Milan after Tevez

Originally Posted by goose

Rick, you have to consider the loss of van Nistelrooy's 20-odd goals from last season. Who will pick up the slack? Rossi? Talented but inexperienced. Saha? Solid but injury-prone. The Norwegian guy whose name escapes me right now? Serviceable but perhaps well beyond his sell-by date. And of course Alan Smith has a long term injury. Who else, I hope I'm not missing anyone.

Surely Rooney can't do all by himself, so indeed Utd are in the market for a proven striker. The reports of the them lining up a bid for Adriano proves this. And looking at their current crop, Tevez is definitely a necessity, not a luxury. He's pretty good as both an out-and-out finisher and provider and he'll come at a cheaper price than Adriano.

I don't disagree with your other points with Abramobitch and they all make sense, but isnt England Tevez's preferred destination? I think I heard that somewhere but I may be imagining things. Someone set me straight.

I agree that United will have a difficult time replacing Ruud's pure goalscoring ability, but then again the reason he left was because Fergie had replaced him in the lineup with Saha (who was magnificent down the stretch), so really they only lost a backup player (albeit a great one). Granted, Saha has been injury prone, but they also have Rossi, who I think they have a lot of faith in and are ready to let him show what he can do. Plus the veteran Solskjaer is finally healthy again. So they do have four very good strikers they can call on. Of course, I'm sure they'd love to have Tevez. Who wouldn't, right? But they're very thin in the midfield and are lacking the physical presence they had with Roy Keane. That's why they were hoping Milan would be relegated and they might get Gattuso. Carrick is a fine defender and ball distributor, but not the kind of hard-nosed tackler they need. So I think getting someone such as Hargreaves has to be their first priority. But you may be right. We'll see.

As for England being Tevez's preferred destination, I have no idea. He's been linked there a lot (mostly with Chelsea). Usually the players from Argentina prefer to play in Italy or Spain because both the culture and the style of football are more suitable, but everyone is different, so Carlitos might rather go there. I just don't know.