Manchester United season 2007-2008

Goalkeepers

Edwin Van Der Sar - Another pretty good consistent season from the big Dutchmen. He didn't lose his form as badly at the end of the season but he did seem to be carrying an injury that affected his kicking. But when it mattered he came up with the big saves, will he be able to keep it going for one more season.

Tomasz Kuszczak - He didn't get too many games, but there was no miraculous performances to make me reconsider last seasons verdict that he has no chance of being the man to take over when Van Der Sar calls it a day. His poor kicking and poor decision making haven't improved and if he is still here next season he will almost certainly become the number 3 keeper.

Ben Foster - With his bad injury he had been written off for the season by Fergie. But a speedy recovery and a Van Der Sar injury that saw Kuszczak keep goal against Portsmouth and then get sent off saw him get his chance away at Derby. He took it with both hands giving a top performance that saw him make a couple of top class saves but probably more importantly saw him impose his character on the defence. He definitely looked like a future number 1, though i am not going to go mad and judge him on one good game. Van Der Sar has got his work holding onto the number 1 jersey next season. There was a downside for him after the Pride park display, he had wanted to go out on loan and play but that was scrubbed as United entered the business end of the season.

Defence - This is definitely the strongest defence we have seen in some time at Old Trafford, i just hope they get Evra's contract sorted out, because there will be no replacing him.

Patrice Evra - He was my player of the season up until christmas, being consistently superb going forward and just as importantly in defence. The fact that others eventually ended up winning the personal awards and plaudits shouldn't take anything away from him. He is an absolutely essential performer for United. I thought we missed him almost as much as Rooney in the derby defeat at home. He can destroy the lesser teams with ease going forward, but what marks him out as outstanding for me is that even in the big big games he usually manages to make at least one outstanding overlap that leads to a real goalscoring chance. Games of the season for him have to be the 2 magnificent performances against Messi and Barcelona.

Rio Ferdinand - An absolutely outstanding season, and the most impressive aspect of it was that as the season got down to the nitty gritty, Ferdinand really rose to the challenge. With Giggs probably going to be relegated to a substitute for large parts of next season, it would seem about time that Ferdinand was made club captain. Last season saw him start to achieve the kind of consistency we had hoped for when we bought him. But this season he has added the consistency and then some. Torres at Liverpool has shown himself to be the player that could have replaced Saha having a great season in what has been yet another year of mediocrity at Anfield, yet Ferdinand and Vidic have completely nullified him twice. If he carries this form through to next season and if anything the chance are that he might be even better we have a great chance of honours again next season.

Nemanja Vidic - Once again another oustanding season from the no nonsence Serb. He seems to have brought the best out of Ferdinand, but to be fair i would think that Rio is his perfect partner too. As a pair there was no challenge too great, the way they nullified almost every attack they faced shows you how good they have become. The only team to really open us up in the second half of the season was Arsenal yet even then eventually we got to grips with them and went on to win the game. Possibbly the best centre half pairing the club have had in all my time watching the reds at least.

Wes Brown - I have got to admit that i am not the biggest fan of Wes Brown at right back, as you can still always tell that he is a centre half filling in. That said he has done a tremendous job filling in and whilst he will never be an Evra or a Neville going forward, he has done his job defensively . To be part of a defence that has only conceded 22 goals in the league is some achievement. Now his contract dispute is resolved it will be interesting whether he returns to being a squad player or continues to make the right back position his own. I have to admit the thought of an equivalent of Evra at right back gets me drooling with the attacking possibilities, Alves from Sevilla would fit the bill. Mind you i don't think i would be paying £25 million for a right back.

Gary Neville - I wasn't going to include him as it has been such a season to forget. It is hard for me, not to think that unfortunately his career is going to end in a series of injury setbacks that ultimately end his career. I know they say he has been fit for the last month or so, but until he strings about 10 games consecutively together it feels hard to believe it. As well as Wes has deputised for him can you imagine how many more goals we might have scored with Gary Neville still bombing down the right. Of course that is the other worry with him, after all these injuries, you just can't see him being the same old Gary Neville as age and injuries catch up on him. Will he settle for not being the player he was. It is hard to see.

