[Random Task]

I'm surprised you took Greenwood to Astana on Thursday. He's looked decent in his sub games v Bournemouth and Sheffield United recently and now scored his first premier league goal so was expecting him to start today given we've conceded in the past to your youth strikers.

It would be easy to make Greenwood an automatic starter given the poor start we made to the campaign, but Ole has been reluctant to do so for a valid reason.

The club has made mistakes with youth products in the past. The likes of Macheda, Wellbeck, Januzaj became permanent fixtures in the starting lineup at too young an age. Leading them to think they had already made it at United, thus putting in the effort to improve themselves was no longer necessary. The club wishes to guard against that happening to the current crop of academy products.

You remember Macheda, right?

 

[GDaly95]

It would be easy to make Greenwood an automatic starter given the poor start we made to the campaign, but Ole has been reluctant to do so for a valid reason.

The club has made mistakes with youth products in the past. The likes of Macheda, Wellbeck, Januzaj became permanent fixtures in the starting lineup at too young an age. Leading them to think they had already made it at United, thus putting in the effort to improve themselves was no longer necessary. The club wishes to guard against that happening to the current crop of academy products.

You remember Macheda, right?

I'd add to that, Ole subtly put it out in the media a number of weeks back that Greenwood could be doing more in training.

Greenwood actually looked particularly hungry in the game that followed that comment too.

Good man management. He's doing all of the right things with Greenwood.

 

[bosnian_red]

I'm surprised you took Greenwood all the way to Astana on Thursday. He's looked decent in his sub games v Bournemouth and Sheffield United recently and now scored his first premier league goal so was expecting him to start today given we've conceded in the past to your youth strikers.

He'll be the sub but our front 3 is pretty stable for now and we dont have injuries there. Rashford-Martial-James picks itself. Unfortunately the midfield is a different story...

 

[roseguy64]

I'm surprised you took Greenwood all the way to Astana on Thursday. He's looked decent in his sub games v Bournemouth and Sheffield United recently and now scored his first premier league goal so was expecting him to start today given we've conceded in the past to your youth strikers.

Who would he start over?

 

[Cathy Ferguson]

I was tempted to go with 3 CBs since our midfielders are short and we would only have one good header of a ball out there in Maguire if we start with Mata. But I went with Mata since Lingard travelled on Thursday.

 

[GDaly95]

I wish Ole would just say feck it and throw Levitt in. I know he's a kid, I know he's just gotten back from our European game in central Asia, but he'd absolutely perform better than Andreas.

 

[Paxi]

Villa fans seem confident about this game if their reddit page is anything to go by.

 

[Paxi]

Pathetic midfield options.

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

I cannot believe that we didn't sign a midfielder this summer.

 

[Alabaster Codify7]

Villa fans seem confident about this game if their reddit page is anything to go by.

My mate's a Villa fan, he's not lacking in confidence either. Fact is, we are so shockingly average nowadays that ANY team fancies their chances against us. Zero fear factor left for us.

 

[Tom Cato]

I cannot believe that we didn't sign a midfielder this summer.

We tried to

 

[croadyman]

We tried to

Didn't help that our targets were too narrow,the only names I recall were Rice & Longstaff. I could not understand why we didn't look at people like Bruno, Partey and Tielemans.

 

[Lynty]

Didn't help that our targets were too narrow,the only names I recall were Rice & Longstaff. I could not understand why we didn't look at people like Bruno, Partey and Tielemans.

We have 5 midfielders for 2 positions for god sake. It wasn't a priority until we hit an injury crisis.

3 players out in the same position is crazy.

What we need is more (world class) quality in midfield, and that wasn't available.

 

[Random Task]

I cannot believe that we didn't sign a midfielder this summer.

It was a mistake not to do so, that is beyond question.

 

[Bestietom]

I'm not travelling over this weekend. I have some business to attend to early tomorrow.

 

[el3mel]

We tried to

Then we decided to not spend 50m on Longstaff, then went on and splashed 80m on Maguire. We chose not to sign a midfielder.

 

[MadDogg]

We have 5 midfielders for 2 positions for god sake. It wasn't a priority until we hit an injury crisis.

3 players out in the same position is crazy.

