I thought he and Pogba were both average. They are just not suited as a midfield pairing.
17
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 36
- Goals
- 4
- Assists
- 5
- Yellow cards
- 8
- Status
Problem is not just being lightweight. But technically capable to nick the ball away even when you are physically inferior. Kante has it in him, so had Mekelele. Fred doesn't. Some of the best DMs have had shorter physique but great agility, lower center of gravity and superior technique to break the attack. Fred can never be that guy.
He's speed is probably just slightly above average for CMs. It doesn't compare to forwards and wingers like Trincao and Traore of course. The lack of strength is also obvious, he's more of an interceptor and a presser than a tacklers because he can get shrugged off. He's quite lightweight in body, like James.
Its not across you when you are standing to the left and the opponent runs right, towards other players
Both are far sturdier players than Fred, no doubt. More muscular. Makelele in particular.
It is, especially when you try to move his way to block his path and fail, but I see that argument is going nowehere and no one will change his mind so I leave it here.
How are you going to stop someone moving to the right if you are on their left. Its not a neutral position, its always a losing position. All you can do is pressure them so their touch might be heavy towards other players
So exactly what are his strengths?
DM is far technical demanding job. Breaking the attack and then launching the attack requires much higher IQ in terms of position sense, reading the game, your technique to nick the ball without foul or getting away with foul, higher first touch control, higher work rate/stamina and what not. Apart from work rate there is nothing in Fred to suggest he can play the DM role in front of the defense. Selecting him alone without McT cover is a suicide.
Pressing, interceptions/ball recovery and passing.
work rate and stamina, that is all.
But he is a CM who can't pass at an acceptable level.
Also Fred is the common denominator in the last two shocking Midfield performances.
And even against Leeds he was not great in the first half.
He was really good in the second against Leeds. So in my book he has had one good half in 3 games.
Terrible that.
Yeah if these are meant to be his strengths, we definitely need an upgrade.
He doesn't do any of these things anywhere near good enough to warrant starting in our side.
This is what blinds people.
Fred was left alone pretty much the entire first half. Pogba did come along for the 2nd half and they adjusted it nicely.
Fred was actually quite ok for the most part today. He didnt get any help
Fred was actually quite ok for the most part today. He didnt get any help
He isn't a DM though, he's technically a box-to-box CM. Although I agree with the rest of your post about the defensive side of the game requiring more footballing intelligence than people acknowledge and Fred lacking some of that compared to better players.
Last edited:
Horrible performance from him, but can't say unexpected because Fred as the lone DM is a walking disaster. He just doesn't know when to tackle and when to jockey. If he could just hold his position instead of going after 30-70 balls that he's unlikely to reach, the space that is left behind won't be that huge.
And I don't think my analysis is based on just one game. Even when he was playing well, this has always been one of my complains about him. Going early into tackles makes it way too easy for the opposition to predict his move and bypass the midfield.
Add to that, he messes up easy passes way too often and that just leaves us completely open to a counter attack. As the lone DM, both these weaknesses are recipes for disaster.
I hope we sign a DM, or if not then let's not play him alongside Pogba in midfield 2 at least. Maybe try Lindelof or McTominay there
And I don't think my analysis is based on just one game. Even when he was playing well, this has always been one of my complains about him. Going early into tackles makes it way too easy for the opposition to predict his move and bypass the midfield.
Add to that, he messes up easy passes way too often and that just leaves us completely open to a counter attack. As the lone DM, both these weaknesses are recipes for disaster.
I hope we sign a DM, or if not then let's not play him alongside Pogba in midfield 2 at least. Maybe try Lindelof or McTominay there
I think people believe that Fred is easier to upgrade than he actually is. Statistically speaking he ranks very highly in these categories I listed.
There's also the fact that there's about 2 midfielders that we'd need to upgrade on before Fred is even under threat. Neither Matic nor McT can offer anything like what Fred does in any of these categories. Hence bringing another DM/CM would still likely see Fred starting next to them. We'd need to bring in two who also prove successes (unlike Donny VdB) for him to potentially drop out.
Statistics without context is meaningless. I remember the stats suggesting that he had a great game against Southampton, he didn't. He had a terrible first half and a better second half, double that up with lots of 5-yard passes and i'm not surprised that passing metrics can flatter him.
Likewise a similar thing today, no doubt his stats will flatter to deceive again.
But anyone with eyes can see that he's not good enough and we can certainly upgrade him. He doesn't get into Chelsea, City or Liverpool's midfield, and his strengths aren't exactly at the world class level where you feel like you can offset his liabilities to account for what he's good at.
He's busy, he runs a lot and doesn't hide away, but he shouldn't be a starter for our team.
As bad as he was, what was expected from him today?
Seemed to me like everyone was allowed to do whatever they wanted, and Fred was supposed to defend.
Fred was doomed from the start in that setup. We couldn't get the ball from Wolves. Part of it is his fault, but he was asked to do too much.
We've been lucky to learn that lesson without consequences.
Seemed to me like everyone was allowed to do whatever they wanted, and Fred was supposed to defend.
