst still playing well is pretty ominous.

[Psychotic]

I missed having you people in the thread. Amazing what a transfer record breaking signing can do, eh? :p that's what, £64m and counting spent by Moyes? Damn. Our owners refuse to go over £10m these days thanks to the Carroll/Downing fiasco. At least Henderson turned out alright!

[Old Manus]

http://thepremierleagueowl.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Joe-Allen-Liverpool_2823295.jpg

All jokes aside, we could do with another midfielder with all our injuries. We'll have him back for £1M.

[Loony BoB]

I missed having you people in the thread. Amazing what a transfer record breaking signing can do, eh? :p that's what, £64m and counting spent by Moyes? Damn. Our owners refuse to go over £10m these days thanks to the Carroll/Downing fiasco. At least Henderson turned out alright!
Daniel Sturridge for £12m, what a bargain that was!

[Psychotic]

I seriously think that with with his position, age and nationality, in current market values you could get £40m for him. 16 goals in 18 games this season is ridiculous and Chelsea are idiots.

[Heath]

Sturridge signing for that little is nothing short of daylight robbery.

Transfer deadline day tomorrow - I hope we sign somebody (anybody!) as our players seem to be dropping like flies at the moment.

[Rocket Edge]

I remember when Sturridge was at Man City I thought he would be unbelievable even at that age. I guess they wanted success right away instead of helping him progress. Chelsea on the other hand were idiots to let him go. He's world class.

[Shoden]

I'm really hoping Newcastle can get someone in to replace Cabaye on the deadline...
In other news what a farce it was with Remy. The other lad got let off for dramatising the entire situation of a couple of heads locking and Remy still gets HIS ban upheld? come on FA, get your act together, there's more to the Premier League than London clubs and the North West.
Both players were as bad as one and other so if one gets their ban overturned the other should. Ridiculous.
I honestly don't even think Newcastle can beat Sunderland this Saturday. If we lose I won't be going home on the metro because some idiots will just run riot through the city.

[DK]

IIRC Sturridge was the one who requested the transfer because he thought he wasn't getting enough game time with us because we were still putting him in prospect level. I was pissed when we let him go, especially to chelsea given that I'm pretty sure we'd just got the now forever ruined Shaun Wright-Phillips back off them. You would have thought Danny would have learnt from that lesson but apparently not.

[Psychotic]

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e373/photobucketamazingness/BesPIriIQAAv5uW_zps6215c391.jpg (http://s43.photobucket.com/user/photobucketamazingness/media/BesPIriIQAAv5uW_zps6215c391.jpg.html)

I have a United mad colleague at work who rants and raves about Januzaj and how he's world class and the best young player in the world all day. He's getting this in his inbox this morning. :)

[Loony BoB]

Impressive stats for both of them for such young players! In your friend's defence, Januzaj is in his first PL season while Sterling is in his third, although that isn't to take anything away from the Sterling (I can't say much about the guy as I haven't seen much of him). In your opinion, having seen Sterling, would you say he's got the talent to be the Next Big Thing? Not sure if you've seen Januzaj play, but if you have, how would you compare the two?

EDIT: Also, where can you get those kind of stats for players?

[Psychotic]

To compare the two, they're both young players with good potential but nowhere near the finished article. If I was a betting man, I'd say Januzaj has the attributes to be better, but I'm not going to tell him that... you know me, I like the wind up! :D He was stunned when I sent him those stats, hahaha. He said the same thing you did and I said "Well, that's because he was good enough at 17 to earn that experience!"

Sterling has had a great season so far and absolutely shredded Spurs and Everton. He is going to be the Next Big Thing in so much as Wright-Phillips, Lennon, Walcott and now Andros Townsend were. I would say he is one of the fastest players in the league and he is very good at dribbling... woeful finishing. Of the four, I think he will end up as good as Walcott. So he'll be a very good Premier League player and will be in the England squad for the next 10 years... but he's not going to be the next Ronaldo or Messi.

WhoScored.com is my favourite footy stats site but there are plenty of others like Opta. They have neat little extra details on player's strengths, weaknesses and playing traits. For example, Januzaj is great at through balls but has poor discipline.

[Old Manus]

Harry Redknapp, you've got to love him. There must be TV crews camped outside his house all day. He must finish his lunch, say to his wife "Right...I'm just going to head down the shops...", and off he goes.

[Heath]

5live are tweeting me about Everton transfers. I've never felt like such a football fan.

My favourite part was the AFC Wimbledon twitter feed, in particular these tweets:

https://mobile.twitter.com/AFCWimbledon/status/429257232635949056/photo/1

https://mobile.twitter.com/AFCWimbledon/status/429237539858550784?p=v

https://mobile.twitter.com/AFCWimbledon/status/429223480295714816?p=v

[Psychotic]

Yeah, Wimbledon and hawkman were triumphs.

In other transfer window related news.... fuck. Well, I never wanted to qualify for the Champions League anyway. :colbert: Ian Ayre is a moron. Fucked up on Mkhitaryan, Willian and Diego Costa in the Summer and now Salah and Ukrainian Long Name Man in January. Awful.

[Loony BoB]

Man, talk about "whatever can go wrong" in this game. :(

[Crop]

I'm listening to it on Radio 5 Live, and I think I'm driving everyone else in the room crazy. I swear, every game I watch/listen....

[Bubba]

Doesn't look like we can break them down either. It'll stay 2-1.

God damn deflections! The same thing happened against Chelsea when we started off the better team.

[Psychotic]

charlie adam

[Loony BoB]

Honestly, this is the first game that I feel Moyes has got it all wrong. It hasn't gone his way with all the injuries etc, but to put Rooney into midfield was the wrong choice. Despite that, everything has just... really not worked out at all. Wind, injuries, decisions by players, decisions by manager. Just one big load of horribleness. Despite that, I do feel the goals have been against the run of play. We've been better than Stoke in every way but goalscoring. Crazy, considering we had Welbeck, Rooney, RVP AND Mata (and Young, I suppose, since he's in form) all playing at once. Not to mention Hernandez on late for RVP.

[Heath]

6 points off 4th, and Liverpool have a game in hand. Not looking good for Utd. They'll finish above us, but that's not exactly a terrific achievement!

[Cuchulainn]

Honestly, this is the first game that I feel Moyes has got it all wrong. .

Is this the first game you've seen? He's been getting it wrong since he came here.

[Psychotic]

charlie adam, nude and proud, standing over your exhausted body

charlie adam using up the last of your milk

charlie adam with a glorious sunset behind him

charlie adam on the phone to your mum, talking about pasta

charlie adam losing his keys down the back of your sofa and unapologetically tearing it apart

charlie adam kicking the back of your seat and listening to loud techno music

charlie adam sending you a passive-aggressive email about sending too many items to the printer at once

charlie adam belching into your ear as you sleep

[Loony BoB]

Honestly, this is the first game that I feel Moyes has got it all wrong. .

