Today a guest post by Alastair Brookshaw @albrookshaw
A recent (somewhat transparent) PR drive by the Glazers has seen talk of a £100, or even £200, million war chest being made available for floundering David Moyes. But if that’s true, it will signal a marked change in United’s transfer policy over the past 5 years. Manchester United are one of the English Premier League’s big spenders. They have one of the highest wage bills in the league and have one of the most expensively assembled squads in the country. But despite all this, their transfer dealings in the last few years have had far less in common with the mega-rich, oil-funded clubs than they have with the work of the most famous penny pincher of all … Arsène Wenger.
Where’s The Money?
When United splurged £30 odd million on Dimitar Berbatov in 2008 it was simply a show of the sort of financial muscle we had come to expect from them. An already talented squad was being topped up with a world class, top-price signing. It was the sort of purchase that had kept United at the top for season after season. But nearly 6 years have gone by and United haven’t made a signing like it since.
A look at their dealings in 2009 sums up a general theme that has held true ever since: we see a mixture of ‘youth with potential’ and slightly underwhelming ‘mid-range’ purchases. So in came Pogba, Mame Biram Diouf, Obertan, Michael Owen (on a free) and Valencia. 2010 read even more like a ‘Wenger window’: Smalling, Lindegaard, Bebe and Hernandez. A year later: Phil Jones, De Gea, and Ashley Young, and so it goes on.
This is the team that spent £30 million on Rio Ferdinand in 2002. Think for a second what an equivalent purchase in 2014 terms looks like. It’s certainly not Chris Smalling for £10 million! Robin Van Persie may have been a marquee signing in many ways, but in terms of cost even he was still very much off the M&S shelf rather than Harrods. Would they have got him for £50m with 4 years left on his contract? The evidence of the past 5 windows suggests not.
‘Doing A Wenger’… Not So Easy Apparently
This period has also been one in which Fergie’s reputation truly soared above Wenger’s. While Arsenal scrambled for 4th place and famously failed to land trophies, United somehow remained at the very top, despite the extravagant spending of the oil-enhanced teams, and even as their squad appeared weaker and weaker. There can be no doubt that Fergie’s final trophies were an extraordinary testament to his will to win and his ability to wring every last drop of talent from the players at his disposal. I have been predicting their downfall for at least 2 or 3 seasons and each time have been left astounded at his ability to challenge for title with the squads at his disposal.
However, if last season is a testament to Fergie’s greatest strengths, then this season is surely highlighting some of his failings. In particular, it offers the clearest evidence yet that even he might have struggled with the task that Wenger was set just under a decade ago. If this was Fergie building a squad ‘on a budget’, it is another reminder of how impressive the job is that Wenger has done in since the stadium move. After all, Wenger didn’t have the luxury of relying on the greats he had assembled during the good times. Part of his task was to sell off the Invincibles – and later stars – at the best price he could get for the club.
By contrast, last season the league was won primarily by the United squad that Fergie had assembled at huge expense over the years preceding 2008. With the notable exception of Van Persie (and I suppose if we’re being generous De Gea) there is not a single ‘post-Berbatov’ signing who can be said to have been truly instrumental. Fergie may have had to sell Ronaldo and offload Tevez, but a comparable situation to Wenger’s would have probably seen them without Giggs, Scholes, Vidic, Ferdinand and Rooney last season.
So Where Have United Gone Wrong?
I’m being fairly kind to Fergie by likening his budgetary constraints to Wenger’s. United may have tightened their belt in relative terms over the last few years, but they are still one of the richest clubs in the world. And some of those average players still cost a considerable amount of money. Jones, De Gea and Ashley Young may not have been star signings, but they still amounted to over £50 million spent.
