With last campaign’s title-winning 26-goal performance from Robin van Persie still fresh in the mind, it seems incredible to suggest Manchester United’s No. 20 may have played his last game for the Red Devils.
More absurd still is that a van Persie’s departure could be just what coach David Moyes needs to prove he is capable of managing among the Premier League elite.
United remain coy as to the recovery time of van Persie’s latest knee injury. With nothing left to play for in the league, it is unlikely Van Persie will play again this campaign. Van Persie’s rumoured unhappiness and a below-par season could see the Dutch star omitted from Moyes’ rebuilding plans.
You have to feel bad for David Moyes – bequeathed a team of ageing champions, full of stars well past their prime and young players who are now too old to still be labelled as promising talent.
That said, the brilliance of Ferguson still allowed them to walk to the title by 11 points. You can point to any number of differences between management styles as the cause of United’s dramatic decline, but the disruptive influence of van Persie has been a major headache for Moyes.
Moyes was only a few weeks into the job when the Dutch star began questioning his pre-season training methods. When Raymond Verheijen, the Dutch fitness specialist, took to Twitter in July to criticise Moyes, there would have been few who did not think van Persie has been Verheijen’s source of information.
Van Persie’s attitude this campaign can be described as apathetic at best. While he’s always been the type of player who can wander during a match, he would nearly always produce a moment of individual brilliance to steal the show.
The second leg against Olympiakos aside, van Persie has failed to be counted in big matches this campaign. He looks uninterested in the game, fails to make decisive runs and is unwilling to try and link with strike partner Wayne Rooney. The lack of passes between the two has been a well-publicised statistic.
Van Persie’s unhappiness came to a very public and ugly head with his open criticism of teammates occupying his space after the first leg against Olympiakos. He made his thoughts on his manager’s ineffective game plans abundantly clear, while blaming one of his worst performances of the year on his teammates.
To say Moyes has lost van Persie’s confidence and respect would be an error – it’s doubtful he ever had it in the first place.
For all his van Persie trouble, Moyes has shown little to inspire confidence in his managerial ability. He is unclear of United’s best formation, panic-bought Marouane Fellaini for an inflated price and has at times reverted to almost route one attacking tactics. The record 81 crosses in the draw with strugglers Fulham was absurd.
Yet van Persie’s reputation has meant Moyes has been forced to keep an underperforming player in the starting line-up. After coming on for an ill-disciplined van Persie against West Bromwich Albion, Danny Welbeck injected pace and running, managing to establish a more fluid strike partnership with Rooney in 20 minutes than van Persie had in 20 games.
When van Persie is absent, it also allows Mata to perform in a more central role – something that is essential if Moyes is to see his 37-million pound signing a success.
This summer may be the last transfer window in which United could hope to recoup reasonable money for their 30-year-old striker. Rooney’s new contract has made it abundantly clear that Moyes wishes to structure his team around the Evertonian star, and selling Van Perise would be the perfect opportunity for Moyes to prove he has the mettle of a United manager.
No player can be bigger than the team. Challenging your manager’s tactics and publicly criticising teammates should come with a ticket out the Old Trafford door.
j binnie
Guest
Jay- Based on your observations and my reply to you concerning measuring player performance I took the liberty of "charting" Fellaini in tonights game against Newcastle. While not overly impressed with his aggression & go forward I simply marked him on the following. (1) Good passes to an unmarked team mate.(2) Bad passes to an opponent,(3)Caught in possession,& (4) Committed fouls. Here is the logged data taken over the 70 minutes he was on the field.. Good Passes 38. Bad passes to an opponent 2, Caught in possession 3, Fouls committed 2 That means he received and passed a ball on to a mate 38 times. He gave away possession 7 times. Leave you to put your own slant on these figures. jb
bill boomer
Guest
No i didn't see the game and i read the Spanish story on the bbc. I trust them more than i trust a random poster on roar.
Mahama Abdulai
Guest
It's strange how anyone can praise Fellaini. He was worse a performer than anyone on the pitch. He certainly cannot be Scholes but can do a bit of man marking. Ahh!!! What a signing!!!!! He was at fault watch the Munich striker bury the ball before starting to chase the ball. I have watched the match several times and someone should tell the coach to start using Kakawa and motivate him because he is a world class midfielder and a creator of goals.
saahil
Guest
Robin van goal is one of The fantastic players in The world but i advice to man utd fans to burian this folish moyes and to keep van goal
j binnie
Guest
bill - Did you not warch the game? Do you read the Spanish press to assess how a player is playing??? If so I'll let you continue to accept their opinions and ignore what you yourself may think.That ok. Cheers jb
bill boomer
Guest
On Fellaini, the Spanish press were so imptessed they declined to give him a rating.
