According to the Mirror, Wesley Sneijder will sign for Manchester United in the next 48 hours for a fee believed to be around £32m. Hmmmmm.
ide be delighted. still dont believe its happening yet,utd have been adamant we havent moved yet but if it does, what a summer its been.
This whole saga is becoming irritating and drawn out. Will they won't they Wesley and SAF is becoming Ross and Rachel(or the other way round).
We definitely need another midfielder. Have most of you forgot last season? We were piss poor in the middle of the park and got dominated by the big teams. Cleverly and Anderson won't change that.
yeeeeeeeeeeeees. cant stand the idea of carrick/giggs/park playing against barca again this season. twice is embarrassing enough,thanks, it just doesnt work. fletcher and sneijder is the dream cm pairing for me at the moment
I think that the problem will lie in Sneijder's perception of his status and role in the team. We all know SAF likes to rotate, especially the midfield so where would Wesley fit in that? Would he accept being a conventional central midfielder? Maybe, but could he be sucessful in that role? Maybe not. Surely Sneijder's best position would be behind the striker, more often than not, Rooney. So that would mean we would play 4-5-1 for all intents and purposes. But if you were one of the other 6 strikers that we have and look at the team sheet and see that in order to accomodate our big summer signing, a striking position has to be sacrificed, would you be happy? Even more so considering that all of our strikers have had very good pre-seasons. I don't think we need Sneijder. It would be great to have someone of his class but I'd prefer a more conventional central midfielder.
Ian McGarry from BBC 5Live First round of talks between Sneijder officials and #MUFC failed to reach agreement on personal terms. More talks planned.
And of course if Sneijder does play behind a lone striker then we still have the problem of having to play two other average midfielders behind him. I can only hope that if we do get Sneijder, SAF emphasises his defensive duties and converts him into a CM like Scholes, albeit with marginally better tackling...
Then what is the point of Sneijder then? Especially if all we do is curtail his natural instincts and make him into something he isn't. He isn't the Scholes of today, he isn't going to sit deep and dictate play. He is going to look to push forward and link directly with the forwards. And we don't need that. We already have Anderson for that if SAF ever lets him play in an advanced role. And when SAF plays Ando as a "normal" CM he will be far, far more better than Sneijder in terms of defensive abilities as well. If you want goals from midfield then I understand. But for creativity, no need. And I think that Fletcher, Carrick and Anderson are all very good but we do need more strength in depth in that area. We can't rely on Giggs for much longer, Cleverley isn't ready for a full-on CM role just yet and Park can be used there occasionally if there is need (e.g what he did against Milan).
I'm hoping that if Sneijder signs he is going to be like the Scholes from yesterday, i.e. the one that played behind two strikers and alongside a more defensive midfielder whilst still dictating play and scoring plenty of goals as well. Also made some good interceptions in midfield and tackled relatively well when he stayed on his feet. Like Zidane said, the complete midfielder and undoubtedly the best midfielder of his generation. I doubt Sneijder will ever be that good or effective, but who could ever be? But if Sneijder can adapt to play in that sort of role, giving us goals and creativity going forwards whilst contributing defensively, then it will be enough to take us up another level, taking us way clear of our domestic competitors and putting us that bit closer to Barca. But of course the big question is can he do it?
i think its perfectly possible to invisage a United team with both an attacking midfielder and a second striker such as Rooney, ultimatly as long as the midfeilder understands they have defensive duties, ultimatly its not an, either one or the other situation, you can have both, this story seems to be gaining more momentum and credibility at the moment, but ultimatly if it dose or dosen't go ahead im sure that Sir Alex will be making the right call either way, ultimatly he knows best and is a much more credible judge of what the team needs than any individuals on this forum (not that the views are not valuable, but he is afterall one of the best at his job)
Our biggest problem in the midfield is our more "defensive" midfielder. When Carrick's form picked up at the end of the season we played the best we had played all season. If Carrick could maintain that form year round consistently we would be set in the midfield IMO, but I don't know if Carrick can maintain that form. I agree with that, if we were to play Sneijder in the role he plays at inter, he would have to play were Rooney plays now. Would you push Rooney up top as the Main striker? We have one the best sets of strikers in the world, and a pretty weak midfield, adding a word class striker/CAM would improve our squad but wouldn't improve the team. If he does play in the midfield, my biggest worries will be his defensive duties. Carrick isn't mobile enough to cover then ground that someone like a "fit" hargreaves would. But Scholesies tackling was the best part! If we get Sneijder and assuming he can adapt to the Premier League, we'll be pretty much unstoppable in the league.
If we could get him and Anderson working well in the centre of the park then I'd get the 20th title celebrations underway, this is how much I like this current squad. It just needs the right acquisition here and there and we could have one of the best that SAF has ever had. It would be a huge risk to play Anderson and Sneijder in the same team and in a 4-4-2 but that is what is so good about this squad, the ability to adapt to different formations and styles of play. But again, I reiterate, if we could only buy one more player, I'd go for a CM more like Schweinsteiger or Javi Martinez. And if you just had to buy an attacking midfielder, then I think someone younger such as Mario Goetze would be better as it probably would be easier to mould him into something slightly different.
