thelordspawn
Starting XI
i was joking about rooney being sold Rooney is reason united didnt score any goals last night he was worst player on pitch for united.
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thelordspawn;2675068 said:i was joking about rooney being sold Rooney is reason united didnt score any goals last night he was worst player on pitch for united.
SAMUELKATALAN;2675266 said:I'm sorry for you'll, but i expected something better from you, but still yet you're a great team, i am not a Manchester fan in England, but you got a great performance,only that it was controled by Barcelona,and then Manchester couldn´t find them self at game. But I really congratulate Ferguson, because he showed class when they made him the enterview aftergame and he spoke like how it should
Papers: Time to rebuild
29/05/2009 09:17
Tevez, Nani and Park set to be ditched
Sir Alex Ferguson will reshape his humiliated Manchester United squad after their Champions League debacle against Barcelona. Shell-shocked Fergie has decided he will not take up the option to buy Carlos Tevez, while Nani and Ji-Sung Park could also be high-profile victims of the Rome drubbing. The United manager believes Lyon’s Karim Benzema represents better value for money than Tevez – and to meet Lyon’s £30million asking price there will be fall guys. Nani has failed to impress in his second season at United, while Park may be sacrificed so Fergie can bring in Wigan’s £15m-rated midfielder Antonio Valencia, a long-term target. Goalkeeper Tomasz Kuszczak is on his way out this summer after failing to impress in three years, with Fergie keen to give England goalkeeper Ben Foster more first-team opportunities next season. United will not take up the option to buy Tevez unless the player’s advisers, led by Kia Joorabchian, lower their asking price by a third to around £18m.
David McDonnell & John Cross, The Mirror
Meanwhile, The Sun claim Cristiano Ronaldo is about to "throw Manchester United into turmoil and demand a move out of Old Trafford". If he does, The Express believe he won't be going to Real Madrid. The paper report Madrid have stopped their pursuit of the Reds winger.
There's some surprising news in The Guardian and The Mail, with claims that Paul Scholes is considering a player-coach role at Stoke City. Scholes has recently admitted he would relish the challenge of management in the future.
United haven't got a leader.
One a skipper in the true sense of the word, the other a focal-point centre-forward with an unerring propensity for putting the ball in the net.
What United missed more than anything in Rome’s Olympic Stadium on Wednesday night was a leader in the Keane mould.
A man that team-mates look to when the road grows steep.
A man with the bloody-minded ruthlessness to get in among players like Xavi and Andres Iniesta.
A man like Keane, who didn’t shrug his shoulders and admit the game was up when Juventus went 2-0 ahead inside 11 minutes in the Champions League semi-final second leg in Turin in 1999.
Instead he dug deep, piled into Zinedine Zidane and Edgar Davids, pulled one back himself with a header from a corner and, from then on, there was only one team in it.
When United went 1-0 down against Barcelona, their players looked around for salvation — and saw nothing.
With shoulders drooped and confidence draining away, United were rudderless.
From the early Nineties, the club has been blessed with certain players who stamped their huge character and personalities on games.
And the opposition when required.
Bryan Robson, Steve Bruce, Mark Hughes, Eric Cantona and Keane all spring readily to mind.
Leaders of men, hard as teak, driven individuals who never looked for excuses — least of all from themselves.
One of Ferguson’s main regrets will have been his failure to sign Michael Essien when the chance arose — even more so with the injury-prone Owen Hargreaves completing just 17 league games in 21 months.
What a difference the rock-solid Chelsea all-rounder would make to this current side.
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Or Frank Lampard, of whom Ferguson spoke so glowingly the other day. Or, in your dreams, Gerrard.
There was only one player out there on Wednesday with a similar capability to rouse a team — Wayne Rooney.
But the England man was so preoccupied with trying to find an effective role for himself within United’s swaying framework that he was caught between a rock and a hard place.
And where is the orthodox striker United need so badly?
Part of the problem pre-Rome is that they may well have been duped by the ease of their semi-final destruction of Arsenal.
