Where are you reading all of this? You been reading RAWK or something? I haven't seen anyone in this thread say anything like that? All I saw is Custard saying we looked good and Shteve saying the first half performance was excellent.
tbf, it has only been one game you're right, but if you go into the season with your current defence then I can't see you winning much. You can't get rid of 3 major characters (Rio, Vidic and Evra) and not fully replace them all. You need a world class CB at least.
Midfielder more important. Doesnt matter who you have in defence ifnthe midfield leaves them exposed. Look at united with a world class defence but a poor modfield.
Your midfield is currently in a better state than defence imo. Your CBs are Smalling, Jones and Evans ffs! Anyway according to you Herrera was the best midfielder in Spain last year
Don't worry about it, people were always going to rip United if they lost. You can't have 25 years at the top, causing **** loads of resentment, and not expect people to take huge pleasure when you finally fall. It's par for the course. You've had a quarter century to dish it out, now its time to get a little back....I wouldn't worry about it.
That's still pretty good considering the midfielders the big three have (I would argue Koke was better).
Herrera is a bit of an enigma for me, let's see how he gets on this year but if he was all that, why didn't Barca go for him when they bought Ratikic?. His scoring record is awful as well. No one else seemed remotely bothered in signing him despite him being the best midfielder in La Liga
Barcelona were interested but as we all know, buying basque players is hard enough from abroad, politics make it even worse for spanish clubs. Dont think it got to the bidding stage but they certainly watched him and showed interest. He doesnt score many goals. More a creative player. Played attacking midfield last season and still had the highest tackle completion rate and interception rate. His pass rate is also up there with the best of them. Hes very good at recycling the ball basically.
Ratikic is more of a replacement for Fabregas imo. Herrera plays too deep to fit that role. Fairly pointless comparison anyway. You might as well as why no one else made any serious bids for Fabregas or Costa - clubs bid for players they think will fill a specific role, not just based on how good they think they are. It's not Championship Manager!
I don't think Di Maria will join United but he will be leaving Real. He didn't make the team tonight and more importantly neither did James Rodriguez who will always be ahead of Di Maria purely because of his transfer fee. I think he'll end up at PSG.
You may well be right. Our interest in Di Maria looks to be similar to that of Vermaelen - we know he's available and likely to be sold and we need good players. But he's not our first choice, so if PSG really want him they will probably get him. Not too bothered as long as we actually get one of our first choice targets this year!
I think Di Maria would have been (if the papers are correct) a good buy. He has played in a top team and wont be fazed by the pressure to play at OT. It would have signalled our intent to catch up with the big boys!
We already signed 3 of them. By all accounts rojo is one of van gaals first choice signings and herrara and shaw certainly were the clubs first choice.
So, Dave. You're basically saying Balotelli isn't as good as Suarez. That's why we're paying 16 mill for him as opposed to 75 mill.
