How big an improvement is this?

[Nic83]

Yup, big improvement. Don't forget that Gerrard will play alot of the season on the right again this year.

So we will have masher and alonso in the centre with gerrard and either babel or an on form kewell with Benayoun/pennanceto come off the bench. Then Torres up from with either Crouch or Kuyt depending on the game.

Really looking forward to this season.

[El Jefecito]

How people can say the mancs will be weaker in midfield than us scares me, Its red tinted glasses, they had the best midfield in the country last year and have improved it defensively with Hargreaves. I truelly dont think people realise how good Paul Scholes is, they will struggle to replace him for sure much as they did Roy Keane.

OUr central midfield is far better than theirs. Scholes looked top notch last season because Manure spent all their time attacking, so he was on the ball more and had, usually, 3-4 runners to link up with. It's easy to look better than Gerrard in that scenario. Given we've beefed up our attack, I think you'll see both StevieG and Xabi out performing him.

Hargreaves vs Mascherano. No contest, not even on the same planet. And do they have the depth that we have in Momo. A resounding NO.

Defensively also they are at least as good as us, Vidic was excellent last year, they were a different side without him. Neville is still the best RB in the league (horrible **** that he is). I dont rate Ferdinand particularly but he is quicker than any CB at our club. Evra could be a weak link but so is Riise.

Just because Vidic scored a couple of goals, is commanding in the air and SkySports rant about him does NOT mean he is better than Agger. I watched Manure quite a lot last year and the two most noticable things about their defence were: a) Vidic spent a whole lot of his time bailing out Rio's mistakes and Vidic can make more mistakes in a game than Agger has made since he joined us.

Defensively we are FAR stronger than Manure. The blip at the start of the season aside, we easily have the best defensive record in the league.

I'll also counter your Riise point by saying that since Agger has become first choice he has covered so well for Riise that we concede FAR less down the left than we did the season before. BTW These are the little things that Agger does, that few notice, that put him in an entirely different league than Vidic.

The big differences between us and them are in my opinion Pace and Clinicism, they simply dont **** about with the small teams they rip em and dont stop. When they concede you always know they will equalise especially away from home, do we feel the same way when for example Fulham go 1-0 up against us at craven cottage.
They have 3-4 match winning clinical quick footed and minded players that we have up till now only had one. Hopefully Torres will be another and maybe Babel in time. We need to be quicker on the counter away from home and quicker and more incisive at home (although home was pretty good last year).
I think it could be a belter of a season tbh, I am praying that Fergie starts to mess with a winning formula and it ****s them up, he will have signed 2 players this summer who will expect to be in the first team regularly in positions they did well last year, Tevez and Hargreaves, this may disrupt them for a while, hopefully.

Spot on!