Is this the first game you've seen? He's been getting it wrong since he came here.
I disagree, but oh well. :p

[Psychotic]

'I don't know what we have to do to win' - Manchester United boss David Moyes at a loss after Stoke defeat - Football - Sport - London Evening Standard (http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/i-dont-know-what-we-have-to-do-to-win--manchester-united-boss-david-moyes-at-a-loss-after-stoke-defeat-9101486.html)

You don't know what you have to do to win, David? That explains everything! Here's a little tip from me to you: You score more goals than the other team. You're welcome!

[Shoden]

Disgusting and gutless display from Newcastle...

[Psychotic]

Disgusting and gutless display from Newcastle...
imagine fabio borini mowing the lawn while looking down his nose at you

[Shoden]

Disgusting and gutless display from Newcastle...
imagine fabio borini mowing the lawn while looking down his nose at you

Almost enough to make the day brighter...
I just cannot believe the team's self destructed, without Cabaye its back to square 1 from last season.
Mind, I think this De Jong fella could be good, bit rusty though but he did so much better than Shola Ameobi, I think even Shefki Kuqi could score more often than he could.

[Psychotic]

as you are about to finish off the last of your house of cards, kolo toure blunders in to tell you he's really sorry but he's scraped your car although to be honest if you hadn't parked so close to the line that wouldn't have happened anyway

[Jess]

:colbert:

[Psychotic]

How brave of Jose's Starving Orphans FC managing to defeat Megabucks Squillionaires City last night. I don't know how on Earth he did it with the mere pittance afforded to him by cruel Master Abramovich for the purchase of new players.

the worst thing is that the media are actually buying into this

[Loony BoB]

Wait, which media are you referring to? I didn't even know anyone was talking about Chelsea as "poor".

[Bubba]

Mourinho is really starting to get on my tits. First his comments about West Ham when he employed the exact same tactics when they came to Old Trafford. Then saying they're not in the title race when they're only two points from the summit. Shut it, you prick.

Fair play last night though. Chelsea were set up really well. They stifled City's attacks with their back six and countered really well with the front four. They should have had three or four.

[Loony BoB]

It's just Mourinho being Mourinho, really. Still, perhaps he just needs to win something so he can perk up a bit. I don't know what Inter & Real Madrid did to that guy but it clearly wasn't pretty, because he changed.

[Psychotic]

Just look at Mourinho's media comments and how the media are hailing what he did to City a triumph. You'll see what I mean.

I also liked his accusation of West Ham playing 19th Century football for being defensive. The first international between England and Scotland took place in the 19th Century and England rocked a nifty 1-1-8 formation. The dour Scots were of course more defensive, plumping for a much more pragmatic 2-2-6.

[Loony BoB]

The first international between England and Scotland took place in the 19th Century and England rocked a nifty 1-1-8 formation.
I can see an idea for a telephone directory service advertisement in there somewhere.

[Heath]

So there's Laudrup gone. Unless he's not. Hard to tell these days!

The Mourinho comments were a joke. Not paid much attention to the media, but everyone I've spoken to about it has found it laughable.

[Psychotic]

Sign him up, United! Shelvey for £5m or Fellaini for £27m? Hell, Shelvey for £27m over Fellaini for £5m would seem like great business, even without the homegrown rule.

[magemasher]

Newcastle fan here for my sins, I must of been a bad person in a past life to get stuck with the toon lol.

I'm going for Arsenal to win the league, though my head says Chelsea and City will be too strong in the end.

[Bubba]

Welcome to the debate, magemasher!

Any fans are welcome here... well, any fans whose team is below mine. Everybody else's can fuck right off.

[magemasher]

Cheers Bub (I've always wanted to say that) Who's your team?

[Bubba]

I'm Man Utd for my sins so it's been an interesting season to say the least!

You guys had a great start. It was a shame you couldn't hold onto Cabaye.

[magemasher]

Yeah Cabaye was a real shame,, I'd regard him as the best player I've seen live in a stadium. We could of kept him only our owners show no ambition beyond making a profit.

[DK]

Welcome to the debate, magemasher!

Any fans are welcome here... well, any fans whose team is below mine. Everybody else's can fuck right off.

and I thought we could be the first ones to break the cross-town boundaries and be something special. :(

[Bubba]

Haha, only joking DK!

I respect pretty much everyone's opinion on this thread and try not to antagonize anyone.

You're all OK by me!

[DK]

me and pauw were ranting about moyes the other day, and I was going off on one about how he should be playing pretty much how chelsea set up against us. whoever is your most fit striker as a lone striker, fat wayne, kagawa and mata as a front four who can do basically whatever they want. 5 at the back, 3 CB's to shore up the defence and cover for each other, two wing backs who can get forward if needs be and then whoever in your midfield is not crippled in the middle as a solo guy to link between attack and defence and drop back if the situation calls for it. that's what I'd do anyway.

mind you i've been heavily playing FM on my phone recently and it's given me a proper boner for the lone striker/christmas tree so that might have something to do with it

[Loony BoB]

The ideal setup for us would focus on our strengths, which would mean three CA's and two CM/DM's, no wingers. None of our (outright) wingers are performing well enough at the moment.

ST: RVP, Rooney, Welbeck, Hernandez
CAx3: Mata, Rooney, Kagawa, Januzaj and Young/Nani/Valencia could probably perform in such roles if they had to, too.
CM/DM: Carrick, Fellaini, Cleverley, Jones, Giggs, shut up we don't have great options here.

And a regular back four with Rio & Vidic only starting in dead rubbers because damn, they aged badly. :(

[DK]

that's what i'm saying. it's pointless packing out utd's centre mid section because you're utterly shithouse there right now. 3 CB's gives you more cover at the back and also means old men rio and vidic have to cover less ground when they play. i personally favour more defensive minded FB's as well, so while evra and rafael could make the odd run if the situation demands it ideally they'd focus on defense. then the front four do all the work. mata and kagawa especially have the potential to be a sick combo if given free reign.

ashley young should be nowhere near any utd team ever, even at their absolute worst. I remember in the last match one thing that really pissed me off was when he spunked a chance from 6 yards wide and moyes was flailing around on the touchline all "how could you miss that?"

How could you pick him you ginger tit? He's shit. He's always been shit. You refuse to give shinji a game but persist with this shithouse bag of balls and then appear offended when he's shit. it's fucking stupid :colbert:

[Old Manus]

I don't even know what to think about Laudrup going. I was already in the middle of raging about Kevin Pietersen getting the chop by the ECB when I got a text from my old man with the news, so that only fuelled my displeasure. It wasn't helped by the Fulham game on at the time being the worst game of football I have seen in years.