Whilst Wenger certainly made some missteps with his cheaper signings, in the ‘mid-range’ bracket he has blown Fergie out of the water. Since 2009 United have spent approximately £120m on: Kagawa, Zaha, Jones, De Gea, Young, Smalling, Hernandez, Bebe, Valencia (9 players). Compare that to (over the same period) £90m on: Podolski, Giroud, Cazorla, Monreal, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Arteta, Gervinho, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Vermaelen (10 players). There is of course the anomaly of Van Persie being available for £22m, but otherwise, player for player the gap in quality is pretty astronomical, as is the gulf in cost. And that, of course, is the period in which Wenger was slowly allowed to loosen the purse-strings. Imagine Fergie having to live by the budget Wenger did in the 5 years from around 2005. If his period of ‘austerity’ since 2009 is anything to go by, it might not have been at all pretty!
So What Does It All Mean?
If you’re a Manchester United fan none of this makes comfortable reading. Arguably it hints that Moyes won’t have anything like the war chest that is being reported in the papers – surely a factor in their failure to land any of their main targets in the summer. (Perhaps it also explains why Moyes was the first choice for the job in the first place? He is, after all, a man with a reputation for keeping teams competitive on a tight budget.) And should they fail to reach the Champions League next season those budgetary constraints will only get worse (particularly as one can only assume it will have a knock-on effect on their celebrated commercial revenue). Sure, there will always be money available – the money they wasted on Fellaini in the summer proves that – but, unless their spending policy for the past few years has been some sort of clever ruse, I don’t think Moyes will be able to spend his way out of trouble as easily as some would have you believe.
As an Arsenal fan it is yet another reason to re-evaluate the last 8 or 9 years of ‘failure’. Fergie is rightly considered to be one of the greatest managers of the modern era and yet even he has struggled to build and improve a squad under financial pressure that is minimal, compared to the constraints Wenger was under, in the early Emirates years. Unlike Wenger he was under no pressure to sell his ‘big guns’ so still had enough quality in his squad to keep winning trophies, but the overall impact is now being felt. Many of those players – Vidic, Ferdinand, Scholes, Giggs, Evra, Van Der Saar – are either recently retired or on the wane and suddenly this season we are presented with a vision of what United’s squad might have looked like if they had had to tighten their belts to the extent that Arsenal did.
It also offers a vindication of Wenger’s care in the transfer market, especially at higher prices. If one cry has been most common amongst a certain section of fans it has been:
“We understand we can’t afford Messi. That’s not what we are asking for. Just buy top quality players in the £15m-£30 mark.”
I’ve written elsewhere that, unless you’re careful, some of the worst value in football is in this category, and United’s transfer list post 2009 shows how easy it is to waste your money. The usual suspects are still moaning that not all of our transfer kitty was spent in the summer, but it would only take two or three ‘Fellaini-style’ missteps for that money to disappear down the drain very quickly. There is, of course, an irony that the same people moaning about it are the ones who have been most critical of our ‘deadwood’ in years past. As another transfer window progresses, perhaps it’s time for some of those critics to start considering just how many times Arsène has got it right and they’ve got it wrong!
Positively Arsenal 
Dont all talk at once.
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What an extraordinary intelligent and well-researched article . Thanks so much Alastair for writing it, and to George for providing the platform. You have made Monday infiniley more bearable!
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Interesting piece Alastair and thought provoking. Two points occur to me. First that in the final years of DAD’s reign the Salford club’s spending was very much focussed on buying younger and generally cheaper options with the stated intention of building a new generation and a winning side. I do not think certainly up to Summer 2013 that General approach attracted much criticism as DeGea, Jones, Smalling, Rafael and even Welbeck looked decent footballers who would get better. The signing of Zaha seemed another brick in that redevelopment.
A problem , perhaps the problem, is that Moyes and his team are not getting anywhere near the best out of those younger players compared to the old regime.
Second one reason the glazers might be reluctant to fund recent big ticket spending is that their on excursion up that street , Berby, was at best a partial success. Other big Manyoo buys were pre Glazer and, as you say, in terms of raw cash they can’t match their Citeh neighbours .
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A really great article. Hope you sent a copy to the Arsene out brigade. Thanks Alastair.
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Terrific article and, like you, I’ve been expecting a great unravelling of the red manc empire for some time now – since the Glazers took over, in fact. The cost of their purchase – all club-funded – and the subsequent monstrous annual interest payments are all collossal sums that would previously have been ploughed back into the squad to enable the club to continue to genuinely compete with Barca and Real Madrid.
