Terrace Talk Manchester United: Conversations with friends
Manchester United's Bruno Fernandes and Harry Maguire have both had poor seasons. Steven Paston/PA Wire.
-Now, there we are. Sláinte.
-Sláinte.
-Well, I’m glad to see the back of that season.
-Same as. Can’t remember a worse one. David Moyes seemed worse but looking back it was just that it came straight after years of success.
-Yeah, the Moyes season wasn’t half as depressing as this one.
-Sure the players are shite. You can blame Olé or blame Rangnick but they can’t do anything if the players aren’t there. It will be the same under ten Hag.
-Do you think so? Surely it’s just a matter of a semi-competent manager putting some sort of structure on them?
-No, get rid. I’d only keep about three of them.
-Really? Let’s go through them. I bet there is more to work with than you think. Let’s leave off Pogba and the other out of contract players, though. They are leaving, thank you for your service etc.
-Ok, go for it. But I’m telling you they could all leave and be no loss.
-Keep. Where would we be without him this season? Definitely our player of the year.
-100%. Can you ever remember a player to turnaround three seasons of abject form before? Literally from the 2018 World Cup he has been rank, until this season.
-I think he’s the natural captain as well, actually.
-The way he has fronted up in interviews you mean? Yeah, I think that’s a good shout.
-Sell. There has always been a bang of Joe Hart or Jordan Pickford off Henderson as far as I’m concerned. A touch of arrogance that his ability doesn’t match. Remember that dive he did for Sheffield United against Wigan? Made this exaggerated dive when the ball was well wide.
-I remember that. ‘Banter’ goalkeeping. Jesus wept. Ramsdale is a similar one. Remember him jumping in Bruno’s face after the penalty miss against Arsenal?
-We can get back to Ramsdale afterward! Is there a more expensive sub-goalkeeper in the world than Henderson?
-Hardly. Sell for sure.
-Keep I suppose.
-The former Burnley ‘keeper? I thought he was at Villa?
-We bought him on a free in 2021.
-Pffft, keep, I suppose. At least he knows where the training ground is!
-Sell. He has a reputation as a very good defensive right back. I actually don’t think he is that good defensively. He gets caught out at the back post far too often. Falls asleep when the ball is on the other side of the pitch.
-He is a good one on one defender but can dive in too often as well. I agree. Sell. He offers absolutely nothing going forward.
-Difficult one. He is not quite good enough at any of the departments to be number one but in a season when there is such a re-build needed you probably keep him as a back-up.
-Yeah. Worth a squad position.
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-Keep. Controversial one, but think back to the start of the season. He was one of the best players at the Euros and in very good form. The wheels fell off the wagon this season but a lot of the England players suffered a hangover into this season.
-Ah come on, he’s a laughing stock. I’ve never seen somebody fall off such a cliff in terms of form. He looks terrified every time the ball comes near him.
-And as a result you wouldn’t get any value for selling him anyway. He’s ok on the ball. Maybe a summer off and ten Hag can work some magic on him.
-Completely disagree. He is an England international and we should take what we can get for him.
-Keep. A bit like Dalot, too many deficiencies to be a starter. But more than good enough to keep as a back-up.
-Yeah. Hard to argue with that.
-Keep. But only because he is just in the door. He hasn’t had a good season. Looks a bit lightweight coming up against some of the strikers in the Premier League. But if Maguire can recover some form then perhaps they can dovetail more effectively.
-Jesus, you’d love if he even looked like he cared. He seems so blasé about everything.
-Sell. Too injury prone. He is quick, but often that pace is just used to make rash decisions.
-Yeah. Totally unreliable.
-Sell. The poor man. God, he has become such a figure of fun.
-Yeah. I felt genuinely sorry for him when I read that interview about some fella mocking him to his face in front of his kids. Sell. For the sake of both parties.
-A bit like Maguire, definitely suffered from a Euros hangover. Not helped by injuries either. I would keep.
-Same as. He was brilliant the season before this.