On further reflection I just hope that the board have something up their sleeve. There must have been some real reason for the dismissal, as it couldn't really have been results; we've been doing alright considering we're still playing games in Europe and the FA Cup. Just before the Cardiff game as well! I hope Garry Monk can instill the brevity of the game into some of the players and I'm sure he will, the man bleeds Swansea. I don't much rate his ability to manage long term though. The main things I'm worried about are our big players leaving with Laudrup, and who the hell do we replace him with?



Besides that, I think some kind of table with members and their respective teams would be handy for any new people coming into the OFFICIAL EOFF ANNUAL PREMIER LEAGUE BANTER THREAD.



Old Manus
Swansea City


Psychotic
Liverpool


Loony BoB
Manchester United


Rocket Edge
Manchester United


Bubba
Manchester United


charliepanayi
Arsenal


DK
Manchester City


Cuchulainn
Manchester United


Heath
Everton


The Captain
Liverpool


Shoden
Newcastle United


Russielloyd RIP
Blackburn Rovers



I think that's the regulars.

[DK]

it's hilarious to look at that table and think back when it would have been dominated by arsenal ponces. and they try to accuse us of being glory fans. fuck off.

the laudrup thing is fucking stupid man. there is absolutely no benefit to sacking a manager a week after the mid season transfer window closes.

also seriously, what the living fuck is the deal with KP? being given some comdey cricketing blacklisting from the england squad, what the shit. I actually feel geniunely sad for him that he's been frozen out of the team.

[Psychotic]

Don't forget "Lifelong Spurs Fan" Iceglow!

Also I may have drove panayi away before the season had even properly started this year :shobon: charlie, if you're reading this, I have a song for you.

Whatever I said, whatever I did I didn't mean it
I just want you back for good!

WANT YOU BACK

WANT YOU BACK

WANT YOU BACK FOR GOOD

[DK]

i don't, i hope fairweather panayi never comes back. :doublecolbert:

[DK]

bask in the glory of the greatest player to ever step foot on a pitch (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVdaDkiIOfM)

[Psychotic]

Remember watching it on Match of the Day as a lad and thinking "whoa holy fuck I don't know who this Wanchope is but he is amazing and has a great name".

[Heath]

I wish Cz posted more for many reasons - one of them is so that Paulo Wanchope would grace the forums with his presence more often.

[Bubba]

I miss the old Liverpool... :(

[magemasher]

4-0 after 20 minutes, I couldn't believe it when I turned the TV on. Could it be the start of a late title push from Liverpool?

This game is reminiscent of the Newcastle 4 Arsenal 4 from a few years back, ie 2 early goals from a Centre back and 4-0 in 20 minute. It will be very interesting if Arsenal get a early goal. lol 5-0 maybe not

[Psychotic]

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha

haahahahhshaiohasiojahshaahiaohshahahahhahaoihasoihahaoihhahahhahahaahahsaihoshuashioashiopahiahahah ahahahahsauhsahsahahsahahHAHAAHAHAHAHAahiohhioashioaaihohphihhaahahahahaahahahahahahahahaha jack wilshere is a little bitch hahahahaoihshahahahaahahahahaha

[Heath]

It can't be their year - surely not!

[Psychotic]

I don't think it will be but I've enjoyed this season immensely - thrashings of Spurs, Everton and now Arsenal. Just as a spectacle this team is superb to watch, the power, pace and quick movement of Suarez, Sturridge, Sterling and Coutinho is pure football porn.

[magemasher]

Liverpool have Chelsea and City to play at home, win them and they have a chance. 12/1 worth a fiver for them odds.

[Old Manus]

http://www.southwales-eveningpost.co.uk/images/localworld/ugc-images/276352/Article/images/20558047/5769870-large.jpg

http://www.southwales-eveningpost.co.uk/images/localworld/ugc-images/276352/Article/images/20558047/5769879-large.jpg

http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/incoming/article102245.ece/ALTERNATES/gallery-large/Swansea-Garry-Monk%2Bcropped

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/46987000/jpg/_46987835_monkceleb_huw.jpg

http://img.thesun.co.uk/aidemitlum/archive/01357/monk_1357079a.jpg

http://i1.walesonline.co.uk/incoming/article1788347.ece/ALTERNATES/s615/garry-monk-626669439-1788347.jpg

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Football/Pix/pictures/2013/2/22/1361572124507/-Swansea-Citys-Garry-Monk-008.jpg

http://www.southwales-eveningpost.co.uk/images/localworld/ugc-images/276352/Article/images/20564605/5772655-large.jpg

Eternal swans legend.

so annoyed that brendan takes today's headlines :colbert:

[The Captain]

Now that was unexpected.

Not since we had that run with Torres-Gerrard-Alonso back with Rafa have I actually gone in to these sort of matches and expected a win. Lately, I have been expecting a close match that probably ends in a tie.

Full credit to the entire team as frankly The first twenty minutes of this game were a joy. Relentlessly pressing, ruthlessly finishing, this looks a team that hit a higher gear than their opponent and they literally blew Arsenal off the field.

Two very important points moving forward:

Anfield is a fortress again.

We aren't a one man team anymore. Sturridge, Sterling, little phil, even skertl! Fear SSSS!

We may not win the league but my goodness I think we will really push those ahead of us. We still have home games against City and Chelsea too, so that will be exciting as well.

Take care all.

[DK]

Alright well as entertaining as it was I'd like our ability to score back now please pauw :colbert:

[AssassinDX]

It was good seeing some passion from Swansea when they scored the first goal, Williams embracing Monk was really nice to see. I think they'll be absolutely fine this season, I wasn't so sure about that under Laudrup.

I think the two home games for Liverpool against City and Chelsea could well decide the league, I don't think they'll win it but it'll be mighty close if they can get a result against either or both of those teams. 12/1 is well worth a punt, those are great odds.

[Bubba]

Hahahaha!

amazing...

[Heath]

Apparently playing without proper/half decent strikers means not scoring goals :confused:

I wouldn't mind so much if Spurs had had more than one shot on goal before the 93rd minute.

[Psychotic]

Match summed up why Moyes is so utterly mediocre. 81 attempted crosses. 81! The most attempted crosses by a team in a game in Premier League history by a long way... against a smurfing six foot seven defender who is happy to head them away all day. Especially when you have smurfing Mata, Rooney and Van Persie, all very comfortable with the ball played to feet. Madness. Complete and utter smurfing madness. Why the smurf didn't Moyes say "Alright lads, remember that plan I had to cross it a lot? Well we've had 40 failed crosses maybe it's time to do something new." at half time? Good lord.

