Mikey

Everyone knows our spine is as strong as anyones, and Carra is in because of the s**** spouted on here when i said Skrtel and Agger should be the future, I personally feel that while he's still a great defender he's the weakest central defender listed. The whole "debate" starts when people like me say we are weak in terms of creative and wide players and Rafa had £40M to spend last Summer and still hasn't looked like sorting it out. People like you say we are weak in creative and wide areas, Rafa had £40M to spend last Summer but due to the Gods conspiring against him, Parry's incompetence and ONeill refusing to sell us Barry for £10M there was nothing he could do about it and he's already done more for us than any other mortal man could have so why don't we shut the f*** up moaning..

How so? United and Chelsea can outspend us, though Chelsea haven't done recently I don't think, and they finish above us in the league; so how has he "Time and again got the side to deliver above and beyond what they should be capable of" I wonder what kind of "Supporter" so readily accepts that a side containing Reina, Carra, Agger, Skrtel, Gerrard, Masch, Alonso, and Torres has no chance of finishing in front of United?

Quite possibly he is but Malcolm X is as big a w***** as I've had the displeasure to read on here. You're doing no-one any favours letting this go.

Regardless of anyones standpoint on here this is out of order. Are there any mods on here today?

Firstly Ribery was mentioned by me along with Ashley Young as players we could have been looking at prior to this season started instead of Keane, Degen, Riera and Dossena. We could also have included Simao, Quaresma etc as they were simply examples of how £40M could and indeed should have been spent better. Regarding your post we now have an average at best £7M LB who is 3rd choice and will hopefully be gone in the Summer, the £20M striker has gone and not been replaced by the manager so make of that what you will, we have a RB who was slated on here before he signed as being ridiculously injury-prone and guess what - it turns out he is and the rumour doing the rounds is that he's on £40K per week while he's signing on sick, and we sold Finnan who was cour only cover. Riera has turned out to be a squad player who's levels of performances have steadily dropped off and now he's not much cop to be honest. Regardless of what you think Rafa was trying to do, and it does look like he wanted to change our most successful formation for some reason, he has bought £40M worth of players and we are not really any better for it. If you're going to be honest he's been criticized from day one for always adopting a quantity over quality approach to his transfers, and this could be the reason that after 5 years we are still woefully short in all the wide areas. Instead of buying 6, 7 or 8 players every Summer and then shipping most of them out 12 months later he could try buying 3 better quality players in the first place. Rafa can afford to spend his entire budget on one player if he wishes to, we don't really need 3 international LB's do we? He could use some of the many youngsters we've signed since his arrival to fill the peripheral squad places but he clogs up our large squad with senior players who are never, ever going to make much of an impact.

You're a f***ing loon, I doubt there's room in your mind for a name.

The Owen of 2001 would walk into todays team, he'd walk into any team on the planet if you ask me. He was the best striker in the World, no matter how much you're pissed off over how he left never forget that. Some of you want to watch Premiership years on Sky to appreciate what we had, he was awesome, fearless, the ultimate big game player.

Of course his feats with Chelsea in winning back to back titles was merely repeating his feats at Porto which he achieved with a fraction of the money but won the CL as well. Mourinho, Hiddink, Scolari, O'Neill, there are possibilities out there if you look. Its horses for courses, we might be better going for someone like Moyes to do well in the league.

Hargreaves is finished, Anderson hardly plays, Scholes and Giggs are within 12 months or one bad injury of retiring, I feel that they're both playing so well as a sort of last hurrah for them and Fergie. Its probably their weakest area long term and where I expect all their transfer budget to be spent this Summer.

Before the start of the season do you think the Keane money would have got Ashley Young? Or even the Keane + Riera money? Serious question because I think that £25M would have got Young, Agbonlahor or Ribery all of whom would have significantly improved our team and in fact only improved our squad a bit with Riera.

08/09 Appearances: 33 (6 from bench) 08/09 Goals: 3 08/09 Assists: 2 Minutes on pitch: 2584 mins Minutes per goal: 861 mins Lifted from Anfield online. You're probably right in your assumption that he's one of our more important attacking players but those are pretty poor figures for a CM who apparently isn't defensive. Keane, Yossi, Babel and Aurelio have more assists this season, Lucas has the same.

