Get Eden Hazard
ONE SIGNING IS never the answer, until you stumble on a Cantona, a Ronaldo or a Roy Keane.
Hazard has just been named Ligue 1′s Player of the Year for the second season in a row, and will bring the kind of subtlety and guile to the midfield that should allow Paul Scholes to retire for good, this time.
He will also bring goals.
The primary reason United lost out to their neighbours was an over-reliance on Wayne Rooney to hit the back of the net.
To say that Javier Hernandez suffered ‘second season syndrome’ is harsh, he still managed a dozen goals in his sophomore year, but defences were cannier to the Mexican this time around and Danny Welbeck is still a year or two away from prolific.
Hazard – who scored 17 times in 37 Ligue 1 games, despite not being an out-and-out striker – has the potential to be as big a hit at Old Trafford as Cristiano Ronaldo, and Alex Ferguson and David Gill will hopefully have already made sure that he’s heading to the red side of Manchester.
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Lower the age profile
There are too many thirty-somethings in the United ranks. As well as Scholes and Ryan Giggs (combined age: 243), Michael Carrick, Patrice Evra, Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic, Michael Owen and (the departing) Dimitar Berbatov are all in their fourth decades.
United have no paucity of youngsters but what they do lack are the inbetweeners.
Only Wayne Rooney, Ashley Young, Antonio Valencia (all 26) and Darren Fletcher (28) can be deemed to be at or approaching the standard peak age for a footballer, while City’s first team against QPR contained just one thirtysomething in Gareth Barry (31), with the 23-year-old Sergio Aguero their youngest starter.
Age is not everything and Scholes and Giggs have both proven that class can be held long into the 30s, but pace and stamina is a different beast.
David Gill has said that money will be spent in the summer to keep up with City, and United’s second port of call after snapping up Hazard should be Munich. Bastian Schweinsteiger, at 27, is of the right age, temperament and quality to become the fulcrum around which Ferguson builds a(nother) double or treble-winning side.
Stop the experiments
Money alone did not win Manchester City the league. Roberto Mancini has never been a faultless manager and one gets the feeling that he struggles with the man-management aspect of the job, but he does have the ability to get the best out of players in their best positions.
Too often this season, United fans were left to question what Wayne Rooney was doing in the centre of midfield, why Danny Welbeck was out on the wing, and what position was Ryan Giggs going to guest in this week.
Phil Jones: Full-back, central defender or midfielder? Chris Smalling: Full-back or defender? Park: Footballer or punchline?
Ferguson has been at pains in recent to insist he has put the hairdryer away and become a different kind of manager, one better placed to salve the egos of overpaid youngsters, but trying to keep everyone happy and never fixing on a settled line-up or formation could be the biggest reason for this season’s lapse.
