Man U - bloody useless
Discussion
What is it with ManU and transfers?
We're getting completely spanked every which way.
Horseface out for two balloons and a paper bag and Carrick in for a kings ransom. It's not just now but it's being going on for years. Bex goes for 25 big ones. That had to be 3-5 short of true value at the time and RM has had our pants down again.
Why are we being run by such a bunch of frickin' idiots?
cont planetdaves secret underground base
We're getting completely spanked every which way.
Horseface out for two balloons and a paper bag and Carrick in for a kings ransom. It's not just now but it's being going on for years. Bex goes for 25 big ones. That had to be 3-5 short of true value at the time and RM has had our pants down again.
Why are we being run by such a bunch of frickin' idiots?
cont planetdaves secret underground base
planetdave said:
Horseface out for two balloons and a paper bag and Carrick in for a kings ransom. It's not just now but it's being going on for years. Bex goes for 25 big ones. That had to be 3-5 short of true value at the time and RM has had our pants down again.
cont planetdaves secret underground base
Is English your first language mate? Or are you in the final weeks of an intensive second hand car dealer speak course?
Anyway, thanks very much for Ebay Blake - I'm looking forward to the new season.
FourWheelDrift said:
lazyitus said:
planetdave said:
What is it with ManU and transfers?
knows. Ferguson certainly makes some odd business deals. I don't think the manager does the deals, I believe that's what the board is for. A manager can put in a recommendation but they don't do the deals.
I realise that but Fergy is the only one deciding who he wants there for the team and he knows roughly what they are going to cost.
I don't suppose Fergy is too bothered though, as you rightly say, its not really his money anyway.
It just seems that United have to pay over the odds to get their man every time. (Excluding Cantona). Other teams take the piss by slapping stupid price tags on their players whenever United (or Chelski) show an interest.
Thats the game I suppose. Just an observation.
Edited by lazyitus on Tuesday 1st August 13:33
satch said:
Guardian Unlimited said:
It was John Cleese, in Clockwise, who said: "I can take the despair. It's the hope I can't stand." Manchester United fans would beg to differ. Usually, the best thing about pre-season is the hope: reality's incisors have yet to pierce the gums of optimism, and fans can live off the balmy, often barmy belief that this is their year. For supporters of most of the other 91 English clubs, that's the mood right now. For United fans? Forget it. After three seasons of papering over the cracks, it seems most United fans are awaiting the moment that the fault lines tracing a veiny path across Old Trafford are exposed.
Almost everything about the club reeks of disarray. Owned by the Glazers, who push buttons from a remote hideaway like Dr Evil; run by a manager who shreds his legacy at every turn; almost exclusively represented by the inadequate (Darren Fletcher and Kieran Richardson) and the odious (Rio Ferdinand); unable to close a deal for West Brom's reserve keeper, never mind the new Roy Keane. The signing of Michael Carrick, a Pirlo when a Gattuso was needed, is a band aid for a bullet wound, and a ludicrously expensive one at that.
If anything, it's a surprise that United have bought anyone at all. This summer, they have been like a pathetic drunk lumbering across a dancefloor at 1.45am, trying to get off with everything that moves. No matter how many people they move in for - and if reports are to be believed, United have made offers for dozens of players - nobody wants to go near them. And the one person who surely would, Damien Duff, was allowed to slip into the arms of Newcastle for less than United paid for Patrice Evra. You couldn't make it up. You don't have to.
United finished second last season, but that said more about the deficiency of the Premiership than their own. Arsenal will not have a four-month blind spot this season, while all evidence suggests that Liverpool's gradient will continue on its upward trajectory. With Tottenham getting stronger, even with the loss of Carrick, it is entirely conceivable that, if they start slowly, United could finish fifth; in today's environment, that would be disastrous.
The problems are so obvious, so fundamental, as to be beggar belief that they have not been addressed. Just as the glory years of 1992 to 2001 will only fully be appreciated in 20 years' time, so will Ferguson's subsequent failure. It is particularly bewildering that a man who once exerted such an unyielding grip on every single aspect of the club that he had to be virtually coerced into delegating has let things slip to this extent. Take the Cristiano Ronaldo situation: Ferguson said recently that he had not even spoken to Ronaldo since the World Cup, a staggering dereliction of duty that is in total contrast to the us-against-the-world protection that he gave to David Beckham - and for which, for a time, he was so thrillingly rewarded - in 1998.
