Ferguson is right – we don’t need heavy investment
Once again, we find ourselves staring down the familiar consensus that follows any failure by Manchester United, no matter how small or insignificant.
We’ve heard it all before – our players aren’t good enough. Whoever our best player happens to be is carrying the side, and we’d be mid-table without him. Our kids aren’t good enough. Ferguson is too tactically naive. We need three or four players to improve our squad or we’ll do well to finish in the top four. Whoever our last best player was hasn’t been replaced.
We’ve been linked to a large number of players in the summer, the majority of them attacking midfielders or strikers. Rafael Van Der Vaart, Edin Dzeko, Mikel Arteta, Joe Cole, Karim Benzema, David Silva and others have all been mentioned, and a lot of fans (and it seems, the vast majority of pundits) seem to think that Ferguson’s assertion that ‘maybe we’ll get one player in’ is hopelessly inadequate.
What these people need to realise, is that our squad is undeniably at least a good size. And when you have a good-sized squad, this means that when you buy another player, somebody has to leave. We have a vast number of strikers, with three established players in Rooney, Berbatov, and Owen, and four youngsters vying for first-team football in Welbeck, Macheda, Hernandez, and Diouf. Hernandez and Diouf are also both 22, and thus aren’t exactly the most youthful of youngsters.
In central midfield, we have Paul Scholes, Darren Fletcher, Michael Carrick, Owen Hargreaves, Anderson, Darron Gibson all in the first team. Out wide, Valencia, Nani, and Obertan, and of course Giggs and Park who can play in either role.
So if we do buy Benzema, then because we realistically have too many strikers anyway, this will cost one or two of our strikers the possibility of making it at the club. If we buy Van der Vaart, then the development of players like Gibson and Anderson will be compromised, and we can forget about bringing through some of our other exciting midfielders like Cleverley.
We have to ask – is this worth it? The list of established great players in their mid-to-late twenties that we’ve bought who have gone on to be Manchester United greats is as short as it is pretentious and French. The reason clubs place such importance on youth development is not to save money, but because if we do produce great players like Giggs and Scholes, then they are far more likely to stay at the club for as long as we like, and become more important figures in the dressing room, learning to gel over a long time, and becoming accustomed to our style of football.
If we sign Dzeko or Benzema, are we happy to sacrifice the careers of Manchester-born prospects like Danny Welbeck, or the obviously tremendous potential of Macheda? If we sign Van der Vaart, are fans happy with us losing one of Anderson or Gibson, players who are both unique within our squad? A lot of bad press has been written about these two players, but people appear to have a short memory, because Anderson has always consistently done it in the big games for us – he was arguably man of the match at Stamford Bridge this season – a quality that is rare in youngsters, and that bodes extremely well. As for Gibson, didn’t we all speak about the importance of goals from midfield in the wake of Ronaldo’s departure? He has proven his ability this season, and his all-round game goes far beyond his shooting.
Last season, we lost the title by a single point. I’d argue that there were two key reasons why we lost the league. The first was that we had a huge defensive crisis which caused us a lot of problems, but it would be ludicrous to suggest this is because we don’t have enough defenders – it was an insane injury crisis which is extremely unlikely to happen again. Wes Brown, John O’Shea, Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic, Jonny Evans, Rafael, Fabio, Gary Neville, and even Edwin Van der Sar – none of whom are regarded as being particularly injury-prone, with the possible exception of Ferdinand’s recent problems – were all injured for the same period, but ask yourselves, which other team in the league boasts so many defensive options anyway?
If our first-choice back five is presumed to be Van der Sar, Neville, Ferdinand, Vidic, Evra, then even if all were injured we could field Kuszczak, Rafael, Evans, Brown, O’Shea. Or a number of other combinations which are all superior to anything our rivals can put together. Chelsea‘s second-choice back four would presumably be Hilario, Ivanovic, Bruma, Alex, Zhirkov. Not bad, but which back line would you rather go into a tricky away game with? Arsenal have Sol Campbell as backup before they have to start playing midfielders in defence, and the laughably error-prone Fabianski as reserve keeper. Again, I think I know who’s winning there. And with the addition of Chris Smalling, we can be reasonably assured that nothing like this will happen next season.