Forgot about Madrid winning it after Beckham signed for the Yanks to be honest, but the point remains that he didn't play as well once he left United. While Ince was at Inter thay finished 7th and 3rd, while at United he won 2 league titles, F A cup, super cup and cup winners cup.

I'll happily give you Forlan the rest have no chance. Stam was possibly the best CB in Europe at United, Beckham won nothing at Madrid, Ince was on the way down when he left United, Rossi's hardly been gone 10 minutes.

And it's obvious that you're refusing to expand on your "Back Rafa at all costs" b******s. The most we get offered for Alonso is £11M and thats Parry's fault as well because he's a crap negotiator?

As I can't think of a single player thats left him and played as well/better than they did for Ferguson, with the possible exception of RVN, then I'd say that they play above their level for Ferguson you clown.

It was the only offer so how could we have sold him for more? You said we should have gone through with it to back Rafa, no-one offered more than £11M and that wasn't even a firm offer so where do you stand now in the backing Rafa's demands debate? And you're using 'entire/entirely' too much.

Is Berbatov better than RVN, is any midfield they can put out now close to Beckham, Keane, Scholes and Giggs? Is Van der Saar fit to tie Schmeichels laces? Is Ferdinand and Vidic better than Bruce and Pallister? Irwin one of the best fullbacks of his generation. It goes on. Brown, Fletcher, Oshea, Park, Rafael, Evans have all played a significant number of games this season none of them are close to being members of Uniteds greatest squad ever. Ferguson always builds his players up, it's why he's easily the best man-manager we've ever seen and his players go out on the pitch and play above their level..

So Parry should have sold Alonso for £11M to Juventus and paid Villa £18M for Barry to keep Rafa happy, on top of spending £40M on other players? I wanted Barry to come but Alonso + £7M for Barry after buying Ngog, Dossena, Cavalieri, Keane and Degen is just insanity! £40M in one transfer window and all you can say is "we need to back Rafa"?

First choice for the country that invented total football but not first choice for us where Riera, Yossi, Kuyt, El Zhar and Ngog regularly get playing time ahead of him. We got nothing for Pennant so £7M gone, we made £1M on Bellamy - he don't play for 12 months because of injuries and West Ham double their money on him. Crouch is miles infront of Bent & Defoe in the England set up yet they both fetch far more than he does. We could still potentially lose £7M on Keane not counting whatever his payoff was, Degen's a joke waste of wages as was said on here before he signed. We are burning it up in the transfer market.

Why, is it in the PL rules? Our back 4 is Arbeloa, Carra, Skrtel, Dossena Uniteds is Rafael, Ferdinand, Vidic, Evra. Carra is a defender, so is Ferdinand which one is more defensive? Is Evra defensive? United dicked Chelsea with a CM of Giggs and Fletcher, which of them is defensive? United and Chelsea both have far more attacking fullbacks than we do yet they have both let in fewer goals than us this season. We play Man City at home with 6 players who struggle to pass the ball forwards, being a tad unfair to Arbeloa here actually, lose an unlucky goal and we're automatically struggling. By far the best ball-playing defender we have aint even on the bench, is he injured does anyone know? Was Elisha another victim of the cull?

As you say "The manager selects the team he thinks best to win the game", the only fact in your post full of maybe's. We didn't win, we didn't keep a clean sheet with over half the side consisting of defensive players, subsequently we couldn't score twice to take the points. But you're right Rafa picked the team and therefore the blame must rest with him.

Not this season we haven't! Go figure!

Bearing in mind that without fail we play more defensive players than any of the other top teams we still let in more goals than both United and Chelsea, if we had matched Uniteds record of not conceding goals how far in front would we be? I have felt for a few years now that our defence is 'occasionally over-rated' because while United often play with no defensive Cm's and both fullbacks bombing forward, we always play with both Cm's defensive and with little/No creativity from the back at all. And they still have a better defensive record than we do even when Brown/Evans/Oshea/Rafael are playing. Yes we don't let in that many goals but we struggle to keep clean sheets and thats hurting us just as much as failing to kill games off.

We didn't need him anyway, it was only City at home.