Second Captains Part II

The RTÉ Saturday show has been particularly excellent this summer. It's worth listening to if you haven't already. This week's was especially good.

I thought it was fairly clear he was on a windup

He's not alone in his view, its a terrible transfer IMO and screams of a Glazer PR move. Outside of the united cheerleaders in the media like Rio and Neville most coverage of the transfer has included a healthy dose of skepticism. Anyway, as someone who's contributions to this thread are limited to accusing Ken of bias or demanding extra pods its not worth debating any further.

You can hardly reduce the signing of the serie A and European championship top scorer to a PR move.

Also I take maximum umbrage from your comment about my contributions. Please withdraw the comment and issue a full apology.

This guy, Ronaldo, is a cod!

I was talking more regarding the fact that during his contract, Ronaldo will not be available if the trial, as planned, goes ahead.

I wasn't talking re the actual events or the prevalence of such in professional sports and the treatment of innocent until proven guilty of these athletes.

GAA chat this time was painfully dull.

Gut wrenching that result - I really felt for kenny at the end.

I doubt it... it's not like anyone is in any doubt over him scoring goals. That's a given. It's the other aspects that make it a more questionable signing. Like with Juve for instance - bangs 'em in, but the team as a whole continuously scored fewer goals with him in it than they had before he joined, and as a whole became more one dimensional. Now, there's definitely a way to make it all work - Real Madrid succeeded for instance, getting him, Bale, and Benzema all scoring a lot of goals together. Juve failed to repeat that, with lads like Dybala becoming totally marginalised (went from scoring 22 in 33 before Ronaldo came, to 5 in 30 after. Got 4 last season). So the question is can Ole orchestrate an attack that keeps Ronaldo at the centre of all things (as he demands to be), while still keeping up Brunos numbers (minus pens obviously), Rashfords numbers, Greenwoods numbers, and Sancho's numbers (or whatever collection of those players becomes the starting selection). It's a tough ask, but that's ultimately what it all boils down to.

Yeah i agree its what you are saying. I just think the positives outweigh the negatives.

United are mentally weak, afraid of winning. Three semi final defeats, one final defeat and falling apart anytime they got close to city last season. Having Ronaldo, a player who has won everything should help that.

Also there is a lack of goals in the team... and players who can score with a header.

Martial has been awful for two years.

Rashford has been injured and hasn't been scoring or contributing anything really.

Cavani misses a lot of games, and the club didn't get him to play every game.

Greenwood is good enough to start every game but with someone so young its probably not a good idea to expect him to carry the club.

Ronaldo guarantees goals and united need that, especially considering the amount of draws they had last season where they count score.

But yeah its all about whether Ole can fit Ronaldo in that team... with Bruno and Pogba, its big ask/test for Ole. But united need a player like Ronaldo if they are going to win anything and i think fitting Ronaldo into that team is potentially a very good problem to have.

"He seems to be in the kind of form that I'm way more interested in listening than giving my own thoughts"

Richie when Eoin brought him into the chat

a robust debate with ken and murph. ken lost some points with the 'why you triggered tho'

They both made very valid points, i agree with both of them. I agree with Ken's rationale but also can empathise with Murph's frustration

The Portugal performance also looks to be blown out of proportion, especially the second half