Should Manchester United sell Saha this summer?
Saha has been a good player for United this season. But he has one great weakness. He can’t keep fit. Even when Larsson was signed on loan. One of the reason’s Saha was benching was because he was getting injured. So he lost his place to the veteran Swede.
Since Larsson’s departure however he ha hardly played. He hardly featured in Rome after coming back from an injury and broke down again. then he claimed he was fit and it seem s now he is out for some time again.
Thus the question needs to be asked: Can United really rely on a striker who can not keep fit for more than 5 games in succession for a whole season? He earned the right to be first choice this season but will he really be worth keeping next year?
Bearing in mind Smith’s tenure at United might be drawing to a close and if Saha as a back up forward to the big name United will sign in the summer, gets injured, United would be left woefully short upfront with the in experienced Rossi and Dong covering Rooney and the new man.
So wouldn’t it be better for United to simply off load him and replace him with a fitter version of himself like Torres and still buy the Ruud replacement that is Huntelaar?
This summer we shall see what Fergie will decide. because Saha’s current plight, when the season has reached it’s climax, will not have escaped Fergie’s judgement. And his verdict might end up being rather harsh.
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well Saha could be out, but the problem is that he won’t find many takers other than french league.hence united will only get a bargain price for a quality striker.
Huntelaar is a gud prospect, but he is unproven and could be a big risk in premier league.Torres seems a better option, but he has a cost, which we might not be ready to pay. So hopefully, Fergie will have something up his sleeves…
Well our main target will still be a defensive midfielder and hopefully we will nail owen.
No way!! He is an excellent player, one of the best around when he´s fit. we need to add to him by buying somebody else to give us options. I would have liked Berbatov but it would be ridiculous to pay nearly 20 million for a player we could have signed for less than half that price last season. I think United should add Hargreaves, Richards & Villa.
Villa is not coming, of that i am sure, he is not our type of player and i am quite confident when i say ,that rossi in few years will be as good as Villa..
really stupid question to even ask. He is our best out and out striker by far and his performance and goal and benfica showed how good he really is and how well the system works with him in it. For some reason most united supporters including ahmed have put rossi up on the pedestal that he is the solution to out striker problems. He is an unproven kid showing potential but he is no ruud or saha yet. If united were to buy a striker, it would be only after buying a midfielder and there is no rush considering we have Smith and Solskjaer as backup. Selling Saha is definitely out of the question, atleast for the near future.
Why sell the players who atleast perform? There are so many players who’re not performing well enough.
Forgetting abt who has performed, who has not performed and more importantly who did not get a chance to perform, if we talk about saha alone, he has been tremendous when fit, but not at all reliable due to his injuries , he cant be a definite first choice striker, and if we add a new face and bench him, he will not take it very well and we will end up getting into a bargain deal for him, even less than what an injured saha will get.
Our best bet yet, will be to have him for one more season and eventually replace him with a new striker, if rossi can fill the space very well, if not then someone else.
A top team needs to first choice strikers of reliable quality , fit enuf to last atleast3 quarters of a season. And that’s where saha goes out of the equation
yes i agree Saha is our best striker at the moment but he is no good if he is injured when we need him. He is to injury prone and therefore cannot be relied on.
A - thanks for telling everyone what I think
By the way, Keith wrote this article, not me.
I think that he has a valid point - Saha IS injury-prone, and that’s a problem. Larsson was brought in to lessen the load on our strikers and we were unfortunate that Saha got injured after that.
However, the conclusion is wrong.
Would I sell Saha?
As someone pointed out, there are other players who need to be sold first.
Richardson is one of them. Send him out on loan or sell him, either way he should be off the bench. He needs a full season of games to improve - I’d send him to Sunderland if Keano was to take him.
Saha? Not yet. Dong is a long shot, Rossi needs more time, Rooney will be better next season (he has 16 goals already this season, btw) and Smith is not a front-line striker.
Unless Ferguson turns to Rooney and plays him as the main front man (something that I’m hoping he’ll do), we can survive with Rooney and Saha up front, and Rossi providing backup. We still need a fourth striker as Smith, Dong and Ole are not good enough.
The type of striker will depend on how much faith Fergie has in Rooney’s ability to lead the line. He could bring in someone like Torres to lead the line, or he could bring in someone like Forlan - experienced but not too expensive.
Personally I’d go with the later style of purchase - we already need a winger and a central midfielder, spending 25-30m on a striker makes little sense. The goals will come - this side has plenty of goals in them - and a new striker is #3 on my list.
That Forlan comment gave me a laugh.
That was a good one!
I would be suprised if Rooney was moved up front, for a couple of reasons.
One, I think his willingness to drop back and begin attacks (sometimes as far as his own box!) is invaluable to our counter-attack. He was a big part of the reason Roma was so much more cautious than the situation warranted for them.
