Talk:2011–12 Manchester United F.C. season

Obertan squad status
The question is, should we have Obertan in the full squad list?
 * 1) He joined Newcastle on 9 August BUT he was there since 6 August, with United playing its first game on 7 August against City.
 * 2) The number he had was from previous season and it was never confirmed it will be this season.
 * 3) He played in the pre-season games and even scored, but only in those.
 * For 1. and 2. as an exemple, Both Cleverly and Evans played thier old number but it was changed on August 12.


 * So should we remove him?, or keep him in the list with his old number 26?.

– HonorTheKing (talk) 08:04, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I would say he should stay. We kept Ole Solskjaer in the list for the 2007-08 season even though he retired without playing a game that season. Obertan left after the competitive matches began, therefore I think he should stay. – PeeJay 10:13, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Appearance
Why don't you use footballbox collapsible template for the matches? Also extended stats like Results by round, Results summary, Starting 11 etc. used in many other seasons club articles (for instance, 2011–12 Arsenal F.C. season)? --Corwin of Amber (talk) 11:47, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Because we believe that the collapsible footballbox is inappropriate for this page. What's wrong with a wikitable? Furthermore, results by round tables are unnecessary for this page due to our use of the wikitable for the results. Finally, starting XI info is Original Research and should not be included on any page. – PeeJay 13:38, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Footballbox shows more information – referee, goals and cards for the opponent etc. Wikitable is ok but I thought there is a special template for matches results. --Corwin of Amber (talk) 14:01, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
 * As far as I know, quite a lot of people at WP:FOOTY dislike the collapsible box. Also, this is an article about Manchester United's season. Why would we want opponents' info in there? – PeeJay 14:05, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

"Squad information" section
Added by Keuja, removed by HonorTheKing with this edit. Is there any reason not to have it? I quite like it, gives useful information at-a-glace. doom gaze  (talk)  16:35, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

– HonorTheKing (talk) 17:18, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
 * It is simply a dupe of the Squad statistics bellow, and not to mention all prices are Undisclosed when it comes to ManUtd. The overall apps including start date and end date can be found at the three Players articles which alredy exists. You have to remember its season article, ie 1 year. (which means he can start at the age of XY and end the season in XZ, so will we use 20-21?)
 * The EU part is not realy needed, as EPL uses diff system for players, like Home Grown and few more.


 * It's not a dupe of the Squad statistics section. Even if the start and end dates can be found elsewhere, it's useful fo have all these informations on the season page. See for example the pages of Chelsea or Barcelona. Moreover, concerning the ages of the players, since we provide their birth dates, the ages are always up to date. If the EU part is not needed, let's replace is with a homegrown part and a "need subscription" part, since that's what the EPL uses!
 * We can take Chelsea 2011/2012 page as example... It's a pity that Manchester 2011/2012 page is so poor compared to those of Chelsea or Barcelona! Keuja (talk) 18:25, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Lets use Chelsea season as an exemple.


 * Key date - United uses game description (article way) every week in the selected competition. unlike Chelsea List style which is wrong in WP season articles.
 * Team kits - whats the encyclopedic point of it.
 * Squad - no point of having so many squads for the same players, nothing on the article will mention the Reserves and Youth, so why it needs it?
 * First team squad -
 * Signed for - shows like they signed this season from those teams.
 * Birthdate - wrong way to use it when it comes to season articles, see past seasons in chelsea articles, no one changed thier dates to include end date. so it confuses the reader like in that season he was actually that age.
 * The rest is same as "Appearances and Goals", which includes Nat., Pos., and Number
 * Top scorers - its dupe to "Appearances and Goals", and only diff is that its sorted by total goals.
 * Disciplinary record - United have it in "Squad statistics", but overall.
 * Starting XI & Starting Formations - Can't be used as its original research
 * Overall section - some part can be used like it have, but some include in the United Infobox.
 * Club - we can always import it from the main United article if we vote yes for it.
 * Results summary - can be used, I find it nice aswell. the diff between Home and Away.
 * Results by round - United use it after every game in the wiki table.

The rest is the same pretty much. – HonorTheKing (talk) 18:52, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
 * We some day will want to get all those season articles in GA and FA, and none of Chelsea and Barca seasons who are similar to those format are, while United does have, exemple, 1997–98 season.
 * In addition, I want you to view Chelsea past season article Vs. United. and tell us whats better, whats more encyclopedic; 2010–11 Chelsea VS 2010–11 ManUtd
 * Lets first just see what its necessary to include and then will vote on it, exemple, the age.