Mikael Silvestre - Another set back by an injury almost as soon as the season had begun with a horrendous injury at Goodison. It was hard to see him coming back to play this season after that, but he managed a couple of games at the end of the season, where he played reasonably well. There have been newspaper reports of him leaving which make some sense for the sake of his career now that Evra has well and truly become a great United left back. But with Evra in a contractual dispute and no other obvious left back cover ( ok O'Shea in an emergency) i am not sure i would let him go quite yet.

Danny Simpson - Looked very promising going forward especially when coming on as a sub but wasn't quite as convincing defending. Bu then had a horrendous first half at home to Everton where he was ripped apart. He faded away from the first team scene after that and eventually went to Ipswich on loan. Unless he vastly improves his defending that is the type of club he will end up at.

Gerard Pique - Another youngster who disappointed, though he has certainly got the talent to be a top flight player as Barca will now hope to see after his £5 million move at the end of the season. I thought he could have been used more often at the beginning of the season at right back at home to the lesser teams, but this was an option that was never really tested. He had some decent games, but had a testing time against Bolton away where he gifted them the goal that saw us lose 1-0. But of course young players can only learn through their mistakes, which means it will be harder for young defenders than anybody else to make the grade at United now you can only lose 3 or 4 games a season if you hope to win the title.

Jonny Evans - Similar to Pique in the first part of the season, though he had even less chances than the Catalan did. Had a bit of a mare in the league cup tie to forget in the first half of the season, but recovered to have a decent game away at Roma. Sent away to Keano's Sunderland on loan for the second half of the season. Apparently he has had another impressive spell up there. I still have the feeling that he has a future at United, but maybe a full season on loan at Sunderland would bring him on more than sitting on the sidelines at Old Trafford.

Midfield - We wondered who would end up as the first eleven midfield as the season started with such a plethora of talent available, and virtually up to the final it was changing. The only constant i would say is that Carrick and Scholes were the two definite starters in the games that really matters. Will that still be the same as the ginger prince advances in years, possibly, but not to the same extent as this season. I would expect Anderson to figure a lot more come the end of next season than he did in this one.

Paul Scholes - Still my favourite player in a red shirt. Unforgivably there were some questioning whether he had gone as a player when he came back from his mid season injury. I think they were well and truly answered as he finished the season as well as he had sarted it. He had started in as good a vein of form as he showed last season, which had been one of his best ever. in fact the game that stands out for me in the first half of the season the was the 4-1 at Villa park where Scholes and Anderson were in mesmeric form. It was shortly after this that he suffered the injury that saw us lose him for a couple of months. Understandably enough when he regained his spot in the team it took him a while to recapture the old form, but return it eventually did. And he ended the season playing as well as ever, though it does look like 90 minutes is getting beyond him now. Who can forget that beauty against Barca and in the first half against Chelsea in Moscow he and Carrick totally bossed the show.

Michael Carrick - At the half way stage of the first half of the season it didn't look like Carrick would end up the season as the one central midfield player to play virtually every game as the season entered squeaky bum time. So he has to be congratulated for accepting the challenge that Hargreaves and Anderson handed to him. He didn't start the season badly, it was just that before the whole team ran out of juice the last month of last season he had really started to look the part. Up to that point he had had a good season complementing Scholes well, but then for a month he went beyond that playing as well as the ginger prince himself. But at the beginning of this season he seemed to go backwards as some of the sublime passing we saw in that spell went sadly absent. And with firstly Hargeaves and then Anderson challenging for the central midfield spots, for the first time since he came to United he wasn't a certain starter. His form stated to come back, surprisingly, when Scholes got injured, as the Carrick Anderson pairing really seemed to blossom. And as the season came to a climax and Scholes re entered the scene and Anderson was increasingly rested Carrick became virtually the only ever present in midfield. And by the end of the season he was playing as well as at the end of last season. My one concern about him is in the big games, if others aren't playing well and United are under the cosh, he doesn't seem to be one to say, right enough of this lets take the game by the scruff of the neck, if he added that to his game he would be at United for the rest of his career.

