So that’s that then. The season is at an end and – bar next Saturday night’s Champions League final – the players across Europe can put their feet up and look forward to a well deserved rest. Well, in a few cases. Liverpool’s season ended the way it began, in a lacklustre and decidedly tame way. Of our first team, there are about 3-4 that can end the season relatively pleased with how they performed. I don’t even have to mention any names, it’s that obvious who they are.
By contrast, United could point to a number of players who, while clearly not as good as their counterparts across the league in the same position, gave enough, tried enough and never gave up game after game. Take Sunday’s game as an example: the league was won, Blackpool had far more to play for and United’s players had the most important game of their season to play the following Saturday, yet they still managed to down Blackpool (literally) 4:2 and made what was a close-fought title look much more easy by the end.
For all the players Liverpool might either chase, sign or covet in the summer, we could do well to hunt down those vital ingredients that Ferguson seems to instil in his every United side: togetherness and a supreme never give up attitude that is unmatched in this country. I’m loathe to admire anything about that lot from down the road but you can’t help but admire what they have achieved without a single world class player this season.
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“The displays of the likes of Joe Cole and Jay Spearing…”
WHAT??? Jay has been one of the brightest sparks of the past few weeks. His one-touch-and-pass has been a breath of fresh air, constantly keeping the ball moving and changing the line of attack, and his tenacious tackling back and breaking up of opposition play key in our clean sheets. Arguably his early exit on Sunday was one of the reasons for the lacklustre display.
You’re too easily impressed mate. Yes, Spearing gives 100% every game but he’s an average midfielder who is fairly decent in defending but poor in attack. We did not miss Spearing against Villa on Sunday and the introduction of Shelvey actually added more creativity to the midfield. If Spearing was one of the reasons for the lacklustre display then why was the team so poor against Spurs last week with Spearing in the side?
Spot on. Spearing did well but there needs to improve alot for him to become really important. He offers sort of the same as Lucas. And Lucas does it much much better.
I’ve long argued that I wanted Coady to be promoted ahead of Coady (for size and youth more than anything else) but the scapegoating of Spearing for the two defeats is pretty pathetic. He was not any worse than his many of teammates in either game, and definitely not inferior to his partners in the centre of midfield.
Man U don’t buy winners anyway, they cultivate a winning mentality at the club. Whereas we’re already seeing fans talking about it’s impossible for us to challenge within the next 2-3 years, Man U set out every year with the intent of winning the title, irrespective of the fact that their squad is regularly only marginally strongert than ours.
Aim high, achieve high. Aim low, achieve less…
We cant compete for next 2 seasons as it will take time to install that winning mentality. For it to work players need to be ‘punished’ for not performing – meaning sitting on the bench and let another quality player step in. We dont have that quality on the bench! So players dont really feel the pressure to perform.
So Man U should automatically win the title for the next seasons in your opinion then, seeing as none of the other teams have that winning mentality either
Buying 4+ first team players (2 wingers, 1 left back and 1 CM or CB) would push current first team players where they deserve to be – onto the bench – and that along with our reserves would be all the depth that the squad needs. Have you not seen the line-ups that Man U have been putting out this season??
Reina
Johnson-Kelly-Agger-NEW LB
NEW DM
Gerrard-Aquilani
NEW RW-Carroll-Suarez
Squad players: Gulacsi, Carragher, Insua, Lucas, Meireles, NEW LW, Kuyt, Pacheco, Coady, Suso, Wilson, Flanagan, Shelvey etc
Why couldn’t a squad like that be expected to challenge for the title if the players brought into the first team are of a high quality?
What should be learnt from Man U though is that you need two top wingers at all times plus another backup
Jay who do you want promoted ahead of Coady?
Is that me? I said I would’ve preferred to see Coady promoted ahead of Spearing, as he has more chance of being a major player in a title winning team. Coady was the better DM in the same team as Spearing even though he was younger and less experienced, so I don’t understand why Spearing got the chance instead of him tbh.