Those days are now long gone.
Nowadays they are struggling – and all too often failing – to get past domestic rivals.
What HAS kept them afloat in recent times aside from the Fergie Factor, has been the outstanding work of their Commercial Dept, and something that in recent years was considered by some to be a legitimate stick with which to beat our own alledgedly ‘badly run’ (albeit sustainably self-supporting) club. But even here lies a problem for Manure; not a single one of those lucrative commercial deals, I’d speculate, were predicated on the club finishing outside the top four with just the dismal Europa League to look forward to on Thursday nights.
Manure need at least four world class players – six if/when Wayne escapes and the decline of the 31 year old RVP accelerates. Even assuming utd have the cash do they truly retain the pulling power? Can their likely prospects or current trophyless manager really bring in the quality at the level and in the numbers yesterday’s game – and numerous others this season – demonstrated they so desperately need? It’s not just about the cash.
The future may be brightly coloured for some but it’s unlikely to be the red of the northern Mancs.
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Alastair,
That is a fantastic piece. So enjoyable. I feel we need articles like this every so often to remind ourselves of the issues in the debate about Arsene’s performance over the recent past. Direct comparisons between managers is always difficult. I think I’m correct in repeating that Arsene has an overall philosophy that encompasses more that Ferguson’s or Mourinho’s. Arsene aims to entertain us and he wants to do this having developed as many players as possible at reasonable cost. Mourinho is about winning at all costs. Ferguson, was undoubtedly a great manager but his achievements were with the richest club in the world before the stolen mineral wealth of the Russian people was invested in Chelsea and the Arab dictators lavishing the petrodollars of a gulf state into Manshitty. He certainly was the first big spender. I also understand that he always spent big after Arsenal won the league during the first eight years of the Wenger era (I haven’t checked this but I’m sure somebody will confirm of refute this).
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Great piece! Thought provoking.
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fantastic article, I had the discussion with myolder bro the other day ( liverpool fan) who said you need to win trophies also not just get in the champs league – to which i pointed we were not competitive enough as we had to sell our best players to pay off a stadium. Spurs and liverpool need regular champs league for new stadiums.
Most people and fellow arsenal fans dont realise what wenger has done for us , your article is something i have pointed out to friends and family some agree some dont because they only thinkof trophies but when your team is put ina stituation where your under financial constraints then they realise.
I love the fact at how you pointed out the players united have bought compared to the 9 we have bought – gervinho flopped and we sold him.
I dont feel sorry united and dont believe ferguson we have stayed at united if the board you have to sell your best players to fund a stadium or clear debt and the young generation will be developed and then sold ( fabregas, nasri, song etc)
as for moyes – yes he can work on a budget, but his issue is wenger was well known even before he came to the UK. he knew players who knew about his past work ( viera, petit etc) moyes is only known in the PL.
Like you stated what ferguson achieved was remarkable , however what wenger has done has helped our club and i would always chose wenger. with funds he was successful without also. Trophies are great but ask portsmouth what they would prefer fa cup or regular Premier league.
He may not win the champs league
but 20 years back cryuff won barcelona first european cup, a few seasons later he was sacked, his greatest achievment wasnt the cup it was the foundations he layed and developed the foundations for something bigger ( xavi, iniesta, busquets pique, fabregas, puyol, alaba, la masia academy) the way of playing football ( total football)
barca became so dominant, even the national team benefitted.
wenger has developed our own youth system.
I just hope the day he leaves we have someone who comes in with his mindset
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Easily the best article I have read on here. (Not much competition, granted, but still!).
I think it is interesting that Fergie did make a conscious effort to sign up and coming (cheaper) young players like Smalling £11m, and Jones £15m to name 2, but its clear that as with a lot of young players, as Wenger has also discovered, they can tend not to blossom as one would hope.
AW was apparently in for both Smalling and Jones and while I do think Jones is a decent utility player, he is no where near worth £15m and as for Smalling? He is just shocking. Fergie’s knack of getting the absolute most out of his players would have been incredibly tested this season, especially given the fact he would have had to compete with the chavs and Oilers, plus a more stable, energised and competitive Arsenal, along with the spuds and LFC too.
