mancheaster united

FRIDAY, 3 JULY 2009

Owen and Benzema - some objectivity

The rage of United fans is almost palpable this morning. One day after being gazumped on Benzema by Real Madrid, we're almost certain to sign former Liverpool star and Real Madrid and Newcastle flop Michael "Sick Note" Owen.

Edit: Owen has completed his signing.

I am pleased about both of these events.

Benzema is no great loss at that price

Benzema first. He clearly has talent in abundance and has set the French league on fire. He scored a great goal against us. Pretty much everyone who's watched him thinks he has the potential to be a great player. At a stretch, in these bizarre counter-recession times, that makes him worth £25m and no more, but only at a stretch. £35m? £40m? Forget it.

Other players to have emerged as the "next great superstriker" from the French leagues include Didier Drogba and Djibril Cisse. The best that can be said of Cisse is that he gave us an irrefutable line of attack against Liverpool fans, whilst Drogba looked like a donkey for one season, a legend for the next and a moody clown ever since.

On top of that, Benzema's desire to play for Real is well known. What if he came to us, scored a hatful next season and spent the whole of next summer agitating for a £60m move to Real. Not that inconceivable a situation - and I would much prefer signing a player who views United as the peak and who would turn down more money from elsewhere to come to us (as Berbatov did).

I was never convinced we needed him or that he wanted us, so I'm really not that fussed. What does bother me, though, is the sentiment being bandied around that we should have matched Real's bid just because we have the money to do so.We have never operated like that, and rightly so, and anyone who thinks we should write a blank cheque for any player we fancy just because we can sounds a bit too much like a Chelski fan to me.

Finally, where would Benzema have played? At the top of a trio with Berba and Rooney behind him? That would be far too narrow, but I don't see any other alternative that doesn't involves Rooney playing out wide.

Owen

Scott has made his position pretty clear on Owen's signing already this morning, but I am in favour of the signing:

Yes, he's injury-prone, but whenever he is fit he scores goals at a good rate.

Injury-prone is the major footballing (as opposed to personal) reason why Owen is not a good signing. He has kept up with Louis Saha's rate of missing huge chunks of every season since a big money move. However, like Saha, when he is fit he is dangerous and scores a lot of goals. In 65 starts for Newcastle he scored 30 goals [edited - thanks!] , and also showed an interesting versatility which permitted him to create goals for others as well.

We are getting him for free and on a very modest wage

If we were paying £10m and £100k a week for Owen, I'd be against the signing - way too much to lose, and we could use the money better elsewhere. But for free and on £50k a week, there's very little downside for us. The worst case is that he's with us a year, barely starts any games and barely contributes - but the potential upside is a proven big-game goalscorer who still has the talents to trouble any defence on his day.

We only need him to start say 10-15 games, with more sub appearances, and even when he starts he'll probably only need to play 60 minutes

Other clubs (such as Blackburn) have rejected a possible move because he can't be guaranteed to play 30 games a season. We don't need him to do that - we need him to be a reserve striker, whose principal is to come on for 15 minutes and nick a goal, with the occasional start mixed in. Think of his role as the new Solskjaer or Sheringham - the type of player who, as I argued before, we needed to sign this summer alongside any bigger-money players. If you want proof of his ability to be an effective substitute, you have only to look at his performances for Real during theirgalacticos era.

He is desperate for a World Cup place, and therefore has a real incentive to rediscover his old form and a real point to prove

It was pretty obvious that he didn't care for a lot of the time that he was at Newcastle. But Capello's repeated snubbing of him has really brought out some fire again, and he looks like he is desperate to play for and succeed at a big club. We could really reap the benefit of that if he stays fit - he still has the potential to be a 20+ goals per season player.

Some of the negative attitudes surrounding him (such as the money-grabbing nature of his move to Newcastle and his loss of interest in football) are overplayed

One of the main criticisms levelled against Owen is that he took a big money move to Newcastle rather than wait for a bigger club. Firstly, when Owen went to Newcastle, they weren't the complete shower that they are now. Second, and more importantly, he hated Madrid (having never settled in either footballing or cultual and person terms), and would have taken any move back to England. However, since he came with a £15m price tag and £100k wages, none of the big clubs were interested - leaving a gap for Newcastle.

I have no doubt that Owen saw Newcastle as a stepping stone back to a top level English club. But his injuries have stopped him from making that next move, leaving him stuck at a club that he didn't love and who didn't love him. The loss of interest was understandable, and I'm not sure it was really his fault, particularly given the laughable chaos which was playing out around him.

Finally, yes, he played for Liverpool and talked their talk while he was there. Nothing can change that - but (call me disloyal if you want) that was many moons ago and I'm prepared to give him a chance.

Fergie has the gambler's instinct, and he's seen the potential upside. Let's join him in hoping the potential becomes reality.

WEDNESDAY, 1 JULY 2009

As much as I liked Ronaldo...

...and I was probably one of his biggest defenders, isn't it great not to have to think about off-field antics like this anymore?

Instead of trying to reconcile it with the player who runs out every week wearing the red, now he's just a typical Real galactico, fighting with paparazzi.

I knew there was a silver lining somewhere (that, and the money).

MONDAY, 22 JUNE 2009

Transfer targets Mk 43634

The summer of activity so far: Sober Reflections on Rome, Thoughts on Ronaldo (pre-transfer),The End of Fergie's Third Era and The Anatomy of Team Four

I promised myself I wouldn't do it - I promised I wouldn't give in to temptation. But even the best of us have our weak moments, and so here is my runthrough of the latest batch of transfer rumours.