Have no idea how he's still in a job. "Oh, we're Man United it's not what we do!" well no trout, you had arguably the greatest manager English football has ever seen at the helm for 25 odd years, of course you didn't sack him because he didn't do trout like this. "Ahh, but in his early days Ferguson..." It was almost 30 years ago, football is a different animal now and you can't even try to compare it. Besides, despite his rocky start Ferguson had won the Scottish league (yes I know, I know, but he won it as a non-Glasgow team which is great) several times and even a couple of European trophies with a Scottish team. Moyes has won smurf all because he's useless. "Oh but transition!" Mourinho, Pellegrini, Martinez and Sherwood are all new to their jobs too, and they didn't take over the champions. I say the champions - they're actually the champions with £79m worth of talent added to them.

I don't even know why I'm ranting about this. I hope Moyes stays for the next 5 years and I do enjoy the karma of United finally getting theirs after the decades of taunts dished out to other teams by their fans :D I think just the very concept of him getting the top job in the country just because he's Fergie's mate offends me I guess.

[Old Manus]

I can't believe I'm agreeing wholeheartedly with Psychotic about a football matter and I feel dirty.

Moyes was an average manager at Everton and the wizardry being performed at Goodison Park this season by Martinez (who is also a new managerial appointment, but with a totally different style of football), as well as the fact that it's with the same team sans their best player, proves this.

Ferguson had a few rough years to start, but he wasn't doing it with the league champions. trout guys, United absolutely pissed the league last season. Nothing has changed, apart from the backroom staff and the inclusion of a few new players. Any other club with big ambitions would have got shot ages ago (I wouldn't have appointed him in the first place, it remains one of the dumbest managerial selections for a big bollocks European team ever. Ferguson dropped the ball massively here and knows it). The board have never been in this situation, and I have a feeling that they might be scared of England's Brave Bobby Charlton's reaction if they defy his old mate Fergie.

It's too late now though, they've let it play too long and now United have blown any chance of CL qualification. I honestly think they could have turned things around had they acted earlier and got a qualified manager in the first place, but now they'll have to wait until next season, and even that might be too late (just ask Liverpool what happens when you drop out of Europe). Will Moyes turn things round if given a few seasons? Maybe. But Utd fans shouldn't bank on it as they seem to be doing. I don't rate him.

Finally, you can actually pinpoint the moment that Mata realises he's missed his chance of getting a Premier League medal. (http://www.101greatgoals.com/gvideos/juan-matas-priceless-reaction-at-the-final-whistle-of-manchester-united-2-fulham-2-vine/)

[Loony BoB]

Even I'm starting to get concerned about Moyes lately, and that's saying something because (as I'm sure you all know) I'm a fairly eternal optimist who always looks to see the good in things rather than the bad.

Now, having said that, I don't know how many of you actually watched the match but their keeper pulled off more than a few incredible saves. I'm talking me actually ranting "Oh, come on, really?" at the TV when he managed something like the fourth or fifth incredible save in the first half. We had something like 70-80% possession to boot, and we weren't only sending in crosses.

As for the goals we conceded, can I just say that I love Vidic to bits but I'm delighted he will be finishing his United career at the end of the season and I hope that Rio stops playing, too. They can't keep up with attacking players. It's not a case of "they struggle to" - that implies that they still do, but with a struggle. Rio and Vidic outright can't keep up with them. It's no shock to me that Smalling & Evans as a partnership retain a 100% win record for United. It's because they can actually run.

The reasons I'm concerned with Moyes is not for the fact we fired in that number of crosses (that was a simple side-effect of having 75% possession and some good wingers on the pitch), but for the fact we played most of the match with only one player regularly forward enough to be attacking these crosses. The moment Hernandez came on, we looked dangerous again, because Rooney simply doesn't play that far forward anymore. He used to be able to head a lot of goals, but he won't from the edge of the penalty area, will he?

The other reason I'm concerned is because, for the second game, he opted to throw all our attacking options on at once. He took off a midfielder and, rather than adding Giggs to centre mid, pushed Rooney back. Now, Rooney is more than capable, sure. You could argue he's more capable than Giggs. But there's a lot to be said for desperation without considering your defence. Valencia on for Rafael, Januzaj on for Fletcher, Hernandez on for Young. All were forward pushes. And I suppose that would be fine if it weren't for the late goal when we had three certified defenders, one which is (I'll say it again!) unable to run fast enough to defend, and only one deep-ish playing midfielder. As soon as Fulham got the ball near our box at the end, I could see the writing on the wall and I was miffed before the goal even went in.

What should have happened is that the attacking players should have kept the ball in the far corner of the pitch instead of trying to make it 3-1. If they have the energy to run around the box, they better have the energy to run back to our box when the opposition is throwing players forward at your weakened (via Vidic + Valencia, let alone Fletch coming off) defence right on the last minute. What did they think Fulham were running back for? To shake our hands and congratulate us on a win? Please.

/endrant

Still, I've kind of accepted we probably won't get CL games next season, regardless of manager, so I'm happy for Moyes to play out this season and see what he does in the summer transfer window. What Moyes and Woodward do then and how the team performs in the early part of next season will be what makes or breaks the chairman and manager.

[Psychotic]

The crossing thing is more than just a side effect. In his interviews and comments, Moyes has made repeated references to wing play and cross bombardment being the "DNA" of United. I think he is just rigidly committing to that out of a sense of obligation rather than it making any tactical sense.

I don't know if you need to see more transfer windows from Moyes - he's already had two and neither were great. Alright, yeah, the Mata signing (I do think they paid over the odds but hey ho) was a boost but was he what they needed? Is he so different from Kagawa or even Januzaj? Especially when a player like that does not fit into a team which spams crosses everywhere, which as Moyes has stated is the "DNA" of the club. I think if that's your goal, Lukaku should've been the Chelsea player to sign. Could've even done a swap with Rooney (and £10-15m thrown in from them) and a CL rival in Everton would've been weakened. Oh, yeah, and the obvious CM and defensive signings too. Moyes has now spaffed £64m (the £79m in my previous post also includes Zaha who is not a Moyes signing) on just two players. How much more money do you want to give the man? Especially if United fail to make the CL and that huge wad of cash is lost.

I also think if Fergie was put in as caretaker right now I would bet on United getting CL football.

[Loony BoB]

Has he really repeatedly said that spamming crosses is the DNA of the club? I've never heard that once. I know attacking play and wide play has been mentioned and it's true that it's in the DNA of the club, but until this match it's never been pointed out as something we've overdone. I genuinely think it's a byproduct of that much possession. I watched the entire game - yes, there were a huge number of crosses but there were a lot of attacks that attempted to go through the middle, too. Interestingly Neville even complained at one point that there was nobody out wide right for United when we were attacking through the middle.


I don't know if you need to see more transfer windows from Moyes - he's already had two and neither were great.
I do feel that a lot of this is not Moyes' fault. When it comes to signings, the manager is involved, but not nearly as much as the chairman and the scouts. The manager was going after very good players to my knowledge, but the chairman sucked balls at the negotiation tables and the scouts were perhaps not able to spot good alternatives at the time.