I just dont think he had the energy, or guts to try and do that. I dont blame him either, the man will go down as a legend.
It will be intriguing to see who Moyes signs, the fact they keep getting linked with players AW is supposedly after is very interestin too!
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ad , great post .Please come again.
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Fuck off Dex.
Some of us are delicate flowers and might stop.
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Stopped.
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Well, if thats some great motivation for me to keep on then George!
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Thanks george
A few years back a friend of mine told me how bad the financial situation at arsenal was and that the new stadium would finish us
Gonna forward your aticle to him
I’m not one for gloating but the amount i have had to listen to for the the last 8 years about our collapse.
Spurs have spent so much to break into the top 4, liverpool nearly collapsed and now use the same system on how to run a club. Bayern munich in the past have visited arsenal on how to operate, pep guardiola did some of his coaching badges to get his coaching license.
Ferguson’s utd dominated the PL but wenger has done more for the PL and world football. Wasnt wenger voted coach of the decade 2010?
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I could never understand how some Gooners allowed themselves to follow the media narrative about how Wenger simply refused to spend out of some need to prove everyone wrong.
The move had to be self-financed, against future earnings, marketing deals etc, weithout a sugar daddy and I can remember Wenger stating at a Pre-match Presser how the club would struggle financially for about 5 years and we would see a change in approach to signings, with an emphasis on unproven youths while the club got through ther tough transition of moving to the fantastic stadium we have.
Of course, AW couldn’t predict the property market crash that could have really done some serious damage, damage that Mihir Bose took great delight in proclaiming.
Now, I have been critical of the manager and felt there have been times that he could have done things differently. The loss to Brum in the Carling Cup was followed by a run of form that wasnt far off relegation material was a case in point.
However, given how long he was been with the club, the commitment and dedication he has shown, despite the constraints and abuse he has received from Arsenal supporters, hacks and pundits alike, he deserves not only immense respect and praise, but also to be vindicated for all his efforts with a trophy. Hopefully that will come to fruition this season.
Working within a strict budget while we have two clubs who are not restricted by such petty things as “having to break even” or be “run like a legitimate business” is even more reason to be proud of the great man.
Now hurry up and sign a fecking striker!
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Probably me being naive but why do people still keep going on about Chelsea and City’s unlimited budget – or is FFP already dead in the water?
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City have already shown they can ignore FFP with that £400m naming rights and sponsorship deal they created.
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so glad people are understanding…well worth the 8 years of trolling all them cunts talking us down, laughign at wenger, moaning about titles, ambition, players, comparing us to two clubs who would spend much more than us. even well worth the figths with our own to explain to them how we work/operate, what we want to achieve and the hows. now they see!!…. well most of them at least….
had wenger won titles in the years our two main were specifically investing for trophies while he was selling his best and going with youth till the club recovers, then they should have retired and go home to grow tomatoes.
the prospect of wenger winning torphies with such young inexperienced squads and while repaying a stadium brought pressure to the chelseas and manures to spend and kick …..that prospect would have been an embarassment for them.
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More please Alastair.
Another good study highlighting the immense achievement Wenger has made in the last 8 years. However, similar to George Bush, some of our fans are of the opinion “I dont trust facts, i trust web-hit whores and deluded self-important pricks called bloggers. If they are whipping up mass panic, then I need to be panicking. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!!! Venga! Spend da moneyyyy!!!”.
Put Ferguson in Wenger’s place at Arsenal for the last 8 years (sorry). With the same constraints and without the help of the FA, I am absolutely certain that Ferguson wouldnt have gone through what Arsene went through for Arsenal and would not have achieved what Arsene has achieved.
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and if we only had to deal with united and fergie we wouldnt be 8-9 years without a trophy…………..some bastard cunt politician opened the door for some foreign criminals to come “invest” money from genocides and ripping off countries resources to be ‘washed’ through the sky football industry….
