5 Questions That Need To Be Answered At United This Season

Can Fergie overcome his Barcelona nightmare?

Do I think Fergie has come up short against Barcelona? Yes I do. I think everyone was expecting the final last May to be a closer affair than the one in Rome. But in truth, we saw the same battering as we did last time around. What do I think Fergie, or United, could do to alter the result? Not much to be honest. Love them or hate them, Barcelona are just that good. We won’t be the first team they turn over in such dramatic fashion and we certainly won’t be the last. Real Madrid have spent a gazillion Euro’s trying to topple Barca, and despite arguably out playing them for 180 minutes of the recent Super-Copa, they still ended up on the losing side. If United spent another £100m this summer, we would still come second best to the best club side ever to play the game.

Will United be able to once again eclipse the ‘blue moon rising’?

Like it or not, City are in the title hunt. As a red for near enough 30 years, it pains me to admit it but it’s true. They have literally too much financial clout not to be up there. But, I highly doubt that it will be this year. Despite what our blue neighbours think, their team is not as good as ours yet. Their manager is not good enough and despite spending the GDP of a small European Country on players over the past four years, they are still players short. Yes it was very impressive beating newly promoted Swansea 4-0, and yes, Aguero does look quite the player, but I still think the team looks unbalanced. Mancini seems to only have one way to play, and he is frantically trying to fit the players he has bought into this system. If Tevez stays at City, I struggle to think how they will fit all these players, plus possibly Samir Nasri, into one formation. To sum up, City are close, but not there just yet.

Will Anderson finally step up and make a midfield spot his own?

Nothing has frustrated me over the last two seasons more than Anderson. Whenever he gets a run in the team, he can seemingly go from midfield dynamo, literally shitting all over Fabregas, to midfield magician, mysteriously making himself disappear from the game. His yo-yo style form and a series of injuries has led to him becoming a source of numerous articles, discussions and forum threads on the subject matter. So yet again we find ourselves asking the same question, can he fulfil his massive potential and become a lynchpin of our midfield. I believe he can. He has been making the right noises throughout pre-season, and his performance against West Brom showed me that he is ready to become a more consistent performer. Obviously only time will tell, but I for one hope that he can prove he is deserving of a place.

Will not buying Wesley Sneijder prove to be a masterstroke or a massive error?

Firstly, before I get a million comments saying ‘We could still buy him yet!!’, I am assuming for the sake of this question that what Ferguson has said is true and that we will not be pursuing Wesley any more this summer. Despite what happens this season, I believe in the long run we will benefit more from not buying Sneijder than we would if we did buy him. The reasons being that if we buy Wesley, he goes straight into our team, but in place of who? More than likely it will be in place of either Cleverley or Anderson. In these two players we could have potentially two players to run our midfield for the next ten years. It would also mean less chances for someone like Paul Pogba to develop, again setting him back or forcing him to leave to find more football. Would we potentially be a better team for the next couple of years? maybe. But the cost in the long-term could be more damaging. Plus despite what people think, if we had Wesley Sneijder in May at the Champions League final, we still would have got hammered by a better team. What we have at the moment is an astounding group of young players who seemingly look ready to tear up Old Trafford and Europe for years to come. No player is worth jeopardising that for, apart from maybe Messi…..

Can Tom Cleverley step into the ‘Paul Scholes’ shoes in the United midfield?

To be frank, No. But that is only because there will never be another Paul Scholes. No matter how much we would like there to be, unless Mike Phelan is currently perfecting the cloning of human DNA, Scholes has retired and that’s the end of that. What Tom Cleverley can do though is be something else, he can be the first Tom Cleverley. Tom has dazzled United fans with his performances over the last two pre-seasons and in the opening game of this season. He looks composed, he looks steady and he looks like he could, in time, be a United regular. In ten years time we are looking back at Tom’s career and thinking he was half the player Paul Scholes was then he will undoubtedly be a great player for us. But lets not get this twisted, Paul Scholes was a one-in-a-million player, so lets just let Tom be Tom, and with it carve out his own career.




About Steve Ferguson 886 Articles
Steve Ferguson had taken over & re-branded The Faithful MUFC website back in the summer of 2014 and is now the owner and editor of the site. Steve, from Ashton-Under-Lyne in Greater Manchester, is a 35-year-old life long Manchester United fan, travelling over the globe to see the Reds play. Steve has been lucky enough to be at both the 1999 and 2008 Champions League finals, seeing Manchester United lift the biggest trophy in the World, none more exciting than that faithful night in Barcelona in 99. The website is a blog, but also hopes to deliver the latest Manchester United news from around the internet too, linked up with our growing twitter account which is @TheFaithfulMUFC, give it a follow as we will follow you back as soon as we can.

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