Ronaldo alternatives for Ten Hag; De Jong a cheap wh*re in Man Utd tease

Good riddance to Ronaldo – who needs him when you’ve got Martial? Keep your thoughts coming to theeditor@football365.com.

Who needs Ronaldo when you’ve got Martial?
Cristiano Ronaldo wants to leave? I say it is good news. The truth is, his arrival affected the balance of the squad and angered Cavani and Martial.

He is statistically the worst defensive forward in the top 5 leagues. What that does is, it forces someone to do the job of two players which more often than not, happened to be Fernandes last season. As well as exposing Fernandes, bringing about the awful season, this has ripple effects on the entire team, pressing is useless, and thus, opponents freely progress up the pitch, as someone is covering for the forward, someone has to cover for that someone and so on and so forth. You can see how holes appear everywhere, right? A good example of this was the game against Leicester.

The counter to this is,
– Man Utd failed to win a game without him all season:
This is indeed terrible, but do you mean to tell me they would have suffered relegation without Ronaldo? Martial is a different type of forward, he would not score as many goals, he may look disinterested. But the fact remains, Martial brings the best out of those around him, Fernandes and Rashford certainly are more complimentary with Martial. The same should theoretically apply to Van de Beek. Sancho is a more rounded player, so it shouldn’t matter so much, but even he would likely do better with Martial than Ronaldo.

– Who would score the goals?
Well, Man Utd scored 56 premier league goals last time out, of which, 18 was generously contributed by Mr. Ronaldo. So do you mean to tell me that Utd would have scored 38 goals? The same team scored more without him a season before!

Ten Hag should be happy, he doesn’t have to face criticism for dropping or substituting any player. He would be able to implement a good press without any gigantic holes popping up. If you are worried about where the goals will come from, don’t be. Watch City, the goals will come from everywhere, Martial may not look it, but he can be a capable false 9. Sancho also played there for Dortmund.

With Ronaldo who just limits the ability to press effectively gone. Telles who is a general liability likely to not play again.
Mctominay, whose failure to show for the ball, make progressive passes, or effectively mark space really harms the team, unlikely to be part of the starting XI and Wan bissaka also unlikely to be a starter, Ten Hag has it lucky.

That said, Ronaldo was indeed the best player last season, but, what is needed is not someone who will shine at the expense of his teammates, but someone who allows his teammates to shine even at his own expense. So Ronaldo wishes to leave? Good luck. De Jong is not coming? We are in trouble.
Sa’ad (I have to say, if you have no intentions to sell a player, why negotiate his sale in the first place? Or has there been a new development at barca or is it some kind of negotiation tactic by Laporta?)

The Ronaldo test
Should anyone be silly enough to attempt to take Ronaldo from United we have an unexpectedly early signal of whether United are actually looking to be a properly run football club, or if they will continue to be the shuddering, abused and Stockholm Syndromed unloved wreck of a rich cash cow wife belonging to a family of wispy haired ginger grasping criminals.

The properly run club will sigh at the consequences of their own previous stupidity and look to get rid of one of their inherited problems a season early, signing a youthful replacement if possible or promoting from within.

The cash cow abused wife will be instructed to swap Ronaldo with Lewandoski and have the exact same problem next year.

So long as he doesn’t go to Fulham I’m happy either way

Not that anyone seems to be going to Fulham
Tim Sutton (United would be better off without Ronaldo, but at least he got Solskjaer sacked)

De Jong tease
My heart sank when I saw breaking news that Laporta and Barcelona did not intend to sell de Jong to Man United. Here we go again, my club is being used as a pawn in a high-stakes game of chicken. Barcelona wants to skimp on de Jong’s wages and threatens him with a transfer if he doesn’t sign on reduced wages. What a shambles, Man United should move on from this saga while they still have their dignity. Players should think long and hard before joining Barcelona. The club has just mortgaged its future tv rights for the next quarter of a century just to get some walking around money. The club is still living beyond its means and it’s high time La Liga honchos stepped in and saved us all from their shenanigans. If de Jong doesn’t want to come to Man United, he should come out and say so instead of teasing us like a cheap wh*re. And Man United should now sever ties with Barcelona because it’s an unscrupulous club that’s using our club to achieve its nefarious ends. We should now be looking at other targets instead of chasing rainbows and unicorns. I’m so mad right now.
Mzeiya

Salah ‘plays’ Liverpool
Following the news that goal and assist machine Mohammed Salah has signed a 3 year contract with LFC, Gary Neville, pundit extraordinaire, tweeted that Salah has ‘played’ Liverpool, implying that he will be getting paid more than his worth. Gary supplemented his tweet with some laughing emojis.

The same Gnev who has spent the last 4 summer transfer windows proclaiming that the world class Salah would be leaving Liverpool because he’d be tempted by the likes of Real Madrid or Barcelona.

Pause for laughter…

Gary is a Manchester United legend.

Manchester United currently pay the following players more than what Salah will earn at the top of his bonuses:

Ronaldo
De Gea
Sancho
Varane
Rashford

Plus Pogba was earning as a flat salary what Salah will earn if he hits his max targets.

Nothing more to add.
James Outram, Wirral

Pre-season optimism
Been enjoying the emails from fans discussing their optimism for the upcoming season. Ranging from quiet optimism to outright over optimism with no real basis.

The mailbox and comments enjoy mocking  the musings and outright optimism of Spurs superfan Barry Fox. Personally, I’m starting to *cringe* see his optimism regarding Spurs. They will go into next season with Conte having had a full pre-season, and have improved their squad efficiently. Not sure they will have the consistency required to match the top 2, but they will certainly be starting at a better point, and could be well ahead of some of their top 4 rivals, namely Arsenal and Man Utd.

Arsenal have a very good signing in Jesus. The issue with them I feel is they need squad depth. Last season they played once a week. When they had to play more than that towards the end of the season, they couldn’t seem to handle it. How will they handle it from the start of the season with European games thrown in? Time will tell what they finish the transfer window with in that regard, but they need more this transfer window for sure.

Man Utd are a more curious case. They have some quality already. Players such as Sancho can’t be as poor again can they? The issue with them maybe Ten Haags desire to do only recruit former, or current Ajax players and other players from the Eiredivision. I get that he will have a better knowledge of this League considering he hasn’t had success outside it, and it’s reasonable to shop what you know. The main problem is the Dutch league is very hit and miss and risky to sign from. For every Suarez, Van Nistelrooy there is a Kezman or Depay.

Glad fans are optimistic of how their season will be. If you can’t be optimistic with a new season approaching when can you be?

Regards
Kevin

Best CBs
An interesting question from Badwolf, again it’s difficult to compare eras , I like many have only seen Moore play in video footage but he does seem to have been highly regarded by his peers and in his time

Limiting it to players i have seen then Tony Adams has to be in the conversation, a player who traversed 2 distinct epochs of football (Div 1-Prem) and traversed 2 distinct managerial and tactical philosophies with no noticeable drop off in performance, factor in his leadership qualities and personal demons and hard to argue he isn’t near or at the top,

You could argue that he is a product of having equally good players around him and the famous Back 5 certainly helped but would the other players be as good without him and I honestly don’t think they would be

It’s subjective so while I tend towards Adams that does not mean I am denigrating others, there are equally good claims for a number of  centre backs, Paul McGrath was always a favourite of mine and oozed class, without his injury problems could be in with shout,

Then there are players with equally good claims and the trophies to back it up Hansen was part of a dominant Liverpool side, same can be said of Ferdinand at Utd and Terry at Chelsea but weighing all that and factoring in my inherent bias Adams still is just above them
Simon (AFC)