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Originally Posted by borsuk
gk - i'd take edwin over any keeper in the league atm. his age is an issue but i think he's probably behind buffon and nobody else in europe. maybe the chap at inter, but i haven't seen enough of him to judge. also, edwin's strengths (calmness, concentration, distribution, ability to play with his feet) are exactly what we need
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sorry but casillas, keeper for inter, asenjo, akinfeev have all been better if we are taking last 2 seasons. I would think VDS is currently on level with reina and cech. VDS has his weakness like on free kicks or with high balls ( like cech ). And he looks a bit weak when it comes to withstanding knocks. no wonder at the age of 39. and look past him, we have 2 jokers as back up. so I wouldn't take it as our strong part. if anything its one of our weak area which we should and probably will address in jan or summer.
It was interesting to hear fergie singling out akinfeev after moscow match. his performance in the return leg could well make fergie corner down on our new goalkeeper. if moscow are knocked out, I would guess he will be available in jan itself.
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Originally Posted by borsuk
full backs - despite a crap game yesterday, i think evra is the best lb in the country by a distance. only cole comes close. rb is a worry, clearly a weakness and we need to settle on somebody not called o'shea. rafael is the obvious candidate, but i think it might be fabio who makes the position his own. it was good to see neville looking something like his old self the other week, but any injury seems to knock him back for weeks in terms of form.
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This is probably our strongest area if used properly. Evra, fabio, rafael, o shea, neville, brown, da laet all are quality but probably not suited all the time. For ex I thought we could have rested evra by playing o shea in his position against bolton. evra struggles against tall strikers and o'shea is good in that circumstance. and anyway bolton didn't have any pacy players. don't see why fergie overlooked that. evra looked £#%&!ed from the start.
I would hope fabio and rafael start the match against barnsley. I think we have now seen that they are good enough against 80% of the opponents. both of them should play lot of home games so that evra and neville are present for the important matches.
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Originally Posted by borsuk
centre backs - vidic has been poor for a while and shouldn't be in the team imo. evans is as good as any young defender in the country, though, and rio is a class player if he can get back to full fitness - the best in the world in his position. on form and fit, brown is as good as any of them, btw.
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from the best it has gone to very bad in a short space of time. Coincidence or not it started from that liverpool game at old trafford last season where vidic just got torn a new one by torres.
vidic just looks off the form and I think once whole league saw how exposed he got by torres' pace, I think teams are targeting him. adding to that he has a suspect temperament. won't be surprised to see fergie cashing in on him in the summer if barca/real want him and push evans up and use brown/cathcart as back ups.
rio is a strange one. he looks about 2 yards slower than what he is capable off. whether its just fitness and not fully up to speed or has he lost it for good we don't know. if its the latter we are £#%&!ed.
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Originally Posted by borsuk
central m/f - i think our five (scholes, carrick, anderson, hargreaves, fletcher) are as good as any in the country, possibly excluding chelsea. if three of them are unable to play, for whatever reason, then we're struggling. fletcher, especially, has been a big loss. he's been out standout player this year imo and has dominated the likes of essien and barry repeatedly.
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each one of them is individually very good although I don't see how you can make the statement "as good in the country" wrt carrick and anderson. I think after 3 seasons in champions league and premiership, we certainly know that carrick just doesn't cut it in the big matches against good midfielders. liverpool, chelsea, arsenal all have better midfield imo.
scholes for me should retire after this season. I think he is bordering on unpredictable. he can be amazing one match and just totally off the pace in another. Either fergie should use him against the bottom 10 dross in the league or just look for a new option. or else we will see more matches like yesterday.
and anyways I don't think there is a world class partnership in there. if we look at a 2 man midfield, any combination doesn't inspire confidence in me bar anderson - hargreaves or fletcher - hargreaves. these 2 have pace, bite and technical quality in them to play big 4 and the rest of the teams.
a midfield 3 is probably the best option, but that doesn't suit berbatov and rooney. :shakehead:
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Originally Posted by borsuk
wingers - valencia is improving all the time and giggs is still spectacularly good, despite a £#%&! performance for the most part at anfailed. nani, well, hope springs eternal. i suspect most would see this as a weakness but is it? we're used to ronnie, beckham, andrei out wide and any of those in their prime would walk into this side, no doubt. but they are truly exceptional players, each the best in the world in their time. but we're not comparing this united side to previous sides; we're thinking where we are strongest. who in the premier league has better wingers? certainly not liverpool or chelsea (who don't actually have wingers). city? not in my opinion. spurs have lennon and modric (not really a winger, but still) who are excellent going forward, but dogshit in defence. weaker we may be than we were, but i'm not sure there's a team in the league which is stronger than us down the wings.
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giggs, nani, park, valencia is a poor bunch to pick from. I personally think nani and park are shit, valencia is decent and can become better and giggs is amazing in patches. again like scholes, its pretty hard to tell when giggs can put in a "mare" performance like in rome and like yesterday. We should certainly look for new players ( within or outside ).
obertan, ljajic and cleverley should be given a chance before we start looking at some purchases.
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Originally Posted by borsuk
strikers - i don't think one poor performance coming back from injury should mask the fact that rooney has been having one of his best seasons for united and england. berbatov has also been looking better and better. who is better? torres and drogba, when he's in form. that's the lot imo. and i think rooney has been better than either of those over the season. we need more from berbatov, but he's not been at all bad.
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again like midfield, I don't think any partnership is gelling. rooney - berbs look strangers up front, as do owen and rooney. berbs and owen are the only ones that have looked decent although in a couple of matches only.
Rooney hasn't formed a good partnership bar ronaldo and saha in that one season in 06-07. we have to solve this problem first more than anything as with ronaldo gone he is the only world class player we have now.
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Originally Posted by borsuk
all very rosy, eh? no doubt somebody would like to ask why we're struggling if we're so strong. bit of a daft question imo when we'd be top of the league and top of our cl group - on course for a fourth straight title and a third straight cl final - if not for one crap performance. infuriating as it may have been, it was only one match and it shouldn't hide the fact that we've been as impressive as anyone else in the league so far - and, as i keep saying - we're rarely close to our best form this early in the season.
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I think we have more points than our performances have merited. even in single matches we have had amazing patches of performance and absolutely shocking patches of play.
Usually by end of October we get into our rhythm going on till Christmas. This time we will have played 5 of the top 6 by end of october, 3 of them away and 2 at home. so we will have only rest of the dross to play. if our performance doesn't improve even then, I don't think it will improve this season at all.
26-10-2009, 04:56 PM
Re: what area of the pitch are we 'strongest' in?
Re: what area of the pitch are we 'strongest' in?
