Unlucky United
Ahmed Shafiul Huq
I
n last 4-5 years Manchester United fans have been very angry on the club. Fans are
criticizing United’s owner –The Glazer Family, they are questioning United’s signing policy. They
seek some great transfers and saying United don’t sign big potential players. But what happens
actually? Are not United really signing good players?
If we look at United’s recent signings (I start counting from 2007) we see United had signed
Anderson, Nani, Hargreaves, Tevez. Anderson who was dubbed ‘New Ronaldinho’, a player with
immense potential told to replace Paul Scholes never lives up to the expectation. Another young
talented signing Nani is eventually now irritating the fans. A Cr7 play alike- Nani has always been
a shadow of his talent. Owen Hargreaves is an unfortunate buy no doubt.
Having played only 17 games for whom we paid £17million Hargreaves had to finish his career so
early due to a series of injuries.
This signing can be said ‘One million for A match’
signing. In 2008, United signed Dimitar Berbatov
by breaking the British transfer record fee (£30.75
million) and ultimately the striker was an
average performer compared to his potential.
United brought ‘Da Silva twins’ that season and
one of them has made his mark in the first line
up. In 2009 , United had to sell their biggest/best
player of the squad –Cristiano Ronaldo. The
club needed a world class signing to fill the void
made by Cr and we saw Antonio Valencia in that
position. That was a hit signing. Michel Owen was
brought in a free transfer deal but had not become
effective that much. In that season the club signed
some tricky signings like Zoran Tošić, Gabriel Obertan, Mame Biram Diouf players who were
addedassuming on their potential but could not make their sign into the squad. Then in 2010,
United did same sort of signings. Brought some talented young players like Chicharito, Smalling,
Possebon, Lindegaard and Bebe. Only two (Chicharito & Lindegaard) of these have become
United class and Smalling going an average performer. In 2011, United were confronted to a
massive change.Three of the great Red Armies Scholes, Neville, Van Der Sar retired along with
two old armies John O’Shea and Wes Brown moved to other teams. So the United fans were
waiting for some big names. The club spent big that season buying De Gea, Jones, Young.
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