I think if that's your goal, Lukaku should've been the Chelsea player to sign.
I'd love Lukaku! But I don't think he's going to leave Chelsea until he's forced out. He's only at Everton on loan.

How much more money do you want to give the man? Especially if United fail to make the CL and that huge wad of cash is lost.
I'd want to give him one summer transfer window where the chairman isn't having his first day on the job. I think that's fair. Woodward has, to my knowledge, never been the one dealing with major signings at a football club until July 2013. He's excellent at signing commercial contracts, which is where his experience lay when he was at the club prior to this summer, but it was most definitely Gill who was pulling the strings of transfers in recent years.


I also think if Fergie was put in as caretaker right now I would bet on United getting CL football.
I agree. I think if SAF was put in charge of any club in the PL he'd have them significantly better than where they are now, including every team above United at the moment. Let's face it, he's the best manager of all time. That isn't an act that will be easy to follow up.

Again, I am concerned, absolutely. But it was never because of the summer transfer window which I (and most United fans at RedCafe, it seems) feel was mostly down to Woodward's failings rather than that of Moyes. Nor will I question him based on the first few months where, knowing he has time at United compared to those at Chelsea/City, was allowed the time to play everyone repeatedly and get a real idea of who he wants to keep.

What I do question is his decision to bring along Phil Neville instead of keeping one of United's existing backroom staff, whether or not he is motivating his players well enough, whether or not he will have the balls to release/sell/retire many of the bigger names at our club at the end of the season, and whether or not he can find the leaders in our youth (or elsewhere) capable of replacing the many leaders at our club. I will definitely judge him on next season's transfer window, although again that will be a time for judging Woodward, too. And I absolutely judge Moyes on his tactics during a game. I love our attacking play, I really do, but I hate it when he takes off genuine midfielders and replaces them with forwards. It just irks me. If a forward isn't doing well enough to win, take him off so he knows next time he'll have to do better. If a midfielder isn't doing well enough to feed the forwards, find a midfielder who can. Don't cut the midfield out altogether. I get that his subs got us two goals, but I'll also point that our lack of midfield/defence cost us right at the end of the game, when we needed them.

Speaking of leadership, though: Seriously, just look at past years where we were so successful. We had Rio, Evra, Vidic, VDS, Giggs, Scholes, O'Shea, Neville... now all due to retire very soon or already have. Where are our new leaders? I'm told Jones is supposed to be a natural leader but on the pitch, I don't see him leading much. I see that from the likes of Evans and Rooney more than anyone. Even Rafael shouts more than Jones! I do genuinely worry about our lack of imposing players, and I feel this is perhaps our biggest weakness now. We need players who are not afraid to yell at each other or be yelled at. We've flooded our side with quieter guys recently, and I've no idea what brought that about but I hope it can change soon. I actually feel that this is a bigger issue to United's future than what manager we have. Our players need more drive on the pitch.

[Psychotic]

The man himself: "Some people might say that one of the things that Manchester United do is play with width and cross the ball, that's in the genes here."

I don't know much about Woodward, but here's what Davey M himself said in August "Fortunately, he's left me a really strong team, which I think gives me a great chance of retaining the title". Obvious lolmoyes aside, that implies to me he didn't think he had much work to do.

I lifted those quotes from a really good piece just posted on F365 that I think sums it up nicely. Definitely worth a read - they also share my opinion on Mata and explained it far better than I could!
Another week and another crisis at Manchester United. The draw at home to Fulham made it four points in their last four Premier League matches - only the three teams currently in the relegation zone have taken fewer. When you consider that those four games actually included fixtures against the current bottom two, that's pretty alarming stuff.

Sunday was supposed to be the catalyst for improvement. Fulham were the sitting duck, having lost their last three fixtures to Swansea, Southampton and Sheffield United without registering a goal, bottom of the league and with 17 defeats in 24 matches this season. Instead, United found another new way to shoot themselves in the foot and implode into utter mediocrity.

Before the game, David Moyes used his programme notes to bemoan his luck with injuries, referring specifically to the absence of Robin van Persie and Wayne Rooney for large periods of the season, but such words should fall on deaf ears. Whilst Rooney and RVP have 34 PL appearances between them, Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge have just three more, and the Liverpool strike pair have started nine matches as a partnership compared to ten for United's front two. City too have been forced to deal with the absence of Sergio Aguero at a time when they need him most. It's all just empty words, David.

In fact, offering excuses for underperformance is becoming the hallmark of Moyes' tenure at Old Trafford, with injuries simply the latest in a long line. Before the season began the fixtures were blamed, with the manager's bizarre "I find it hard to believe that's the way the balls came out of the bag" rant that awkwardly made us all think of scrotums.

Then Alex Ferguson received the flak. Moyes had been left with a shell of a squad, a car with no engine, a roast dinner with no meat, and other such weak analogies. The defence was aging, the midfield was aged and the wingers were inconsistent. The only reason that United won the title last season was because their rivals were so poor, we were told, completely ignoring the fact that Manchester City have actually only picked up one point more than at this stage last year, whilst United have 21 fewer. "Fortunately, he's left me a really strong team, which I think gives me a great chance of retaining the title," were Moyes' words last August.

Finally came the referees. Speaking after the Capital One Cup semi-final first leg defeat to Sunderland, Manchester United's third consecutive defeat for the first time since 2001, Moyes branded Andre Marriner and his officials "terrible". "We're having to play them as well as the opposition at the moment. We're actually beginning to laugh at them, that's the thing." It landed him an FA charge.

Well David, here are some home truths. Even accounting for all of your reasons, you're doing a rotten job of managing Manchester United, the Premier League champions. You have been in the job for only eight months and yet have already equalled Manchester United's record number of losses in a Premier League season. Your team, which was good enough to win the title last year, is now nine points off a Champions League place, and nearer to Crystal Palace than Chelsea.

On almost every level, Moyes is failing to do his job to the required level. In the broadest terms, the remit of a football manager is to get as many players as possible playing to the height of their potential. The greatest (and that evidently includes Ferguson) take this further, actually making the team greater than the sum of its parts.

Moyes is a long way from the former, simpler goal. It could be argued that Rooney is the only one performing at a higher level than last season, and even he is far from his peak form. Almost every other player without exception is performing at a lower level than they did even ten months previously. Rafael may have last month issued the stock quote expected of a player in such a situation ("I don't know why everyone is looking at the manager. It is the players who have to do the job on the pitch"), but this falls on deaf ears. The regression of individual players may be seen as an anomaly, but when 12 or 14 professional footballers suddenly begin to struggle almost en masse, the buck stops with the manager.

