EffenSeven:

Of course it's the players. As a manager, you're supposed to trust your players to get the job done. He fielded a team that he felt could do so. It wasn't a weak team. Wasn't our strongest either, but it was still strong enough to be capable of beating Basel. The manager can only do so much, he's not sitting on the sidelines with a Playstation controller. It's down to the players to do the finishing. They didn't. Not the managers fault for them being complacent. We should have won the game, but we failed to finish, that's down to the players. They have the ability to finish, but didn't.

He did field a team he thought could do the job, sure. But surely not fielding your very strongest team gives fault to the manager. In a do or die game he picked Park over Valencia. It's arguable that him not giving Berbatov and Owen games contributed to their injuries (as in tendon stretches/pulls). Lately he does seem to be mismanaging in some areas. He seems to want to experiment with odd formations and player positions and it costs us. For example against Crystal palace he played Valencia in midfield and Park on the wing? Why on Earth, there's no reason to think either would excel in those opposite roles. United only looked like scoring when Valencia got back on the wing. The other thing that excludes Valencia, one of the top performers last season, is that he refuses to play Berbatov meaning he has a bunch of 5'9" targets and a 5'7" Hernandez to look for in the box with a cross. More and more he plays players that don't fit the team but score the odd important goal, mainly Hernandez and Park. They don't contribute enough to be considered valued members but they score at the right times giving them more of a lucky charm status. Relying on these lucky charms has cost the team so bad. We need to get back to basics and field the STRONGEST team available and not this mismatched freakshow currently branded as the first team.

SAF should take some of the blame. Not all of it but at least some FFS. He is the one in charge after all. In every normal company if a project goes wrong the first to be asked for explanation is the Manager. No matter what the manager says if work is not done he/she is the one to blame. On the particular night you can blame Rooney for missing a goal, but it all comes down to long term preparation and planning. And that goes to SAF and staff. We do remember now every single miss, just because there are not many chances to score on a first place. Flat tire??? Why not change the side mirror, maybe the car will run even better. This is how much SAFs logic makes sence to me when it comes to new players. All this is a product of something he is in charge of. All this is a result of SAF policy and his staff. And the reason I am sying this is because this is not one time incindent now. We are in crisis and crisis doesnt come from bad form of one or two players. SAF is not man enough even to stay at press-conference to answer a very fair question. Why are we strugling in Europe? Is it a good time now after we are out??? Now he is blaming it all on the players??? I dont know. And the little sure quality we have seems to be gone for a while too. Vidic out will hurt us big time. WIll SAF react and get some players out while getting some in in Jan? If saf still claims we are good and we dont need anything....yeah...whatever.

ONE BIG MISTAKE COST US THE CHAMPIONS LIGUE LAST FEW YEARS AND THIS YEAR + THE CARLING CUP AND MAYBE THE FA CUP AND THE PREMIERSHIP THIS YEAR , IS THAT SAF DIDNT BUY TOP MIDFIELDERS SINCE THE DEPARTURE OF RONALDO-TEVEZ AND HARGREAVES AND THE WORSEST THE RETIREMENT OF SCOLSEY AND HE RELIES AT CARRICK AND FLETCHER WHO CANT FIT AT ANY FIRST SEVEN CLUBS IN PREMIERSHIP , OUR MIDFIELD BECOME A MOTORWAY EASY TO REACH OUR DEFENCE AND GOAL KEEPER WE REALY NEED AT LEAST 2 TOP MIDFIELDERS IF IS NOT 3 REGARDING TO HOW MANY GAMES MANUTD PLAYS A SEASON AND WITH INJURIES AND TIERNESS AND SUSPENSIONS U HAVE TO HAVE A TRONG BACK UP AND RELEASE SOME PLAYERS LIKE CARRICK -FLETCHER-GIBSON-EVANS-PARK AND GIGGSY RETIREMENT TO FILL THE WAGES TO NEW COMING PLAYERS... THE BALL NOW IS IN SAF HAND AND IS NOT THE TIME FOR THE STABBORNESS PLEASE SIR.

It will be enlightening to know what the players think of the coaching they are getting. I bet Fergie has used his hairdrier on them on many occasions but it does not seem to have worked. Why? You cannot get any more out of the players beyond what they can offer. As someone said, everyone of them worked his socks off on the pitch and have done so in every game this season. But there is a maximum to each player's ability even if it is at 110%. Unfortunately, the 110% is far below what the better or even middling teams have. It is the manager who thinks he can make scrambled eggs from chicken sh*** For that he shoulders more of the blame than the players.

