He was rubbish in the World Cup and Argentina conceding only one goal in the knock out stages had nothing to do with them getting to the final. That's been well documented on here by the resident oracle and friend to many Lisbon fans.
He was in world cup team of the tournament at left back, but that's only because Moreno didn't even play in the tournament. He's at a different level you see.
His previous 2 clubs he's been average - Granted he must have had a good world cup for his price to rocket up. Sounds like a panic buy if you ask me... "The purported £16m fee is something of a surprise not just because the 24-year-old Rojo is not any good. Rather, the size of the fee is puzzling because United have already laid out £30m this summer to make Luke Shaw the world’s most expensive teenager. Presumably Shaw has not been purchased to play a backup role – yet the reported price for Rojo is no snip, especially given that Louis van Gaal has other areas of more pressing need. Rojo moved to Lisbon for £3.5m in July 2012 – the Portuguese club, then, stand to make a healthy profit on a player who came to them following a disappointing spell in Russia at Spartak Moscow." I'm not sure what Moreno has to do with this
He had a very poor World Cup. Argentina's defence was bailed out by their forwards. That was established some time ago.
If he's that good, why haven't Man City or Barca signed him, when they've bought new defenders this summer?
Well done, you can copy and paste. As if we didn't know that already. It's not so much panic as needing cover for our injured left back, having let three players in this position leave in the last few months. It's that simple.
I think vermaelen was our first choice, but obviously you must have other targets and so it can hardly be called a panic buy as we were clearly looking to strengthen there. It's my understanding that he is a centre back that can play left back. As for the price paid by sporting, it's my understanding that there was a sell on arrangement made where spartak get 20% of the future fee and he had 3rd party ownership meaning that sporting would actually not receive a great deal of the funds paid by United.
Rojo is primarily a CB - that's where he plays for Sporting. Shaw will be LWB, Rojo will be the left sided CB in a 352. Different players, different positions. The fact Rojo can cover at LB / LWB is just a bonus. The difference in the fee is due to Shaw being younger, English and bought from an English club.
Don't think Vermaelen was our first choice tbh - he was just a player who fit the bill and we knew was available. If he was our first choice then we would have swapped Smalling as Arsenal wanted - the fact we didn't shows that we only wanted him as a squad player, or an experienced head.
Liverpool did. Besides city went for mangala who united and chelsea decided wasn't good enough (mangala begged chelsea to sign him after agreeing with city, obviously thought it was the omly Manchester club anyones heard of and not that stockport county wannabes). Barcelona as a rule of thumb only sign rubbish or injured defenders
I'm not so sure, ideally if we could have got Hummels then yes he could have been a squad addition, but Hummels was never going to come. We could never accept the Smalling deal as we are too short on centre backs anyway.
SSN are saying we're close to agreeing a deal with him. O Jogo say that Sporting Lisbon want to present Nani 5pm tonight.
We need experienced defenders. Getting some world class ones will be a bonus but more important is that we get some new faces and players who have not been used to hearing Fergie's voice. Al;so it is evident that some players are playing with very little confidence. So that the whole squad needs to be shaken and revamped. All these new players are needed but they will need time to gel. It is unrealistic to expect (and to have expected) United to turn around and challenge for the title. Getting a CL place would be a great achievement for LVG. At the end of the buying (since Fergie left) I would expect that around £300m have been spent. Fellaini, Mata, Shaw, Herrera have already taken £100m +
