Post by stefancrosscoe on Aug 17, 2017 16:26:43 GMT
Aug 16, 2017 23:22:42 GMT @painbow said:
As a United fan, the only one that stands out (and I think Fergie later admitted it himself) is Jaap Stam.That was more due to Fergie's ego than some other club stealing him away though.
Ronaldo is the only one that was really enticed away and even he agreed to give us another year (and title).
The United defence was at times a huge catastrophe, I think we lost 9-10 games that season, and several of them was thanks to godawful defending and horrible keepers mistakes by Fabien Barthez and I remember well how some of the critics and fans of other clubs made lots fun of Laurent and his last name, as United (I think) ended up losing twice to Bolton, Liverpool, Arsenal, Newastle and Chelsea and if you bring those teams first letter together, it says: BLANC.
Even worse was it to see how much a failure the record transfer of Juan Sebastien Veron would turn out to become, as he rarely showed up, (most of the times in Champions League) and with Keane, Scholes, Beckham, Giggs, Butt and so on, Veron seemed like more of a "luxury problem" that never quite fitted with how Fergie wanted his team to play.
When it comes to Ronaldo, I sure miss him as a United player of course, specially seeing how he has done afterwards at Madrid.
If he had stayed, United would probalby win 5-6 seasons in a row and maybe also have another go at the Champions League title and stand a much better chance of winning it, maybe also reaching 4 finals in 4 seasons too.
But you could see it all along, his last season he was like a "robot", banging in goals like a machine but rarely looked happy when his teammated celebrated like crazy, and the final against Barcelona was just not the Ronaldo we saw a year earlier against Chelsea, as he now seemed not that focused or hungry, he was just "there".
When he left, after over a year of rumours, I was not sad or angry, just tought "meh", lets move on, we will do just fine without him.
I respect everything he did at the club. A fantastic player, and maybe the best one I have ever seen in Premier League for the three seasons between 2006-2009, but I never had the same emotional reaction to him leaving as compared to other Man Utd players such as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Nicky Butt, the Neville brothers, John O'shea, Luis Saha or Ji-Sung Park, players that where nowhere near the same level of talent as Ronaldo, but still players who seemed to put the club and the fans first, not themselves and it saddened me much more to see those guys leave after years of great service than seeing someone like Ronaldo leave.