j binnie
Guest
jay - strange to mention charting but I have just come across a chart I did on the good Brisbane Roar team when the question was "how come they don't score more goals"?. The questions I posed was "How many bad passes,ie balls that did not reach a teamate,was overhit or underhit, or was sent to a man already marked?".As I said the results surprised. In the first 45 minutes Theo made 3 bad passes,Franjic 4,Adnan 1,Smith 1,Steffanuto 5, Nichols 2 (2) ,Paartlu 6 (1),Murdocca 2 (1) Henrique 0,Berisha 2 (1),Broich 0 (4). As an aside to that data I also charted how many times each player was"caught in possession" Those are the figures in brackets. So in 45 minutes Roar gave away possession 35 times, almost once a minute. So you see how a picture can be built up around a player simply by putting a particular "skill" against his name and simply tick every time an error has been made. Conversely you can also measure how successful a player has been in executing the various skills in the game.An interesting coaching technique that not many fans know about. Hope you find it of some use when doing assessments. jb
j binnie
Guest
jaydiggity86 - Performance is in the eye of the beholder & should not be influenced by commentator or journalistic opinion. I do not know if you are qualified as a coach but there is a technique called "charting" where you can break a players performance into sectors such as good passes, bad passes etc. & mark accordingly.Some time it does throw up some surprises. You blame Fellaini for not tracking the goalscorer but choose to ignore the positioning of the 2 United centrebacks who were deep in the box covering -----nobody!.Fellaini was caught on the wrong side no doubt but what or who should the 2 centre backs have been coming to meet,the biggest threat of course and the scorer did strike the ball within 10 metres of the goal.I thought it a terrible piece of defensive work by all involved.Go to the other end & how did you rate the England striker who, with a little finesse, could have put United 3 up,but didn't,, good play or bad play?????. So to try & tell you where I am coming from.Fellaini is no Scholes but what he lacks in Scholes' aggression & energy could be offset by surrounding him with players who have those assets.That was the purpose of my comment.United have to get aggression speed & fight into their middle third & the 2 guys I mentioned could do a Nobby Stiles for United. I don't know how old you are but many years ago,in winning the EC for the first time,the diminuitive Styles balaced the slower tempo but accurate creative play of the player Crerand who could thread the eye of a needle with his passing skills,could tackle like a horse,but was just a bit slow in recovery.Styles supplied balance & that;s what this United team need at this point in time.By the way the comments I heard re. Fellaini were not in the least derogatory they did say he was no Scholes but I already knew that.So in closing I will respect your assessment but add that performance is measurable by better methods that just eyeballing or listening to the comments of others.Ok? Cheers jb
jaydiggy86
Guest
jb, have to disagree with you on the fellaini performance. in my assessment he was clearly united's worst player and consitantly lost possession throughout. He was also at fault for the goal by not tracking the run of schweinsteiger. match commentators and half time analysis seems to concur with this sentiment, as does nearly every paper that does player ratings. agree about playing rooney up front as an out and out striker. without doubt his best position and would also allow mata/kagawa to operate where they are more effective. I would have no problem letting RVP go so moyes didn't feel under pressure to play rooney out of position, and therefor mata/kagawa out of position.
drew777
Roar Pro
Their recruitment policy should be to copy Chelsea - look out for whoever Liverpool are after and sign those players. It's working pretty effectively for the blues so far.
drew777
Roar Pro
Jason, I think from an economic point of view it wouldn't be a bad idea to sell RVP - he has waned this season, is clearly unhappy under Moyes (which means chances are he will continue to under perform whilst Moyes is there - or any manager that he doesn't like, really) so selling him and taking a loss of 10 million (as opposed to getting less or nothing for him in a few years) seems like the best way out of a bad situation at this point. You're right though; form is temporary, class is permanent. But having temporary bad form that carries on for a full season - coupled with injuries stifling any chance he has of getting back into form - means that RVP is not the player he was last season under Fergie. Maybe he can go to Juventus as they seem to like out of favour strikers who haven't been playing (Tevez) and reinvest somewhere else. Maybe they can steal Draxler or go for Insigne who is an exciting young talent. Very different player to RVP but it may force them to drop the long ball nonsense.
drew777
Roar Pro
Craig Foster summed the performance up well "For David Moyes, the performance against Bayern was good. For United, it wasn't." I've said it before and will continue to say it - saying the players are past it is absurd - sure they are getting older, but this same (more or less) team won the title last year, so I don't accept that wholesale replacements will suddenly see United as title contenders again.
fadida
Guest
I actually think Moyes would have been better off being courageous and going IN swinging. He turned a naturally aggressive and attacking squad into a defensive, reactive and negative one. I would remove the obstacle (Moyes) and see how Van Persie fares under a better manager
j binnie
Guest
Don't know if the above commentswere written before or after that credible draw with the best team in Europe.There is no doubt that United need players,Vidic is going and Ferdinand is just about ready for the subs bench so a top class centre back is a must purchase.In recent times (pre-Moyes) in fact since the retiral of Neville we have seen up to at least 6 players tried at right back,even Ashley Young being tried in this latest game.I think it could safely be said that the position is not exactly filled and with Evra approaching 34 it could be said change will be needed there too pretty soon. Jason states he reckons Fellaini is the worst signing in years. I don't know about value for money but against Bayern he was constantly available all over the field as an option to the ball carrier, he had a high success rate in his passing and his ground coverage from box to box was by far the best in the United team,only Rooney coming close. Scholes he is not but given 2 energetic &aggressive flankplayers beside him ,Kagawa and Rafael would fill the bill and with Mata completing the "diamond" a lot of the pressure could be taken off Rooney allowing him to concentrate more on what he is very good at,scoring goals. I wouldn't write United off just yet,as I said they need three or four class players but in todays game that is simply a matterof money. Without knowing Moyes or Van Persie it is hard to say what the best course of action would be,the man is a scorer no doubt.but Wenger didn't seem too keen to keep him at Arsenal.Why?????jb
jason8
Guest
Buddy you need to lay off the schnarf.... its clogging up your brain ! you dont chuck one of your top marquee players unless he is hopelessly and regularly underperforming for more than one season. RVP is class and will remain so for some time. Fellaini on the other hand was easily the worst signing i have seen in years. He is average and will remain so.
bill boomer
Guest
While selling RVP may achieve the objective you speak of it also means buying a replacement. They already need half a dozen and i wonder will they allow Moyes to spend the money required. His forays in the transfer market have hardly been an unqualified success much like his overall tenure at MU.
Paul D
Roar Guru
Probably couldn't do worse than to show him the door. They picked him up for 25 million, they might get 15-20 for him if they sold him now, and he did his job, came to Old Trafford and won them the title last year. Moyes has got at most half a season next year to turn things around (if he even gets that long), so he might as well be courageous and go down swinging.