Once upon a time Ferguson could play 'who blinks first' with fate and win every time, his iron will shaping his destiny exactly as he wanted. Now he is reduced to uttering garbage like "it's like having a new signing" of Paul Scholes, Ole Solskjaer, Gabriel Heinze and Alan Smith, the irrational if-I-say-it-enough-it-might-happen gibberish you'd associate with a serial loser like Kevin Keegan. These days, the man they call The Hairdryer is full of nothing but hot air.
Ferguson's squad, once so taut, is a baggy mess of has-beens, never-will-bes and Liam Miller. The simple repetition of 4-4-2, of Giggs, Scholes, Keane, Beckham, Cole and Yorke, has given way to myriad tactical and personnel changes, to a ruinous obsession with utility players and tinkering. It's a truly appalling fact that, with Ruud van Nistelrooy gone, none of United's outfield players have played in only one position at the club. A nadir was reached in the FA Cup game at Wolves last season, when nearly £60m of defensive and attacking talent (Ferdinand and Wayne Rooney) was used in the centre of midfield.
It is an increasingly inescapable conclusion that, unwittingly or otherwise, Ferguson is winding down, a prizefighter who no longer has the stomach or the wit for an admittedly enormous challenge which, once upon a time, he would have fervently inhaled. Like he did with Liverpool. Ferguson's almost maniacal yearning to "knock Liverpool off their
ing perch" was arguably the single most important factor in United's 1990s renaissance. It makes it all the more vicious an irony that, 10 years later, he should knock United off the perch he had made for them through increasingly rank mismanagement. Indeed, it must irk him beyond belief that United are making exactly the same mistakes that Liverpool did: lack of pheromones in the transfer market; laughable, fall-back signings at suspicious and ridiculous prices; deluded ramblings ("we are as good as Chelsea, no question"
- and, worst of all, a dressing-room where playing the field seems as important as playing the game. Liverpool's Spice Boys were bad, but they have nothing on Merk Berks like Ferdinand, Richardson and Wes Brown. Ferguson has taken this end-of-an-empire template and, incredibly, managed to develop it: he's added a sprawling, outsized squad chock-full of obscenely well-paid deadwood; insultingly obvious spin that a two-year-old could see through (the Van Nistelrooy saga); economy with the truth (Ferguson ridiculed a journalist for saying that Paul Scholes had been scouting for United; a few days later Scholes confirmed the story); a coaching set-up that had Wayne Rooney playing wide for a season and turned Ronaldo from the world's most thrilling off-the-wall talent into a run-of-the-mill winger.
Ferguson, an essentially honourable man, is partly suffering because of the impossibly high standards he set, and he carries the fatigued incomprehension of a man who is out of time. When he cites his favourite United team it is not the Treble-winners of 1999, but the Double-winners of 1994: Schmeichel, Bruce, Pallister, Ince, Keane, Hughes, Cantona, Robson - a team that dripped masculinity, who bonded over blockbusting Saturday-night sessions, who embodied the old-school values to which Ferguson can relate. Real men. The gentrification generation - sarong-wearing, pink champagne-swigging metrosexuals - are entirely beyond his comprehension. He could handle one, David Beckham, for a time before eventually giving up on him. Now he has a pack of them, for whom the hairdryer means only one thing - a trip to Toni & Guy. It is a different world. Ferguson probably doesn't even know what 'merk' means.
Everywhere, principles are being sacrificed. In years gone by Ferdinand - who for all his irrefutable ability is the type of character whose presence in a United shirt symbolises everything that has gone wrong with the club - would've been out the door faster than Paul Ince could say 'big-time Charlie', but now Ferguson can't afford to lose his only world-class defender. In years gone by he wouldn't have considered signing someone like Patrick Vieira, on grounds of age or character, but now he is left looking for someone, anyone, to appease the fans. In years gone by he would never have given a game to someone like John O'Shea, whose sole use is to put the podge in a hodgepodge midfield. In years gone by, he would never have sanctioned the mediocre football that, except for a few giddy weeks in the spring of 2003, United have played ever since Carlos Queiroz arrived in 2002 spouting gobbledygook disguised as continental sophistication.