Good point i am so mad that we didnt buy vdv because he was one million more than Bebe, and we let silva go after he admitted he wanted to join us ... Same thing sneijder was obsessed with us nut we couldnt buy him.... You cannot win anything with average players , there ha to be an element of world class in the team. all winning teams had world class players... So why not buy the hamsiks, cavanis or eriksens why why. im always disgusted that we dont land good players. why we didnt land nasri... i do not knw... just give them the money. We are one of the richest club for God ' sake. All the gaffre says is " the market has no value anymore" yet clubs like madrid and city are using it to their advantage.

The man at the top should allways take responsibility. He`s the man that bought those players.

Sepp Blatter:

When you consider the goals that we conceded during our home games and again last night the players deserve a good chunk of the blame. However in saying that Fergie deserves a good share of the criticism as well, from day one he should have come out and played our strongest starting eleven right off the bat and then rotated only once we'd secured qualifications. From the moment we drew against Benfica away the mood was set and we just never seemed to recovery. His failure to purchase a new midfielder in the summer also came back to haunt. I mean seriously, Rooney in midfield? Yeah, enough said.

Agree with you on 1st 2 sentences. However, drawing at Benfica should not be alarming considering Benfica is supposed to be strongest contender (and they are) and it was away. Real flaw is failing to identify Rio's and Evans' weakness, and strengthening our midfield, that allow Basel to come back from 2 goal deficit. I don't know what tactical change that Fergi had done after losing the 1st goal, and probably nothing was done until we were 2-3 down. Lots of what-if question here, such as should we have retained JOS but let Evans go instead? Should Smalling and Jones be field as RB when they are inexperienced at that position as well as CL. Take the Basel Away 1st goal as example, Smalling was fighting with Vidic inside the box and left an opponent unmarked to deliver the killing blow. A proper RB would respect Vidic's authority inside the box and cover him on the right....

Irwin_3:

DublinRedDeviI:

Irwin_3:

DublinRedDeviI:

EffenSeven:

Of course it's the players. As a manager, you're supposed to trust your players to get the job done. He fielded a team that he felt could do so. It wasn't a weak team. Wasn't our strongest either, but it was still strong enough to be capable of beating Basel. The manager can only do so much, he's not sitting on the sidelines with a Playstation controller. It's down to the players to do the finishing. They didn't. Not the managers fault for them being complacent. We should have won the game, but we failed to finish, that's down to the players. They have the ability to finish, but didn't.

Ferguson signed everyone of those players. He selected the team, It is down to him. His fault.

Wow, never thought i'd agree with Dublin...well almost, he is certainly to blame but its more about what he's not done in my opinion, we needed to sign players, and there are still some brown nosing idiots on here that think supporting a team means never ever criticising it and always telling everyone how wonderful the whole situation is, when actually its a clear sign that it really doesn't matter that much to them.

Ferguson's excuse that what we have is good enough might actually count for something If he was willing to bring on the youth instead, But he has not given any of the an opportunity to shine, Only giving them bit-parts in the Carling Cup, Not even a full game. And he is also giving them a slap in the face by bringing Gibson to games instead of giving even one of the a shot. He is not showing any faith in the youth and they are going to become frustrated and feel unappreciated if it continues. He is hanging onto useless players like Evans, Gibson, Carrick, Anderson, Diouf, Brebatov etc. He has wasted money on these players who are a bloody disgrace to the men who played the their positions in the past. What the hell would Scholes and Keane think of this useless midfield. Something has to change. We need to adapt our system to accommodate to the modern game and the the new generation of players. We need to get rid of the dead weight players that are holding us back and bring on the youth along with some quality signing. Personally I don't think Ferguson is the man to make those moves. He is stubborn in his old ways and unwilling to accept that we are struggling. He is in denile and he is damaging the team and his 25 year legacy by staying on. United are in transition and Ferguson needs to step down for the good of the team, We need a new manager, with fresh ideas on how to take Manchester United to the next level.

Here are a few more names, Eden Hazzard, Iker Munian, Xherdan Shaqiri, Lucas Moura, Javi Martinez, Yann M'villa. There is a whole new generation of fantastic young players out there.Even If we could get just 2 or 3 of them, added to the great young players we have already like ,De Gea Smalling ,Jones, Cleverely, Hernandez. together with a few of last seasons FA youth cup winners. We could be in a great position to build a fantastic new young team. Completely agree, last year he let Magnus Eikrem go, who to me looked more of a prospect than Pogba, and this summer, Pogba was the excuse for not signing someone, he said 'he'll only leave if we don't play him in the first team', he's played three (average to poor) Carling cup games, instead he sacrifices Rooney losing creativity up front to pull back into midfield, Sneijder, Gotze, Erikson, Ganso, the man in the moon, whoever, we need someone in and FAST

The manager blames the players and we should blame the manager! It's just the way it is! Who are we supposed to blame? The Ref?

