Are we a CDM short of being an elite team?

croadyman

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Yeah hopefully people can now see we could have a top class midfield and this coaching team would still have us playing crap
 

Water Melon

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We are short of a world-class manager and top coaches of being an elite team. This is the hartsh truth. We will not be able to buy our way to major titles. Chelsea and City have as much money (if not more) than we do whilst having much better managers as well. Pool have a much better manager too. What we are deficient of compared to our main rivals in the league is the coaching team. I hope the Board pull the trigger if we do not challenege for major titles this season.
 
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croadyman

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We are short of a world-class manager and top coaches of being an elite team. This is the hartsh truth. We will not be able to buy our way to major titles. Chelsea and City have as much money (if not more) than we do whilst having much better managers as well. Pool have a much better manager too. What we are deficient of copared to our main rivals in the league is the coaching team. I hope the Board pull the trigger if we do not challenege for major titles this season.
Don't get your hopes up because we both know all Ole has to do to remain in the job
 

Amadaeus

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We are short of a world-class manager and top coaches of being an elite team. This is the hartsh truth. We will not be able to buy our way to major titles. Chelsea and City have as much money (if not more) than we do whilst having much better managers as well. Pool have a much better manager too. What we are deficient of copared to our main rivals in the league is the coaching team. I hope the Board pull the trigger if we do not challenege for major titles this season.
We have been allowing Ole to stay on as long as he have by giving him quality players. Until we get back to the United standards, rather than the Arsenal or Spurs standards, we will never get that top coach we need to be an elite team.
 

Stacks

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Not, it should be the other way round. Why did Chelsea won the league in 1 season, lost in the wilderness in the following, then won it again with a new manager, in the following season, with practically the same squad?

Chelsea again, how did Chelsea flipped in the middle of a season, with a new manager in charge, with the same squad?

In fact, there are numerous examples of Big Sam saving the day, in the middle of a season.

An inept manager can easily ruin a winning squad, just ask ourselves what happen a few years back. I don't think any of us would expect Moyes to step in and win again, but at least maintaining Top 4, make a few changes, and push forward again.

Beside, your definition of Best players in every position, could easily change, when a new manager has different perspective. Such as goalkeeper that can dribble; trying to make 100 cross into the box, when your #9 is 1.7m tall, and so on.
Yeah but the board seem happy with Ole and he has a lot of support from important figures in the media which I know they listen to so I've accepted this fact that he is ok so long as we progress a bit and make top 4. He hasn't done a bad job that warrants replacing (2nd place finish) so technically yes we will have to compensate for his limitations with as much individual talent as possible
 

Nevilles.Wear.Prada

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Yeah but the board seem happy with Ole and he has a lot of support from important figures in the media which I know they listen to so I've accepted this fact that he is ok so long as we progress a bit and make top 4. He hasn't done a bad job that warrants replacing (2nd place finish) so technically yes we will have to compensate for his limitations with as much individual talent as possible
The board is kinda disjointed from the fans. The fans don't give ole much stick because he is a club legend (brilliant move by Ed). The media will give him free ride because he has lot of friends there and such a nice guy. Once in a while they make huge signings to please the fans and PR is covered. Everyone else has cought up. Meanwhile, they can continue leech the club and get sponsors upin sponsors because we are such a brand.
How much extra money the club will get by winning EPL? 50-80mil? Liverpool won title and CL, how much their finances have improved. Its only prestige.
Compared to how much money they need to dish out to bring on a elite manager, make his signings, revamp the coaching staff, recruit competent people who aren't yes men and fix the stadium?
Trophies are bonus to them. Its the TV deals, sponsors probably their KPIs.
They aren't fans you know, they are business people. I'd do exactly what they are doing. Because the status quo, it simply works for them. Worst come worst, some businessmen will always buy Manchester United.
Letting go of Ole means fans become even more objective restless and outspoken in defeats. He'll stay. He has to.
 

youmeletsfly

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We are short of a world-class manager and top coaches of being an elite team. This is the hartsh truth. We will not be able to buy our way to major titles. Chelsea and City have as much money (if not more) than we do whilst having much better managers as well. Pool have a much better manager too. What we are deficient of compared to our main rivals in the league is the coaching team. I hope the Board pull the trigger if we do not challenege for major titles this season.
Give a Ferrari to a taxi driver and he'll crash it in a few corners. I agree that a better manager could be useful, but I also think we have two huge holes at DM and RB that feck us up way too often.
 

