If United had started the season poorly and the bold youth policy had fallen flat on its face, would the Reds now be working like crazy on a last-minute deal for Wesley Sneijder?
The saga surrounding the Dutchman has dragged on all summer, with the Reds believed to be keen to lure the playmaker from Inter Milan.
Sneijder himself is reported to have been equally all ears about a move to Old Trafford and the Premier League.
Now the 27-year-old has said that it won’t happen. Until the transfer window actually shuts tonight at 11pm, you’d never rule anything out with canny Sir Alex Ferguson.
Sneijder’s £35m fee and, particularly, his astronomical salary of £250,000-a-week, have been the stumbling blocks throughout.
But the Reds have gone that extra mile in years gone by – and more recently for Wayne Rooney last season – and had Fergie felt there was a need for Sneijder, then I bet he’d have persuaded the Glazers to shell out.
The start to the season and the form of the Anglo-Brazilian axis of home-grown Tom Cleverley and South American Anderson has helped the champions engineer their way to top spot and a memorable annihilation of Arsenal.
The new-look pairing has mixed power with panache and fortitude with flair.
And it has kept more experienced central midfielders like Michael Carrick and Ryan Giggs on the bench.
Now that he is fully fit, it won’t be an easy route back into the engine room for Darren Fletcher. There is little doubt that 22-year-old Cleverley and 23-year-old Anderson have the tools to manufacture success against the best in England.
But has not pushing for Sneijder been an error in terms of Champions League success?
I don’t think we will find the answer until the business end of European competition.
Cleverley has no Champions League experience. Anderson has 22 European starts to his name, but against the elite he has generally failed to command the midfield tussle, even though he did score twice against Schalke in last season’s second-leg semi against the Germans.
He didn’t come on as a sub in the Wembley final against Barcelona and was overwhelmed by the Spaniards in Rome in 2009.
Anderson may be entering a new, mature era and could take Europe by the scruff of its neck, but there are still questions marks. Benfica, Basel and Otelul Galati shouldn’t be a serious test on the European stage for the revamped central midfield, but when the Iniesta and Xavi come calling, it could be a different kettle of fish.
Sneijder, on the other hand, has mixed it successfully with Barca’s dream team when Inter beat them in the 2010 semis and went on to lift the Champions League trophy.
He has the pedigree to be able to orchestrate success against the elite.
It is set to be another brave decision by the United manager to throw down the gauntlet to a younger midfield unit, but how many times has he come up with the goods when making such courageous choices?
Let us hope in Munich next May – or even before in the knockouts – the Reds are not rueing throwing caution to the wind over Wesley Sneijder.
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I've heard a rumour United might be getting Wesley Sneijder !
I don't think we will miss simply because the playmaker or potential playmaker is Anderson. what we will regret is not getting a ball winning/ holding midfielder like RM's Diarra. A midfield of Anderson/Cleverly/Diarra/Fletcher would carry us through. Right now I still think we are a little light weight there. Remember we have not been tested yet.
if we had any interest in wesley, surely it would have been reported in the press?
Congratulations, this story just runs and runs. Who said you can't flog a dead horse ?
This one has more stamina than Shergar.
They will regret it without a doubt despite the 8-2 win against a poor Arsenal team the midfield were overrun at times and with better quality finishing Arsenal could have got right back in the game, against the strong midfields like Chelsea and Liverpool both Anderson and Cleverley will struggle unless they have the experience and guile of a "sneijder" or "Schweinsteiger" in there with them. Last time we brought kids in we had an already establised certain Mr Roy Keane in there. After all at the end of last season Cleverley was doing just an OK job for Wigan and Anderson couldn't get in the team so are these reall the two to conquer the Premiership and the Champions League. I think not but only time will tell. All of the other top clubs have strengthened , we have just replaced and that is not good.
Sneijder? We're after Sneijder? When did that happen? Why wasn't there something in the papers about it?
Having been for a very long weekend on Pluto at the outer edge of our solar system ( and weekends out there are very , very long , not to mention the length of time it took to travel there and back ) I seem to have missed the news that we are after signing Wesley Sniedjer , when did this occur ?? is it true and has there been any mention of this on the MEN website ??
we all Nigeria fans love Man United. And we need Sneijder pls sir Alex Ferguson!
Another top drawer player you didn't get!!
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!
Keep feeding on those lies boys.
Nited, great team, awful fans.
It will go pear shaped ...then we will need Sneijder...expect it to resurrect in January...
Too late to think about what might have been. I know he's expensive, I know we've had Veron, but what I do know is that he would have been ideal for our midfield.
Cleverley and Anderson will not play at the same tempo all season as they are currently, it's impossible. Then what we have is Carrick, Fletcher,Giggs, Park and Gibson to come in, no Scholes this year. Good players though they are, they have been tested before against Barcelona and come up short and let's face it, Barca are the team in Fergie's sights. I'm surprised SAF has not gone for it.
Would have been a good player to have adding required quality which is still missing.
However you cannot break wage structures for anyone no matter who. Teams who pay crazy wages will live to regret it.
There's a report in the 'News section' of M-E-N that there is gonna be a direct service between Manchester Airport and Beijing....
It's reported there are an estimated 70 million followers of United in China...
Should this be the case then maybe the 'Megastore' could possibly get swamped with our Oriental brothers resulting in United having the financial clout to purchase Mr Sneijder when the transfer window re-opens in January.....
