United counting cost of Vidic absence When Manchester City lost at Arsenal three weeks ago, it was widely declared that this season's title race was over. After that 1-0 defeat for City at the Emirates it seemed that Manchester United were shoo-ins for an unprecedented 20th English league crown as it put them eight points clear at the top of the table. The prospect of City's players having to give United the most expensive guard of honour in history at the Etihad Stadium in April 30 was a very real one. Yeah, about that. After United were held to a humdinger of a 4-4 draw by Everton at Old Trafford on Sunday, followed up by a 2-0 win for City at Molineux which saw their hosts relegated, beleaguered Wolves boss Terry Connor was probably not the only one moved to tears. Sunday's results have now swung things back in City's favour. They are now three points behind United with three matches remaining, and they have a superior goal difference of six. Barring an extraordinary glut of goals in United's final games, City will be champions if they pick out all of the final nine points available to them this season. Now that derby clash at City's place next Monday is primed to be one of the biggest matches the Premier League has seen for years. While this weekend sees a handful of dead rubbers like Everton v Fulham, Swansea v Wolves and Norwich v Liverpool, we have to wait a full week to see if City can repeat their six-goal exploits of the reverse fixture or if United can finally put this championship battle to bed. As United striker Michael Owen put it on Twitter this morning, taking a break from his usual posts about horses and his favourite chocolate bars (FYI: 1. Picnic, 2. Topic, 3. Star Bar) to say: "This is going to be the longest week ever leading up to Mondays game with City." Alex Ferguson and Roberto Mancini have both interpreted the circumstances they find themselves in slightly differently. United boss Ferguson believes that "we've given (Manchester City) the initiative, there is no doubt about that," while City's Mancini said "we are there - I think they have a bigger chance, more than us in this moment". One thing that it was not difficult to interpret was United's defensive failings against Everton. It was the first time in more than 53 years that Manchester United scored four or more in a top flight match at Old Trafford and failed to win. Whilst the Toffees were excellent in both their determination and enterprise — and David Moyes leaving a useful calling card at Old Trafford for whenever the vacancy there does eventually open up — United were at times lethargic and unorganised at the back. After going two goals to the good — first at 3-1 and then 4-2 — United looked as though they thought the game was won and that Everton would lose at Old Trafford as they so often do. But somehow Everton were allowed a way back into the game. When Tony Hibbert claims two assists against you, questions simply must be asked. "There were defensive lapses," said Ferguson. "Their goals were really soft. It was a real shock for us to defend like that. "It was a travesty of a result in some ways but we made it difficult for ourselves and if you look at our history we keep doing that. We've thrown a game away that we should be coasting." The draw represented the seventh time that United have conceded three or more goals this season in all competitions. Before this game there was the 3-2 loss at home to Athletic Bilbao, the 3-3 draw at Chelsea, the 3-0 defeat at Newcastle which came right after the 3-2 home loss to Blackburn, the aforementioned 6-1 drubbing but City and the 3-3 draw at home to Basel. It can surely be no coincidence that United's best centre-back and club captain Nemanja Vidic was absent from every single one of those matches. The big Serbian only played 10 games for United in the first half of the season before his campaign was ended with a knee injury in December's 2-1 defeat at Basel, having also missed two months of action between August and October with a hamstring problem. Regarding United's recent record of shipping three or more goals, they did so three times in each of the last three seasons before this one, and not at all in the two before that, which takes us back to 2006-07, Vidic's first full season at the club. True, United have seen the transition from the retired Edwin van der Sar to David de Gea in goal this term, and Jonny Evans has performed better than many expected upon stepping into the breach alongside Rio Ferdinand, but Vidic's absence for most of season has been telling and may ultimately prove the difference in the title race this season. Just as City fans can point to Carlos Tevez's exile for much of the campaign, so United supporters can only wonder whether they might already be celebrating another title had Vidic been fit. Next Monday's derby is being billed as a title decider, when the efforts of an entire season are virtually boiled down to one 90-minute match. If United's defence is once again exposed and exploited as it was so ruthlessly by City at Old Trafford, it will only lend credence to the idea that their title hopes were scuppered when Vidic was stretchered off the field in Switzerland four months ago. http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/blogs/early-doors/united-counting-cost-vidic-absence-075816620.html I know that Vida is not popular among the fans, and no one likes to give him credit. He's no Rooney, Nani Jones or Valencia, he's Vida. But anyone with any bit of sense know that he's probably our most important player and easily our best defender. We played seasons without Ferdinand and were fine, but without Vida we're simply f**ked. Time to show this legend more appreciation. Edit: Oh right, Vida is not a legend, according to some posters on here....