Two, Rooney is not the best at bringing a ball down in a goalkick / dropkick situation. He tries…just not gonna be easy with his back towards goal while butting up against a tall CB. Besides, he has only scored 1 goal with his head At Man U. A diver at that. That is probably the ‘real’ reason number two. (I’m just frustrated that we couldn’t seem to bring any balls down and settled latley.) With the wing counter-attack style of play it is essential that you have a good target player who can head the ball.
Ahmed i know Keith wrote it but was making a point. The fact is right now he is our best out and out striker. Right now both Rossi and Dong are untested, Smith has just barely started playing and although rooney has scored 16 goals, he scores in spurts. He wont score for 5 matches and then goes berserk and scores 3 in a game. Saha has been consistent enough and it was just unfortunate that he got injured just when Larsson left. The fact is we dont have any ready-made replacements and like someone said, other players like richardson and Silvestre need to leave first. Maybe someday i’d agree with you on this, but not now with our current squad.
Wait Rossi becomin Villa? Whaaaaat hahaha?
And Ahmed, once again, I remind the bet we’re in:
“he has 16 goals already this season, btw”
The way you make it sound…. has 16 goals “already”…. its nearly the last month of the season and ManU have shown the best performance in yearssssss! At 29 league games, Barcelona scored 59 goals, Inter scored 63, Schalke 44, PSV 65 anddd ManU leading this tally Manchester at 66 (which is now up to 75). Despite this kind of goal-scoring and perhaps the most fluid and classy mid-field support after yearrrrs….I would only say its nice to see 16, for 16 is never a small contribution from any standard butttttt damn that 30 thing looks like a rubbish thought! Hahaha…..
He should remain in United but we have to get a striker who is as lethal as Ruud was and Huntelaar really would be good option. I think Smith will leave.
Not sell because he’s our best striker when fit? Well, the problem is just the fact that he isn’t fit and since coming to United he has been out with injuries far to often. I can’t see Saha’s fragile legs getting better - there’s no pattern showing that he’s got those injuries after hard spells or rough tackles. It seems like can’t handle training and he can’t handle playing five games in a row. Saha out - two new strikers in.
Yes and not just because he is injury prone. Yes he has added the movement and pace that we needed but his finishing is generally at best average. Add the fact that his head drops at the slightest bad night (celtic, where he didn’t shoot cos he thought he was offside whereas Ruud would’ve stuck it in the net THEN worried about it) and the woeful penalty…
He’s had enough chances, it’s time to move on.
1) Fergie HAS ALREADY turned to Rooney and play him as our main front man! However, it’s NOT working because he’s not a striker, he’s a forward!He’s create at movement, creativity, passing and has great vision but his finishing is not as clinical as a world class striker e.g. Saha or Van Nistelrooy. THEREFORE, the only way to bring the best out of Rooney is to have someone playing alongside him, that way, it would give him more space and he can do what he does best.
2)Saha is great, no doubt, and he’s finishing is great and has great strength, but his passing and vision is poor. He loses possession easily. Although he has played well, since he’s so injury prone, it seems impossible for him to stay fit! We cannot keep on relying heavily on someone who can only play at max 20 games per season!
I think selling him would be wise, even if we don’t get anything because he’s just never there anyway!
I saw an interview with Stuart Pearson (on norwegian Canal+ who’s ‘our SkySports’) some week ago where he said the sale of Ruud van Nistelrooy came one season to early. He fear that the lack of firepower (as he say; Saha is to injuryprone, Smith is no goalscorer and Solskjaer has never been seen as a first choice) is the thing that could make us end up a little bit short on every front.
I think Man.Utd must bring Huntelaar.! Why.!? First of all he is Holland, and you know that Holland are great at PremierShip.! Look at Berkamp, Davids, Rud, Kuyt, V.Persie, Robben.! All of them are great.! And if you aren’t watched him ( Hunteelar ) you must see it:! He is great.! I think that he’s even better than Rud.! Torres..!? Why Torres.!? Must of his goals he scored from penalty kick.! Hunteelar is great.! And Man.Utd still need DM, like Hargreaves.! I think Diarra is better than Hargreaves but ……..
Goodbye
Sorry for bad English.! I’m from Bosnia and Herzegovina.!
dodger - the sale of Ruud van Nistelrooy came a season too late. He would have fetched 20m the season in 2005. In 2006, we got 10-11 for him because of the mess.
Similar to Henry’s situation actually - he would have gone for 30m in 2006, now he’s not going to go for more than 15-20m. Shame, ainnit?
No to Saha going
Keith, what do you think?
I don`t like Saha, really! He`s a great player, but he does too much wrong choices and he can`t score when he`s alone with the keeper!!
