Harry Grindell Matthews wrote:


He can play as a holding mid quite well though.

Yes, this game did highlight the issues that many of been bringing up with the RVP signing -- he didn't especially add anything to the United attack and while they actually looked less dynamic after he came on, that was probably because Everton took the lead and sat back, closing the spaces that Kagawa had been attacking thus far.

Contrast with a central midfield of Scholes, Cleverley and Anderson, Valencia at right-back and Carrick at CB. Man U have 10 excellent attacking players and a bunch of question marks between them and Vidic/De Gea.

A good match and the right result. Fellaini was brilliant throughout, although how he managed to avoid getting booked for consistent petty fouling (some of which weren't given as free-kicks) is a mystery.

An astoundingly thick team selection from Ferguson -- what exactly did he expect to happen when putting Cleverley and a nearly 38-year-old Scholes in against a big, strong, physically committed and energetic team like Everton? -- and an equally dim performance from those he picked, who among other things kept lumping every single corner high into the box to be easily headed away by Jagielka and Distin.

United can take comfort only from the fact that Kagawa did very well on his debut, despite Everton closing him down relentlessly, and that De Gea was superb. The rest of them were terrible, especially Rooney (who, as usual in this fixture, seemed intimidated by the home crowd), Nani and the increasingly embarrassing Evra.

It's also hard to decipher what Ferguson sees in Danny Welbeck other than nuisance value.

ferguson said something the other day about how having van persie, rooney, welbeck and hernandez was like when he had cole, yorke, solskjaer and sheringham - "the best in the world". this got me wondering who actually were the best strikers in the world in 1998-99.

the guys who stand out in my memory from that time:

batistuta (22 in 31 league and european games)
ronaldo (15 in 25)
rivaldo (27 in 43)
kluivert (21 in 40)
raul (28 in 45)
jardel (38 in 38)
larsson (33 in 43)
bergkamp (18 in 37)
owen (20 in 36)

i've probably missed a few candidates.

for comparison, the united strikers' figures were

cole (22 in 42)
yorke (26 in 43)
solskjaer (14 in 25)
sheringham (3 in 21)

i was amazed sheringham had only scored three goals. he also scored in the FA cup final. the only one of the united strikers i'd take over most of the players in the first list would be yorke. united didn't have the best strikers in the world. their guys played well together, was the point.

the reason the signing of van persie is odd is that the guys ferguson already had seemed to play well together. van persie is a one-man attack, but united have plenty of attackers. welbeck speeds the game up, van persie takes lots of touches. maybe welbeck and van persie would be a good pairing but where would that leave rooney?

meanwhile they only have about two reliable defenders. why are they still putting berbatov on the bench? put him out of his misery FFS. there are too many attackers who won't be able to play regularly. maybe sell a winger, nani or young, and buy a big strapping defender slash midfielder who can stand up to the likes of fellaini. oh, they've already got one of those in phil jones. a player damian comolli identified as the leader of the british liverpool that haunted his imagination...

Carnivorous Vulgaris wrote:

United should have gone all out for Cheick Tiote rather than another striker. he's the exact type of player they need.

Fergie must be gutted. Usually Everton don't even get going until after Christmas, so having the opening game against them would seem to be a shoe-in. If they can put some results together in this half of the season there is no reason why they can't repeat what Newcastle did last season or even improve on it.

A repeat of any of United's performances last season - plenty of possession, but no creative flair or indeed anything meaningful for Howard to save. In the last 12 months, only the Arsenal match in the league and City in the cup come to mind as memorable United displays, and in many respects the next few matches are immaterial, only the trip to Anfield will reveal if any meaningful league or European form will materialise.

Man United are already out to 2-1 at Ladbroke's for the title. I don't care how shit they looked last night, those look like pretty good odds to me. Would at least ease the pain a little bit when they're all bouncing around the beer garden next April wearing their "Champ20ns" T-shirts.

Youse are all fucking idiots. Man U played great;

A more pressing concern for Ferguson than defending his team's honour after a shit performance should be how he is going to get Rooney to lose the surplus stone (at least) that the latter is carrying.

