Pushing on from this season and looking back...

Originally Posted by jem

yes, and look at us now. we must have the best team ever.

except we don't, of course.

Yeah but you can't say they didn't have exceptional seasons unless you say all the seasons we've ever had in our entire history weren't as good (sort of thing).

I thought Arsenal were beatable as well, and they drew way more than a normal title-winning side. But they still did it.

Chelsea last season were an even more efficient team than Paisley's Liverpool.

Originally Posted by jem

not just neville g, but vds, giggs, scholes....

thats such an unconvenient way of responding to posts!

I didnt say it was a fact fletch will be as good as carrick at 26. i merely suggest that carrick at 22 was not that good. fletch has some good attributes, i wish he'd go on loan or something though. certainly dont want him in my team atm, but given another few years he could be a good player, he has some similar attributes to carrick.

beckham had eyes on the central mid role, so any diamond formation would have to consider beckham.

the 4-5-1 you suggested isnt a world away from what we tried. it would have left ruud severely isolated though, at least fergie tried getting veron/scholes to push up a bit.

either way none of us know how it would have gone. all we know is veron never performed well enough despite given lots of time and the whole mess of trying to prepare for life after keane set our team back years.

there may have been some solution which could have avoided all that, but at the time it was not clear - which is why i call it inevitable. any formation we try has to be trialled for a period so we can adjust etc, who draws the line between adjusting and failing?

in the end I'm glad fergie has come to realise we should stick to 4-4-2 with one man dropping deep if we're in trouble. dont mess about with it.

Originally Posted by Luffy

thats such an unconvenient way of responding to posts!

I didnt say it was a fact fletch will be as good as carrick at 26. i merely suggest that carrick at 22 was not that good. fletch has some good attributes, i wish he'd go on loan or something though. certainly dont want him in my team atm, but given another few years he could be a good player, he has some similar attributes to carrick.

beckham had eyes on the central mid role, so any diamond formation would have to consider beckham.

the 4-5-1 you suggested isnt a world away from what we tried. it would have left ruud severely isolated though, at least fergie tried getting veron/scholes to push up a bit.

either way none of us know how it would have gone. all we know is veron never performed well enough despite given lots of time and the whole mess of trying to prepare for life after keane set our team back years.

there may have been some solution which could have avoided all that, but at the time it was not clear - which is why i call it inevitable. any formation we try has to be trialled for a period so we can adjust etc, who draws the line between adjusting and failing?

in the end I'm glad fergie has come to realise we should stick to 4-4-2 with one man dropping deep if we're in trouble. dont mess about with it.

No he hasn't. He still messes about with it.

Ruud isn't adaptable. He also needs the team to revolve around him. He rarely scored against any of the top teams in the Premiership, but did score shit loads for United in Europe against some of the big guns as well, mostly in a 4-5-1.

People want to have it both ways.

Originally Posted by Carrick

No he hasn't. He still messes about with it.

hardly. its still 4-4-2 with one striker dropping deep if we need it.

[quote=Luffy;175490]hardly. its still 4-4-2 with one striker dropping deep if we need it.[/QUOTE]

From before the game has even kicked off?

Originally Posted by Carrick

From before the game has even kicked off?

its not a computer game man, theres a difference of a few yards from one position to another and footballers are always on the move. ffs.

players will roam and find space however way they can or they will track back and close off space if they feel its needed. fergie isnt controlling them via psychic powers directing their every move. they'll have orders to do this in this situation etc etc.

just cos you see rooney at halfway line doesnt make it 4-5-1.

Originally Posted by Luffy

its not a computer game man, theres a difference of a few yards from one position to another and footballers are always on the move. ffs.

players will roam and find space however way they can or they will track back and close off space if they feel its needed. fergie isnt controlling them via psychic powers directing their every move. they'll have orders to do this in this situation etc etc.

just cos you see rooney at halfway line doesnt make it 4-5-1.