 * Chelsea season is like a list, Man United is more like an article. But it's a question whether season article should consist of so much text information or just facts like matches results, tables etc. I think the subject (=the season) assumes that it's a list of matches, not the description of history like in history articles. Many readers, especially those who are not Man United fans, may find massive text blocks in 2010–11 ManUtd visually harder to read in comparison with 2010–11 Chelsea article.
 * What about yellow and red cards for Man United players? This information can be added in footballbox collapsible template, but since it's not used it's impossible to find out from the article who was booked in certain game etc.
 * Results by round template is visually better (different colours for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place, also in a single row).
 * Results summary is useful, for instance in 2010–11 season it may show obviously the big difference between home & away results. — Corwin of Amber (talk) 14:29, 16 August 2011 (UTC)


 * My point of view -

It is simple, we will simply open a vote on "collapsible", "Results summary", and "Results by round", and if it gets the amount of votes, we will change it, the rest in my eyes are unneeded. – HonorTheKing (talk) 15:22, 16 August 2011 (UTC) – HonorTheKing (talk) 16:06, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Chelsea list article is unuseful, Key Events/Dates are simply dupe of #Matches. it simply tell you if they lost or won and against who, thats what #Matches do, exept of 6 lines which tell you who they sold or bought.
 * Many dupes, a person will not care to read 10 times the same squad, do you agree?.
 * I don't agree that people will assume that season article means simply boring list of W-D-L system, they will assume that they will read something about the article which they won't find in the Premier League article.
 * Yellow cards - In Europe and England, Man Utd receive the least cards for season in per game avg., with second being Barca. Now that Scholes retired it will cut down in half. so we need overall booking, like we have.
 * You will not find World Cup, Champions League, etc.. articles which tell you who received cards, they won't even tell you if they missed a pen. kick.
 * Next person will tell you, "why we need to open every collapsible table to see who scored", or "why don't we use CL scoreline." -- so on that we will vote.
 * We need to remember sometimes less is more, we need to keep only stuff that in 5 years people will care to read, how many times you looked in past season articles to search for matches players received yellow cards?, but you do search for games they scored or even read alittle about particular game report. thats why we have long article to describe every match details.
 * The only thing in my eyes we can take from Chelsea article is "Results summary" table and "Results by round" table, the rest is simply not appealing.
 * Ok, where will be this vote? Right here? — Corwin of Amber (talk) 16:02, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, you can now vote bellow.

Squad information
I think we should add a Squad information section. With the age of the players, the year they joined United, the end of their contracts, if they're homegrown or not and whether the need registration or not. What do you think? Keuja (talk) 08:59, 18 August 2011 (UTC) – HonorTheKing (talk) 13:31, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I disagree. The age of the players can be seen on their own articles, and the year they joined United and the end of their contracts are not relevant to this page. I can see the merit for noting players' homegrown status, but it's a matter of how to do it. I suggest adding HG to the squad stats table. – PeeJay 12:37, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I think having the age of each player on this page is a plus. It allows the reader to have information about the average age of the squad. The same holds for the year they joined United, it's not the same to have a squad with a majority of players here for 2 years or 10 years and it's the only page where this information makes sense. Same goes again for the end of the contract, it's interesting to know who the club has to negotiate with or who's likely to leave. Homegrown is interesting, but the registration is even more important. Keuja (talk) 13:10, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with what PeeJay2K3 said.

Starting XI
I think we should add a starting XI section, as well. Probably in the same way it's been done on the 16th of August at 17:11 by 88.114.103.124. Keuja (talk) 13:16, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

– HonorTheKing (talk) 13:27, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
 * It's Original Research and should not be included on any page.