What we need is more (world class) quality in midfield, and that wasn't available.

Matic obviously isn't rated and Pereira isn't really a midfielder. That really only leaves us with Pogba, McTominay and Fred as our only midfielders. Garner getting the odd game as well.

 

[el3mel]

We have 5 midfielders for 2 positions for god sake. It wasn't a priority until we hit an injury crisis.

3 players out in the same position is crazy.

What we need is more (world class) quality in midfield, and that wasn't available.

2 positions? We were playing 4-3-3 during Ole's honeymoon period, beside, number means feck all, quality is, and the reality is you only had Pogba and Scott as valuable midfielders.

So tell me why did we spend 80m on Maguire while having 6 defenders available if number is everything?

 

[Red_toad]

Then we decided to not spend 50m on Longstaff, then went on and splashed 80m on Maguire. We chose not to sign a midfielder.

The financial people decided not to sign a midfielder. The playing side staff knew there was a need.

 

[Tom Cato]

Then we decided to not spend 50m on Longstaff, then went on and splashed 80m on Maguire. We chose not to sign a midfielder.

Longtaff is a longshot kid who at the time had 9 games under his belt with no otustanding characteristics unlike Wan-Bissaka. £50 million was never a realistic valuation.

You're not honestly advocating that Maguire has been bad,surely?

 

[el3mel]

The financial people decided not to sign a midfielder. The playing side staff knew there was a need.

So the financial people decided we also need AWB and Maguire. They deserve the credit for that then, not Ole, or are we going to give the credit for the good summer business to the manager and blame the board for the other signings not being done? What tells you that they didn't ask Ole and he decided that a defender is more important than a midfielder?

 

[Adisa]

Live in Birmingham so you can imag8ne I know quite a few Villa fans. They reckon they will have us.

 

[el3mel]

Longtaff is a longshot kid who at the time had 9 games under his belt with no otustanding characteristics unlike Wan-Bissaka. £50 million was never a realistic valuation.

You're not honestly advocating that Maguire has been bad,surely?

OK, why didn't we go on and search for other midfielders after Longstaff after he has been ruled out?

 

[waza7111]

We have 5 midfielders for 2 positions for god sake. It wasn't a priority until we hit an injury crisis.

3 players out in the same position is crazy.

What we need is more (world class) quality in midfield, and that wasn't available.

Pogba - An excellent option but hasn't really lived up to his reputation
McTominay - Has done well but is still new to the first team
Matic - There were signs that he was declining towards the end of last season
Pereira - Not a central midfielder. Especially not in a double pivot. More of a number 10 or winger
Fred - Has shown nothing to suggest we should have signed him

That's not a great set of central midfield options is it?

 

[Paxi]

We tried to

We tried to? Who did we go after, did we try to bring Scholes and Xavi out of retirement or something? I'm sorry to be obtuse but we could have gotten Tielemans from Monaco easily but instead we decided to go for an unproven kid who had a bad injury and didn't exactly set the world alight. I'm not saying it's completely Ole's fault but don't tell me we tried... If we did it was a shit attempt!

 

[Walters_19_MuFc]

Live in Birmingham so you can imag8ne I know quite a few Villa fans. They reckon they will have us.

Yep. Same thing my mates are saying. I hope we smash them.

 

[RedTiger]

Yep. Same thing my mates are saying. I hope we smash them.

I'm backing us to win as well, although this is the first time in ages Villa are playing us so they'll definitely be up for it.

 

[Paxi]

It was a mistake not to do so, that is beyond question.

The blame lies with Ed and the owners. Ole has to take some heat too. He'd have been understood and agreed with if he decided to publicly put pressure on the board, instead he decided to say everything was fine etc etc. Mistakes like that cost you your job in the end. I understand that he has probably learned from Sir Alex to try to work with the board and keep your laundry in the house but Sir Alex was a one off and he could work miracles.

 

[Paxi]

Live in Birmingham so you can imag8ne I know quite a few Villa fans. They reckon they will have us.

If they beat us, Ole has to go.

 

[always_hoping]

Drawing won't be a surprise, a loss will be another setback in a long line of setbacks.

