I mean Wolves do a lot more defending, especially last season.
Luckhurst: United prepared to move for a holding midfielder in January
- Thread starter Valar Morghulis
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
You realize they play different positions, yes?
Fred as the pivot of a midfield is TERRIBLE. He just doesn't have the skills. McTominay got injured at the wrong time too. Matic is actually a better fit tbh.
Then why does Neves also blitz him in attacking stats too? Do they do more attacking and defending? Tbf they probably do as we spent most of our games watching McTominay and Fred pass the ball sideways to each other.
If you coach is good at his job then its not definite. City won title with no CF and you would be saying we cannot win the title with no CF either. Liverpool won the title with Milner in midfield so for for the first time in his spell, our gaffer really has to prove his worth.
They both play as 8s so no they don't. Anyway, the fact that McTominay even plays as an 8 is part of the problem. People have this fantasy that he'll return from injury and fix our CDM issue when he's not even a CDM.
Neves plays as a 6.
No he doesn't. He used to but he started playing much further up the pitch 2 seasons ago*
1. We signed 6 players in 2014 and 2015, didn't really get us anywhere.
2. Most of those players that I assume you mean (that "offer nothing") weren't signed by Ole and they're hard to shift because of their high wages. Check our squad in December 2018 and see how much deadwood we've already got rid of.
3. I'm sure that OGS "hates" van de Beek
Sancho is hardly a world-class signing, let’s give him time to see if he makes it at this level and if he has the confidence to succeed. Notching home assists in the Bundesliga against wide open defensive units is not the same as the Premier League, far from it.
We bought a lad for 75m to sit on the bench? Just to shoehorn Lindelof back into the guest team after we’ve spent 45m to upgrade on him?
That's not the right argument though. If we somehow cloned all our players and played the 5-3-2 above against our standard 4-2-3-1, who will win? I think the 5-3-2 edges it unless you have McFred in the 4-2-3-1 and drop Pogba entirely.
And who is to blame for us going into this season needing a CB and RW? Why did we not sign the CB we clearly needed last season instead of wasting 40 odd million on a midfielder the manager never wanted and another 20m on a teenage winger the manager doesn't trust or feel inclined to use?
We would have been better off spending the money we wasted on VDB and Diallo on a CB or DM and then go into this window not needing so much. It's all water under the bridge now and Ole has got to think creatively to conjure up a solution that doesn't involve expecting 50 plus games from McFred or hoping that Matic pulls back the clock and gives us 20 or so quality performances because chances of those things happening are close to zero.
Surely we could have still sold Donny for a decent fee this summer, even if we need somewhat of a loss. Its clear ole doesn't trust him in the pivot so he is second or third backup for bruno which is pointless. We should have cut our losses and used the funds to buy a midfielder who can play in a double pivot. Adding that to the money we could have got for lingard makes the lack of midfield signings seem so avoidable
1. So what?
2. All those high wage deals were signed under Ole, in that sense he signed all of those players. Martial and Jones got their new deals in early 2019. Matic got his last year. Lingard's one year extension was triggered under Ole. Mata and Grant got their extensions earlier this summer. And VdB as well obviously. Those 7 players' collective wages represent a feckton of money (about £43m) for what will be very little return on the pitch this season. And to add insult to the idiocy, Lingard, Mata and VdB all play (at their best) in exactly the same position.
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If he’s not fitting it here, what makes anyone believe that some elite club or other is going to take him for the 30m+ we paid for him?
Please don’t cite the James example. He got games and minutes ahead of DVB so I’m not surprised clubs like Leeds went in for him
The way people frown at this idea you would think its an outlandish idea that has been tried and tested by teams that have won Championships before. Declan Rice, the touted solution to our DM issues, started out as a CB, players like Dani Alves played RB and CM effectively so too did Pepe when Jose wanted a thug to rough up Barca or Edmilson back in the day for Brazil and Barcelona.
I think Lindelof has the skillet to be a short term solution to a troublesome position. One thing is for sure our current options just aren't good enough so it shouldn't hurt to give it a try. Doing nothing and persisting with the Fred, Matic and McT trio will do more damage than trying a creative left field solution like trying Lindelof there.
I would be all for giving Lindelof a go at CDM. He can't be worse than Fred or Matic, not physically possible.
He's spineless when defending his own box but his through balls to Rashford and Bruno are excellent.
He's spineless when defending his own box but his through balls to Rashford and Bruno are excellent.
Next summer we should see several players move on including Jones, Matic, Mata, Martial, and possibly Bailly. Maybe we can get someone in January if available.
Kind of wish we had kept Axel Tuanzabe and loaned/sold Dalot instead as he could have been tried there.
I love your responses here. McTominay is not our midfield savior but it's interesting seeing all the adulation he receives while Fred gets all the flack for basically not hiding from the ball like McTominay does.