 * It's not. Why not use the Squad statistics data? Or the data from whoscored.com? Keuja (talk) 14:24, 18 August 2011 (UTC)
 * It definitely is original research. Who would define what formation this "Starting XI" would use? Manchester United ostensibly uses a variety of formations, ranging from 4-4-2 to 4-2-3-1 to 4-4-1-1 to 4-3-3. The "starting XI" starts to become irrelevant up to a point. After all, what if two players in the same position are used equally? How would we decide who gets in? Why can't people just look at the squad stats list? The club stats website doesn't add a starting XI, so why should we? – PeeJay 19:44, 18 August 2011 (UTC)


 * It's not. If you want a trustworthy link, here you are: http://www.whoscored.com/Teams/32 (bottom of the page). Their data come from OPTA. Of course, people can look at the squad list. But we have to make the page as good as possible and a starting XI section goes in that direction. Keuja (talk) 07:52, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Pre-season match summaries
There is far too much detail on the US tour games. I'm going to try cutting it down. – PeeJay 13:36, 16 August 2011 (UTC) – HonorTheKing (talk) 15:23, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Wow, where did that appear from? I think if we had that level of detail for every match we'd need to write a whole book. doom gaze   (talk)  14:05, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree, we need to cut it down abit, leave some useful detail but not entire match report.

Voting for changes
  ''The following is an archived discussion of a voting. Please do not modify it.. No further edits should be made to this section.''  The voting was 1–Option 1; 2–Option "NO"; 3–Option "NO" by HonorTheKing (talk) 19:05, 10 September 2011 (UTC) As in past week we had few people wanting few changes to the article, I have started a voting, if something will get nice amount of yes votes we will apply it here, if not, we will keep the old format which is used in all united season articles in here aswell.

Simply add your self under each Vote and write which one you prefer. – HonorTheKing (talk) 16:26, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Footballbox collapsible VS regular table

 * Option 1 - Old format (Chosen)
 * Option 2 - New format

Votes
 ''The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this section.'' 

Neutrality and copyright
Lots of the preseason section is in way too much detail, are copied directly from the Manchester United website and are clearly in breach of POV by being very United-centric. Delusion23 (talk) 19:43, 28 August 2011 (UTC) – HonorTheKing (talk) 19:51, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I have removed all POV and cleaned it, I guess the user who added it at the first place wasn't into writing but copypasting, shame.
 * Good woork :) Though I've just tagged the current season bit too as it goes into lots of detail and by the end of the season if each game has its own description it will get a bit ridiculous. The exceptional games should definately have descriptions though, like the 8–2 win last weekend. Delusion23 (talk) 18:50, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh and the neutrality is debatable with phrases like "scoring with a clinical goal" and "United were in full control" etc. Plus it's all written like a jounalistic piece rather than an encyclopaedic entry. Delusion23 (talk) 18:53, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

Comment – Please do not remove the tags unless improvements have been made to the section. If the section continues to describe every last goal of every game it will be way too long by even halfway through the season. This needs to be cut down as it is too detailed. The tone is still very journalistic and written as if it's from the view of a Manchester United supporter. Here are a few examples that need clearing up:


 * "The best effort of the half"
 * "United opened the scoring with a clinical goal"
 * "an error from the Spanish goalie"
 * "the points were sealed"
 * "City only leading due to having slightly better goal difference"
 * "United were in full control"
 * "United were to make them pay for their mistake"
 * "earn him a second yellow card and an early bath"
 * "Ashley Young completed the rout"

These are just a few examples of how this section is entirely un-encyclopedic. Delusion23 (talk) 14:26, 9 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Fixed it all. Added note to the top of the section. Delusion23 (talk) 14:45, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

Okay someone put it all back in without sorting any neutrality, POV, adding references or improving the tone. The section has been tagged again. Delusion23 (talk) 16:50, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

The match summaries are also quite biased. They should either be changed to summarize what independent match reports there are, or be removed altogether. A quick look shows that none of the other top team has that kind of summaries, although Liverpool's season has a month by month summary that is also woefully short of references. --OpenFuture (talk) 13:13, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Score removing
In the pre-season text, the scores were removed. Why? It's silly not having proper match reports, but not even saying what the score was is ridiculous. One might argue that you can see the scores in the table, but what if the table was removed? Velo ciraptor  888  15:13, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Poorly written match reports
Some of the match reports are awfully written and contain American words. This about an English football team, and England is in the UK, so we should write in British English, not American English. Velo ciraptor  888  15:17, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Why don't you do it? I would, but I just don't have the time any more. – PeeJay 19:59, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm not really bothered. The Spurs game (3–1) has still not been written, and I'll try and fix the match reports. Velo  ciraptor  888  11:37, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Biggest loss - Biggest win
I think the biggest competitive loss and the biggest competitive win should be added to the info box.--137.191.241.9 (talk) 12:41, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