Correct...

Its when you see Rooney on the Left Wing and Giggs down the middle that confirms it's 4-5-1 and £#%&!s everyone off, and is ruining Wayne's game

Originally Posted by Luffy

the 4-5-1 you suggested isnt a world away from what we tried.

it is. fergie should have played ruud far deeper, not as a target man. the kind of 4-5-1 we needed to play would have had the striker more as a link man, with the midfield flooding forward to support and overlap... and then as a finisher. he couldn't play as a lone striker who would win and hold up the ball on his own.

Originally Posted by Enjoying Insanity

Correct...

Its when you see Rooney on the Left Wing and Giggs down the middle that confirms it's 4-5-1 and £#%&!s everyone off, and is ruining Wayne's game

whens the last time we started a match with that formation?

Originally Posted by jem

yes, and look at us now. we must have the best team ever.

except we don't, of course.

Game, set and match there. We've got a record points total for Utd at this stage of the season and this is hardly the best Utd side any of us have seen.

We know about the poor signings along the way but I think much of that was an attitude that all we needed was a Ronaldinho to turn us into world beaters again.

There was a slow rot setting into the team. Scholes, Giggs, Keane etc had an unnatural hunger to push on for title after title but I think we hit an outer envelope at the end of 2001 where they hadn't too many more places to go. It frustrated Keane more than most because he knew his time as a dominant player in his position was coming to an end. I think Ferguson too knew the sort of job required to break up one team and go with a new one and, hence, his retirement decision.

You can't stand still for a year like we did that time, then try and desperately grab for the players to pick it up again. Arsenal pushed on that year and we were never that far ahead of them to get away with that.

The one that bothers me though is that it wasn't just that we bought poorly but that the age of the players we bought was wrong. We could have gone with much younger players at the time and reaped the benefits as Wenger is about to now.

Our youth system at the time clearly had very very little coming through, why weren't we out scouring the world for 5 or 6 youth prospects?

The point of the thread is have we got the buffers in place the next time around and is that next time going to be one league title won out of nowhere?

Too much is still resting on Ferguson's shoulders. I'm not sure is it feasible or even advisable to move to a "Director of Football" position but I think we need a parallel but semi-independent permanent youth development system with its own budget. First team manager can still get the vast bulk of cash for scouting and buying his own players obviously.

Bringing through a quality youngster starts at 8/9/10 these days. He won't see first team football for maybe 8 years. How many managers last that long? We need to guarantee the stability Ferguson provided for so long after he's gone for these kids and, let's be realistic, his successor isn't likely to be here 20 years.

you lads are gonna be a bundle of laughs if we don't win the title.

Up until his injury, Ruud played the other three top teams in England (Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal) 20 times in the league and 3 in the cups (inc CS). He scored in 3 of those games, a total of 4 goals in all of which 3 were penalties.

edit: Ruud scored at Chelsea when he did that pump action as well

During the same period, taking in games against Deportivo, Bayern Minuch, Leverkusen, Juventus, Real Madrid, Porto and Lyon he scored 19 goals.


After his injury he scored against Benfica in Europe. He played against the big teams in England 9 more times (inc 1 as sub), scoring just 1 goal.


These stats prove that before Ruud's injury the team was set up to his strengths - especially in Europe. This brought him much joy in Europe against some of the biggest teams in world football. But it brought him little joy against the biggest teams in England where United's style is known best, and where Ruud struggled to evade his markers to any great effect.


All in all, United slip from the top may not have been inevitable, but it was highly predictable. The fact we slipped so very little is a great tribute to all concerned. We may not have the best team we've ever seen, even under Ferguson. But then it's too early to judge; we are at least as good as the 93 team, but they peaked the year after, were mostly ordinary for the first half of 94/95 and were ripped apart in the summer of 95.

Originally Posted by Tumescent Throb

Up until his injury, Ruud played the other three top teams in England (Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal) 20 times in the league and 3 in the cups (inc CS). He scored in 3 of those games, a total of 4 goals in all of which 3 were penalties.

