shurlock

Im missing something but why are we supposedly offering Del Piero a contract if there's no space left?

He can join them when he's 39...

Maybe the links with Biglia were serious then, though lots on here don't think we need another CM.

Quite a few of the development squad (6/7) sit at the top of block 4 -JJ ish.

Drogba's on 200K a week at Shanghai....

Yep, pretty sure that if we had a midfielder on the bench, they would have been preferred to a striker. The addition of the Guly/Jrod made sense as both were fresh and are willing workers. We lost it, not because they came on but because the midfield ran out steam and we couldn't make like for like replacements. Chaplow, even Hammond would have offered something not to mention Cork.

The point of putting Jrod on the left was to provide an outball on the wing, exploiting the height advantage over rafael.

Possibly but wouldn't want to rush the lad and hurt his development.

True but the pretty public transfer links with Buttner, Olsson, Boilesen suggest it was a high priority. And that's only the tip of the iceberg. Only on here was there a confidence that LB wasn't a priority and that a combo of Fox/Shaw (too many people getting carried away with cameo appearances by Shaw in preseason) would get us by.

Even when he's got the ball, his touch has been poor. And this idea that he's being used as a winger is b@ll@ck$ - he's used as a target man/outball, exploiting the mismatch between him and the fullback. Its not as if this is new. While Rickie has played down the middle, he's been happy to roam/drift to the sides for the same reason. With Jrod the role is more fixed and ideally he would be played down the middle but the position still plays to a number of his strengths. Thats to say, I dont buy the argument that his performances are wholly down to where he's being played.

No complaints about the subs - we were defending from the front and needed fresh legs. Keeping Lambert, Punch and Lallana would have made little or no difference. Only grumble was that Jrod wasn't played down the middle and allowed to carry on Rickie's good work in the air. While the focus is on our lack of defensive cover, today was crying out for an extra midfielder to come on. JWP, Davis and Schneiderlin looked cream-crackered and its no coincidence that Scholes was able to dictate play more as the game went on and they couldn't close the lines. Cork is still to return but perhaps its an area we need to strengthen if we decide to pack the middle of the park again with high-energy, box-to-box CMs. For large spells, it worked a treat. Indeed, pretty sure NA would have brought another midfielder on instead of a forward if one had been available. Morgan was MOTM by a country mile - particularly impressive was his ability to anticipate and break up play so far up the pitch - no doubt, having JWP and Davis around freed him to be more aggressive. That said, United were sloppy in possession. Galling that two of their goals came from headers, not from pace or being opened up(though two balls over the top, one in the first half and one in the second, caught us flat-footed). Our inability to win headers predates this season and is perhaps not talked about enough on here. Do have my concerns about Yoshida as our only bit of CB biz- its huge gamble by us which suggests we missed out on a few targets. IMO Fox didn't have his worst game by any means. The ref, though, had a poor game - never knew the advantage rule was meant to put teams at a disadvantage....

Perhaps, they've seen him play and decided that he's not good enough just now but will be in the future? Nothing to do with age.

What a silly statement-where did the poster mention age? JWP's ready to play some kind of role on the basis of his performances; Shaw isn't.

Don't tell MLG.

Has potential homesickness written all over it - hope the club has got that side sorted. In footballing terms, building a side around him will help.

Did Lee get called up? Or they bypassed him this time because he's been injured.

Cringeworthy but it was a one-off, a product of very dark times. The club was in freefall and we utterly s**t and deflated in what even we were billing as our cup final. Its no coincidence that it didnt happen again in 2011 when we were on the up.

But Adkins played Guly whereas he didn't Martin. You're missing window's point i.e. managers know more than our fanbase and there's a reason why some of our players don't feature despite protestations on here. If anything Guly totally disproves your point.

Watching the interview, if there's one thing that comes out loud and clear, its that Ramirez would have never signed for us if it wasn't for Cortese. Even the most ardent critic of Cortese cannot fail to appreciate that. And if you think Ramirez is a massive signing for the club -like the rest of the world does- then Cortese deserves a hell of a lot of credit.

Good interview - a signed up disciple of the CoC.

Frankly Lawro is more interesting than Hanson, Shearer and the ITV cartel. I like his alkie irreverence and scepticism.

Yep totally agree, though the assumption will always be that you can only talk about the game if you've played it at a serious level. On that basis, its hard to come up a list of informed, articulate ex pros: Neville, Claridge, MLT though he does seem easily impressionable...?

The fact is that after the Arsenal game we should at least have 3 points but we blew our best chance against Wigan.

True that's why I said 2 or 3 (of course, that depends how much ultimately pay for ramirez - im pretty sure we're paying more than £12m once penarol's fee is included). But the point remains: would it have been a better strategy to have spread the money around a bit more rather than putting most of our eggs in one basket?

Question remains: would you rather have one blue-chip investment like Ramirez or two or three solid £4m+ players that would give us strength in depth?