Well, at the point when he was an actual decent player you weren't right.Originally Posted by Yevrah
But I never said he was some world class player so feel free to try and claim your big win from whoever you were having a bore-off with about it at the time if they were saying he was the future of football or whatever.
It's revisionism to think rashford was "always bad". He clearly wasn't.
Yeah that was a laugh, but then about 90% of United first team contracts are. We seem to have spent years just accepting agents' initial demands.
He has got worse because he doesn't play to his strengths anymore. That could be the manager, or it could be his ego; but he isn't a playmaker, he shouldn't be dribbling three defenders, and he needs to run a lot more off the ball.
Unless we're taking a trip to disingenuous city there's a huge difference between being decent and World Class. My contention was that he wasn't and isn't good enough for Man Utd, and oh, look.
That's just nonsense.
It's a pity we couldn't lose this as some sort of lol 4-3 rather than just two hours of having the ball and not knowing what to do with it.
I'd accept him as an impact sub, but as a regular starter over a long season? Unless you've put all ambitions of ever being a TOP side again in the bin, not a chance.
And you were, at that point, wrong. And this conversation has already become extremely boring.
He is undoubtedly reet shit now though. Whether, as Lewis says, it's ego* or manager or what I don't know but I assume only the proper crank hardcore who would argue his ineptitude this season.
* If he's really got so little self awareness that he's angling for a transfer because he doesn't know why he's barely played this season that would suggest there's at least a bit of this.
Not really, he was just playing alright at the time. Similar thing with OGS, in that was he ever really good enough for Man Utd.
You could call it an e-victory.
I could, I'm going to need one as well to offset the looming loss in Ukraine. Although I suppose I could just dine off COVID until the end of days.
I don't know how much of it is down to Man Utd being inept, but Everton have looked reasonably well organised today.
It's hard to say, but we're always shit when we have most of the ball against a team bothering to defend so I wouldn't read too much into it.
It's a pity United can't play Bielsa teams every week given he basically chose to drop points against United every time.
Yeah, the Roy Hodgson effect.
Rio Ferdinand is such a shit pundit. You'd think he'd have improved a bit by now given he's had years at it, but he's still so poor.
Him and Paul Scholes come across as being legitimately unintelligent rather than just bad/boring pundits.
At least there's only a few games left this season.
Are any of the former United pundits any good? I've no idea if Hargreaves knows what he's talking about or not as he always triggers a bout of narcolepsy whenever I catch him talking.
Owen Hargreaves talks like he's scared of waking up the people in the next room.
Ive just seen what Ralph was wearing. No wonder they lost. A fucking brown jumper?
Omar Richards starting again for Bayern Munich.
Is there a more under-the-radar Englishman plying his trade at a top European team?
Last edited by John Arne; 09-04-2022 at 02:00 PM.
No manager will do a thing at Utd until theres a massive clearout. Addition by subtraction at this stage.
Soccerstreams down for anybody else?
I'm a twit
Warnock has announced his retirement.
Southampton's propensity to go down to these molestations but be a bit of a concern.
Are United able to shit their way out of the European spots or does Liverpool winning the League Cup and a Champions League team likely winning the FA Cup mean they are doomed to Thursday night football whatever they do with the rest of the season [other than somehow coming out on top of the now annual 4 place shit-off]?
Neville? Keane?
Question still stands.
I genuinely liked Neville at first but he bought into that initial praise and is now a bit of a bore too. Keane is just a grumpy tosser.
Gary Neville is very good at football punditry and very bad at every other punditry.
He cant speak properly so should never be in a job where the main thing you do is speak.
Keane is very good and worth a listen. In general, all pundits are shit.
Giggles is on the money about United.