Well he would have contained Fellaini in the air at least yesterday... But I've had enough of "woulda", "shoulda", "coulda"
I have already mentioned in a different thread - if only people would value defense as much as they value attack, Vidic would've pipped both Ronaldo and Messi for last season's Ballon D'Or. I'm not exaggerating - it is just that our perspective is very much limited to being attracted to goalscorers.
I fully agree with you. None other player is more important than Vidic, in my opinion. That shows how well the team did in the EPL, even without him... or how shitty Abu Dhabi Football Club was.
I think our season has been on the downslide ever since Vidic got injured. I'm amazed how we are still in the title race.
Abo, you're right - Vida is an absolute legend and our most valuable player. But we knew he was out for the season BEFORE the January transfer window and, rather than sign a quality replacement, simply decided to go with Evans and Ferdinand as our main CB pairing. It was always a disaster waiting to happen - as I posted in January.....several times.
Lets put into perspective, When we had Ronaldo, Tevez and Rooney in their pomp we were the team to beat but more importantly at the back of our team we had a fantastic backbone of VDS, Rio and Vidic. They were fit and playing regularly and were closing games out in Europe with ease. Since then one or the other has been injured and weve never had that consistentcy. Yeah we have competed but in the games were we have been absolutely trounced, Atletico, City, Everton. His defensive abilities might not have kept us a clean sheet but his absence has been an imposing factor on why we look so dire.
Vidic has been out the whole season and we're top of the league. Would we be top if Rooney was out all season? Highly unlikely. He's a fantastic player, when fit the best CB in the league, but he's not our most important player. It's clear to anyone who our most important player is.
The stats in the article I posted speak for themselves. It's not only the performances but the numbers that show how vital the captain was for our team. Vida along with Rooney is our two most important players and I'm afraid we're being over reliant on them. What if Rooney was injured all season along with Vida? We'd probably be out of them top 4. Our only true world class players are Nemanja and Wayne. Nani and Valencia are on par on being world class, and that's all what we got in our team. (Anyone saying that Ferdinand is world class is still living in the past) We must sign a world class player, a team carrying player this summer.
If Vidic wasn't injured, we definitely wouldn't have drawn with Everton, much less lose some of the matches we have this season. He is arguably the best CB in the world, and that is a massive boost for any team. Imagine barca without Puyol or Milan without Silva. That is a big gap to fill.
if we don´t win the league than its mainly because we didnt add enough quality midfielders in the past transfer windows.....
Vidic has been a loss. Of that there can be no question and I can think of specific games when we'd have been a hell of a lot better when he played. But you can't start cursing his absence when things go bad anymore than you can praise Evans for generally being a very able replacement when things go well. If we don't win the title. Not having Vidic (and Fletcher) for most of the season will be emphisised. But I didn't hear many people mentioning how much we were missing Vida when we went on the great run in which we had a really tough run of games which we came through with flying colours. and didn't lose once in the league for almost three months. But now that things have started to wobble people are bringing up Vida's name again. He's a great player and he's our captain and I'd have rather have had him in defence against Everton yesterday, but he isn't a magician and it's always easier to believe that the only reason that you didn't win something is because of somebody who wasn't there and that everything would have been fantastic if they had. In an eerily similar turn of events in September 2010 Everton scored two goals against United in injury-time at Goodison for the match to end 3-3. Vidic was in the team that day. . . Happened without him. But could have happened with him too. I love Vida and want him back in our team as soon as possible. But his absence isn't the reason that we're letting it slip. Just like you can't write off his value to us if we do still win the title.
We've had 18 clean sheets in the league this season, more than any other in the league. Even with Vidic fit he'd have had 2 or 3 bad games per season. If we lose the league the problem wasn't in the defence, although it's fair to say we'd be stronger with him in the team.
The thing with united is that over the years teams (especially the smaller clubs) have dreaded facing us,so much so they wouldn't even turn up and try and play against us . Recently what we have been doing is treating the year 2012 like it's the year 1999 when teams would just rollover for us . It was a psychological thing how teams used to rollover and have no hope but now it's not the case and they have belief . We have been DISRESPECTING THE OPPOSITION . We think we don't even have to play football and we will always get that 94th minute late winner . Its disgusting and we really need to pull our socks up
That's it pretty much - we've coasted into and through too many games. But I'm not going to argue that Manchester United with Nemanja Vidic isn't a whole hell of a lot more solid than without him. Evans has done well for the most part (although he and Rio had a shocker yesterday) but Vida is THE best CB in the business bar none.
Obviously, but injuries happen, they've always happened. Keane in 1998 probably cost us the league, but it's not an excuse, just a reason to be pissed off.
Are people forgetting this was a transition year? Losing our goalkeeper, our best central midfielder (for half a season), some decent experienced defenders and then losing Fletch and Vidic to injury. I'm hurting from Sunday, but looking at things in perspective, we've done well to get this far.