Excuse the sarcasm there.....but in a nutshell we are brassic...
Scott Parker from West Ham would have been a more realistic target or even holding on th Owen Hargreaves after spending all that money on his rehabilitation....
The loss of Hargreaves could prove to be a big mistake,especially as he offered to play for no wages....Dear oh dear......This is not looking good....
If UNITEd dont get Schneijder they will regret it .....JMO
I think we might. I just worry if Cleverley and Anderson get injured and/or lose form as the back up in Carrick and Fletcher looks very pedestrian in comparison.
Everyone who's anyone has said that Sneijder should have been signed. Cleverley and Anderson are no match for Iniesta and Xavi who have now been complemented by Fabregas. I agree, in the PL and early CL Anderson, Cleverely, Carrick et al may just cut it but in the latter stages of the CL and against Barca it will be a different matter. If United could not afford Sneijder they should not have gone after him in the first place and engineered a long summer of meaningless speculation.
Everybody is still talking about the great result achieved against Arsenal but beyond the great scoreline we should be asking ourselves some serious questions about United's midfield which in my opinion is very light defensively. We all agree it was a very very weak Arsenal side that wenger fielded but it should not go unnoticed that they has about 20 shots at goal and scored twice. That does not say much about our defending and the finger cannot be pointed at the back four but rather at our midfielders. It must not also go unnoticed that Fergie has been talking about Fletcher a lot recently. As well as Cleverley is playing I am sure he will eventually lose his place to Fletcher who when fit is far better defensively. The midfield will then be more balanced and offer more protection to the back line.
"If United had started the season poorly..........." If s*** was black pudding, there'd be no-one hungry in the world. If, if, if......great way to start an article. LOL
If i have learnt one thing this summer from MEN it is how to finally spell the name Sneijder! After writing it that many times in reply to MEN's 159 articles about him joining us this summer i feel i have at least got something out of this in the end. No longer do i have to scroll up to the headline and double check the spelling before i post.
S N E I J D E R, cracking.
Fergie's tactics.....wait to see what his boys can bring to the table before january...if good, bin sneijder....if poor, go for january transfer.....but sadly, this gamble will not work....we keep talking about barca....can these boys match the new look chelsea, liverpool and man city?
he should have sold bebartov and bought sneijder....i know the "not convincing performance" of the bulgarian has largely been a great factor militating the signing of the dutch midfilder.....
wot a dream team it would have been wit wesley....so sad
I'm sure SAF considered the signing. But he would have had two things on his mind. One is clearly that we have some youngsters coming through who he didn't want to stand in the way of, and I have no doubt that he was letting Welbeck, Anderson and Cleverly have starts clearly with this in mind.
The other is that great talents often don't work out in the spectacular way that the hype suggests they will. Veron is a clear case in point, but so too is Berbatov. Both awesome talents, both coming at great cost, and both coming with great expectation. Both failed to meet that expectation, even though both are clearly talented players.
SAF realises this and I'm sure he was in two minds as to which way to go, and unlike some others I think he actually did recognise there was a creative spark missing against Barca. Something, by the way, a much weaker Arsenal managed to exploit at the Emirates, albeit riding their luck greatly.
However, he also realises that getting a big signing is always a big risk and can actually stifle talents from coming through or even believing they can come through, which is a big element in a young player's early development. So he took the risk and time will tell if it comes off. However, for many fans including me it is a lot more exciting seeing a young player make it than seeing a big signing complete the picture.
In amongst this, is a media driven hype which thrives on change so they always want to see great players come to the premiership without ever understanding, appreciating or even exploring the process that make a player great in the first place. They seem to have this consumerist perspective that instant success can only be bought and not developed from within. And that players are "born" with the talent. I don't know if its just a British media disease but it certainly is a factor in stunting people's aspirations. Journos are forever trying to cap our understanding of a solution without really trying to understand the process. Too many words and not enough ideas or for that matter creative thinking.
On the other hand those, imo, with a genuine love for the human aspect of the game, get more out of witnessing talented youngsters become great before our eyes at a team we love. I for one am happy with the uncertainty of what the outcome will be but make the most of the ride getting there.
Well my fellow reds t&c did warn us all that there were twenty more stories to be read regarding wesneijer. Well done t&c proved right again. Only 19 to go.
No.
There's a reason you are a journalist and Alex Ferguson is manager of the worlds biggest football club.
Forget Snider.......we need a quality box to box midfielder who, against someone like Barca, can take the role they give Busquets and perform as defensive midfield destroyer. United will score against Barca if the pressure is relieved on the defence. I believe the best player to do this roll when you consider what we need but also a decent price and wages would be Fellani from Everton.
If we dont sign sneidy, or any top class midfielder for that matter, come the january window at least 90% of top players will not be available to play for us in the C.L. because they will have allready done so for their present club.
Now, I for one dont think TC and Anderson can keep this great form going all season, but that is only an opinion.
So, lets create a scenario,.....we are into march, doing very well in the prem, just as our main rivals are as well, nobody is running away with it, everything is neck and neck, and TC or Ando are either injured or suffer a drop in form, there are approx 8-10 prem games left, and we are then drawn against .......R/madrid......Barca......Bayern......city.....chelsea, in the semi finals of the C.L......but not Schalke this time.
Is carrick the answer, fletcher maybe, giggs, gibson, park.
Doesnt fill you with confidence does it.