They need some sort of leadership group to build around, and they need to get rid of all the crazy contract shite who are just phoning it in [or underperforming if you don't subscribe to that]. Pogba will be gone, which helps. They need shot of Ronaldo. Rashford has been poor for too long. Obviously losing Greenwood is a blow. Wan-Bissaka is just a lolworthy waste of Ł50m or whatever it was. Is he at all big enough to play in the middle [not as part of a back 3]? Fatman Shaw is the bangest of bang average, I suppose you can get by with him. All centre-halves are a concern for various reasons, although I think you can build with Maguire, maybe. Fred, Matic and McTominay are all pretty average, the younger ones can do a job but they aren't really elite.
All that said, it's probably not the case that 8 or 9 new players are needed, just 3 world class players in the key positions [the spine of the team] which is obviously easier said than done. Basically Van Dijk, Kanté and Mbappe/Haaland and they're sorted.
Oh yeah, it definitely needs a clear out but it won't happen. It's not even that there's a group of players there you could properly build around or who have the right attitude if you just had the right manager in whipping them into shape.
There's nobody in that dressing room holding them to account or making people take responsibility for their own failings and that's always a bad look.
I remember whatever game it was where Maguire was trying to tell Rashford something and Rashford shouted back "fuck off you twat" or something to that effect. Which is funny, but not indicative of your captain being much of a leader.
Uniteds problem is a hard one to fix, but the blessing for them might actually be missing out on 4th.
The next guy that comes in needs to be able to tell whoever actually runs the show, that this will not fix overnight. It will likely take 2-3 years of solid investment in playing staff to get them to the point of challenging for major trophies.
The new guy needs to implement a style. Something United will be known for. City have their tiki-taka, Liverpool have their intensity etc. At present it's just chucking 11 players together and hoping they go and find a way to win. Today they seemed to decide that was getting the ball for Telles to lump it aimlessly in.
He also needs to fuck off the ego as it doesn't blend well with a rebuild. Start building around the likes of Elanga, Sancho and stop bringing in older guys looking for their last big payday.
I'm wondering if they'd be better off trying to get Eriksen when his Brentford stint ends. He seems to have that kind of quality to lift a side but is that going to work at United where everyone else thinks they're billy big football?
They need to completely change their mentality as an organisation, and that won't happen under current ownership.
First and foremost they need a proper manager - not a Fergie stooge, or someone 10 years past their use by date. He can then survey the wreckage, see what's worth salvaging and kick on from there.
Y'know what? Fuck Steve Bruce. Bring Keegan in.
Pointless unless the environment in which said manager operates is geared towards footballing excellence.
Are Liverpool really geared toward that or did they just hire one of the best managers and the board then thought they may as well back him a bit?
Liverpool mostly got lucky with a series of insanely good strategic decisions in terms of manager and playing staff.
It might have been by design, in which case hats off to the 'front office', but mostyl I think they've fallen on their feet with Klopp being both a brilliant manager and ideally suited to Liverpool, Salah turning into one of the best players in the world and then the big signings to sort the spine of the team out [Van Dijk and Allison] completely coming off whilst being funded on the back of selling Coutinho. Plus all the rest of their transfer business, which has largely been very good, so maybe there is something in the structure.
I'm not sure that United can rely on a seperate club having an absolute meltdown and spending 200 million quid on Scott McTominay.
I think Niko hit the nail in the first post. We aren't going to sign 8-9 this summer so you build around the good bunch that's there (and are underperforming for whatever reason). Get rid of those who are not actually part of the future (cheerio pogba, lingard, Jones, Mata). I think centre back wise we could be ok but we need to invest in the full back(s), centre mid (2) and a centre forward.
I see the papers are talking about Ruben Neves in recent days and he's completely the wrong type of player they need most. If they're serious then they'll go all out for Rice.
Pogba going is a classic example - he should have been shipped off two years ago as you can't (ever) build a new team around him or with him in, but they probably don't want to take the financial hit.
I assume Cavani is gone, Ronaldo fucking needs to be. Let's get a proper striker in who:
- isn't old
- can move
- not a violent rapist
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote