Squad

[Sid]

https://www.football365.com/news/marca- ... e-worst-xi

Even the Spaniards hate the gormless blockhead.

He's a laughing stock around the world. If he just played at his level like at Blackburn he wouldn't have become about 10 thousand memes. But he wants the coin.

[bman2]

Interesting comments from Louis Saha:

Don’t get me wrong, those (Martial and Rashford) guys have talent and all that — I really like the potential, it is enormous. But they are playing in a configuration where there is no link to express themselves. I had big players around me. If I was not performing people could blame the squad, the tactics. ‘Cristiano hasn’t scored?’ We didn’t play well. ‘Van Nistelrooy didn’t score?’ He didn’t have the opportunities, we didn’t cross. Because the guy: He. Will. Score.
Now, you look, and the excuse is, ‘Pogba hasn’t played.’ It is crazy to put a club in this position. I’m sorry but you can’t put the blame on Rashford, you can’t put the blame on Martial, you can’t put the blame on the newcomers. Who is big enough in that squad to be saying, ‘This is falling down’? Apart from Pogba. It is unfair on him, unfair on the squad.

It is right that I hear Gary Neville complain about the chemistry that has been built. You could put any manager in right now; I’m sorry, he will struggle.
You can say, alright he should not have allowed [Romelu] Lukaku and [Alexis] Sanchez to leave but the damage was already done because those guys didn’t want to stay. So it is better to actually clean up in some ways, let’s say, with respect.
But the actual power of the United history, the United set-up, has been fettered by three or four transfer windows. It was like a shotgun in two feet. They put themselves in that situation, not giving the platform to fight back.

Paul Scholes is the player I enjoyed the most because I didn’t actually need to talk to him and raise my hand,” he says. “If I made a clever run, I would get the ball, 90 per cent of the time. It could be a channel ball, and I get it, cross back, we score. So I do it again.
When you do it and you have no game plan, the next thing is I half-question myself — ‘do I go there or not?’ This is what I see. I see players questioning what their team-mate is doing. And there is no understanding. [Jesse] Lingard will come inside, do all the cross runs, without any purpose. Martial will do the same.
There are no indicators of what should be happening at certain times in the game, so it is a struggle for a manager to implement that in one go. It will take one year to actually fix that. It is really hard.

It takes time. Give him the budget every manager has had to get the right players. You have to pay whatever you have to pay. I would say he has been courageous to let Lukaku and Sanchez go. He put himself in danger because people start to criticise. But that was the right move.
In six years, the board have changed strategy, changed managers. Now it is more for the youth. Before it was like ‘guaranteed’ players. But you are losing the tag of Champions League, so it is harder; not getting [Paulo] Dybala, for example. Those guys want Champions League because they want to play for their national team. It is a vicious cycle.

[bman2]

Haven’t watched the games myself, but by all accounts Smalling is doing well at Roma.

[Sid]

Haven’t watched the games myself, but by all accounts Smalling is doing well at Roma.

So let him stay there

[Edfuckingwoodward]

Haven’t watched the games myself, but by all accounts Smalling is doing well at Roma.

Slower tempo, lower defensive line, less aggressive and less direct than the PL. I'm not surprised- that's how he played when Gaal was here and that's probably his best spell in a Utd shirt

[Edfuckingwoodward]

Maybe they'll take Jones too...

[bman2]

Maybe they'll take Jones too...

I was a little surprised actually that of all our CBs, Smalling was the one shipped out. I rate him higher than some of the others. He's probably the best defender other than Maguire, though he's shit with the ball.

[lkhmffsstopmovingabout]

miles better player than lindshite

[Pikey McScum]

miles better player than lindshite

I know you're always wearing your England-tinted glasses when talking about football players, but that's complete and utter bollocks even from you

[dozer]

I think I'm hearing that Smalling is a top player.