Changes
I nominated this article for peer review. I'm listing a bunch of changes that have come out of the peer review. Please feel free to add comments in the relevant section(s). Kingjeff (talk) 20:05, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Split-off articles
The article is too big according to WP:Article length. One section is 33 paragraphs long. It would be good to have at least 1 break off article. Kingjeff (talk) 20:05, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
 * It might be hard to get the fellows at WP:FOOTY to agree to allowing a Manchester United F.C. in the 2011–12 Premier League article, given the untold potential for similar articles for other clubs. A better idea would be to cut down the summaries of each match. The level of detail at present is completely unnecessary. – PeeJay 23:07, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't mean for individual competitions. I was thinking something like "Review and events of the 2011–12 Manchester United F.C. season" where you can go into detail like the article is. The other alternative is to just find a way to cut it down. Kingjeff (talk) 03:23, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I think people would view an article by the title you suggest as an inappropriate way to split content from the main article. Splitting by competition would be the best way, but I still think that cutting down is the most appropriate course of action. – PeeJay 16:38, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Ok. Then cutting down should be done. Kingjeff (talk) 17:35, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Be my guest. – PeeJay 00:32, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

"Review and events" section
I think it's better to keep the match reports in their own section and move the writing up to a "Review and events" section. Kingjeff (talk) 20:05, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree to a point. I think that the stats for each competition should be supplemented by prose, but I also believe that sectioning off the prose for different competitions leaves little scope for events in one competition that – directly or otherwise – affect another. This may need some experimentation to find out what works best. – PeeJay 23:07, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Squad information/statistics
There are not enough statistics. I suggested in the peer review that a "starting 11" and "Minutes played" sections would be good. Does anybody have any suggestions to adding any other statistics? Kingjeff (talk) 20:05, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I absolutely oppose this suggestion. One of the main Wikipedia policies concerning sports articles is WP:NOTSTATS, and to be honest, I believe that this article has just enough stats already. A "starting 11" section is completely inappropriate as a violation of WP:OR: what formation would the "starting 11" use? What about the extremely likely scenario that, due to squad rotation, the eventual "starting 11" that we come up with never actually started a game together in real life? And "minutes played"? Where are we going to get a source for that? No, we're not doing this. – PeeJay 23:07, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
 * It's not OR. It can be sourced whether it's one source or done by all match reports. Kingjeff (talk) 03:27, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
 * It is OR. We would be analysing published information for the purpose of advancing a position not advanced by the sources themselves, something that is in direct contradiction of WP:OR. Furthermore, there is a general consensus at WP:FOOTY that "starting 11" sections should not be included for that very reason. – PeeJay 16:36, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
 * It's not. Original research is when no reliable or published sources exist. In worst case senerio, match reports could provide as a reliable source. With Manchester United, you'll be able to find relaible match reports. Kingjeff (talk) 17:46, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
 * That's complete bull. There are no reliable sources anywhere that list Manchester United's starting XI for the entire season. We can't look at who has made the most appearances and say "OK, that's obviously the first-choice team", because it might not be. There are a great many things to consider here. For example, what about if the most common formation doesn't fit with the players who made the most appearances? If you want to push this any further, take it to WP:FOOTY. – PeeJay 00:31, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
 * It's not bull. Match reports are credible for this. It's not done by appearances. It's done by starts. Kingjeff (talk) 02:20, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
 * No one is denying that match reports are credible for reporting starting line-ups for individual matches, but there are no reliable sources anywhere that collate those into an all-encompassing starting line-up for the entire season. – PeeJay 11:08, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I think they are. Kingjeff (talk) 16:53, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
 * You think they are what? – PeeJay 17:00, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Never mind, I've started a discussion at WT:FOOTY related to this topic. – PeeJay 17:18, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Lead
WP:MOSLEAD states that leads shouldn't be more than 4 paragraphs. There's a suggestion on how to cut down the lead section in the peer review. Kingjeff (talk) 20:05, 18 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree with this. Any analysis of the season can be done in the prose. – PeeJay 23:07, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

The game one new year's eve
Should the scoring be 2-3 (loss to blackburn) instead of 0-1 ??? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Em 88 (talk • contribs) 22:01, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

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