Fred was doomed from the start in that setup. We couldn't get the ball from Wolves. Part of it is his fault, but he was asked to do too much.
We've been lucky to learn that lesson without consequences.
Just emphasises why we need a CDM but maybe if McTom was available he could have handled Traroe better
You see this where I vehemently disagree. First of all, because we obviously see different things or see things differently. The fact that that my view is also being backed up by stats isn't the context, it's the cherry.
Fred today had 89% passing with most of his passes being forward passes. He had more touches than anyone but Pogba, passed his way out of trouble and started a few good counters, all while being the only midfielder out of 3 that bothered to run and cover for the defence.
But people (like @laughtersassassin above) will disagree with me that his passing was good today, so I have to use the stats to augment my point.
EDIT: Fred's passing is erratic. It deviates a lot from game to game and also from half to half. But on average, it's actually very good. Only Pogba can claim to be a better passer in this team.
He could at least learn to control a ball and pass it.
He about gave away 2 goals in the first 10 minutes.
His passing was good today? Did you watch the game? The first 10 mins he gave away nearly 2 goals.
Yep, although I switched on with a few minutes delay, at the time of the Trincao chance (was that the 8th minute?). Which wasn't a Fred pass but a bad control/deflection from him towards the Wolves' players path.
It was very bad from him indeed, but a pass it wasn't. Please don't tell me you saw that as a pass.
Again, stats without context is useless. I'm not surprised that his stats favour him, because watching him his forward passes are often sideways passes to Shaw/AWB who are near the half way line, whereas Fred is level with the CB's.
Very few times does he play passes between the lines, or pass out wide to spread play, or balls over the top.
Relying on stats and ignoring the game makes it very difficult to have a rational debate because saying you're 'backed by stat's while ignoring the display that everyone saw today to even suggest that Fred's passing today is good enough for a Manchester United CM is very disingenuous.
And again, he isn't good enough at what he's good at to offset what he's bad at.
I’m a good few pints down but he was massively at fault twice in the first 10 mins.
Again... we even disagree on what we see including the context. I don't ignore the game, I simply have a different view from you.
I saw Fred plenty of times play forward passes that broke the Wolves press today, not just sideways passes. And I saw Pogba also come to play the game at the same line as Fred (particularly in the first) in order to help with circulation.
I think it is indeed tough to have a rational debate when everyone sees things their own way yet when you bring up stats to back your view, people accuse you of ignoring the game and relying on anything but stats. It's textbook diversion.
Atleast 2 counters started by a poor pass by him or a poor clearance following up an interception by him.
The issue with him is not the workrate or effort, it's that whenever we're facing an attack, he always commits to the challenge instead of jockeying, which in turn can slow the game down and would help our defence get back in shape.
Sure, there are advantages to how he approaches the game as well, but if your tackle success is 60 odd percent or whatever it is (the number completely being random), the remaining 40% of the time, we'd be in a 2v2 or a 1v1 situation, like it happened today. What he needs to do is not commit like an idiot and either direct the attacker to a less dangerous area (the flanks) or wait for a poor/heavy touch by the attacker and then tackle
He is error prone, that wouldn't surprise me. Like I said, it was very poor from him for that chance from Wolves around 8 minutes in.
For who. Matic plays like he is 80 and Scott is injured. vdb cannot be the deepest player. We'd be worse off for sure. He went off for 20 mins against Soton and the midfield vanished.
It's not a diversion though, how anyone can think Fred put on a good passing display today is beyond me - nobody needs stats to see that his passing ability is not the level of a Man United midfielder.
If you think it is, then yeah there's no debate to be had because there are box to box midfielders who can do the basics better, and provide defensive stability by not being so sleight in frame.
The passing argument is only part of the issue, he's very erratic in that department and you can't have the amount of careless touches and passes he has so close to your own box. He wasn't helped by Pogba today but he's positionally clueless and got mugged time and again by Adama.
He's fecking useless this guy. I'm sorry, seems like a nice guy, but that doesn't mean anything when Adama is ripping you every two minutes and banishing you to the shadow realm. 50m on him 
I mean, thank you, I feel exactly the same. How can anyone see Fred's display today and not see that the passing was good is beyond me as well. I feel like I'm debating reality at this point, if the next point of debate was the existence of gravity it wouldn't feel any less surreal.
His slightness of frame is indeed a problem and he does get dribbled through a lot partly because of it. But we're talking about a midfielder here who has managed to become a mainstay both for United and Brazil and people think he'd be very easy to replace. It's an outlandish view. At some point you have to consider whether you're misjudging what you're seeing.
You can't be serious. You think that was a game of good passing?
Right back at yaYou can't be serious. You think that was a game of good passing?
AWB had 94.9% passing accuracy. What a passing performanceRight back at ya
Strengths: Gas tank, acceleration?
Weaknesses: Strength, technique, passing, shooting, positioning
Might seem a bit harsh but that’s honestly how I see it
I'm waiting for the more detailed stats to come out, but I didn't see AWB beat the press with any forward passing, all his passing was sideways and backwards.
I saw Fred doing that several times today though.
- Status