He should first blame himself and his coaching staff for not fielding the in-form strikers..........if Welbeck had started instead of Young or even Rooney......perhaps the opportunity in front of goal that fell to Rooney would have been a sure Goal for us. If he had player Park in Giggs place then the team would have greater intensity to press the opponent when they had possession of the ball.........!!! He should first take a long hard look at himself then his coaching staff and team cause the Rot starts from the top !!!

DublinRedDeviI:

Irwin_3:

DublinRedDeviI:

EffenSeven:

Of course it's the players. As a manager, you're supposed to trust your players to get the job done. He fielded a team that he felt could do so. It wasn't a weak team. Wasn't our strongest either, but it was still strong enough to be capable of beating Basel. The manager can only do so much, he's not sitting on the sidelines with a Playstation controller. It's down to the players to do the finishing. They didn't. Not the managers fault for them being complacent. We should have won the game, but we failed to finish, that's down to the players. They have the ability to finish, but didn't.

Ferguson signed everyone of those players. He selected the team, It is down to him. His fault.

Wow, never thought i'd agree with Dublin...well almost, he is certainly to blame but its more about what he's not done in my opinion, we needed to sign players, and there are still some brown nosing idiots on here that think supporting a team means never ever criticising it and always telling everyone how wonderful the whole situation is, when actually its a clear sign that it really doesn't matter that much to them.

Ferguson's excuse that what we have is good enough might actually count for something If he was willing to bring on the youth instead, But he has not given any of the an opportunity to shine, Only giving them bit-parts in the Carling Cup, Not even a full game. And he is also giving them a slap in the face by bringing Gibson to games instead of giving even one of the a shot. He is not showing any faith in the youth and they are going to become frustrated and feel unappreciated if it continues. He is hanging onto useless players like Evans, Gibson, Carrick, Anderson, Diouf, Brebatov etc. He has wasted money on these players who are a bloody disgrace to the men who played the their positions in the past. What the hell would Scholes and Keane think of this useless midfield. Something has to change. We need to adapt our system to accommodate to the modern game and the the new generation of players. We need to get rid of the dead weight players that are holding us back and bring on the youth along with some quality signing. Personally I don't think Ferguson is the man to make those moves. He is stubborn in his old ways and unwilling to accept that we are struggling. He is in denile and he is damaging the team and his 25 year legacy by staying on. United are in transition and Ferguson needs to step down for the good of the team, We need a new manager, with fresh ideas on how to take Manchester United to the next level.

Completely agree, last year he let Magnus Eikrem go, who to me looked more of a prospect than Pogba, and this summer, Pogba was the excuse for not signing someone, he said 'he'll only leave if we don't play him in the first team', he's played three (average to poor) Carling cup games, instead he sacrifices Rooney losing creativity up front to pull back into midfield, Sneijder, Gotze, Erikson, Ganso, the man in the moon, whoever, we need someone in and FAST

glynn1:

At the end of the day, fergie isn't a god. People have to be willing to criticise him. He has let us down. It has been obvious for more than 2 years now that United are weak in centre midfield, has he bought a cm in that time? no. He bought wingers and defenders and a stiker. They were good signings but were they worth it. Look at the opposition, city are strong in the middle and they bought Nasri. So are Madrid and they bought Sahin. Barca added Fabregas to their already perfect midfield. Pool bought several centre midfielders and they are strongest there too. Arsenal had a centre problem then they bought Arteta. Our Midfield lacks creativity. We have struggled most of our games. Fergie is here 25 years, so he is etirely to blame if we have a centre problem. Our best cm is 36 and that isn't his preferred position. Do we give out about Carrick too much? yes but there is a reason for it. He is not a top player, nor is Gibson or Fletcher anymore. We need to spend big in January and I think it should be 60 million for Bender and Gotze, a partnership that works well. While I would suggest trading maybe Carrick and gibson with 20 million, I think that deal would be turned down. We are in the Europa league people, it is time to question the manager. Even if he is the best manager we have ever had.

Well said! I wonder why people think that Fergie is above critcism/replacement? He took us to 3 UCL finals yes! We were "mercilessly" manhandled in 2 of them by the same team! What's so bloody special about that? U guys are starting to sound like a broken record!