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Sensational Arsenal
January 20, 2014 at 11:54 am
if you want something funnier…..put jose mourinho in wenger’s place … 🙂 ..ahhaaa he wouldnt last a season…
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unforgivable :
all those who moaned to wenger about optimal seasons
all those who doubted his managerial quality and ability
all those who IGNORED the bias we had to face as a club
all those who wanted us to do it like city and chelsea
all those who thought stadiums like the emirates are repaid in 3-4 years
all those silly people who thought that arsenal must win a trophy a year or else
all those who complained about selling the invincibles
and of course them jellystone park rangers who refused to acknowledge that wenger had to save upto 25million a season to repay banks, money he had to find some from player sales…….
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I could never understand how some Gooners allowed themselves to follow the media narrative about how Wenger simply refused to spend out of some need to prove everyone wrong.
you mean like some old guard gooners who were talking shit about ‘big clubs’ when our only appearance in a champions league final came from a wenger squad? and bought the bait that arsenal MUST win a trophy every year like weve done every season in our past since our estabishment as a football club?
those guys????? ahahahah
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Hunter, he is a clever bastard. He wouldnt have taken up the job and would said that he didnt take the job because of some ridiculous reason. Maybe he would have said that he wanted to manage an English club and Arsenal has too many foreign players.
I think it is funny how he tried to seduce Ferguson to give him the Manure job and now he says, “I never wanted it!”. It looks like he had nowhere but Chelsea to go after Ferguson turned out to be just a tease and in the meantime Chelsea had run out of managers to fire and came back a full circle to Mourinho.
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and deluded self-important pricks called bloggers……who were banning all those talking sense !
after all democracy is all about tolerating the opinion of others…no matter how ridiculous..thats exactly what the ancient greeks had in mind when coming to the terms with a concept of government …..the blogs and the opinions!!!!!!! of course!!!!
or how can we forget the freedom of expression without an ounce of responsibility, accountability knowledge or authority
ha ha ha ha !!!
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Sensational Arsenal
January 20, 2014 at 12:25 pm
i wonder how chelsea fans feel knowing that…..but then again they are classless…
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Excellent, thanks.
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Hunter, I must point out that there is very little democracy on this site.
Does that make me a prick ?
.
.
On second thoughts ,don’t answer that.
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Anyone going to the A.I.S.A. event tonight
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i dont believe in the ‘democracy’ modern people advocate george…democracy is having the freedom to elect who represents you in government…nothing more…it is not free licence to talk shit without consequences, as many use the term for.
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arsene wenger is a paedophile
no he is not
who cares ..? .we live in a democracy !! i have the freedom to say what i want!!
society = fail
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arsene wenger is not good at spending money
what?! …shurrup you
no… fuck you dude, its a democracy..wenger is clueless at finance
logic = none
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arsene wenger doesnt do tactics & formations
are you mad?
no,.. i live in a democracy
football knowledge = sub zero
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Reasoned, well argued piece Alastair. Great read. Thanks for that.
Schadenfreude, as ze Germans call it, is generally one of the most despicable traits. However in the case of that lot, we make an exception. One thing that may emerge from the little Mancs current downward spiral, is that a good proportion of their newer fans, who have known only enormous success, may now learn little bit humility after years of insufferable hubris. Who am I kidding.
Popcorn anyone?
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I agree with George, democracy is over-rated.
(He made me say that).
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No doubt many of United’s newer fans will quickly transfer their allegiance, and I shall look to see how many United shirts are on show at my son’s football training tonight. There are normally a few Chelsea, a few United, a few Arsenal, some Liverpool, two Madrid and several Barca – and lots of Reading because they are the local club. But I have never, ever seen a City shirt, who despite their success remain somehow the footballing equivalent of beige. The Unbearable Lightness of City. Not a bad title for a book that, unless some kundera’s got there before me.
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My favorite moment of yesterday’s game was when Eto’o dropped his shoulder and Phil Jones did a strange Mr. Roboto movement which gave the Cameroonian enough space to curl his shot into the far corner. I thought, remember when the doomers were calling Wenger a cheapskate for not paying 17M pounds for that plank?