What I'm expecting is a nervy 2-1 home win. Hopefully the midfield options will be a little stronger for the Tottenham game and going into that game it's important to draw level on points with Spurs.

 

[Tom Cato]

OK, why didn't we go on and search for other midfielders after Longstaff after he has been ruled out?

Who says we didn't? The United Stand youtube channel has been throwing a lot of names out in the summer transfer window about players and rumors surrounding the club, some of which carries more weight than others. The only credible comment we've had from an independent source int he club is that MUFC did look well and thoroughly at Bruno Fernande, but ultimately decided that the player would not be a good fit in the Premier League.

I'm not going to challenge that, my job is not player skill evaluation, I'm just an opinionated fan just like everyone else.

 

[el3mel]

Who says we didn't? The United Stand youtube channel has been throwing a lot of names out in the summer transfer window about players and rumors surrounding the club, some of which carries more weight than others. The only credible comment we've had from an independent source int he club is that MUFC did look well and thoroughly at Bruno Fernande, but ultimately decided that the player would not be a good fit in the Premier League.

I'm not going to challenge that, my job is not player skill evaluation, I'm just an opinionated fan just like everyone else.

So you are pretty much saying we decided to not buy a midfielder? So back to square one. You honestly didn't prove anything wrong so far. We were the ones who decided splashing money on Maguire is more important than buying Longstaff or Bruno, not that we were forced to not buy any.

 

[el3mel]

If they beat us, Ole has to go.

I'm sure we are winning this. Don't get confident very often but I'm confident today.

 

[Tom Cato]

So you are pretty much saying we decided to not buy a midfielder? So back to square one. You honestly didn't prove anything wrong so far. We were the ones who decided splashing money on Maguire is more important than buying Longstaff or Bruno, not that we were forced to not buy any.

We decided to not buy a midfielder that wasnt good enough was the takeaway from my comment.

 

[el3mel]

We decided to not buy a midfielder that wasnt good enough was the takeaway from my comment.

Who said he wasn't good enough ? If we thought Bruno wasn't good enough then we were stupid, plain and simple. More reasons to criticize actually.

 

[Broad Street Bullies]

Not even showing the game here. Not for the first time either this season. Can't blame them.

 

[Devil may care]

I can't believe this is not on TV, why the feck is it a 16:30 kick-off if we aren't accomodating Sky?

 

[SteveW]

It would be easy to make Greenwood an automatic starter given the poor start we made to the campaign, but Ole has been reluctant to do so for a valid reason.

The club has made mistakes with youth products in the past. The likes of Macheda, Wellbeck, Januzaj became permanent fixtures in the starting lineup at too young an age. Leading them to think they had already made it at United, thus putting in the effort to improve themselves was no longer necessary. The club wishes to guard against that happening to the current crop of academy products.

You remember Macheda, right?

Macheda was never all that to be fair. He first team promotion was pretty random at the time.

 

[bondsname]

Who said he wasn't good enough ? If we thought Bruno wasn't good enough then we were stupid, plain and simple. More reasons to criticize actually.

Just because he is smashing it in the Portuguese league doesn't mean he is going to smash it in the premier league. He may improve us slightly, but maybe we are looking for someone who will improve us massively.

Man United is not the only club that seem to rate him, literally no other top club bought this summer for a ridiculously low price.

 

[Tom Cato]

Who said he wasn't good enough ? If we thought Bruno wasn't good enough then we were stupid, plain and simple. More reasons to criticize actually.

People in the club who evaluate player targets, presumably based on the technique described by Ed Woodward in a recent interview. Basically, it comes down to advanced metrics. That' really all that anyone outside the club knows.

 

[Random Task]

The blame lies with Ed and the owners. Ole has to take some heat too. He'd have been understood and agreed with if he decided to publicly put pressure on the board, instead he decided to say everything was fine etc etc. Mistakes like that cost you your job in the end. I understand that he has probably learned from Sir Alex to try to work with the board and keep your laundry in the house but Sir Alex was a one off and he could work miracles.

I like to imagine Ole bursting into Ed's office and screaming something along the lines of: "I want two top of the range central mids in before the end of the transfer window because my current options are either old or shit or both. You round-faced penny-pinching feck!"

That's probably unlikely though.