THURSDAY, 18 JUNE 2009

Team Four

Following on from my previous post where I suggested that Ronaldo's departure marked the end of Fergie's Third Great Team, I want to look at how his fourth great team (or Team Four, if you will) is going to begin to take shape this summer and next season.

4-4-2, and why it failed last season

Before I get onto personnel, let's deal with formation. I envisage Team Four being built around a reversion to 4-4-2 in a way that hasn't been possible since the halcyon days of Louis Saha's half-season in 06-07. Fergie tried to revert to 4-4-2 last season as Berbatov was being introduced, but it clearly did not make best use of the resources available - chiefly because it marginalised Ronaldo, tying his goalscoring gifts to a touchline where they were much less of a threat.

WEDNESDAY, 17 JUNE 2009

Another view on the "under-26" policy

The Guardian has reported that United have a new transfer policy which prohibits us from signing any players under the age of 26 on the basis that they wouldn't have sufficient resale value.

If true, this is clearly A Bad Thing. Red Ranter does a good job of explaining why, on the face of it, this is potentially detrimental to our prospects.

However, I'm a bit more cynical - I don't believe it's true. You're welcome to accuse me of overanalysing this, bit I think it is quite a clever piece of propaganda from Fergie and the United board.

My leftfield transfer pick(s)

Gabby Agbonlahor.

Fast, can play from either side or centrally, scores at a good rate, can score with headers...remind you of anyone?

Except he is English and would likely be a "buy-for-life".

Ashley Young would be a good buy too - and I'm sure we could get both for comfortably less than the £60 quoted for Ribery.

What do you reckon?

MONDAY, 15 JUNE 2009

The End of Fergie's Third Era

I'm not going to write about the Ronaldo transfer at the moment. Plenty of others have done so, expressing viewpoints from across the spectrum. I made my opposition to the move clear in my last post, which was published less than 12 hours before the move was announced and therefore made me look a bit silly. In short, though, I'm disappointed by it and I think he'll be hard to replace, we got a good price and I'm taking it in a fairly philosophical fashion.

I want to look at this from a wider perspective, from the point of view that Ronaldo's departure is the most eye catching aspect of the end of Fergie's third era. There are other losses too - Tevez is certain to depart (and I, for one, unapologetically hope he does); Giggs, Neville and Scholes are at the very end of the twilight of their careers; van der Sar is fading fast; and those of a particularly pessimistic mindset might argue that Rio's recurring back problems mean that his partnership with Vida will never be when it was.

This, in one way, is why the Ronaldo money is a godsend. There is significant regeneration to be done across the squad, and in particular across the forward line. Our first XI next season will look very different to our first XI last season.

In truth, this change has been coming for 12 months or so. All the plaudits dished out at the end of last season - the majority of them before the loss to Barcelona - talked about this side being the peak of Fergie's third great team. In fact, it is hard to convincingly argue that it wasn't a team in decline compared to the Champions League-winning side of 2007-08.

07-08 vs 08-09

That side played with flair and panache, as well as exhibiting the steely spine that achieved records in 08-09. It was a scintillating team to watch, with various supremely gifted players operating at the peak of their powers. It was Ronaldo's finest season, one that he'll find hard to top no matter what he does at Real. Tevez, too, played out of his skin - a level of performance that raised expectations too far for last season, and yet still was responsible for much of the rose-tinted "Fergie, sign him up" chants. Giggs was still a threat from either wing and Scholes could still run games from the centre of midfield. Carrick matured, Anderson played as though to the manor born. Nani sparkled, intermittently but with promise. More prosaically, Wes Brownplayed out his most effective and influential season in United colours. Vidic and Evra's names were written in the column headed "Fergie's shrewdest buys ever", rather than the slightly less flattering category in which they were placed. In the Premiership, we scored 88 and conceded 22.

The 08-09 vintage was efficient rather than dazzling. The majority of our squad were inconsistent - great one week, indifferent the next. Fergie squeezed every inch of performance out of them by rotating them ruthlessly, but only Darren Fletcher could claim to have improved substantially on his previous season's showing. Ronaldo still scored crucial and spectacular goals and remained amongst the leading scorers in the country, but too many displays were characterised by petulance and frustration. Berbatov could make your jaw hit the floor on occasion, but didn't find a consistent place in the United passing geometry. Tevez worked hard but achieved comparatively little. Anderson seemed unsure of his role and performed fitfully. Vidic was mostly immense but made several high profile errors. Nani only turned up in the Carling Cup.Scholes' legs appeared to have gone. Giggs' player of the season award was for some stunningly accomplished cameos, but cameos nonetheless. Evra looked defensively shaky at times, andvan der Sar periodically a complete liability. We rarely demolished teams, preferring instead to monopolise possession and nick the odd goal. In the Premiership, we scored 68 (20 less than the previous year) and conceded 24 (2 more), and would have lost the league on goal difference had it come to that.

In this context, some rebuilding was inevitable this summer. As I have already made clear, I don't think getting rid of Ronaldo constitutes rebuilding, but putting a flaky, uncertain stone in the foundations of Team Four would hardly be good workmanship from Fergie.

In my next post, I'll talk about how I see Team Four shaping up.

WEDNESDAY, 10 JUNE 2009

Some Thoughts on Ronaldo

The inevitable daily quotes and headlines have already begun to emanate from Madrid. In fact, this season it is even worse, since there isn't the distraction of Euro 08 to cover some of them over.

So, as we look forward to another summer of Real mouthing off, Ronaldo being enigmatic and United denying all knowledge - what's our preferred outcome?