Owen Hargreaves - A season that started brightly as whilst the team struggled he was one player who looked the part. But after two magnificent defensive performances at Anfield and at the Emirates injury started to disrupt his season. The strange thing about him though, is i still think that whilst he can be having a really good game in central midfield he does stifle United's passing game somewhat. He is not as natural with the ball at his feet as the other midfielders. He is more the kind of player who likes to knock it forward and run after it. When he re-entered the equation at the end of the season it was as a right back a right sided midfielder tucking in and a box to box midfielder making surging runs forward. He did these jobs excellently and we were lucky we had such an experienced versatile player to cover those positions over the last month. But it does seem to suggest the management share the same concerns about some of his performances in central midfield. I was particularly concerned by some of his performances as a holding midfield player which is what he was bought for frankly. He wasn't exactly as safe as houses in that position. Still he ended up the season doing a great job for the team and puting in some top performances. It remains to see how his knee condition will affect him next season.

Anderson - I am not writing his whole name. It looks like of the three summer signings he is going to turn out to be the best of the lot. We didn't see him at the beginning of the season and when we eventually did we all wondered what the fuss was about. I had read that the players all raved about him after seeing him in training, but it was hard to see what they had seen. It didn't help that he didn't look fit. That is the one gripe i do have about him, that for a 20 year old he doesn't seem to last 90 minutes. Fair enough he does a lot of work, but he shouldn't be tiring 15 minutes before the end of every match, bu that's how it seems to me. Gripe out of the way then, what a player this guy could become. His season really took off in that game at Villa Park when he partnered Scholes in central midfield and all of a sudden he looked the real deal. We then saw him give two magnificent defensive midfield displays alongside Hargreaves at Liverpool and at the Arsenal which wasn't exactly what we thought we had bought him for. The way he had Gerrard in his pocket in particular augurs well for the future. It was hard to believe at time he was only 19 as he seemed to rise every other challenge. As Scholes came back and the season entered the deciding phase the management eased him out of the action. But he had shown enough for us all to be really excited about his future at Old Trafford. He didn't seem to show his best from in Europe, but time and experience will surely see that change for the better. And he was hardly alone in that as United ground their way to the final.

Darren Fletcher - He didn't start as many game as he would have liked, though injuries didn't help his cause but when he did play he didn't let us down. Yet again he saved his best perormance for the men from north London with another magnificent performance against Arsenal in the 4-0 drubbing administered to them in the FA cup. A valuable squad member, how long he will be happy with that status i don't know outside of the top 4 clubs he would be starting every match. Surely at some stage he is going to want some of that just like Phil Neville has at Everton.

Ji Sung Park - Another long term injury victim, i didn't expect him to figure too much in this seasons campaign. Yet he ended up being a vital member of the squad come the close of the season, starting both games against Barca. And i fully expected him to start in Moscow although he lost out to Hargreaves, though that was a decision that was definitely the correct one against a more powerful Chelsea side. As it now looks like Giggs will be coming off the bench more than starting as he enters the twighlight of his career Park and Nani will fighting it out to replace him in the starting line up as i can't see him playing Rooney, Ronaldo and Tevez every game. That is unless we buy another wide player, or Brandy comes back and starts to figure in first team plans, you never know.