Imo we’d have been better off seeing Pacheco & Suso getting gametime ahead of Shelvey, Maxi and Cole too, but that’s a different position
Thanks for replying Eric – saved me the job!
Eric? You obviously know Little about tactics and still less about opening your mouth when you shouldn’t no? The reason for the bad display v Spurs? Was QUITE easy to pinpoint – In our successful run up to and including the destruction of Fulham the week before? He had been part of a midfield THREE (Spearing himself, Lucas and Raul Meireles as linkman) that took FULL advantage of Suarez’ magic in unlocking defences and Kuyt’s poaching skills and the opportunism of Rodriguez to wreak absolute havoc against ALL who crossed our path – Come the Spurs match though? That Three became a TWO of only Spearing and Lucas with Joe Cole belatedly introduced at half-time to TRY and do what the injured Meireles had done and provide a midfield link to the attack and forward line. Spurs had a midfield THREE during the whole game and quite simply?
Quite simply on Sunday Jay was outnumbered in the middle, he and Lucas had TO much to do and not enough support to do it – THAT is why he failed that day – His injury on Sunday cost us the game effectively as his energy WOULD have helped us overrun Villa in his favoured midfield 3 IF he’d continued – That he didn’t and we AGAIN had to bring on Joe Cole as a makeshift ‘filler’ in a midfield 3? Was one of the main reasons we lost as he was neither fully fit NOR comfortable in that role.
As most seasoned observers will note from our BEST performances this season? Jay is growing into a nice little clone of what Mascherano once did for us (harrying, combatting and destroying opposition midfields with a GREAT deal of energy) which is gradually allowing Lucas to switch HIS game to something like a SHORT-passing version of what Alonso once did for us, Commanding games from the centre of the park.
I think this system is completed with Raul Meireles or Steven Gerrard to provide the long passes that were once Alonso’s trademark, Lucas doing the short passing game that Alonso once did and Jay filling the Masch’ role admirably (and passing FAR better than the Argentine ever did) and WHEN everyone is in place to do these jobs correctly? It’s proving a rather decent little REPLACMENT system for the former (admittedly World-Class) system we used of Masch’ holding, Alonso passing & controlling and Gerrard bombing forward although the NEW system now needs Gerrard or Meireles to do the old ‘long’ passes of Alonso instead of Lucas. However IMO Lucas’ SHORT passing game and ability to get the rest of the midfield doing this is FAR superior to Alonso’s short passes but he cannot yet command matches as much as Xabi once did.
Good as it has proven for FINALLY getting the players we have into a decent, WINNING system – The method has weaknesses and like ANY system? It can break down and for our last two matches of the season for different reasons (the loss of Meireles in the first and the injury to Jay Spearing in the next)it most certainly DID break down which derailed us to much to win either match as we don’t YET have the squad depth to cope with such damage to our midfield – We’ve only JUST rebuilt a functional and decent midfield system that allows us to win matches in succession – It was simply TO much at this stage to expect us to have sufficient depth to cope when THAT was knackered by injuries as well – I think Messrs Hicks and Gillette of our late unlamented ownership debacle circa Oct’ 2010 had rather a lot to do with the squad weakness thus shown mind. THAT is something which it’s up to John Henry and Kenny to fix in the Summer Transfer Window, and they will – Mark My Words………………..
NB To the Article’s Author? I’ll tell you the ONE thing we SHOULD learn from ‘Them’ down the road – Other than as Jay Wright said (rightly) to Aim FOR the title year in, year out – No matter what and instil the BELIEF in our players that THEY are THE best no matter what is said – Something annoyingly prevalent at OT. This thing I think we should learn is? Simple a twofold mantra ESSENTIAL to winning titles – ALWAYS win at home and (especially) BATTER the small fry – the ‘little’ teams, week in, week out.
