It is fair to say that Man Utd have not had the greatest start to the season and that the teams looks considerably weakened without a fit Wayne Rooney. Rooney has struggled to regain the form he showed prior to his injury earlier this year, which has meant that the team has needed inspiration from other parts of the team.
Baerbatov has had a fantastic start to the season for Man Utd both scoring and creating, however he is not able to have the same impact that Rooney. He is not the same type of player as Rooney and he doesn’t have himself as a strike partner like Rooney had last year. How United must hope Rooney can use next weeks Euro 2012 qualifier for England to help him regain his best form.
News leaked out this week that Edwin Van der Sar looks set to retire at the end of the season, this hasn’t been much of a surprise with Man Utd continually being linked with goalkeepers throughout Europe, but it has opened up a debate on whether Man Utd can actually afford to replace players they will be losing in the near future.
Van der Sar has been a great servant for the club but the two main players that Man Utd will lose within the next couple of seasons are Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes. Despite the huge array of top talent that has circulated through Old Trafford in recent years, these two have always been among the best selling names on the back of man utd shirts. The starting line-up is considerably weakened without them and the youngsters tipped to replace them, like Anderson and Nani, simply don’t appear to be good enough.
Even with Man Utd selling Cristiano Ronaldo for £80 million two seasons ago the club still haven’t been able to spend huge sums of money on a top quality replacement and with three of their starting line-up set to retire within the next couple of seasons Man Utd look in desperate need of a cash injection into the squad.
However, the club just posted an £80 million loss without a huge investment in the squad so where is the money coming from to buy players? Also with Fifa looking to introduce more restrictions on footballing finances even more problems could be on the way for Man Utd.
The club don’t need to hit the panic button quite yet, yes they are currently 5 points off the top of the table at the moment but only 7games have been played and there is a long way to go. They will however need to look soon at how to replace their top players, which even with an unlimited budget it would be hard to do, but with clubs like Man City spending big can Man Utd afford not to spend the money to replace Scholes, Giggs and Van der Sar and risk not being the top team in Manchester?
Written by Colin Hill, a sports writer who blogs about new football kits.