And the thing is, it is only going to get worse: Liverpool, Arsenal and Tottenham have all made shrewd, cheap signings and are going in one direction. United are going the other way: they are hugely dependent on Ferdinand and Rooney, but no amount of Carling Cup medals is going to sate their ambition. Then there is the Glazer factor, the full, inevitable horror of which is only just beginning to emerge. United fans think this season is going to be bad. It hasn't even started.
Some of that is accurate, some of it is utter bollox.
I hear this from City fans at work, day in, day out. Have done for quite some time. Its repetitive in its most boring form.
United are fading away ? They've been saying this for 5 years now. If it wasn't for Chelsea, we'd have won the league last year and been second the year before that. Thats an upward trend if you ask me.
Edited by lazyitus on Tuesday 1st August 16:38
satch said:
have you been watching the same team ?
Yes, from my very own seat at O.T. Granted, we aren't as good as we were and we had some sloppy performances - but we are still capable. satch said:
2nd in a poor premiership - is that success?
Of course it is. You can only play the teams that you're pitched against. Going on all of the above, if we're that bad, then only Chelsea are better and the rest are shiter than shite. satch said:
poor showing in europe since 2000.
And realistically, we were also poor before 1999. Its always poor unless you win it. So does this mean we were shite in the glorious 90's? satch said:
Of course you will hear this from City fans - that's their job.
satch said:
Fergie should have retired almost gracefully three seasons ago.
Not so sure personally - if we don't win the league this coming season, I may have to concede that you're right on this point. However -since 2003, we have won the league, the FA Cup and the MilkyRumbelows Pot. A disaster ? I think not. We're fat from too much success over the years. We had it so good (nobody except Liverpool in the 80's has ever performed like we did in the 1990's.) that it's become near on impossible to get the same enjoyment or success.
Edited by lazyitus on Wednesday 2nd August 10:09
satch said:
i take your points, lazy, but I really don't think it will get any better this season.
the teams arouns us have strengthened.
Yes, we are capable, of course we are, but do we have th esquad to really challenge Chelsea ? or in the Champions league?
I don't think so.
Playing for second should never be acceptable.
the teams arouns us have strengthened.
Yes, we are capable, of course we are, but do we have th esquad to really challenge Chelsea ? or in the Champions league?
I don't think so.
Playing for second should never be acceptable.
I just get all gooey eyed and optimistic before the season starts. Don't worry, I'll probably be back on this thread in 6 weeks time slagging Fergy off!
I have a sneaky suspicion that Chelsea won't be quite as complete and harmonious as they have been for the last 2 seasons.
We'll have to wait and see.
A bit of player discipline wouldn't go amis either, both Rooney & Scholes both sent off in a friendly.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/footb
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/footb
Both were a little harsh, but Scholes' tackle was disastrous, and Rooney hardly took his arm away from the guy when he smacked him in the face, so it can't have been too much of a surprise to him when he felt contact. The dick on Sky Sports (Gordan NcQueen), is a dick.
The referee has just ran up to Rooney eager to get his red card out. He just wants to make a name for himself and be the second man to send him off against Portuguese opposition...blah blah blah...
Yeah, right.
Gordan 'The Cock' McQueen said:
The referee has just ran up to Rooney eager to get his red card out. He just wants to make a name for himself and be the second man to send him off against Portuguese opposition...blah blah blah...
Yeah, right.
Ferguson is being found out what he is - a lucky manager. He would have won nothing without Brian Kidd's youth team - Scholes, Beckham, Giggs, the Nevilles, Butt, etc. His record on transfers is appalling. Granted, he has made some good signings, but he's made far more bad ones. With no decent young players coming through, the longer he stays, the worse it's going to get. I, for one, can't wait. I hope he does another 10 years there.
Mods - can you move this to the Sean Connery Joke thread ?mgp1969 said:
Ferguson is being found out what he is - a lucky manager. He would have won nothing without Brian Kidd's youth team - Scholes, Beckham, Giggs, the Nevilles, Butt, etc. His record on transfers is appalling. Granted, he has made some good signings, but he's made far more bad ones. With no decent young players coming through, the longer he stays, the worse it's going to get. I, for one, can't wait. I hope he does another 10 years there.
Seconded - the roof is falling in at OT so to speak ... Fergie is well past his sell-by date and it'll all come home to roost this season ... can't wait
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