So this article is turning out to be bollocks at the end. Not because Ronaldo wasn't a significant signing, but was written well before the transfer when we were not in for him.
Still got a few hours but doesnt sound we are in for anyone else. Hope to be wrong and theres a CM in mind.
Still got a few hours but doesnt sound we are in for anyone else. Hope to be wrong and theres a CM in mind.
Fred also gets lot of praise and McTominay gets lot of shit. So both of them gets praised and both of them gets lot of shit, just like any other ManUtd players.
I think we'll go in for Ndidi next summer, he'll have two years left on his deal and our finances should be healthier after full stadium for a season.
Portugal better, the one who won Euros and League of nations? Those kind of questions don't exist as far as I'm concerned.
As for Juve he was good for them and wasn't because of him they didn't do well in CL.
We absolutely needed a RW cause imo Greenwood is a striker although he does good at RW and we haven't had a proper RW for ages. Even if Mason was good there and he was we need cover.
Well i think we should have been willing to make a loss on him to fund a midfielder. Saying that i think we could still get a good fee for him and he would be of interest to other european clubs. It seems clear we signed him without having an idea of how to use him so i dont think you can write him off as a player hecause he has struggled
Portugal won the euros five years ago, they went out in the round of 16 this year and were generally unimpressive.
At juve he scored a lot of goals but many think he unbalanced the team and his presence coincided with poorer team performance
Can't believe people thought Rio had any inside knowledge here. Like Roy Keane said on Sunday don't believe these pundits who pretend they know everything that's happening inside clubs
In any case having Ronaldo certainly hasn't been the problem. Not in this Euros nor before.
As for Juve that's just silly talk imo. How exactly did the unbalance the team?
You can't say anything definite, no CDM no title too. League is stronger and we're stronger too.
We're going to have to make do with a double pivot, but what that means of course is that an attacking player will have to be sacrificed.
But who? The Undroppables are Ronaldo, Bruno and Pogba. We either go with Pogba in the pivot so we can unleash two of Sancho, Greenwood and Rashford or we go with McFred but then only one of JS, MR and MG get the start. Yes, injuries and rotation will play their part over the course of a season, but on any given day if we are to unleash our best XI we'll have to leave off someone who should be starting for us. A great problem to have, but we didn't spend 70m to bench Sancho. Greenwood, well, is grown into a beast. Rashford will return...a beast.
The hope is that McTominay can grow into a DM, but at the age of 24 can he do it? I have my doubts.
But who? The Undroppables are Ronaldo, Bruno and Pogba. We either go with Pogba in the pivot so we can unleash two of Sancho, Greenwood and Rashford or we go with McFred but then only one of JS, MR and MG get the start. Yes, injuries and rotation will play their part over the course of a season, but on any given day if we are to unleash our best XI we'll have to leave off someone who should be starting for us. A great problem to have, but we didn't spend 70m to bench Sancho. Greenwood, well, is grown into a beast. Rashford will return...a beast.
The hope is that McTominay can grow into a DM, but at the age of 24 can he do it? I have my doubts.
It's not Rio's fault people on here totally wilfully misunderstood what he said.
It’s ok we can put the iceman there and then it frees up Fred to play in his preferred LB position
That can be said about any other league in Europe. I suppose we'll have to see if Varane is good enough for the PL as well?
Chelsea had Kante, Jorginho, Kovacic and yet they buy Saul.
We have Matic, McT and Fred. We buy no one.
That's why they are favourites for the title, and we are not. They dont feck around like we do. If they see a gap, they plug it, and dont wait for next summer.
We have Matic, McT and Fred. We buy no one.
That's why they are favourites for the title, and we are not. They dont feck around like we do. If they see a gap, they plug it, and dont wait for next summer.
These are some of the posts from one thread back in 2009 when we sold Ronaldo. I remember reading similar posts from Madrid fans when they sold him and now we see the same from Juventus. It's nothing new, he just proves everyone wrong all the time.
See you all next transfer window, we are done. So glad I didn't waste my time on the Saul, Camavinga, Neves nonsense.
It’s the Glazers mate, they aren’t giving away players for a loss. WHU didn’t meet our valuation for Jesse so we walked away from it.
This nonsense is quite ridiculous
Terrible plan and close to the transfer window following Ronaldo transfer. Just because we've made some other strong deals in the window, it doesn't mean that we should ignore one of the biggest glaring weaknesses in the entire squad and hope that everything will be okay. Not signing a viable DM option can very well cost us the PL title and other silverware we could win this season. It would be one thing if we signed a younger Ronaldo but he's 36 years old and has a couple years to offer at high level at best.
To be fair we had a few gaps to plug and didn't do to bad in that regard, Ronaldo included as a top goalscorer.
I think it's pretty obvious we're after Rice and to get him it's going to cost a fortune, something we couldn't do this window (as gutted as I am).
I still think we're good enough to challenge but the defensivve midfield issue will probably see us fall short.