Nani - Very inconsistent, at times terrible, at times brilliant and at others both in the same game. He has the game to be a top player, but does he have the character and does he have the will to learn. He has an absolute rocket of a shot that has seen him score some terrific goals that will be a great asset to him as he tries to establish himself in the first team. His team play can be very good and he can put in a mean cross. But his appreciation of other players is sometimes really badly lacking. Some have compared him to the Ronaldo that first came to United and there is something to that. But there is more work to do with Nani because i don't think he is as strong a character as Ronaldo is. At the end of the day it is up to him because he has the talent to be a Manchester United player. His best game of the season was also the 4-0 drubbing of Arsenal though that was against a weakened Arsenal side of course. He had the chance to make a bit of a name for himself against Chelsea at the Bridge in the game we only needed to draw but he had a very poor game. He needs to see the bigger picture in a game which was sadly at fault on that day.

Ryan Giggs - The latter half of the season saw father time catch up with him finally. He has not been able to beat players with pace for a couple of years but come the end of the season he seemed to be struggling full stop. My thoughts on this are that he could still have a season or two in him yet but as either an impact sub as he showed at Wigan to so fittingly wrap up the title or as a central midfielder as he showed in the last season when we didn't win the league when he operated in central midfield with John O'Shea. The only problem there being the competition is now so intense in that area of the team. It looks like he will continue next season but would he want to continue after that if he doesn't see much first team football. Still what a fairy tale end to the season with those two last games at Wigan and in Moscow.

John O'Shea - He does a job, but i have said it before if there are promising youngsters at the club, then players like O'Shea are just stopping their progress. I rate Pique as far more talented and open to improvement yet if there was an emergency at right back or in midfield the Irishman would get the nod. Pique would have been helping his own career and United's cause far more if he would have been getting those chances as he would have been a better option in both positions. O'Shea isn't a bad player he just hasn't improved as much as he should have and if we are honest he is lucky to be at a club like United. If you saw him playing for the Irish national team and it was the first time you had seen him you wouldn't be thinking he would look good in a red shirt if you are honest would you.

Forwards- What can you say, after a very slow start where, hard as it might be to believe now, we just couldn't put the ball in the back of the net, it just got better and better. I will have to eat humble pie and admit the Tevez signing worked and the longer the season went on the better he became. Who knows after a proper summers rest how good he will be next year. Saying that, how good would our forward line have been if we had got Torres. He would have been the perfect replacement for the almost permanently injured Saha.

Tevez - After a slow start as he adjusted to United and vice versa, he just got better and better. His on field chemistry with Rooney was brilliant as they seemed to complement each other perfectly at times. Add Ronaldo into the front 3 and with all of them dropping deep and swapping positions United at times played without an orthodox centre forward. When it worked it was great to watch and opposition defences didn't know how to cope with the great passing, movement, invention and generally Ronaldo's brilliant finishing. There were times though when it didn't work and you yearned for the option of an old fashioned centre forward ( for the want of a better description ) When you add the work rate that he brings to the table to the skill and vision that he possesses you have got an inspirational footballer. He has a happy knack of scoring goals in tight games when he isn't playing particularly well which isn't a bad habit to have.

Rooney - Eclipsed this season again by Ronaldo, he ended the season being told by Ferguson and now Capello that he was too unselfish a player. My answer to that would be how many goals would Ronaldo have scored without Rooney in the team. If Rooney being unselfish helps the United cause it's fine by me. It might not help England but what concern of ours is that. I am still of the opinion that i would sooner go into a game with Rooney in the team and Ronaldo injured than the other way round, just look at the City game at home. His finishing has gone to the wall at present but ever since he came to United he has scored in patches and then had droughts. That said he does seem to have suffered a crisis of confidence in front of goal and seems at times to be trying to too hard to make sure. He might as well go back to just being instinctive if he can't follow the best goalscorers in aiming for the corner of the net. He looked like a player carrying an injury towards the end of the season to me and if that is the case let's hope it gets sorted out during the summer. Just remember how much better he has in it for him to become, unlike Ronaldo who relies so much on pace and so will be at his best in his mid to late twenties Rooney will be at his peak around the age of 30. There is loads of time to improve and we shouldn't be getting on his back. Not that any United fans are of course just impatient England supporting journalists.

