dee25

Di maria is bringing in everything Utd has lacked in attack. He's been excellent.

Yes. Yes that's exactly what I'm saying....that we need to sign Falcao, Messi, Ronaldo and every other superstar name before I can even begin to feel an ounce of optimism.

I'm just not convinced that he'll score close to the amount of goals he scored for Newcastle/QPR. A strike force of Costa, Remy any Drogba still seems pretty underwhelming imo. But the club has done extremely well by offloading Torres. Depending on how Costa and Remy perform this season, we can always look to bring in another striker in the next summer transfer window.

I think it's more the Cesc and Matic partnership that's the worry. Oscar has been doing all he can to cover for Cesc but Cesc has to do more. He's left left Matic far too exposed in these two games.

Precisely what's needed in these sort of games though. Looking at the Cesc and Matic pivot - that midfield would be completely run over in this game.

I guess so, but that would leave us thin in central midfield. Last season in addition to Frank, Ramires, Mikel and Matic we also had Luiz who played a lot of games in that position. Honestly the more I think about it, it was such a silly idea re-signing Drogba. If Mourinho wanted Drogba back then it should have been conditional to Torres leaving. Can't have two non-homegrown players taking up two foreign spots when they're not good enough to be in the squad. If the club aren't prepared to cut their loses with Torres, fair enough but now they've complicated things by adding Drogba because we're having to scrounge around looking for players (that are actually needed) to offload in order to compensate for his inclusion. Just silly.

Before Lukaku was sold, I was hoping that we would dip back in the transfer market for a centre back. Whether you rate Luiz or not, the reality is that our depth for that position is weaker now than it was last season. However if we're going to bring in another player, it makes more sense to me to prioritize signing a striker (to provide cover for Costa) over a centre back. In an ideal world we would have kept Lukaku and brought in another top centre back to compete with Terry and Cahill.

He obviously wasn't brought here to be a squad player. He's 29 years old and cost us a fee of 16m, I think it's naive to think that Jose won't do all that he can to give Luis adequate chances to stake a claim for that left back spot. I agree with Daniel that the other players seem to be adapting faster, however we should bare in mind that Costa's and Cesc's positions were such weak areas for us so any improvement is going to garner more excitement. It's going to be far harder for Luis to impress in that LB spot than it will for the other two. And after seeing Marin look like a world beater in preseason and looking nothing of that such during the season, I think it would be wise to hold off making any conclusions about players based on preseason performances.

Cuadrado is the same age as Willian, last season he scored 15 goals in all competitions (11 goals in the league). He had never managed more than 5 goals before. I think if you were to look, you'll find that there're plenty of other similar examples. I'm not even sure that's the correct amount we paid for him. Sky sports reported that the fee was around 25.5m,which is only about 6 or 7m more than we paid for Schurrle.

Very. Almost as embarrassing as those who were branding Schurrle as the new Salomon Kalou - the same Schurrle who is now being extolled to such great heights. The way players go in and out of fashion on this forum is something else.

The goals in those players terrify me.

Impressive numbers, but what other strikers does Lilie have besides Kalo.........oh

If the club actually goes into the season with Drogba and Torres as cover for Costa, they'd be making such a HUGE mistake. The way the board is persisting with Torres - they need to be careful because every time he's on the pitch he drags down the performances of the other players just by his sheer desperation to prove himself. It's not fair on the manager, it's not fair on the players and it's not even fair on Torres because he's being relied on to perform at a level that he's incapable of. Why continue with something that isn't working and that hasn't worked for the past three years? It's counter productive...

LOL this performance so far is such a hot mess. Forget about our attacking play, what's more worrisome is how suspect we look defensively. That big hole in the midfield is driving me crazy.

Against Vitesse, Costa had three one-on-ones with the keeper. In the same game with the same players, Torres couldn't so much as get a sniff at goal. Isn't this "no service" narrative getting a bit old?

But why would Real Madrid agree to that though? What would they gain out of that arrangement? Say Real Madrid loans Di Maria to PSG and he gets a career threatening injury (heaven forbid) that results in PSG deciding against signing him on a permanent deal - Real Madrid would have essentially screwed themselves over.

Much better from Van Ginkel and Cesc. In the first half, there was a lot of space in midfield, but they've controlled the game a lot better. Really not a fan of Ivanovic in the centre back position.

No, no, no. There's no way. What would have been the point of spending 16m on a 29 yr left back if you're not going to put yourself in the best possible position to win now? Drogba and Torres as backup? When the current holders have Aguero, Negredo, Dzeko and Jovetic?! No. It doesn't make sense. A striker will come in.

I'm sure we'll be bringing in another striker. No way the club will enter the season with Drogba and Torres as back-up......... right?

Strootman has obviously moved up a level (or two) above MVG since his move to Roma, but in the eredivisie was there much between them? I heard from a few people that Van Ginkel was considered to be the bigger talent....

LOVE this kid. He's right out of the Lampard/Gerrard school of midfielders.

He's so G...he almost H.

So what, we'll be going into the season with Torres and Drogba as backup? How does that make sense?

Definitely delighted that he's back. I think it was @remains of the day who said a while back that you need players in the dressing room who have an affinity for the club and who can transmit their passion for the shirt over to new signings. I'm absolutely in agreement with that, but at the same time I wonder how Drogba's presence is going to affect Costa. We all know how much of a strong personality Didi has. On the plus side that's a great thing because of the leadership he brings but on the down side it makes it very hard for another striker to succeed in his shadow. I really hate to be that person, you know the one who pisses on everyone's parade? But I think people should be cognizant of the knock-on effect that bringing back such a strong personality, who the fans idolize, might have. Who knows though, maybe it might be better for Costa as it will remove some of the pressure and attention from him...

And we should probably wait for him to first kick a ball for us before campaigning to make him captain......just a thought