As I said in my piece after the game yesterday, United's squad is indeed in need of an overhaul. Moyes spent £37million on Juan Mata, but this was a luxury purchase when what United lacked is steel and solidity. Mata may well prove to be an excellent signing, but this was akin to installing a hot tub in the bathroom when the shower still needs fixing. Improvements are needed almost all over the pitch, particularly when you consider that Rio Ferdinand, Patrice Evra, Ryan Giggs, Robin van Persie and Nani could all feasibly follow Nemanja Vidic out of the door. Captain, vice-captain, longest-serving player and top goalscorer.

The nagging question, however, is whether Moyes is the man to oversee such changes. Currently, the answer to that looms startlingly clear to all but a loyal band of Moyes supporters, a large proportion of whom are presumably simply refusing to believe that things can get any worse. But worse they are getting.

A comfortable defeat against Arsenal on Wednesday and the case for the prosecution is coming close to resting its case.

[DK]

http://i4.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article3126839.ece/ALTERNATES/s615/Main-Arsene-3126839.jpg

[Loony BoB]

So he said the "in the genes" thing once, and he's played one match where we had the highest number of crosses in PL history since something like 2006. Man, you should work for the media if you managed to grab those two things and turn it into "Moyes doesn't know how to do anything but tell his players to cross the football." Come on, dude, you of all people are better than stooping to writing headlines for The Daily Mail. :p

I think it's safe to say that Moyes is probably well aware of his failings (and that of his players) so far but backs himself to rectify them. I don't think he genuinely believes that all is dandy at United like he says in his press conferences, and those excuses are the exact same kind of excuses that Sir Alex Ferguson would use every single season when we lost a game. It's just press officer 101, or at least Manchester United press officer 101. Complain about fixtures, complain about referees, bemoan bad luck and injuries, etc. This is all par for the course. SAF never criticised himself publically and I don't expect Moyes to.

Moyes does have work to do and it will have to start with clearing out the old guard and bringing in a new group. As mentioned earlier, he'll need to get mentally tough players as well as the bigwigs (preferrably someone who combines the two) as we're desperate for leaders on the pitch, where it matters.

I do wonder if he will improve his coaching team. I really just don't see them being as good as he seems to believe they are. I really wish we still had some of the old crew, particularly the man managing the side we faced yesterday. Not as bothered about Phelan, I feel we played better football when he wasn't assistant manager, but oh well.

Personally, I do think that if we had used Smalling, Evans and Jones instead of Rio/Vidic then we'd be in a considerably better position than we are. I think Moyes wanted to give them their shot, and now he's been forced into bringing them back again because of injuries. I think we should have got a central midfielder in the summer, but Woodward buggered that up. By the time Winter came, none of the big-shot central midfielders would have wanted to come anywhere near us... they had CL football and we, well, at the moment we're not looking like we'll be getting it. Getting any player during the winter is tough, though. I was surprised we got Mata, I thought we'd be getting nobody at all, honestly.

As for "But you guys didn't need Mata, you needed a solid defence and a few central midfielders" - while it's true that we are not shy on attacking options, you only need to look to the goals scored and goals conceded to see we've failed to score as much as any of the top four this season. We are struggling in defence? Only one goal worse than Liverpool, and one goal better than Spurs in 5th. Meanwhile in goals scored, we're 22 goals worse off than Liverpool. The closest of the top four? Chelsea, at the top, with six goals more than us. We're an attacking side by nature while chelsea are a defending team, though, so I prefer to compare to the other sides. Did we need Mata? Not really, but we needed players who would improve us and I think he is one of the few available that would have.

What we really need to do is break the bank next season. And I mean really break the bank. We need to drop Rio along with the alread leaving Vidic, we need to spend as much as is required to bring in a high quality central midfielder or two and we need to build on that with a new central defender and a couple of wingbacks. There are no more Sir Alex Fergusons available to us to do the magical thing where they rise a group of players up 15 points per season beyond what they would normally get. That means we have to get rid of players who are not good enough without him. We are now competing with the likes of City and Chelsea who can afford to buy superstars that could compete for a title under any decent manager. If we want to compete with that... we have to, financially. Woodward can certainly bring in commercial contracts, but we need to see if he can bring in the players, too.

And Moyes will, indeed, need to show that he can manage them into a winning position.

Okay, after typing up all that I realised it's length. :shobon: tl;dr: I agree with the middle of that article where they talk about his management of players and how he is perhaps not getting enough out of them, but don't think the former half is much more than typical tabloid sensationalism where someone picks out some quotes and turns them against the person.

For everything said about United under Moyes, the players yesterday could have been playing for SAF, they were battering Fulham (and not just through crosses). Sadly, Fulham were immense in defence, particularly their goalkeeper who stopped them from suffering a 4-1 scoreline at half time. It reminded me of a Sunderland game a long time back under SAF, where we spent the entire game camped in their half while they were fighting relegation (or were already relegated?) and they came away with a point. Only this was actually more entertaining than that awful game, as I believe it ended 0-0 on that one. What Moyes got wrong was over-swamping the attack because of this, and when the counter came in with one minute to spare, the attacking players did not work hard enough for their defence (and Vidic was Vidic, too old).

[Psychotic]

Come on yourself. He's said words to that effect more than once. One match of crosses? You watch them week in, week out, you should bloody know it's all they do. If you don't believe me and think I'm fishing, look up the stats. United have the highest average attempted crosses per game in the Premier League this season - incidentally, Liverpool have the lowest. On a random tangent, Liverpool have the highest through balls per game and Man United have the joint lowest.

Either way, do you really want to turn this into an Aaron Freed [citation needed] war? I shouldn't have to provide detailed evidence and multiple sources when it's as bloody obvious as this. Man United play crosses a hell of a lot more than most teams. Fact. #rafa

[Loony BoB]

Come on yourself. He's said words to that effect more than once. One match of crosses? You watch them week in, week out, you should bloody know it's all they do. If you don't believe me and think I'm fishing, look up the stats. United have the highest average attempted crosses per game in the Premier League this season - incidentally, Liverpool have the lowest. On a random tangent, Liverpool have the highest through balls per game and Man United have the joint lowest.

Either way, do you really want to turn this into an Aaron Freed [citation needed] war? I shouldn't have to provide detailed evidence and multiple sources when it's as bloody obvious as this. Man United play crosses a hell of a lot more than most teams. Fact. #rafa
Can you get last season's stats, too?

I'm not arguing against us throwing in a lot of crosses, we do, you could almost say it's in our genes. I'm just saying that it's tabloid sensationalism to say that it's the only way we know how to attack. If you look at the two goals we got, one was from a diagonal pass (you could amost call it a through ball) from Mata and the other was a deflected shot from central midfield. If you think those were the only two attacks that weren't crosses, you'd be sorely mistaken. There were a lot of crosses, sure, but how often does United get 75% possession? Less often than you might think! We were never a possession-based side under SAF, at least not that I recall.