During the same period, taking in games against Deportivo, Bayern Minuch, Leverkusen, Juventus, Real Madrid, Porto and Lyon he scored 19 goals.


After his injury he scored against Benfica in Europe. He played against the big teams in England 9 more times (inc 1 as sub), scoring just 1 goal.


These stats prove that before Ruud's injury the team was set up to his strengths - especially in Europe. This brought him much joy in Europe against some of the biggest teams in world football. But it brought him little joy against the biggest teams in England where United's style is known best, and where Ruud struggled to evade his markers to any great effect.


All in all, United slip from the top may not have been inevitable, but it was highly predictable. The fact we slipped so very little is a great tribute to all concerned. We may not have the best team we've ever seen, even under Ferguson. But then it's too early to judge; we are at least as good as the 93 team, but they peaked the year after, were mostly ordinary for the first half of 94/95 and were ripped apart in the summer of 95.

If United's team was set up to suit Ruud's strengths pre-injury, why did we not dominate Europe whilst he was banging in all of those goals ???

Fact is, under Fergie when we have tried to play in Europe the "European" way, we have always failed, as I suspect we will this season.

Originally Posted by Enjoying Insanity

If United's team was set up to suit Ruud's strengths pre-injury, why did we not dominate Europe whilst he was banging in all of those goals ???

Fact is, under Fergie when we have tried to play in Europe the "European" way, we have always failed, as I suspect we will this season.

We should've beaten Leverkusen and Porto. The Madrid games were epic in 03 but we came off second best. Milan were better than us. We also had goalkeeping issues in all those games.

I don't agree we were set up wrong either in Europe, or for Ruud. And the goals scored both by United and by Ruud bear this out in my opinion. remember as well that every one of his goals in Europe were scored from inside the box, and that United never had any real issues scoring goals until after his injury.

I think Ruud was a great striker before his injury, but not so great after it. United have never been mentally good enough to dominate the European Cup. Then again, no team has actually won the CL more than once apart from Real Madrid (3). In the past couple of years we've also had big problems trying to discover Wayne Rooney's tactical football brain. I think we might just have found it.

Originally Posted by Tumescent Throb

These stats prove that before Ruud's injury the team was set up to his strengths - especially in Europe.

er.... no, they don't.

Originally Posted by jem

er.... no, they don't.

er.... yes, I think they do. pretty emphatically.

I'd add in the simple fact that if he'd taken the half chance he had v Milan at OT, the clear chance he had in the San Siro and the sitter he missed in Porto he'd have even more goals against the top sides in European club football to contrast with his poor record against the top sides in England. And United would have beaten Porto, and would have had a decent chance of sneaking through against the Milanese as well.

Originally Posted by Tumescent Throb

er.... yes, I think they do. pretty emphatically.

I'd add in the simple fact that if he'd taken the half chance he had v Milan at OT, the clear chance he had in the San Siro and the sitter he missed in Porto he'd have even more goals against the top sides in European club football to contrast with his poor record against the top sides in England. And United would have beaten Porto, and would have had a decent chance of sneaking through against the Milanese as well.

that's all.... just .

Originally Posted by Tumescent Throb

er.... yes, I think they do. pretty emphatically.

I'd add in the simple fact that if he'd taken the half chance he had v Milan at OT, the clear chance he had in the San Siro and the sitter he missed in Porto he'd have even more goals against the top sides in European club football to contrast with his poor record against the top sides in England. And United would have beaten Porto, and would have had a decent chance of sneaking through against the Milanese as well.

to be fair he was rusty as £#%&! against Milan - but the spell that preceded that when he was out and we battered everyone with fluid fast football was the point at which i concluded we looked a better team without Ruud.

if ruud had been a girl, she might have been part of an unbeaten season for arsenal ladies and martin keown might have had sex with her.