Ronaldo - It would be between Ronaldo and Ferdinand who has been United's best player and i can't really pick one ahead of the other. I suppose 42 goals playing as a wide man, although i don't really see that as his position, means you have to hand it to the Portugese number 7. To be honest i don't think he played as well in the first part of the season as he had last year, yet the goals just carried on flowing. I don't think he has created as many chances for others this season, so if he is the best player in the world and there is always room for improvement for every player that would be one area to try to find it. For somebody who isn't an orthodox centre forward he is an unbelievably natural goalscorer which i would say is part of his greatness. Headers, shots from outside the box, tap ins and one on ones with the goalie you always fancy him to score. I would have said penalties but he has become as fallable as anybody else as the season drew to a close with misses against Barca and Chelsea. He doesn't endear himself to me though with his games with the press about his future. I think all sensible United fans know he isn't going to stay at United for the rest of his career. But as Real Madrid play their games in their Spanish press mouthpieces he doesn't have to join in and encourage it. Yet he doesn't seem to be able to stop himself, it goes against the grain that he seems so intent on Real Madrid with all that their history implies. I am afraid i can't be joining in singing songs about a player, however great, who is continually going on about moving to another country. And we all know at the end of the day that this isn't just paper talk. I get pissed off when i see United fans on the box and the only songs that seem to get sung are about Ronaldo and not United, the real object of our love. Remember when Eric left our club he went out at the top and not to play for somebody else, when Ronaldo leaves he is going to to a club with a nasty history who will be one of our main competitors for the prize, i treasure the most anyway. Will you still be singing his songs then.

Saha - Sorry to say as expected a complete waste of space, i don't see how United will get rid of him unless they tear up his contract. Who on Earth is going to be willing to pay good money to buy this injury prone centre forward.

Youngsters on loan
Frazier Campbell - I don't know whether he will be good enough for the first team if he does come back after his successful loan spell at newly promoted Hull City. But he does possess a quality we don't currently have, that being a centre forward with blistering pace. He reminds me of a raw Andy Cole, a comparison that some might think doesn't qualify him to be thought of as first team squad material. But if he can bring his pace and movement to the front line from the bench then i think it would be a good idea to bring him back next season and give him a go.

Other youngsters - I don't really know enough about how our other youngsters went on loan. Brandy didn't get enough games at Swansea to improve his game so that was disappointing. I don't know how Cathcart went on in Belguim, i really liked the look of him in the youth team last season. Welbeck seems to be on a fast track to the first team squad, and i like the look of him. But will he go on loan next season or join the first team squad. I think i would like him to go on loan and see him play a full season somwhere and gain vital first team experience. Because it has to be said the reserve team football that i managed to see this season was as poor as i could remember.

Thoughts for next season
As great as it was for Ronaldo to score 42 goals i prefer to see the goals shared out a lot more than was the case this season. Ronaldo can't be faulted for this, it's absolutely brilliant that he has come up with the goals when we have needed them. But what would happen if he was out for a couple of months or worse, even longer. The goal return from midfield was, it has to be said terrible and that has got to improve. Hopefully once Anderson gets his first there will be a lot more from him. But we need goals from everywhere. As i have said an attacking right back would make us a better team, but i wouldn't say it's a priority yet. Will Foster take Van Der Sar's number 1 jersey, well the competition can't do us any harm. Will Saha finally leave the club, i hope so. Should we buy a centre forward, i am not sure. We do need variation up front, but if Campbell comes back and does alright is there much point in blowing £25 million plus for somebody who won't be starting every game. Admittedly if it was Benzema i would say yes, but i don't think he will end up at United. As for Berbatov, he is a cracking player when he wants to be, but that is the not the attitude we want at United. That is the kind of attitude Drogba has shown at Chelsea since Mourinho left. So i would have big doubts about signing him.