Rather than coming to the conclusion that Arsene Wenger’s team was a soft touch, they congratulated themselves on the enormous success of playing Cristiano Ronaldo down the middle.
When they tried it again against a real team, they were found out.
At the same time, let’s not forget this United side has had remarkable success — three consecutive titles, a record 25 European games without defeat and back-to-back Champions League final appearances.
In many ways, it is testimony to Fergie’s ability that he has got so much out of a team that lacks certain fundamental strengths and one in which he has been forced to play too many square pegs in round holes.
Though some will say he has only been overcoming problems of his own making.
Yet as Ferguson suggested only this week, there have been a number of occasions when only good fortune and the failure of the opposition to take advantage of United’s frailties have kept them going — on both the domestic and European fronts.
Had Liverpool, beaten only twice in the league, been more ruthless at Anfield — where they dropped a staggering 14 points — they would surely have been champions.
Had Guus Hiddink been in charge of Chelsea all season, they too would have run United closer.
So what now for Ferguson?
Sadly, it would appear both Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs have had their time.
They were an integral part of the great era under youth-team coach Eric Harrison, rolling sublimely off a production line that, for the moment, has dried to a trickle.
Even more so when you consider that seven of the players who started for Barcelona in Rome came from their academy.
Are Park Ji Sung and Nani really good enough?
And what of Anderson, who blows as cold as he does hot?
And, surely, United cannot squander another £26million on Carlos Tevez?
Yet the greatest conundrum of all is Dimitar Berbatov.
It would have been almost inconceivable at the time he signed for £30.75m to predict the Bulgarian would not even make Wednesday’s starting XI.
For him then to suggest this week he would be none too confident if called upon in a penalty shootout said everything about his character.
Ferguson, though, will be intent on seeing Berbatov succeed.
For that to happen, he has to either play Rooney in front of him (which is difficult seeing as Rooney loves to drop deep) or bring in a striker like Lyon’s young Karim Benzema.
Or cut his losses.
Then there’s all the talk about Franck Ribery — an outstanding performer but, at the £40m price quoted, one seen more as a replacement for Ronaldo considering the growing concerns about United’s finances.
Most important of all, though, is the putting together of a DVD with all the composite qualities required in a new midfield powerhouse.
Perhaps they could call it “Looking for Eric, Roy and Robbo”.
Report: Dimitar Berbatov Unsure Of Manchester United Future
The Bulgaria international striker was left frustrated after being named on the substitutes bench for the Champions League final...
30 May 2009 15:52:47
According to a report in the British tabloid The Daily Mirror, Dimitar Berbatov is pondering his future at Manchester United.
It seems that the Bulgaria international forward, somewhat similarly to team-mate Carlos Tevez, was not happy with starting the Champions League final on the substitutes bench.
While El Apache's frustrations with limited playing time at Old Trafford have been apparent for some time, it is claimed that Berbatov, who started two more games than the Argentina international but played eight games less in total, shares his qualms.
It is thought that the 6ft 2in striker hopes to prove that he merited the £32 million the Red Devils paid Tottenham Hotspur to land him on transfer deadline day last summer.
However, it is also written that his representatives are making enquiries with potential suitors should the Premier League champions decide he is not considered a regular in the starting eleven.
Ricky Brooks, Goal.com
Dytza;2675745 said:Hey, where's Dipanjan? I haven't seen him for such a long time...
Pizarro14;2675827 said:Why didn't Manchester United start Gary Neville? injured? that's your BORN leader......Honestly I rather Manchester United keep Tevez and sell Berbatov if you guys had to pick. Ferguson needs to talk to his players more because everyone IMO is lacking motivation right now....
Dytza;2676451 said:Yeah but to be fair both players are very overrated when the discussion referrs to prices...
MikeyM;2676502 said:To be fair I think EVERY player is overrated when it comes to prices, there's an economic crisis going on and football wages and fees seem more extravagant and obscene than ever before. I know it can be justified when you talk about image rights and prize money as well as market rates - but smaller clubs are going out of business all the time. Hell Newcastle is for sale for less than Bayern are asking for Ribery!