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-There isn’t really much to choose between him and Shaw. Neither are elite players. Both are competent defenders. Both offer something going forward. Telles with his set piece deliveries.
-Probably worth keeping the two of them, seeing as there are so many other areas that need addressing this off-season.
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-Sell. They won’t sell of course. But they should. Just not good enough. There are enough people around who (wrongly) think he is worth sticking with that we could get a decent fee for him.
-Well count me as one of those ‘wrong’ people. We all know he doesn’t have that much talent. But at least he gives everything he has got. At least he tries.
-There is something of a younger Jordan Henderson I see in McTominay. The way he runs, his presence on the pitch, his attitude. He is a very useful player. And the fact he is an academy product is no harm whatsoever.
-Yeah. Much and all as Utd have lost in the last ten years, the fact we have kept that record going of having at least one academy player in every match-day squad going back to October 1937 is something to be proud of.
-Hmm. What the hell has happened the last 12 months? He was terrible in the Euros and he was terrible this season.
-Well, there is one player who he plays with for both club and country and that could go a long way to explaining the issue. I’d say if you attached him to a lie detector test and asked him about his feelings on Ronaldo you’d get some interesting answers.
-Keep, we’ll get to the other fella shortly.
-Well you’d nearly keep him for the chant alone!
-Is that the 'Rhythm is a Dancer, Anthony Elanga' one? Love that too.
-He’s nowhere near as good as that fella who looked like the future of the club but who shan’t be named.
-No, he’s not. We have to forget about that other fella.
-Definitely worth keeping but I doubt he will ever set the world alight.
-Agreed.
-Another odd signing. At the time he who shall not be named was looking like a better bet on the right side. I was never convinced Sancho was worth that money.
-The curse of the over-hyped English player. That is always nearly worse when they play abroad.
-Can’t sell him, though.
-No, have to give him at least another season.
-Keep. He has had a terrible season, there is no getting away from that. He has looked disinterested far too often this season. Which is so unlike him.
-There must be something going on off the pitch. There are loads of rumours.
-Don’t mind them. The thing that drives me mad is the blaming of his charitable work. ‘Focus on the football’, as if kicking a ball around is more important than making sure hungry kids have enough food to eat.
-I would cash in. Whatever about his good deeds, his attitude hasn’t been right for a long time on the pitch.
-Get effing rid. And soon. Hopefully his desire for Champions League football will mean he wants to move. Giving a soon to be 37-year-old a two year contract was mad stuff. But no surprise given the state of the club’s hierarchy.
-Ah come on, where would Utd have been without his goals this season? He dug us out of so many holes in the Champions League. Last minute winners when the games looked dead and buried.
-You do realise that in those games he was playing for the full 90 minutes that preceded his last minute winner? People don’t seem to see the correlation between Ronaldo playing and the team being shit. I’m the first to admit that I said Olé second place finish was overrated the season before this due to Liverpool’s injuries and Chelsea having Super Frank in charge for half the season. But the drop off in the overall team performance since Ronaldo came has been savage.
-But he has scored 18 Premier League goals. Six goals in seven Champions League games. He couldn’t have done anymore to be fair.
-And how have all the other attacking players got on since he came in? Every single one of them has gotten worse. Martial, Rashford, Bruno, Sancho, Cavani, Lingard. They have all disimproved.
-We’ll have to agree to disagree on this one, bud.
-That’s everyone who isn’t out of contract. So, we agree on keeping De Gea, Heaton, Dalot, Lindelof, Varane, Shaw, Telles, McTominay, Bruno, Elanga, and Sancho. We agree on selling Wan-Bissaka, Bailly, and Henderson.
-Right maybe things aren’t as bad as I feared. Still, though, Erik has some job on his hands. Hope we don’t live to regret not going for Pochettino.
-Will we have one more?
-Go on so.
-Same again, please. Anyway, back to Ramsdale. Have you ever seen a fella so set up for a spectacular fall?!
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