Citation: I watched the whole match!

[Old Manus]

Citation: I watched the whole match!Anecdotal evidence is useless. I will need a peer reviewed study of your television activities from an independent source. The Radio Times with circles in biro in the Sky Sports column at the very least.

[Loony BoB]

Someone get me my biro.

Also, just checked. We average 29 crosses per match. 81? Yeah, that's not the norm, dude. Before that game we averaged 26-27 crosses per game, and last season we averaged 25. Fact! #martintyler

[Psychotic]

I never said 81 was the norm, although it highlights how ridiculous the tactics in that specific game were - cross a lot - against a team with a six foot seven defender.

Have fun though: Premier League Team Statistics | WhoScored.com (http://www.whoscored.com/Regions/252/Tournaments/2/Seasons/3853/Stages/7794/TeamStatistics/England-Premier-League-2013-2014) (I sure am! I've become a stats nerd today :shobon:)

[Loony BoB]

That's the site I just used, it got suggested to me by someone earlier in this thread. ;D What's most surprising, going through those stats, is that we're so eerily similar to last season's team when it comes to so many things. But it's just not clicking for us. :( Roughly the same amount of shots per game, possession, pass succession... they're all marginally worse, which was expected with an aging side, no Scholes, RVP/Rooney being injured etc. But we've been marginally better for things like shots conceded per game, shots on target per game et. to balance that out. Even where we spend time on the pitch, where shots come from... overall I don't think the stats really change much at all.

I think we've simply got a side who not only lost the best manager in the world, one of the best midfielders in the world (Scholes was considered the best midfielder in the world by Xavi, no less), we've lost a good solid group of backroom staff (while I understand the reasoning of wanting your trusted team, I never felt the Everton contingent were an upgrade)... not to mention the other clubs strengthening here and there. But I do feel we've had worse luck than most sides. Normally we would win games such as the one in Fulham because we would have someone like Giggs just standing in a corner as far from our goal as possible with his foot on the ball, winding down the clock. Instead, we had a group of younger over-enthusiastic attackers with no defensive backup. I would have preferred they took off Rooney than take off Fletcher. Dunno how fit he (Fletch) is though. :(

Instead of strengthening in the summer, we had a farce of ambitious transfer attempts at unrealistic targets with insanely below-par bids. I hope Woodward has learned a really big lesson. Perhaps Moyes is not used to spending a lot of money, either, and was hoping to ensure he stayed on bargain terms. But what was it? We valued Fabregas at £40m and paid £28m for Fellaini? :stare: Not sure who was making those calls, but they were wrong, wrong, wrong. I still think we could see Fellaini be a good player for us for all I know (apparently according to statistical analysis he's one of the best in Europe!?), but we'll have to wait and see.

[DK]

less football freedism more giggling at old french man falling down :colbert:

[Old Manus]

BASED MONK RETAINS UNBEATEN RECORD

BENT RETAINS ABILITY TO NOT SLOT IT IN FROM 6 YARDS

#EPL


Horrific few weeks for the swans coming up. Everton away in the FA Cup, then Napoli (yes guys we're still playing in Europe) home and away with Liverpool away in between. The next two league home games are must wins against Palace and West Brom, then the away fixtures are Arsenal and Everton again.

If we can claw at least 5 points from that it's (relatively) plain sailing from then till the end of the season, with the only big dog fixture being Chelsea at home.

[Psychotic]

It's funny, there's the stereotypical "This year is our year!" view of Liverpool fans but whenever it is suggested we may be dark horses the response is now "LALALALA CAN'T HEAR YOU SHUT UP" and that is how I feel too. I can't help but think back to the City and Chelsea games - games we should have won but not for blah blah injuries bad referees excuses and think about what might have been. As karma for all my Moyes bashing we're going to end up losing at Old Trafford and that'll cost us something (the league, fourth, whatever, just something) or if we do finish fourth, Moyes will win the CL and we won't be in it next year!

Think last night was a poor result for Arsenal and United. If either is to meet their goals (1st, 4th) then playing for draws is not enough and to me that seemed to be the goal for both teams off the back of their poor weekend results. Not good enough from either manager to do that. Interested to see Moyes come out and say "Yeah United play well over the second half of the season it's fine". Dave, mate, the second half of the season began ages ago. We're in the final third. In your last five games you have got five points. That is relegation form. Not saying United are going down by the way Daniel ;) but a point-per-game is what teams get relegated with. 11 points to make up, 12 games to do it. And hell never mind Liverpool's form, Spurs are showing no signs of letting up either. Gonna need both of them to implode - or maybe Arsenal, who seem to be really flagging - to do it.

[Loony BoB]

Spurs are a weird case. Before their last match, they were 5th on a goal difference of 0. That's just weird, however you look at it. Looks like they've hit a bit of form now. But yeah, still weird. I mean, we've had a shocking season where you may as well flip a three sided coin in order to predict the result regardless of what team we're facing (lose against the bottom team, win against the top team... make what you will of that). But despite that, Spurs were positions and points ahead of us with (before last game) a goal difference of 0! Crazy.

I'm not expecting CL next season at the moment, but I do feel that Moyes needs to move us into a good run of form or this summer will be very interesting or very worrying. Or both.

As for the Liverpool game at Old Trafford, I'll say it again: Flip a coin, that'll be the result. xD

I believe if we win the CL (ha!) and you finish fourth then England just get five teams in the CL. Not sure if that's a certainty but I'm sure they mentioned that possibility in UEFA somewhere along the line. As for both teams playing for draws, I didn't see it that way - I think both teams had attacking intent but it was a poor game regardless, if not for the lack of goals then for the general scrappiness all over the pitch. There was the occasional bit of good football being played but it was generally outside the box, which is a shame. Shocking developtment, though. Vidic to play a full game (and Rio half of it) and we kept a clean sheet. Did Not Expect.

Our form is rubbish points-wise, but our play last weekend was really good and to get a point away at Arsenal isn't a terrible result, although you'd still hope for better in the circumstances. I think Ince has echoed my thoughts recently in that we have no leaders on the pitch, and I do feel that is the big issue right now. There is definite talent, although the Rio, Vidic, Giggs and Scholes of last season simply aren't good enough this season (or in Scholes' case, aren't playing at all). If you look at the games we've lost this season, we haven't been battered by any means, with the possible exception of Chelsea away and City away, the two hardest games we'll get. When you are losing by a scrappy goal or having draws pounced on you at the last minute (we've lost a lot of points late in games this season) then you have to say that the mentality of the players is getting weaker than what we're used to.

We control matches and lose them because the players don't know when to slow a game down, when to time-waste (we never do this anymore, at all - it's weird when you miss Giggs messing around with a foot on the ball in the far corner of the pitch). If half of those losses were draws and half of our draws were wins, we'd have eight more points. Surely some good strong leaders on the pitch could have managed us that.

