The old Man Utd Thread

[feltmonkey]

Herrera in for Januzaj. Nice. I'd still like to see Mata there, but Herrera is usually good, so it's a decent-looking team.

[Majora]

Very typical performance from us in the first half. I just hope we score at least once so we don't end up with the awful stat of two goals scored in four games.

[feltmonkey]

Yes! Mata!

[feltmonkey]

Blind is really not coping with the Swansea attack today. He's getting targeted, and bullied.

[feltmonkey]

FFS everyone caught upfield and Rooney gives the ball away.

Why isn't the ref blowing for any fouls on us now? Four times this half he's failed to give straightforward free-kicks to us.

[feltmonkey]

Godammit.

[The Fox]

I love Romero. So long, DDG.

[Liamness]

Not much point in going long if we're going to be this bad at it. So many balls going out to touch or straight to their keeper.

[feltmonkey]

It's so depressingly predictable. We make scoring goals or creating chances look so difficult.

[Liamness]

I still get more excited when Rooney gets the ball in the area than anyone else, he took the ball down so well then. He should hit it earlier though. Looks like he's going to score and then just... doesn't. Hard to pinpoint exactly why, but he really is choking in front of goal so far this season. In the league at least.

[feltmonkey]

Well played Swansea, but that was summed up when, with seconds to go, we cleverly worked the ball from the edge of their box back to Blind on the halfway line.

[Majora]

I don't understand how we've spent so much money and ended up with such little firepower. You look at our bench and it's so light in terms of potential game changers. We never looked like getting any momentum going at the end and just tossed in (terrible) balls for Fellaini.

I know none of them had particularly good seasons but when you think we had Van Persie, Falcao and Di Maria last season. Rooney might have scored but he looked so hesitant and scared of taking shots quickly. I wonder if we'll come to regret flogging off Van Persie. If the rumours of Hernandez being off are true, I don't see how we can continue with such a paucity of options in the striking role.

[Bleeders]

Our bogey side turn us over again. We gave away two poor goals after going a goal up. Rooney twice should have worked the keeper a couple times, rather than electing to take another unnecessary touch only to be dispossessed.

If LVG is happy with the current squad then 3rd or 4th is the best we can hope for.

[Mercury]

Excellent, a game that highlighted all of our obvious issues:

- Romero isn't De Gea

- Blind isn't a Centre Back

- We lack options up front

The chance of any of them being resolved before the transfer deadline closes seem unlikely.

[Liamness]

Hernandez seems to be off, which would suggest we're buying a forward at least.

[Bleeders]

Some lad from Monaco apparently. Oh, and Charlie Austin as well is the latest one.

Also, Dortmund in 'Advanced Talks' to take Januzaj on loan as well according to Sky Sports.

[Bleeders]

Lindegaard to West Brom on a free is being reported now too.

[Bleeders]

Looks like we're signing Anthony Martial from Monaco. Not heard of him myself, but surprised we aren't going for someone a little more established given the money involved (50m euro).

http://www.fff.fr/actualites/164024-570541-permission-exceptionnelle-pour-martial

Guessing this is the 'surprise striker' LVG was alluding to earlier in the Summer?

[Gabzy]

£30M odd for a 19 year old unkown striker? Jesus..

[Bleeders]

Rising to £50m with bonuses apparently. Spurs, Valencia, and Chelsea were sniffing around as well supposedly.

[JamesTW]

Why so much? Just looked him up and he's scored about 1 in 6 and hasn't played for France

[feltmonkey]

£36m isn't it?

That's a lot of money to be spending on a player most of us (me included) have never heard of. However, I've seen reports that Chelsea had a bid of £30m for him rejected, so if that's true it at least means that we haven't gone mad, Bebe style.

I've just been reading a profile that compares him to Thierry Henry, which would be good. The name that springs to mind first though is David Bellion.

[Bleeders]

I was thinking the same. He's 19 years old, looks to have a bit of pace about him, good feet, basically all the things we're missing at the moment.

[Chooch]

Don't we have our own 19 year old who has all that apparently?

[SF-02]

Hernandez, Januzaj and Lindegaard out. An unknown 19 year old with a poor scoring record in for 50m euros, who was offered to spurs for 20m earlier in the summer? Doesn't seem the best day of transfer news.

[Liamness]

Sending away Lindegaard with Valdez and De Gea's futures being uncertain seems like insanity. Would also be disappointed to see Januzaj leave, he will get games for us if he stays.

Don't we have our own 19 year old who has all that apparently?

He's much further along in his development, he was the first choice striker for Monaco last season apparently. I doubt he will be banging in the goals immediately for us, seeing as he isn't even doing that in Ligue 1. I guess the idea instead is to take the pressure off Rooney, and provide a different option with his pace.

I hope the plan isn't to move Rooney back into the number 10 role. He should be our main striker, he's just playing like garbage at the moment, but we can't bench him if he's in poor form because there's no-one else.

[Gabe]

There are some real parallels between you guys and our lot down the M62 lately; both squads seem to have attacking players that we play out of position, both teams are making hard work of getting results (and aren't playing very well to boot), both have spent lots of money on players we don't need and neither seem to have managers that know how to get the best out of the players we do have. LVG is a better manager than Rodgers, of course, and that showed last season when you were better at grinding out those wins when you were playing absolute tripe.

Surprised that, given your obvious striking problems, that it's been left this late to do something about it and then you're expecting a kid with a poor record - in France - to lead the line. I actually think Austin would be better for you in those circumstances, even if he was only a stop-gap for a season - at least he can play in the league.

[Bleeders]

I suspect we were going for targets that were never going to be realistic and were simply being used by agents to secure a better deal at their current club. It's bad planning on our part that we've found ourselves in this position again though.

[Majora]

I don't understand why we would send Januzaj out on loan. He hasn't impressed this season but looking at our forward options, especially with Hernandez going, he would definitely get chances to play.

Why are we spending so much on this unknown kid but apparently 'didn't want' or wouldn't spend the money on Pedro who is cheaper and proven (albeit older).

I don't really understand what's going on at the club right now. And we still might yet end up with Romero as our main GK.

[feltmonkey]

I think bringing in Charlie Austin as cover would be a good idea. He can lead the line in a similar way to Rooney. As it is, if Rooney gets injured we'd be relying on either Wilson or this new lad. It'd be nice to have a proven goalscorer in the squad that we could draft in. Besides, Austin is class.