Stacks

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Give a Ferrari to a taxi driver and he'll crash it in a few corners. I agree that a better manager could be useful, but I also think we have two huge holes at DM and RB that feck us up way too often.
Its amazing Chelsea won the CL with the glaring hole of "no reliable goal scorers upfront" . Highest scorer was Werner with 12. Amazing City won the league with no CF or LB but alas, United have to have a perfect 11 to compete. You know why that is right?
 

youmeletsfly

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Its amazing Chelsea won the CL with the glaring hole of "no reliable goal scorers upfront" . Highest scorer was Werner with 12. Amazing City won the league with no CF or LB but alas, United have to have a perfect 11 to compete. You know why that is right?
They have good cover all around the pitch, even without a missing striker.
We have AWB that can't hit a ball for his life and honestly, he's not even EPL material at this point. Nobody said we need 11 perfect players, I said that he's worse even than Leicester's reserve players, and he obviously is.
 

hmchan

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They have good cover all around the pitch, even without a missing striker.
We have AWB that can't hit a ball for his life and honestly, he's not even EPL material at this point. Nobody said we need 11 perfect players, I said that he's worse even than Leicester's reserve players, and he obviously is.
Everyone knew AWB was poor on the ball, even back in Crystal Palace. This is definitely on the manager who bought him and made him a regular starter.
 

LuckyScout78

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Can anyone dissect how the feck did we won the 20th title with mediocre midfield?
Do you know reason why Sir Alex convinced Scholes to made comeback out of his first retirement? The manuscript was written. And Sir Alex knew what he was doing. Brought back one of the best central midfield player in history. To win his and the club last.
Sir Alex won to win the last time before he retired. And retire and quit when you are on the highest. Not loosing legacy. And even a 80 % of Scholes and not a peak Scholes was enough to help United to win the league.

Conclusion : Two of bigggest reasons of United 20 league title were Sir Alex and Scoles. Sir Alex knew he couldnt win the last league title without one of his greatest warrior of his and United golden era.
Legends came and retire after Scholes like Eric Cantona and C.Ronaldo. The last Sir Alex he could trust and help him was : The complete central midfield player Paul Scholes. A genious of midfield player. Einstein of football. His creative and the way he see the passes/things and the way he read the football. A lesser you talk. As more the action would bigger. Scholes didnt talk at all. But his action on this pitch, have been recoqnized down to Barca with students like Iniesa, Messi, Xavi and Barca players.

Sir Alex = The greatest leader in football

Under his wings = the longest servant warrior and greatest = Scholes. Beside the Ryan Giggs

But to be honest. United didnt have a mediorce midfield. If you have a midfield consist of Giggs - Scholes - Carrick. Its a really good midfield.

But again. The already manuscript was written. One of the best CF that time joined United in Van Persie. Scholes out of retirement. A still hunger Giggs and a bulldoser of a CF in Wayne Rooney. Dont you think the manuscript of the movie Sir Alex, Manchester United and his great warriors. Would end with a happy ending? Those reasons have happen for some reasons. And those reasons all together lead to the 20 league title. Fate & manuscript. Some manuscript you can change. But some fate and manuscript you cant. Like someone is meant to be king or president.

Most of time. Find the one with the biggest and highest good karma and luck. And you will find the reason. And that was Sir Alex and Scholes;) Then they would have a crew and great warriors and teammates surround them.
 

Salwan

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I would argue that a RB with some decent footballing ability is a much more pressing need than a DM.
I encourage everyone to focus on AWB during our matches and watch how:

- opposing teams create pressing traps and encourage our players to pass AWB the ball during our build-up
- opposing teams ignore him in the final third, overloading our left side and creating spacing issues (NBA fans know how important spacing is)
- even our own players ignore him and don't pass him the ball if avoidable

imagine someone even 70% as good as Shaw at RB. this would fundamentally transform our play.
 
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Do you know reason why Sir Alex convinced Scholes to made comeback out of his first retirement? The manuscript was written. And Sir Alex knew what he was doing. Brought back one of the best central midfield player in history. To win his and the club last.
Sir Alex won to win the last time before he retired. And retire and quit when you are on the highest. Not loosing legacy. And even a 80 % of Scholes and not a peak Scholes was enough to help United to win the league.