At one point last night he was beaten for pace in a 40-yard sprint by Sylvain Distin. The stupid cunt went to Las Vegas as preparation for Euro 2012. What do you do with somebody like that?

Fergie will probably take the same attitude he has for the last few seasons, clap him on the back for stockpiling goals against the bottom 12 teams, before expressing bemusement when he's marked out of the knockout European games yet again.

Scratchmonkey wrote:


But that's not the best use of him or (as the original post said) the best use of £24M if it's a holding midfielder you need.

The whole point being made was that Ferguson has obvious gaps he should be plugging with specialists, not buying players that will have to adapt to roles they are not best suited for.

i've noticed a definite surge of anti-rooney sentiment among man united fans recently - what's going on? some are saying he's fat and out of condition, but there have been some other criticisms, he's not exciting any more, he's lost the joy in his play etc.

does this all date to the point when he gave alex ferguson such a humiliating spanking in the contract negotiations? his productivity in terms of goals and assists has remained pretty constant.

i mean it's clear ferguson hates him, everyone knows that. i mean, united lost the league basically because fergie hates rooney so much he dropped him for the blackburn game for going out a few nights beforehand. so that's two seasons in a row when rooney's actions have directly or indirectly caused ferguson embarrassment and despair; most players wouldn't get away with doing this even once. but i am surprised to see a lot of the fans seem to be pissed off with him too.

I only saw a little bit of this game, because I was at the all Ireland fleadh, and had better things to be doing, and I was surprised to read that Robin van persie was on. I certainly didn't notice him on the pitch in the last quarter hour.

To be honest, when I saw that Carrick was playing at centre half, and valencia was at right back, I'm surprised that everton didn't score more. That combination usually conceded three goals a game last season. I'm a little worried that last season's defensive injury problems seem to be as bad as ever.

I'd be a little bit more patient with rooney. he went eight games without scoring last season, and still managed 35 goals in 44 games. It's very unusual for man utd to have a striker that scores four goals in five games over the course of a season.

I also see that Man utd signed a left back. is he any good? Hopefully this game will have alerted them to the pressing need to sign another defensive midfielder and a right back if they're not going to trust rafael.

I was surprised to read that Robin van persie was on. I certainly didn't notice him on the pitch in the last quarter hour.

Van Persie was brought on around the 70-minute mark, instantly ran over to the far side to take a corner, then vanished in the Everton maelstrom for the remainder of the game.

The new left-back is supposed to be not only shite (no one in the Netherlands can believe this transfer, by all accounts), but an absolute psycho as well.

The Awesome Berbaslug!!! wrote:


You have David De Gea to thank for that. He made a number of excellent saves in the first half.

Ferguson really should be questioning his tactic of Carrick marking Fellaini at set-pieces. It was a goal waiting to happen. ManU would have been better served with Vidic picking him up.

torres wrote:


Agreed, it was baffling. It's not as if Fellaini had been largely anonymous prior to the goal either, he was by some margin the best player on the pitch.

Fergie will probably take the same attitude he has for the last few seasons, clap him on the back for stockpiling goals against the bottom 12 teams, before expressing bemusement when he's marked out of the knockout European games yet again.

Ah now that's a bit harsh. Last year rooney scored two goals against man city in the cup, and in the league, three goals against arsenal, Two goals against spurs, three goals against chelsea, two goals against everton, two goals against liverpool and two goals against fulham. The only team in the top nine that he didn't score at least two goals against was Newcastle.

Even then in the knockout stages in europe over the last three seasons Rooney scored four goals against AC Milan, and one against bayern munich, before getting injured. Then the season after that he scored the winner at chelsea, the second goal at schalke, and scored in the final. Then last season he scored 3 goals against bilbao.

There's plenty of reasons to criticize rooney, but the coverage of him generally has the attention span of a gnat. By any historical standards, He scores an absolutely extraordinary number of goals for manchester United, and he scores them in big games. He doesn't score in every big game, but it's still an awful lot of goals.

the coverage of rooney in the media is usually quite positive except when he fails for england, and even then it's muted. what i'm talking about is criticism from man united fans i see on twitter.