The second reason that i’d argue we lost the league is because of Rooney’s injury. Now, one can argue that we became too dependent on Rooney very easily, but I have always been of the opinion that Berbatov, accompanied by a goalscorer, is a fine replacement for him against all but the toughest opposition – his partnership with Owen was arguably more effective than with Rooney, despite it’s rather obvious and outdated ‘creator-poacher’ blueprint. The problem was that we were unlucky in that Macheda and Owen were both injured at exactly the same time as Rooney, and that Berbatov is completely unsuited for playing the lone striker role. Once again, this is extremely unlikely to happen again, and once again, the problem will be alleviated by the addition of another player in Javier Hernandez, who has been nothing if not prolific. Add to this the fact that the team looked a lot more comfortable in Rooney’s absence after he had been missing for a few games, and I don’t see this as being anywhere near as much of a problem next year.
Despite all this, I do think that – surprise surprise – Ferguson may be right and that making one well thought-out signing might be the best way of going forward. I would argue that Rafael Van der Vaart, David Silva, or Joe Cole would be the best prospects for the same reasons – they all naturally offer something that we arguably lack – creativity in midfield. Perhaps a criticism of our midfield is that whilst we have players who can play defence-splitting passes (Scholes, Giggs), make driving forward runs (Park, Anderson) and score goals (Gibson), we do not, until these younger players develop, have anyone capable of doing all three. The players mentioned above are all capable of doing all three of these. And importantly, they are all also capable of playing on the left (David Silva is left-footed and has played here regularly for Valencia, and Van der Vaart and Joe Cole both play on the left for their countries), where we have limited options. In addition, Giggs and Scholes will play fewer and fewer games and retire soon, so this is probably the best area of the squad to invest in.
One might argue that this doesn’t entirely alleviate the burden of goals on Rooney, but for reasons I have mentioned before, and the fact that these players should bring more goals from midfield, I don’t think this will be a problem. Benzema would help that, but it is doubtful whether he and Rooney would ever be able to play together effectively, he has had a much poorer season than any of the others, and I haven’t seen any evidence that he can play well on the left, so loses out here too. If I had to choose, I think the most sensible option is Joe Cole. The reasoning is simple – he has something to prove, he won’t need any time to adapt to the premier league, we have seen him work well with Rooney, he is the oldest of the lot and would represent a stop-gap in the transition from our current players to our youngsters, and because he is free, we wouldn’t need to worry about recouping the money.
But whether we do or don’t, don’t believe the knee-jerk hyperbole – there is nothing wrong with this squad, and remember that when Ferguson casts his opinion on the forthcoming season, he is rarely wrong. We have heard the same old ABU wishful thinking foretelling our impending decline trotted out time and time again whenever we fail, so do what we always do – remember it, and save it for later on, to have a good laugh when our lads inevitably prove them wrong.
Short URL: http://www.strettyender.com/?p=1885
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finally, someone mention the things i want to mention for a long time. i have been mentioned before that actually we dun need to buy a lot of players to win the cups cause we gt abundance of great young player coming out of the reserve but no seem to agree it and all of them wan MU to spent big on the transfer market.
bla, bla, bla reality is you haven´t got any coin ¡¡¡
Has this article been written on behalf of the glazers or what?Without serious investment united will fall behind,squad depth is at best patchy,and the truth is Sir Alex has hardly any money to spend.it all boils down to the parasites who are bleeding the club dry ;the sooner writers of articles like this see the bigger picture the better.
reading this does make alot of sense but i really do think we need a creative midfielder. an extra forward would also be nice but dont ask me who. the one i would have loved to see would have been villa but that was never a reality. we should have won the 4th this year and i agree if the defence crisis had not occured then we would have. also chelsea were extremely lcky in both games. we are still the best in the league although maybe not the best united team out of the last 3 or 4 years. next season tho we will be back. we must keep up the green and gold protest regardless of what happens with the red knights (not much by the looks of it!)
What a fantastic read
Hi Cal, thanks for an interesting and well-written blog. However, I’m not entirely convinced! Like others who have taken your stance, you are comparing our prospects for next season against our current rivals, without considering the signings and changes to the squads that they will make.
