Manchester United

[fah-q]

Rumours on twitter that Scholes is going to come out of retirement to ease their injury/crapness in midfield crisis. Probably a joke mind.

[Kenneth]

Rumours on twitter that Scholes is going to come out of retirement to ease their injury/crapness in midfield crisis. Probably a joke mind.

Either way.

[ChesterDave]

Rumours on twitter that Scholes is going to come out of retirement to ease their injury/crapness in midfield crisis. Probably a joke mind.

Would be fun to see Gary Neville commenting on his glorious performances and how he'd give him a big sloppy kiss for that great pass/goal/foul.

[Robbie-9-Fowler]

It's all going to depend on how well they replace the likes of Giggs, Ferdinand and keeping hold of the likes of Rooney and Vidic.

They lack a central midfielder in the ilk of Sneijder or Modric, can see them going after someone young like Erickson.

They've got a problem with the amount of injury prone and older players they've got too;

Ferdinand
Rafael
Fabio
Fletcher
Giggs
Owen
Evans
Vidic - seems to miss a fair few games each season too

Not forgetting there annual Rooney problems, which see's him going on a poor run for 3/4 months. Yet somehow they still manage to grind out results

[Muddled]

I think Vidic is getting on a bit now and I think they would have looked to sell him at the end of this season, if he hadn't got injured and Evans is wank. They need to address their defence as much as they have to address their midfield.

[Robbie-9-Fowler]

I think Vidic is getting on a bit now and I think they would have looked to sell him at the end of this season, if he hadn't got injured and Evans is wank. They need to address their defence as much as they have to address their midfield.

especially with Jones looking better further forward than at CB and Evra has made one of the most dramatic falls from grace I can remember for a United player. Horrible season and a half from him, not half the player he once was.

[peekay]

Remember after Rafa's second season how we used to feel invincible in Europe. We did not care about the injuries, which team we played. We ( the fans, the players, the club) felt that we could go anywhere in Europe - Barcelona, Madrid, Milan - and pull out a result when needed. That sort of mentality is priceless and enabled us to become the most feared team in europe. It took a pair of gigantic moron of owners to pull us down from that mentality.

Mancs have the same in the premier league built over two decades. They start every season expecting to win it. Irrespective of the injuries and the signings, they are able to wipe the floor with teams placed 5 to 15 because of the mentality. As long as they have that mentality they will always be in the top 2.

[lackyboy]

Remember after Rafa's second season how we used to feel invincible in Europe. We did not care about the injuries, which team we played. We ( the fans, the players, the club) felt that we could go anywhere in Europe - Barcelona, Madrid, Milan - and pull out a result when needed. That sort of mentality is priceless and enabled us to become the most feared team in europe. It took a pair of gigantic moron of owners to pull us down from that mentality.

Mancs have the same in the premier league built over two decades. They start every season expecting to win it. Irrespective of the injuries and the signings, they are able to wipe the floor with teams placed 5 to 15 because of the mentality. As long as they have that mentality they will always be in the top 2.

I think your right there Peekay, teams who acually attack utd and don't sit back, often come out with better results - especially at the moment with their makeshift defence. They do have quality throughout without question, but if some of the lesser teams had the mentality to go 35/65 instead of 20/80 in terms of attack, I think they may struggle. Utd seeem to enjoy teams parking the bus (as opposed to us!)

[Gingawaria]

I look at their team compared to ours and I seriously struggle to see how they're so far ahead of us. A manc friend of mine was laughing at Adam and Spearing in midfield against Newcastle the other week saying we're never going to win anything with them in the side. Compared to theirs? They've been playing with Phil Jones at centre mid, a player they bought as a centre back?!!?

[Exiled_red]

I think your right there Peekay, teams who acually attack utd and don't sit back, often come out with better results - especially at the moment with their makeshift defence. They do have quality throughout without question, but if some of the lesser teams had the mentality to go 35/65 instead of 20/80 in terms of attack, I think they may struggle. Utd seeem to enjoy teams parking the bus (as opposed to us!)

[Shaggy]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2012/jan/07/sir-alex-ferguson-manchester-united?CMP=twt_gu

Sir Alex Ferguson powerless to stop Manchester United empire crumbling

Manchester United may go on to win the Double, but there can be no happy ending for a decaying club

Rob Smyth

guardian.co.uk, Saturday 7 January 2012 22.55 GMT

It did not take a couple of spineless defeats to Blackburn and Newcastle, or a reminder of the apparently inexorable breakdown in the relationship between Sir Alex Ferguson and Wayne Rooney, to confirm that Manchester United are on their knees ahead of Sunday's FA Cup tie at Manchester City. The defeats and the latest Rooney story barely registered. After a while, you stop noticing the nails going in the coffin.

There is a perception, born of ignorance or sandyheadedness, that United fans complaining about the state of the club are just spoilt brats who can't handle the odd bad result. Poppycock. You would be surprised how many fans welcome defeats, even humiliations, on some level, because they hasten an industrial cleansing of the club that has been necessary since United embarked on the road to ruin with the Glazers on 12 May 2005. The sooner United hit rock bottom, the sooner the club can regain its identity.

Every significant aspect of the club is decaying. The squad is riddled with uncertainty. The star player, Rooney, has gone from having a sulk every football season to a sulk every calendrical season and seems certain to have one fallout too many with Ferguson sooner rather than later. The fans have been replaced by consumers, people who see no contradiction in draping a green-and-gold scarf over a replica shirt and who seem to take their attitude from Nirvana: here we are now, entertain us. The wall of silence against Blackburn was a shocking nadir.

The Glazers are siphoning money in such staggering quantities that, in the past three years, United's net spend is lower than that of Hull City, Blackpool and Burnley. There are now rumours of a move for Frank Lampard and a return for Paul Scholes. Lampard, Scholes, Ryan Giggs, Michael Owen and Rio Ferdinand. All hail the geriátricos.

Then there is the manager. In terms of results, Ferguson has arguably never been better than in the past few years, manipulating limited resources and imposing his obscene will to stunning effect. Last season's title was almost entirely down to him. Ferguson is a miracle of longevity who has emerged triumphantly from deeper holes than this in the past, and may do so again. Yet all genius is finite. It is not just all political lives that end in failure.

Ferguson has looked weary in the past two games, slumped passively in his chair when before he would have prowled the touchline, liberally applying the fear of God. His often eccentric selections have started to verge on the wilfully perverse. He is also picking more fights than usual, almost bringing to mind the last days of Tony Montana and Tony Soprano as they burned bridges with humanity.

Ferguson often says nobody is bigger than the club, yet there are signs that he has started to believe in his own omnipotence. His greatest strength – the absolute conviction that no challenge is too great – may become his defining weakness. It's a textbook tragedy: a genius unwittingly presiding over the excruciatingly slow ruin of the empire he created. United may beat City on Sunday and go on to do the Double; it does not matter. There can be no happy ending here.

[dom9]

Would you rather be a Liverpool fan or a united fan, if you were new to this and had to choose between the two for the first time?

[wavydavy]

It's ironic how it's us LFC fans,who all got our PHDs in Economics in the H&G thread,who seem to know most about their precarious situation and have done for two or three years. Their fans seem oblivious to what's going on at their club IMO and seem to think it's all going to last forever.

[Fivex]

Right now? Bearing in mind recent trophies and recent negativity towards our club, I'd guess at the scum.

[spud_gun]

The Scholes move smacks of desperation