Most of time. Find the one with the biggest and highest good karma and luck. And you will find the reason. And that was Sir Alex and Scholes;) Then they would have a crew and great warriors and teammates surround them.
Besides reading like an awful WWE promo, this is also completely wrong.

Scholes started 8 games that season (and we lost 2 of them with him getting utterly bullied by Everton and Tottenham's midfields) and played fewer than 800 minutes.
 

Stacks

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They have good cover all around the pitch, even without a missing striker.
We have AWB that can't hit a ball for his life and honestly, he's not even EPL material at this point. Nobody said we need 11 perfect players, I said that he's worse even than Leicester's reserve players, and he obviously is.
So do we! literally all our positions have £50 million players and we have multiple 20 goal/20 assist attackers. The cheek of ya
 

Sparky Rhiwabon

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Had we might as well start this season's Top Four race thread? Looks like the best we can hope for already.
 

Dante

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Leeds: McTominay, Fred
The Leeds game was one where we dominated them. I think this is our best midfield.

Southampton: Matic, Fred
We didn't do too badly in this game. Should have won.

Wolves: Pogba, Fred
Wolves walked right through us. There was no protection for the back four.

Newcastle: Pogba, Matic
Newcastle barely showed up. But when they did, they walked right through us again.

Young Boys: VDB, Fred
No control of the match. We looked solid before the sending off, but not to the extent you'd expect from 5th favourites for the CL.

I think it's clear we're better with two DMs rather than one DM plus one CM. McTominay is better than Fred, and Fred is better than Matic. But any two of those two together is better than with either Pogba or VDB in midfield.

I get the calls for a more creative midfield. That's fine if it means adding creativity to a midfield that's already capable of controlling of the match. But neither of our creative options provides us any control in the first place. One's a positionally inept long ball specialist and the other is a physically weak late runner into the box.

You can control a midfield with passing tempo, or with numbers, or with physicality. We don't have anyone capable of the first. And we can't do the second without sacrificing Bruno's best qualities. So the third is our best choice until we strengthen in the transfer window.
 

VinzentFTW

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Ole is just a cheap failsafe. He will deliver the bare minimum and nobody in the team will turn against him preventing doom and gloom.
 

cyril C

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Yet we gave up next to nothing dangerous until the goal for 30 minutes, a man down
Yeah but the board seem happy with Ole and he has a lot of support from important figures in the media which I know they listen to so I've accepted this fact that he is ok so long as we progress a bit and make top 4. He hasn't done a bad job that warrants replacing (2nd place finish) so technically yes we will have to compensate for his limitations with as much individual talent as possible
Well, Arteta might still out-last Ole. Fulfilling Corporate requirement is always important.
 
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Yeah but the board seem happy with Ole and he has a lot of support from important figures in the media which I know they listen to so I've accepted this fact that he is ok so long as we progress a bit and make top 4. He hasn't done a bad job that warrants replacing (2nd place finish) so technically yes we will have to compensate for his limitations with as much individual talent as possible
Think that will change this season. The board know that they have backed him with two things that no other manager at any other club has ever received and that’s money and time. Usually you get one or the other, but never both. Yet he’s received both, the board knows it, fans know it, pundits are starting to say it, and this is now or never for him.

Don’t get me wrong a thrilling title challenge that goes to the last day and we lose due the opposition keeper having a blinder then I’ll accept that. But a season that petters out by March/April shouldn’t be accepted.
 

Adisa

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More players only make us elite on paper but won't translate on the pitch.
 

Siorac

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And even a 80 % of Scholes and not a peak Scholes was enough to help United to win the league.
I loved Scholes more than any other United player but he was more or less irrelevant to that last league title. He played 749 minutes in the Premier League in 2012/13 - fecking Anderson played more than that. The only players to feature less were Nani, Büttner, Fletcher, and Nick Powell. Anders Lindegaard played more than Scholes!

He did manage to pick up 6 yellow cards in 8 games' worth of playing time though. Which is funny.
 

redIndianDevil

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We will always be short of something when we are not being coached properly. Next season we sign CDM, then it's going to be we don't have a proper centre forward, then it will be we don't have an attacking RB and it will go on and on.

My point team no team is going to be perfect. There will always be a weak link in the squad. Good coaching and tactics will make us more than a sum of the parts.
 

InfiniteBoredom

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I loved Scholes more than any other United player but he was more or less irrelevant to that last league title. He played 749 minutes in the Premier League in 2012/13 - fecking Anderson played more than that. The only players to feature less were Nani, Büttner, Fletcher, and Nick Powell. Anders Lindegaard played more than Scholes!