On the domestic front, I think it’s safe to say that Chelsea will be the main (and probably only) threat to United regaining the title, but they have been making big noises about signing one or two world class players. Torres is one name often mooted (I think in this case if Chelsea offer enough money Liverpool may be powerless to refuse) and him and Drogba could potentially form the most lethal striking partnership the Premiership has ever seen. Could you imagine defending against them two? The power and strength of Drogba with the movement and finishing of Torres, I think these 2 could get 30 goals each, fitness permitting! Even if they can’t get Torres I imagine they will buy at least one world class player, and if they can get Essien fit for a whole season (perhaps a big ask) they will be hard to catch, especially if we stick with the same team as last year, and rely on Rooney to the same extent that we have done this season (regardless of what you say in this respect, even Giggs has come out and said that we can’t rely on Wayne as much next year).
On the European side of things, man for man our squad has declined since our 07/08 triumph. We have lost Ronaldo and Tevez, Hargreaves may never be the same player and it is unclear whether Ferdinand will ever be fully fit again. Though we could quite easily have made the final this year if it wasn’t for Rafael’s sending off, I think that we will start next season behind Barca, Chelsea, Inter and Real Madrid (with Mourinho managing them they will be a formidable side) as favourites to win. Whilst you don’t have to be the best team to win the Champions League, with that number of teams potentially stronger than us, that is a cause for concern.
Lastly, Rooney himself has come out and said we need another striker (I’m not sure if a Mexican teenager was what he was hoping for in this respect!) and Ferguson said a few weeks ago that challenging for the league for 4 years in a row takes it out of the team, and that it would need freshening up. He now seems to have backtracked on this comment, and is suggesting that if there are any changes, they will be minimal. Does this not worry you somewhat in light of what I have said, or am I being too negative?! What does everyone else think?
Sam
Hi Sam,
Chelsea themselves have not been making huge noises – it’s all been paper talk. All the talk coming from Chelsea has been about the need to promote young players and trust the club’s youth development. I’d be surprised if Chelsea signed a £25m+ player, or more than one £15m+ one.
Since the departure of Ronaldo, we haven’t been able to play the extremely fluid front line that was the hallmark of our 08 Champions League winners. We’ve had to change the whole way the team works, which means transition. Giggs, Neville and Scholes will be gone, and Ferdinand and VDS are getting older. We need to build a new great team, and the more smoothly it happens the better. I’d say we’re on the right track to doing that, and most of the players that will be in that team are already at the club.
Hi Cal,
I fully accept that we need to build a new great team, yet given that last season was always going to be a transitional one with Ronaldo and Tevez leaving, why did we not use that opportunity to blood the young players more? At the beginning of last season I was quite happy for us not to win anything that season (we had just won 3 consecutive Premier League titles!) if it meant playing the youngsters in every game, so that they would then have the experience to help us make a fresh assault on the league for next season. However, we have now ended the season effectively empty handed, and apart from Nani and Evans, could you pick any of the younger members of our squad who have made any meaningful development? In fact, we have relied on the old guard of Scholes, Giggs and Neville more in this last season than in any of the last 5 years!
Given that they are going to be phased out, surely we should have been looking to promote more of the younger players who will actually have a say in how successful our club will be in the next decade? It would’ve been justified if we had won the league, but unfortunately we didn’t. Looking at some of the younger players in our squad (Obertan, Tosic, Fabio, Welbeck and Macheda in particular), it’s hard to see any meaningful development in these players at all. Add to that the regression of Foster and Anderson, you’d have to look back at the last season and say that the only players who significantly developed were Rooney, Nani, Fletcher and Valencia.
I can now see us having to throw the league title away again next season if we want the younger players in our squad to actually develop strongly, and I think that not doing this last season was a wasted opportunity.
Sam
Good points made in this article. Fergie sees several project within the squad worth persevering with i.e. Gibson and Anderson.
Also Silva, Cole and Van Der Vaart are definitely the 3 most likely to move to OT in my opinion too. VDV might move ahead of Silva purely on the likely lesser cost.
I think Gibson has come on hugely. His all-round game has improved, and lest we forget – the boy started and scored in a champions league quarter-final.
It’s ridiculous to say that Macheda has regressed – he had two really bad injuries last year, and we should see a lot more of him this coming season. I’m not sure what to make of Welbeck – when he played in the first team, like against L**ds, he was usually stuck out on the wing, which is obviously not his favoured position.
One to keep an eye on too is Tom Cleverley, who single-handedly kept Watford up last season. I expect him to get some game time this season in the way Gibson has in recent seasons.
You make some great points and fundamentally I agree but then you start peddling the one-out and one-in [sell to buy] propaganda.
Who has replaced Tosic and Ljajic in attacking midfield?