It is amazing to see United level on points at the top of the Premier League, especially as you don't appear to have a Central Midfield. Of course this says much for the ability of Sir Alex Ferguson, has any Manager ever extracted the maximum from his Players on such a consistent basis? But it also speaks volumes with regard to the diminishing quality of The Premier League, your shortcomings in the Champions League were not so easily overcome. A Defensive and Attacking Midfielder must surely be signed next month? No?
We need one of each, but they won't be brought in until summer, if they're being brought in at all. Our biggest issue at the moment is injuries, we played our CM at CB today because no one is fit.
I think we definitely do need a CM and a CB and hopefully will sign 2 new players in the transfer window for these positions.
This. To be honest our biggest issue this season has been defence - we haven't had a settled defence all season and are shipping goals like mad as a result. This is the third time this season we've conceded three or more goals in a competitive game - that's the same as the whole of last season including the whole of the FA Cup and the match against Barca! The defensive injuries couldn't have come at a worse time as well, what with a new and inexperienced keeper.
It's been blatantly obvious that a central midfielder has been needed for some time. However, the type of marquee signing that would fit the bill (Sneijder, Pastore, Schweinsteiger) won't be going anywhere until the summer, not least because some of those targets are still involved in the Champions League. When the injuries mount up, throwing a few square pegs in round holes only works for so long.
It's not the fact that we didn't have any CMs, but the general lack of knowledge to change things up is perplexing. We didn't have to have Sneijder in the centre, we were opening them up quite easily to begin with. But some of the thought processes of some players is a bit odd. Hernandez has been injured so I guess there is a small case for him playing as poorly as he did. Anyone could see that Welbeck was the only person in the first half that looked half decent on the ball, yet he barely touched the ball in the 2nd half. Noone really stood up to take the game to Blackburn. If Rooney was on the pitch, I don't think we'd have let up after we equalised, which brings me onto another point, we did the same thing against Palace, we released all the pressure we'd built up with the two goals and it just seemed to me that we lacked leadership.
Tiote and Cabaye dominated your midfield today. That's why you couldn't compete properly. Interesting to see how both Wenger and SAF refuse to spend money. But I guess there are financial limitations in place even at the biggest of clubs. Obviously Cleverley has a big big future at ManU and he's the player you're missing most atm. But even with him, you need someone to break up play, a Makalele player. De Rossi Inler, Khedira, someone in that mold.
Would like a CB/RB (maybe steal Cahill from under Chelsea's nose) and De Rossi. Wouldn't be too upset if we sold Anderson.