Hey, Alastair, you missed two signings. Nani and Anderson cost seventeen million a piece. They are considered flops by every Manure supporter I’ve ever spoken with.
The player Manure has relied on the most over the past few seasons is Michael Carrick. Without him they would have been fighting for fourth three or more seasons ago. Carrick is the player England has needed for the last two world cups and Euros.
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Look at Carrick’s stats.
81.9 passes per game. League average is 43.6 passes per game.
12.7 interceptions per game. League average is 9.2 per game.
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Also if this, er, slump continues apace, then many of the tourists who were happy to pay inflated ticket prices at OT, may now choose to tootle on over to watch the Blue Harem Globetrotters instead. Financially doped beige they may be, but currently offering a lot more entertainment value for the £’s than their red neighbours.
Mustn’t get ahead ourselves though. Yet (smiley thang…).
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Sensational Arsenal: “I think it is funny how he tried to seduce Ferguson to give him the Manure job and now he says, “I never wanted it!”. It looks like he had nowhere but Chelsea to go after Ferguson turned out to be just a tease and in the meantime Chelsea had run out of managers to fire and came back a full circle to Mourinho.”
He was chased out of Madrid when they realized his bag of tricks was limited to building a wall in midfield and hitting teams with pace on the counter.
Hey, Hunter, remmeber when we were comparing Mourinho to Otto Rehhagel? You can scratch that because Rehhagel never played three CBs at the same time. That’s one of Mourinho’s innovations to the game of football.
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“When’s the last time Man Utd fans have been this pessimistic?”……….HAhaHAhaHAhaHAhaHAhaHAhaHAhaHAhaHAhaHAhaHAhaHAhaHAhaHAhaHAhaHAha….he who laughs last….HAhaHAhaHAhaHAhaHAhaHAhaHAhaHAha..
IN ARSENE WE TRUSTED!
IN ARSENE WE TRUST!
IN ARSENE WE WILL MAINTAIN TRUST!
…might have to send hunter 40 virgins or something equally sweet…HAhaHAha!!!
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Hey, Hunter, remmeber when we were comparing Mourinho to Otto Rehhagel? You can scratch that because Rehhagel never played three CBs at the same time. That’s one of Mourinho’s innovations to the game of football.
i never did such a thing -comparing a proper football tactical coach to a translator- ..on the contrary you were implying that otto was as negative as mou is at tactics … otto’s approach was 442 into 343/352/361 if you like with a libero or you could as well term it as 3 cbs if you want just that one of them was a def mid (katsouranis def mid and man to man marker…kapsis man to man marker/cb ..and dellas cb/libero)…
mou innovated the system with 7 goalkeepers at camp nou with inter 🙂
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lucio was playing behind toldo even…aha
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oh shit no… it was the qpr keeper wasnt it? ..the brasilian…
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Fantastic writeup ALASTAIR. right on so many levels and reflects my thoughts and feelings regarding our amazing manager. Thanks and will wait with anticipation for you other articles. Thank you PG for providing the platform for so many good articles and writers. Now that’s Democratic.
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agree 100% on carrick..superb midfielder for manure the last years…i also laugh at manure fans giving him shit…as if they got anyone better…..lol…cleverl;y..ahaha
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shall we paoch hernandez then ? sooo cheeky…
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(..sorry couldn’t help it..some Soccernet headline)
agree with G69 on Carrick. Underrated by the mininions but Red Nose sure knew his value.
Mourinho’s insecurities spill over into his tactics. Defensive crap totally dependent on the most expensive talent + muscle-boys available. Would cripple present day Utd in no time.
I mean how do you sideline Juan Mata ffs???
Between Ancelloti, Di Matteo & Rafa, you’d think Roman, (as claimed day & night by the sky pundits) would have gotten his rocks off enough to keep the boga jonito going but hey…guess the money wash must continue unabated….[“stay focused man, stay “focused” men..in blue!”]
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Gains, it became clear last year that it was going to be his last season at Madrid. His wooing of Ferguson last season as he searched for a new job was embarrassing.
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There was a time when Cleverly was supposed to be better than Wilshere. Speaking of whom, how good has Wilshere been in the last few games?!
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