If Ronaldo wasn’t injured I wouldn’t be concerned at all but since he is I’m just wondering where the goals are going to come from. Having wathed the preseason games, I feel that the team is having the same problem as usual; they’re not putting the chanses away. However I hope fergie is bold enough not to buy a new striker (if he doesn’t somehow finds a bargain) and let Campbell and possibly Manucho get some chances. Should Campbell succeed it might shut some people up, claiming United no longer produces quality players from their youth academy.

Ps. Sorry about the bad english, I’m from Sweden…

An older/experienced option in the 20Legend mould might be Eto’o, but his personality is not that selfless team orientated type – forget him.

No goals from Anderson last season, and his occasional effort was usually hilarious. However I believe we could see him mature into a Scholes type midfield scorer this season.

i agreed with everything accept the last bit, about us not having a poacher in the box. tevez has that quality of nicking last minute, important goals. but even more importantly he doesnt always hit piledrivers or cooly finish under the keeper. of his 19 goals last year, 8 were scored with his head or as deflections off his feet. i think that should ronaldo leave, he will be missed, but not horribly. as you said, we’ll simply have someone else putting them away, and i think that tevez has the ability to do that for us.

Benzema might not have been in top form at the recent Euro championship but his team was in disarray. But he is the real deal and well worth the money because – unlike the usual suspects mentioned here – he is the very best #9. Benzema combines speed, strength, and quality with youth and huge up-side that could be unlocked if he were to play with great, great players like Rooney and Tevez (and Ronaldo ?).

Sure, Benzema would be expensive but when you’re the Double Champions and have a huge stash of money from that achievement, there’s no reason to shop in the bargain basement. Go for quality.

7bestie7, if you compare Gerrard, Fabregas, Lampard, Ballack etc, it is good to have at least one central midfielder who knows where the net is.

Rooney and Carlito are not out and out strikers, The arrogant one is out for @ least two months, and if we don’t get Berbatov we could do with more goals from midfield that is all I am saying.

IF Ronaldo goes then SAF will have time/options to re-tool this team’s attack around Rooney/Tevez. In that equation, Berbatov or Samuel Eto’o (remember him ?) will be useful alternatives but Karim Benzema would be the best option.

And, if Ronaldo does go to his ‘dream move” then the money avail for SAF to bring in one or two replacements should be close to 100,000,000 – assuming that three-quarters of that money will come from the sale-of-the-century (for now !) and that there will be lots of cash left over from the prize-money won by last year’s DoubleWinners.

The goals will come from “all over”; it happened before, it will happen again.

HOWEVER, I am not at all convinced that Ronaldo is going to go to Madrid. I still believe that this is a protracted negotiation about his wages/image rights with UTD/Nike. UTD can offer him waaaay more money – probably enough for his own private jet !

This week is supposed to be the time for the crunch talks – good timing, too; the news from Madrid is that Wesley Sneidjer has a buggered-up cruciate and that Robinho is “unsettled” since he wants to get more money from the RentBoyz.

And for Stephen saying how our midfielders need to score more, that’s not really what we use them for. Our style is more in the line of them creating goals, any they score ends up being a bonus.

Why? Cause we have been very lucky about injuries and even like that we have lost Rooney for some months last season and that imo was the reason that cost us going into the last match equal on points with chelsea.

When Utd lose Rooney or Tevez there was nobody to fill that gap. Where was Saha? We all know where is Saha always so there is no point talking about it.

If we have had another striker we would have wrapped up the league sooner last season.

we cant put our chances on hoping that Rooney and Tevez dont get injured in a long season, also Campbell is young and wont be our saviour. we need an experience striker to help upfront and rotate. Remember its a long season and too many competitions this year (European Super Cup, Intercontinental Cup, etc.)