Irwin_3:

DublinRedDeviI:

EffenSeven:

Of course it's the players. As a manager, you're supposed to trust your players to get the job done. He fielded a team that he felt could do so. It wasn't a weak team. Wasn't our strongest either, but it was still strong enough to be capable of beating Basel. The manager can only do so much, he's not sitting on the sidelines with a Playstation controller. It's down to the players to do the finishing. They didn't. Not the managers fault for them being complacent. We should have won the game, but we failed to finish, that's down to the players. They have the ability to finish, but didn't.

Ferguson signed everyone of those players. He selected the team, It is down to him. His fault.

Wow, never thought i'd agree with Dublin...well almost, he is certainly to blame but its more about what he's not done in my opinion, we needed to sign players, and there are still some brown nosing idiots on here that think supporting a team means never ever criticising it and always telling everyone how wonderful the whole situation is, when actually its a clear sign that it really doesn't matter that much to them.

Ferguson's excuse that what we have is good enough might actually count for something If he was willing to bring on the youth instead, But he has not given any of the an opportunity to shine, Only giving them bit-parts in the Carling Cup, Not even a full game. And he is also giving them a slap in the face by bringing Gibson to games instead of giving even one of the a shot. He is not showing any faith in the youth and they are going to become frustrated and feel unappreciated if it continues. He is hanging onto useless players like Evans, Gibson, Carrick, Anderson, Diouf, Brebatov etc. He has wasted money on these players who are a bloody disgrace to the men who played the their positions in the past. What the hell would Scholes and Keane think of this useless midfield. Something has to change. We need to adapt our system to accommodate to the modern game and the the new generation of players. We need to get rid of the dead weight players that are holding us back and bring on the youth along with some quality signing. Personally I don't think Ferguson is the man to make those moves. He is stubborn in his old ways and unwilling to accept that we are struggling. He is in denile and he is damaging the team and his 25 year legacy by staying on. United are in transition and Ferguson needs to step down for the good of the team, We need a new manager, with fresh ideas on how to take Manchester United to the next level.

DublinRedDeviI:

EffenSeven:

Of course it's the players. As a manager, you're supposed to trust your players to get the job done. He fielded a team that he felt could do so. It wasn't a weak team. Wasn't our strongest either, but it was still strong enough to be capable of beating Basel. The manager can only do so much, he's not sitting on the sidelines with a Playstation controller. It's down to the players to do the finishing. They didn't. Not the managers fault for them being complacent. We should have won the game, but we failed to finish, that's down to the players. They have the ability to finish, but didn't.

Ferguson signed everyone of those players. He selected the team, It is down to him. His fault.

Wow, never thought i'd agree with Dublin...well almost, he is certainly to blame but its more about what he's not done in my opinion, we needed to sign players, and there are still some brown nosing idiots on here that think supporting a team means never ever criticising it and always telling everyone how wonderful the whole situation is, when actually its a clear sign that it really doesn't matter that much to them.

IT SHAME A TEAM OF MANCHESTER UNITED CALIBRE WILL BE ELIMINATED IN THE FIRST ROUND OF UCL. WHAT IS THE PROBLEM? WE HAVE ALSO BEEN DUMPED OUT THE CARLING CUP BY CRYSTAL PALACE. SOMETHING IS WRONG!!!!!!!!!. THE BEST UNITED GAME I HAVE SEEN THIS SEASON WAS THE SECOND HALF AGAINST CITY IN THE COMMUNITY SHIELD. WE PASSED THE BALL LIKE IF CITY WERE NOT THERE. I HAVE ALWAYS SAID FOOTBALL IS ABOUT MIDFIELD AND DEFENCE. IF YOU DOMINATE THE MIDFIELD CHANCES ARE THAT YOU CAN SCORE GOALS. WE HAVE OUTSTANDING WIDE PLAYERS BUT NO QUALITY CENTRAL MIDFIELDER AT THE MOMENT. I THOUGHT ANDO/CLEVERLY COMBINATION WAS GREAT, BUT INJURY HAS LIMITED THIS COMBINATION. MY OTHER BIG CONCERN IS, CONSISTENCY. THERE IS HARDLY TWO PLAYERS WHO WILL PLAY TWO GAMES IN A ROW. SO WE ALL KNOW THE IMPORTANCE OF HAVING CONSISTENCY IN TEAM IN TERMS OF STARTING PLAYERS; BUILDS CONFIDENCE, UNDERSTANDING BETWEEN PLAYERS ETC. THAT HAS GONE OFF THE ROOF. I AM A BIT WORRIED AT THE MOMENT. WE MIGHT BE EMPTY HANDED COME MAY UNLESS THINGS CHANGE.