So here`s the summer solution:
Get rid of Saha
Keep Smith
Keep Solskjaer
Buy Huntelaar or Torres
We need Solskjaer, but he can be a back-up for the wingers and the strikers.
Rossi should get his chance next season so Solskjaer as a winger would be smart.
And I love Alan Smith, we need a player like him, who always gives all.
Huntelaar/Torres and Rooney first choice, Smith and Rossi and perhaps Solskjaer as back-ups
Saha. 1 on 1 with Petr Cech to win the title at stamford bridge..
Do you back him to score?
I don’t…….
In Saha we have a quick athletic footballer who has good ariel ability and strong both left and right feet. He has been a good servant and not kicked up a fuss about being benched…..More to the point, he has scored some important goals, we needed one against Benfica…he got it. We needed one at home against Chelsea, he got it.
To add to that, John Terry didn’t want to get close to him in that game and Terry doesn’t have a problem with any of the other Man U forwards!
Saha is injury prone so with a player like him, we need to make sure he is kept fit, his heart is in the right place so if I were fergie I’d be willing to do that. There are other players who need to be placed on the transfer list ahead of Saha, lets decide who they should be. The best is yet to come from Louis, he is a few games short of fitness so I believe he will pull through in the last few games
i like saha hes a good finisher got good strengh but he makes too many wrong choices and hes injury prone i think we should sell him if we get a good price for him plus we will need money for the players i think we need and buy huntelaar of ajax the next van nistlerooy and half the price of torres and a better goalscorer by far,next seasons buy huntelaar:13m, hargreaves: 18m, bale:10m, nani: for a cut price 3m and we will be unstoppable
I agree with strev .! Hunteelar, hargreaves, bale, nani.! And we must keep Heinze.!
ok, all of you who want us to buy huntelaar/torres, thats pretty retarded. why buy a one-dimensional striker in huntelaar? i agree saha is injury prone and all that, but if we are gonna replace him, we need someone who is technically brilliant, and has two feet. huntelaar will restrict the way we play football, like ruud did. even though ruud is a great striker, we are playing much better football without him.
torres, he is unproven too. we dont know how he will perform in the premiership, and he’s gonna cost at least 25 million. if we buy a good defensive midfielder, not owen hargreaves, and ribery/nani, we can survive without a striker for one more season atleast. coz rossi needs to be given a chance. and if we have ribery/nani in there, they will score quite a bit. i think we need to strengthen our midfield. check this out if you care arv43.wordpress.com
Think Saha is a good player - and he has shown real class at ManU. Think you should keep him - particularly when Solskjær will probably retire at end of next season.
Not sure Saha was worth the money ManU paid for him - but he’s scored some great goals for the club at important times.
We also all know Hargreaves is target number one. A winger may be needed but won’t necessarily be bough. Lee Martin is on our books still and might be what we’ve been looking for.
Still though. there are going to be a lot of ins and outs at OT next summer. with dead wood to sale, Ruud’s to replace, Hargreaves and Bale to sign and a winger to be bought.
So don’t be suprised if we sell dead wood (i.e Silvestre, eagles, Richardson, Bardsley e.t.c) sign Hargreaves and Bale, spend 20-25 to land Torres/Hunterlaar to replace Ruud, sell Saha and replace him with a Bent/Gudjohnsen, send Dong on loan again this time to a prem side, make room for Bale, Evans and Pique by letting one of Brown and Heinze go. promote Martin. and maybe still have some left over to land Nani or Gamst. After all Ruud’s cash is still available…………….
sounds expensive but the comings and goings of OT next season will shock many
Saha for me is as good as gone. Unless he pulls off a miracle and gets back in the side scoring hattricks against Milan at the San Siro and then vs Chelsea at the bridge. Anything shot of that an his fate is sealed. Fergie aint’ a fan of mental sissy’s. The main reasons he sold Kleberson
and Forlan. Worse still he never rely’s on easily broken men uless tehy are very special. That is why one Blomqvist was let go.
So Saha in conclusion, for me, will be gone in the summer.
COOL…..
Keith - Saha’s failings are being blown all out of proportion, just his virtues were at the start of the season.
I don’t expect United to do big wheeling and dealing. While I’d like to see Richardson, Eagles, Bardsley and Silvestre (all of whom would be regulars in a mid-table Prem side btw) leave, I don’t think there will be a massive cull.
For the transfers and for the striker, I think that’s the topic of another discussion.
Write a new article discussing potential transfer ins and outs, or maybe I’ll do one after the season is over.
sign Scott Parker as our DM! cheap and pretty good, can head and dribble a bit…can score a bit as well…better than Hargreaves!
and what’s up with Catchcart? injured? can we recall evans, pique and simpson as well as rossi? wud be good!
discard saha, and silvestre,…..sign pedersen! and nani!
HOHOHOHO