It’s something Liverpool USED to be famous for and which THEY have done for YEARS – They’ve WON title races against US by doing it – Simply? It doesn’t matter how well you do v the Top 4 and the ‘Bigger’ Clubs IF you want the title – We got 14 odd points from the Top Sides in 2008/2009 – Yet drew at home v West Ham, Fulham, Hull and Stoke – THAT is where the Title was lost.
Similarly THIS year? We ‘doubled’ Chelsea, twice drew with Arsenal, Battered City and United at home and SHOULD have won at Spurs but at the same time? BlackPOOL ‘doubled’ US, Wolves won at Anfield, BlackBURN humiliated us at Ewood park, Sunderland took a point from Anfield, Spurs ‘doubled’ us and Newcastle embarrassed us at their midden – That’s not even mentioning the West Ham debacle, the West Brom robbery and the biggest humiliation of the lot at Everton.
United? Lost to Wolves yes but the REST of their defeats? Were to us, Arsenal and Chelsea – They SLAUGHTERED the ‘small fry’ – Beat Wolves at home, drew at Ewood, Goodison and Newcastle, beat Blackpool home and away, battered Sunderland at home and dropped only TWO points at home all season – THAT is what we should aim for. Beat enough small teams Enough times? And they’ll become afraid of us – We’ll pick up ‘cheap’ points regularly and have FAR less trouble getting into the CL etc – Win big battles when we can but We MUST concentrate on winning MORE smaller battles than ALL the others EVERY season and THAT will put us AT or near the top enough to win the league – Never mind IF we can beat City, United etc in enough ‘head to heads’ each season – Beat ALL the smaller sides as much as possible – THAT is WELL within our abilities and THAT will win us the title if we do it for long enough……….
Yes 20 odd points are on offer for beating the Top 5 or so clubs twice a season but the REST? Offer at least 80 or so MORE points – Not to mention the ‘invincibility’ aura that can be built up by a string of such victories and THAT my friends is United’s Greatest strength EVERY year – they KNOW and play this game better than ANY other side – hence their ‘aura’ and all their ‘surprise’ victories, annoying winners, ‘improbable’ comebacks etc – WE did it in 2005/2006 and everyone was saying “oh, wait until they play United, Chelsea etc when actually? We were DOING the right thing by beating ALL the lower sides repeatedly;
Anyway, I repeat one last time, ALL the small teams are afraid of United and they beat them ALL without fail thereby increasing their confidence and points tally for the ‘bigger’ matches – WE should, nay MUST follow that blueprint – Not least because IT was once ours – Lose the big battles by all means but win ENOUGH small ones? And you WILL win the war – Whether we can match the others financially over a season or not or in head to heads? I don’t know but we CAN and MUST beat ALL the teams below us and a few around us when we WANT to – we just need to KEEP wanting to and FORCE wins out of the league’s also rans ENOUGH each season – That WILL hand us the league title in the end if we do it enough – It was never about the others around us – Just those below us – Beating the SMALLER teams is and always was the key. Learn that and act accordingly? And we WILL win the League Title soon enough………….
The title is there to be won next season. United are by no means invincible but the reason they tend to come out on top so much and seem to have so much luck is because they do the basics very well. How many games in the last 20 years have they carved out a narrow victory by the use of setpieces? Quite a lot. How many late winners have they scored? Quite a lot again. Ferguson is a master of getting inside a player’s head and making that player realize that he has to put his body on the line if he wants to win trophies. Liverpool need to drop the looser mentality about the league and they need to target seriously the 28 games against the 14 teams outside the top six next season. Winning these 28 games equals 84 points which would likely be enough on its own to win the title next season. Gerrard needs to show his committment by retiring from England now like Scholes did. If Gerrard is serious about winning a Premier League medal before he retires then this is imperative. Coady,Wisdom,Ngoo,Morgan,Sterling and Adorjan should all be in the Premier League matchday squads next season alongside Flanagan and Robinson. The 38 league games should be the sole priority next season, forget the mickeymouse cups.