One incredible scene was right at the end of the Arsenal match. BT Sport had Moyes inset on the corner of the screen while showing what the players were doing. It was the 93rd minute with three minutes of extra time, and we were just on the edge of Arsenal's third of the pitch with the ball at our feet. Moyes was yelling at the players to attack. The next thing you see is him holding his arms wide with a dumbfounded expression when the players instead slowed the play down and started pushing the ball back to the keeper. Admittedly they were on the far side of the pitch and probably couldn't see or hear him, but you my reaction was pretty much the same as Moyes'. Where is the late hammering of the goal? We could have snatched something at the final minute but instead Young, Rooney, Carrick and Evra - all champions last year - were looking around and then passing back into our own half. Shocking.

[Crop]

http://giant.gfycat.com/GracefulVelvetyGoose.gif

[Bubba]

It looks like Raheem Twattybollocks was taught the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart technique from Kill Bill.

I'm glad the gif didn't show Howard Webb's next four steps.

[Psychotic]

Love Raheem, fuck Webb.

Also why does every Man United fan call him Stirling and not Sterling? No excuses Bubba, it's right there on his shirt in the gif!

[Bubba]

My apologies, Psy. I wouldn't let it slide if it was one of our players so... fair play.

Original post fixed.

[Psychotic]

How not to defend: THE GAME

To get nerdy, you know in RPGs where you can bump stats up and down when making a character? Brendan Rodgers has actually decided to dump defence in order to pump up the attack. Seriously like remember the mid-90's when Newcastle used to challenge for the title by boasting the likes of Ferdinand, Asprilla, Ginola, Shearer etc. and their mantra was "yeah we've got a trout defence but we don't care, we'll hammer you anyway"? That is literally Liverpool. Martin Skrtel is 2014 Phillipe Albert.

Liverpool have now scored more goals than any other team in the league this season... and have conceded more than the likes of West Ham, Hull and Manchester United.

I can't let it go without some form of taunt though. Old Manus did you enjoy Nathan Dyer being shredded by England's Glen Johnson and England's Raheem Sterling? Ho ho ho. Delicious.

[Old Manus]

Post-EoFF Football Thread Superbowl thoughts:

1. thank you based shelvey
2. we are looking much better than we did with laudrup
3. not often you score 3 goals against Liverpool at Anfield and go home with nothing
4. fucking Jonathan Pearce and Danny 'remember me?' Mills talking bollocks about the penalty decision. Skrtel had his arms all round him. Tell me where in the rulebook it says that is not a foul

I'm not bitter

[Loony BoB]

Liverpool have now scored more goals than any other team in the league this season... and have conceded more than the likes of West Ham, Hull and Manchester United.
For all the trash we've got about our defence this season, it's actually not been much worse than previous seasons, if at all. Our highly touted attack has been the area we've struggled in. I think we've conceded less than a few of the teams above us. In conclusion: Smalling and Evans are obviously more world class than Rooney and RVP. Wait, what?


not often you score 3 goals against Liverpool at Anfield and go home with nothing
How weird is it that I went to find another instance of this happening and was actually surprised that it's the first time this season? With Liverpool's high scoring games this season, I genuinely thought "Ah, but it can't be the first time it's happened, can it?"

[Psychotic]

Oh I was just having bantz :greenie:

Heard some suggestions that England should just line up like Liverpool with Sturridge, Sterling, Gerrard and Henderson all performing their club roles, and then have Rooney doing Suarez's job. Thoughts on that? (I guess Wilshere is Coutinho)

[Old Manus]

>implying Hodgson has any intention of playing football Brendan Rodgers style
>implying it won't be hoofball from Hart to Andy Carroll for 90 minutes
>implying Gareth Barry will not play every minute of every game

[Psychotic]

Gaz Baz has had a pretty decent season at Everton. I would prefer to see him play than the likes of Wilshere or Hodgson's personal favourite Tom "TC23 The Brand" Cleverley.

[Loony BoB]

I think Rooney and Suarez are two different kettles of fish these days, and Suarez is rather central to Liverpool's play. Still, it's not a bad shout - I always felt that England would do better if they simply focused on a specific club when selecting their players. Fair? Perhaps not. More likely to win? I think so.

EDIT: Watching this game is painful, and I'm not just talking about it being on a very horrid ITV broadcast. Seriously, what the hell. Anyway, back to the game... you may as well title this match "Manchester United: An Experiment in Playing Without a Midfield". Actually, you could call a lot of our games that this season, but none more so than today. What the hell. We're playing long ball because there is literally nobody in our midfield. At all. We are out of the centre circle pretty much at all times. Carrick plays deeper than ever before. Cleverley was in midfield for a little bit but mostly was floating from flank to flank. All the other players (sans defence) were sitting up top. Olympiakos aren't just beating us, they are dancing around us and having a lot of fun.

[Psychotic]

ITV are indeed the absolute worst.

Anyway, I know it might be wrong but I sort of fancy David Moyes :shobon:

[Old Manus]

It looks like even RedCafe have finally given in. This is all so delicious but at the same time I don't want it to end. UNBAN CUCHULAINN GOD DAMN IT

[Psychotic]

It will be such a sad day when they finally grow a pair and fire him. I was hoping they might have a run to the semis to give him a longer stay in the job to do more damage.

Couldn't happen to a more deserving team. That banner about city, abuse of Leeds when they went down, mockery of Arsenal whenever they collapse and how much they enjoyed Hodgson at LFC and the club being a day away from administration... Karma is a bitch, ain't it? (no offence to the decent United fans btw. But there are some proper whoppers in your fanbase, as indeed there are with LFC!)

[Loony BoB]

I'm actually starting to sway into the negative camp about Moyes now. I know he can do so much better than what he has done with us because I've watched Everton play decent football. Hell, I've watched them play pretty well against us on occasion under his management, better than we played last night by a long distance. I don't know what it is but he seems to really struggle to get United to do the things that Everton did well. Just a seeming incompatibility. One part of me still really wants him to be given time so he can get the players that will do well for us, but the other part of me is disgusted at last night's game and is fed up with him.

But not just him. Many of our 'big name' players. People are very quick to criticise the likes of Cleverley, Smalling etc. when we play games like we did last night, but they were no worse than any other player we had on the pitch. It was just that crap by every one of them and I would expect better from a side that had no manager at all. I don't care who the manager is, basically - the players should have done so, so much better last night. It was trash.

[Psychotic]

Nope, that is pretty much how Moyes's Everton played and you're on course to do just as well in both the league and the cups as Moyes's Everton did.

On the subject of players, no, they're clearly not performing. They're title winners, though, so they're clearly capable of performing. And so whose job is it to motivate them and to give them the tactical instructions to ensure they perform at their very best? Buck has to stop somewhere.