does anybody else think ferguson signed van persie predominantly as a fuck you to man city and to prove that man utd still have financial clout in the premier league and can sign whoever they want - in other words, not for tactical reasons whatsoever?
i just really really can't figure out why man utd would spend £23m on a 29 year old injury prone player in a position in which they are already loaded at a time when they have basically the worst central midfield of any top team in europe. it especially doesn't make sense to me considering they just signed kagawa for £17m who is 23 and is going to be a huge star (i believe) and basically plays best in the same position that rooney and rvp both prefer. so this means man utd essentially now have 5 players (rooney, rvp, kagawa, welbeck, hernandez) competing for 2 starting spots, meaning 3 of them will be on the bench.
ferguson has been talking about the 1999 treble winning season when he had 4 top strikers as justification for rvp's signing, but i actually think if anything he's more following his 2008/09 champions league winning model and might be playing something of a 4-3-3 this season, utilizing his deep and flexible strike force in a similar way to how he used rooney, ronaldo and tevez, meaning i could see something like this:
---------------De Gea--------------
Raf-------Vidic-------Ferd-----Evra
--------------------------------------
--------Carrick--Scholes/Clev------
---------------Kagawa--------------
-Roo/Valencia-------------Young/Nani
--------------RVP/Rooney----------
the only problem is it becomes hard to figure when welbeck or hernandez will get a look in (until van persie gets injured in october and spends the rest of the season on the treatment table that is...)