Quote Originally Posted by Psychotic View Post
Fletcher aint the player he was two years ago - he seems to have been going backwards.
He was just injured for a large chunk of last season. Not much you can do about that. The season before everyone was singing his praises, so there you go.

And Jones, yeah, he can play as a DM, but it's in the same way that Jamie Carragher could play as a DM. He could do it, but he wasn't at the level a title winning side needs.
Luckily a "proper" DM has not been something we've needed to win the league for many years now.
I think United got the most out of both Anderson and Carrick when they had the Canuck about.
I disagree - our best games have been when we were on the attack with a box-to-box (or as close as one we could get our hands on - ie Anderson/Carrick/Fletcher) player man-marking the opposition's creative midfielder (Anderson was awesome against Gerrard and Fabregas early in his United career - hopefully he can find that kind of game again)
tbh I think last season's United side was one of the poorest United sides I have seen. That's not to say they were a bad team - far from it! they won the smurfing league after all! - but they struck me as more... assailable? than other formidable red devils teams in the past.
I agree with this on some level, but I think it was not so much United worsening (although they weren't at their best) as it was the rest of the league dramatically improving. There are no weak-as-weak sides these days, or maybe it just feels that way since we had such bad away form... hey, if we fixed that then we would have done way better. :S Only lost 2 points at home!
Also, no, Liverpool cannot win the league this season and would do very well to finish in the top four. The team isn't ready yet. If we carry on investing at the rate we have been, and if our youth carries on developing as it has been, then in 2-3 years, watch the smurf out. But for now, we are where we are.
I genuinely expect you to challenge for the top four spots. I think, at the end of last season, you were doing just a well as City and Spurs were, weren't you? So why not?