He did manage to pick up 6 yellow cards in 8 games' worth of playing time though. Which is funny.
Yeah he had a nice resurgence of form coming out of retirement in the second half of 11/12, and deserved to win the league title that year if not for our calamitous meltdown starting with the Wigan away game. In 12/13 he was pretty much done and it was Carrick who carried that midfield week in week out.
 

Massive Spanner

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Yeah he had a nice resurgence of form coming out of retirement in the second half of 11/12, and deserved to win the league title that year if not for our calamitous meltdown starting with the Wigan away game. In 12/13 he was pretty much done and it was Carrick who carried that midfield week in week out.
Carrick was unbelievable in 12/13. I'd go so far as to say he was even more instrumental in our league win than RvP.
 

gabbythered

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I think we need a master class CDM to be on the top ,, right now our team is more complete than 8 years ago , a player like kante or casimiero or verrati would make a complete team in all positions , enen though with all these master class players in our team we have no excuse

Tutuapp 9Apps ShowBox
 
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Red4Life_#7

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Its amazing Chelsea won the CL with the glaring hole of "no reliable goal scorers upfront" . Highest scorer was Werner with 12. Amazing City won the league with no CF or LB but alas, United have to have a perfect 11 to compete. You know why that is right?
Why?

United can win the league this year. Our signings have been from out of this world this summer to add to a growing squad.

McTom can sit in behind Pogba and Bruno. He can do a job there, he's altletic and switched on defensively enough. Our attack especially when a rested Rashford comes back to add to what we already will be enough to win us big games.

RB is an area of concern... AWB needs more experience at the top level.

I would argue that a RB with some decent footballing ability is a much more pressing need than a DM.
I encourage everyone to focus on AWB during our matches and watch how:

- opposing teams create pressing traps and encourage our players to pass AWB the ball during our build-up
- opposing teams ignore him in the final third, overloading our left side and creating spacing issues (NBA fans know how important spacing is)
- even our own players ignore him and don't pass him the ball if avoidable

imagine someone even 70% as good as Shaw at RB. this would fundamentally transform our play.
AWB use to be a winger too, I don't understand it. But his crosses were getting better at the end of last season. I'm sure he is still working on it. I just don't understand why he takes so many touches, especially why he always comes infield.
 

Eli Zee

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I thought we were a RW short of a great team??
We're one manager short of a great team. Basically, we have a great team but a mediocre manager, which makes us just good.

I love Ole but he's reallly probably not a great manager. He's good at identifying the type of players we need, I will give him that
 

MacarisSocks

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We could have bought a decent and very much CDM if our manager would have offloaded some deadwood from our wage bill and sold Lingard. However reading now the OGS made it clear to David Moyes that Lingard was 'not for sale'.

I'm not quite sure if this club could ever challenge the current cream of the crop while we have this tactically inept manager with his overly sentimental jobs for the boys mentally.
 

Abraxas

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Does anybody know much about Bruno Guimarães from Lyon?

He has a very interesting statistical profile. Genuinely top level in many areas. It would be good to know what the eye test says because it isn't a name that's appearing very often.
 

Stacks

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We're one manager short of a great team. Basically, we have a great team but a mediocre manager, which makes us just good.

I love Ole but he's reallly probably not a great manager. He's good at identifying the type of players we need, I will give him that
perhaps the fairest assessment I have seen on here
We could have bought a decent and very much CDM if our manager would have offloaded some deadwood from our wage bill and sold Lingard. However reading now the OGS made it clear to David Moyes that Lingard was 'not for sale'.

I'm not quite sure if this club could ever challenge the current cream of the crop while we have this tactically inept manager with his overly sentimental jobs for the boys mentally.
I don't think he is tactically inept as he has overseen some great victories especially against top sides. We rarely ever get hammered and our games vs Liverpool, City, Chelsea, PSG are fairly even.
 

Ronaldo's Love Child

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perhaps the fairest assessment I have seen on here

I don't think he is tactically inept as he has overseen some great victories especially against top sides. We rarely ever get hammered and our games vs Liverpool, City, Chelsea, PSG are fairly even.
He doesn't have to be tactically inept in every match but just enough to deny us winning a trophy.

Wait for tomorrow. We'll have the right winger we've been crying out for and yet he will cut inside more often than not.