Friday, April 22, 2011

Jaded United must regroup: Anderson drinking in last chance saloon?

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Manchester United are back in action tomorrow when Everton are the visitors to Old Trafford. The Premier League leaders were poor after the opening 35 minutes of last weekend's FA Cup defeat against "noisy neighbours" Manchester City. On Tuesday United could only manage a draw away at Newcastle; the overall performance was very poor and the team looked jaded.

United were looking to extend their lead at the top against the Magpies, but Sir Alex Ferguson was without last weekend's FA Cup villain Dimitar Berbatov who missed two gilt edged chances against City and following that defeat the media have been linking the Bulgarian with a cut-price move away from Manchester this summer.

According to reports, Berbatov didn't feel well enough to play against Newcastle; given the manner of his performance at Wembley, chances are he'd have been back on the bench where he's spent a lot of time in recent weeks.

Rio Ferdinand and Berbatov are both injury doubts for the visit of Everton as is Darren Fletcher who we are told is still suffering with a virus. Fletcher had not enjoyed a good season up and until he picked up this virus, his passing has been all too often inconsistent and to be frank, he hasn't really been missed based on his performance level this season.

United are in desperate need of a least two new top quality central midfield players when the transfer window opens. Paul Scholes is almost certainly going to retire this summer and that is the only explanation we can offer behind the club's willingness to offer Michael Carrick an improved contract extension. Like Fletcher, Carrick simply does not perform consistently well and he is not the complete midfield player. The same can be said of Anderson, only he is actually much worse than either Fletcher or Carrick. The Brazilian has been unable to nail down a regular starting place in central midfield since his big move to United and when he has been given a chance all too often Anderson has failed to live up to his billing.

Anderson started against Newcastle, but his performance left an awful lot to be desired, in fact he was by far the worst player in a red shirt in what was admittedly an awful team performance; quite how he remained on the pitch for so long beggared belief. You have to wonder how much longer Ferguson will stand by Anderson.

Chelsea and Arsenal are within striking distance of United and that six point gap needs to be maintained this weekend but you can bet Everton will have something to say about that.

Ferguson will be wrestling with the question of who should start and who should be rested ahead of what is undoubtedly going to be an extremely difficult Champions League semi-final first leg away at Schalke in midweek.

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17 comments:

  1. Agreed, Anderson was terrible and generally speaking has been a failed transfer. He puts in one good performance, then a couple average, then he is injured, out a couple months, comes back looking like he spent the whole time eating pies instead of rehabilitating, has a couple bad performances, then his one good performance and the cycle continues.

    He isn't a kid anymore, he isn't knew to the country anymore, there are no excuses, he just isn't good enough and committed enough for this level of football, and the only reason most people haven't run out of patience yet is because he is Brazilian. If he was Scottish or English people would have been calling for his head a couple years ago.

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  2. To be honest, I've never rated him at all. Fletcher has had some very good games for United, Carrick does ok but let's himself down occasionally, but Anderson consistently plays well below expectations. I have no idea what Fergie sees in him.

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  3. the thing is when he joined us he or saf (interviews have suggest it was the player himself)decided to make him a deeper player.

    so before we decide to chuck him out, maybe its worth giving him a bit more freedom as in the past he has been a very good attacking midfielder.

    this summer is a big one with a few kids on the cusp of getting into the first team and we also seem to be in the market for at least 2 new central midfielders.
    so we need to know if ando has the talent to succeed here or should be shipped out if the right offer comes in.

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  4. Jack,

    I don't see any long term future at United for Anderson, Gibson, Obertan and Bebe.

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  5. OMG guys, give Anderson a break. He is NOT playing in the position he did at Porto as Fergie is trying to make him more defensive. He is or was an attacking midfielder in Brazil and at Porto .. and he was a bloody good one!!! You guys were probably saying the same thing about Nani not too long ago ... How bout now???

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  6. Who are you people?
    1. United have played every 3 to 4 days for the past 3 weeks, AND Newcastle had a 9 ay break prior to playing United. Does this even register to you lightweights.
    2.Anderson has been played out of position since he arrived--his rise to early fame was hie work going forward in the last third of the field not in the middle of the park and in his last third. THANK-YOU Barrington!!
    3.I really don't even know why I bothered to respond to this crap.

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  7. Anderson will have next year to settle in and win a future position in a CL winning squad.

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  8. To the Anderson fans,

    Please DO come back and remind me when and IF the failure that is Anderson makes me eat my words...

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  9. I didn't get to see the Newcastle game so can't comment on the performance of anderson, although speaking on the FA cup game against city i do think it was an improvement when he came on, Scholes should of been taken off bout 20mins before he got sent off. Carrick has had few injuries and a lot of match time, he has no excuse for continued bad form, at least anderson plays well some of the time. Its hard for any player to reach their potential when the general form of the team is so poor.

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  10. As said above, is the word consistent and professional, both anderson doesnt seem to understand. He is fat, for a midfielder who is meant to be on the move he is quite funny. It doesnt matter where he plays, if SAF feels he can do the role, then anderson should apply himself. There's no excuses, it's great talking about the past, unfortunately this is the present, anderson, carrick, fletcher do not play consistently at a high level. At least Park gets stuck in and covers the pitch. Only SAF knows why anderson carrick was given new contracts. I know it's hard to find quality midfielders without buying a mercenary but instead of wasting money on a few rubbish players, bebe, oberton etc, why not buy 1 decent player...only SAF knows.

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  11. Yes Anderson is playing deeper, it isn't the role that he did so well in Porto but how many years has he had to adjust and he has made no improvement at all - in fact it isn't unfair to say that hes a worse player now than he was at Porto. Time to get rid and give someone else the chance he had.

    Ask yourself this. is Uniteds central midfield better than Arsenals? Chelseas? Citys? Spurs? I'd say no to all of those and how can we be the best in europe when our central midfield is perhaps just the 5th best in England alone

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  12. agreed with Dave. Our central midfielders are not the best in the league. Fortunately, we have one of the best wingers in the league as well the best defenders in Vidic,Evra and Rio. That's why we are doing well right now though most of the matches to be honest we are average but winning.

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  13. Anderson played like 15 games at Porto, people need to stop using his time at Porto as proof of how good he is.

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  14. The problem for Fergie, is that he paid too much for Anderson; so what the hell does he do? I guess his has to stick with him to a certain extent because if he wants to sell him he has to try to get good money for him and that quite obviously will not happen if the player is in the reserves every week.

    Personally, it was me I'd be putting Rooney in central midfield alongside the two da silva brothers - that could well prove to be our salvation. All three can pretty much do everything that is required, they can tackle, head the ball, pass, run and shoot. The only slight problem is the two youngsters haven't yet fully developed and so they are running out of steam around the 70 minute mark.

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  15. I thought he did reasonably well today (compared to Gibson!), but I guess that isn't saying a lot.

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  16. A new promisse: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saEvi6Dzvwc

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