Manchester United: Better or Worse?

Are United Better Without Ronaldo??

I'm sure some of you are laughing at the question already, and I've heard it mentioned on message boards, blogs, radio phone ins and by any vagrant with a pint of Stella in his hand down at the King George Pub......How can you be better without the World's best player?!

Well firstly the arguement over who is the World's best player can wait for another day, personally give me the glorious passing ability of Andres Iniesta over any of the others but thats just me.

Secondly I'm going to give you a half filled in team sheet for opening day against Birmingham, admittedly its a bit of a hypothetical but stick with me

Van Der Sar
Evra
Rafael
Ferdinand
Vidic
Player X
Anderson
Fletcher
Player Y
Rooney
Player Z

Now that teamsheet (apart from the missing names) won't be too far away from the actual opening day come August, so I'm now going to give you 2 options to choose from and you decide what you think makes the better line-up on paper

Option 1
Player X - Cristiano Ronaldo
Player Y - Ji-Sung Park
Player Z - Dimitar Berbatov

Option 2
Player X - Luis Antonio Valencia
Player Y - David Silva
Player Z - Carlos Tevez

My point is basically that if you look objectively at the 2 lineups above then there's not as much between them as people make out. Plus without Ronaldo you will get better dressing room harmony, and the bonus of Wayne Rooney playing in his best and most effective position.

Obviosuly the players United sign may be different, but Valencia (whilst not World Class) is a pacy tricky winger who has massive potential and if United can sign someone such as a Silva or Ashley Young to play wide left, or indeed get the most out of a so far ineefective Nani then you immediately are back to playing the Manchester United way!

Ronaldo is not going to produce 42 goals seasons every year, and as much a of a privelage as it was to watch that from the stands, we won the league last year with him only playing to a quarter of his potential and a fraction of the commitment!

Alex Ferguson has done this on numerous occasions before, way back in 1996 we sold Mark Hughes, Andrei Kanchelskis and Paul Ince all in the same off season and people thought he'd gone mad......not a bit of it! He'd seen the special group of young players coming through in the form of Nevilles Gary and Phil, David Beckham, Paul Scholes, Nicky Butt and Wes Brown. We were beaten 3-1 on opening day by Aston Villa leading to Alan Hansens now infamous "You don't win anything with kids" remark.

The following May United were champions of the land and following Eric Cantona's fairytale return from his Kung-Fu induced suspension, he notched the winner and United were in proud possession of their second League & Cup double in 3 years.

So my message to all you people who think "You don't win anything without Cristiano Ronaldo" is remember the Hansen and how Fergie made him look silly in front of the world!

Fergie knew Ronaldo was going to leave and has a plan of how to move the club forward without him.

I ask again, are Manchester United better without Cristiano Ronaldo........maybe, maybe not. But Manchester United goes on regardless and would you bet against Fergie making all the rest look very silly yet again??