[GocartMozart]

I'm actually stunned at how poor of a post this was Silas. Your facts are shockingly off. Richardson starte 12 games sporatically across the year and only against lesser clubs. Evra was our left back as was Judas, but then again you failed to mention him, since you can't help but masturbate to his scouse loving image every hour on the hour. Fletcher played well for tha tfirst half of the year, but even he wasn't relied on as much as you're trying to paint it. Our midfield was not assured, that's for certain and would have been a better base to work from to make your point, but the fact is that in the second half, it was the same midfield, yet a far different style of play. Form was part of it, Louis Saha was part of it, our defense slowly began to solidify and that was part of it, but to ignore how different we played with and without Ruud is just bias, pure unbalanced bias.

As for Richardson, we all know his abilities and he was not a hinderance to a United side that had Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Ji-Sung Park in midfield. I'm fairly certain all of those players played on Sunday, but you might want to check the game log to be certain. I'm also pretty sure that the real reason that United played free flowing football one day, and piss poor static football the next was because Louis Saha decided to put on the boots. The only reason we had any chance that season down the stretch was because of Saha replacing Ruud and the subsequent partnership with Rooney.

You point to all these players as the hinderance to Ruud, when in fact they weren't replaced the following year. The only addition to the team was Michael Carrick, and yet the team played incredibly well once Ruud was booted out of the team. If your sarcasm would be believed then United would still be playing piss poor regardless of Ruud's presence, but the fact is that it was his exclusion and the allbeit temporary form of Louis Saha that made the difference. It's even more interesting that you point to Paul Scholes since his vision was actually perfect before December, a period of time when Ruud was constantly starting.

Now I won't hammer the legend, Ruud is brilliant and was then. I personally think the reason the team played worse with him on the pitch wasn't entirely his style, but also had to do with his off the pitch complaints about Ronaldo and the team chemistry. I think it was that his style didn't fit with Rooney as well as Saha. End of the day, United were a far better squad with Rooney and Louis Saha at the forefront than with Ruud. End of