"Yurrien" surely
Jurriën Timber | Arsenal player
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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?
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30 million according to BBC? If I was Ajax I would be laughing at that sum. Surely they want much more than that.
AWB has done a good job of raising his value this season. I don't think we'd struggle for suitors for him and we could cover the majority of the fee for a new RB with his sale.
It's shewrrien
I'm sure if that becomes an option then the club will take it, but at the moment there doesn't look like any suitors. The bid would probably only come from within the EPL, and the best we'd get is probably a loan offer right now.
Take them to the cleaners Ajax.
Jurriën
Barca is broke, Madrid has Rudiger, Militao and Alaba. City has so many cbs that they even play some of them as fullbacks, Bayern is signing Ming Jae Kim.
He may not be as good as everyone claimed a year ago, but he's surely a top top prospect.
A year ago when ETH wanted sign him, he preferred staying at Ajax to get consistent game time. Even though our CB option where Lindelof, Maguire and a half injured Varane, he preferred the comfort of Eredevise as opposed to a new challenge.
Compare that to Licha, who was all but signed by Arsenal, but gave us a call and asked ETH to sign him up.
With that type of mentality he is going to fit right in at Arsenal
Compare that to Licha, who was all but signed by Arsenal, but gave us a call and asked ETH to sign him up.
With that type of mentality he is going to fit right in at Arsenal
You're proving my point where I said that being tall seems like the sole determinant in who wins a header. So using your argument, if they got away with it by pairing him with Gabriel, what would happen if the other team brought another player off the bench that was slightly taller than Gabriel? Would that render their defence utterly useless? And if your argument is true, why were Pep's Barcelona so hard to beat if it was so easily exploitable? They had like two tall players in the team (Piqué, Busquets). Is it as simple as nobody thinking of sticking three tall players in the team against them?
I don't think you're understanding that them being small is a large part as to why they're bad in the air. They could also be really poor at timing, jumping and reading the flight of the ball as well, but it's their height that really puts them in the bottom percentiles for aerials won.
Your Gabriel point doesn't make much sense as he's good in the air. So if you brought on someone "taller" they'd win a few more headers, but he'd still be effective in the air. If you have two CBs are in the bottom percentiles for aerial duels, I wonder where you'll get most of your success?
Pep had Puyol and Pique who weren't shite in the air.
I think you're saying height isn't the sole determinant to if you're good in the air - which is true, but you can't just point to Baresi and Cannavaro use that as the rule. They are both objectively terrible in the air and that's massively down to their height. It would be a glaring weakness that would be easily exploited as they're both so poor in the air.
But your argument falls flat on the basis that teams who attempted to continuously exploit their height (or their opponents' relative lack thereof) never went on to be very successful.
If height = aerial prowess and exploiting that is so easy for a team, then surely Stoke would have been a much better team than they actually were, especially considering that they used Rory Delap to make every other throw-in a corner-like situation.
It might very well be the case that Timber is poor in the air, but to use his height as the only argument is as nonsensical as saying that Wout Weghorst will help us score more goals from corners because he's tall.
30 million seems way too low for a player who was being really hyped up a year or so back. Didn't have a great World cup i felt and was outshone by Ake but I remember a lot of people saying he has great potential.
I don't need to prove teams that those teams are successful in general, just that they would be against us and would likely drop points against them. Name me a successful team in the prem that had a CB pairing of a 5ft 9 and 5ft 10, who both sit in the bottom 10 percentile of aerials won? No successful team ever sets up like that because it's fecking stupid.
Stoke literally outperformed because they were a team of fecking giants and we're good in the air.
It's not the only arguement as I said, him being small is a large part of why he is bad in the air. It's the same with Martinez, he's actually good technically in the air, but the main reason he loses duels is because he's small.
So he was pictured at the cup final, no links at all from any decent journalist yet a decent amount supporters thought we were nailed on to get him. Guy just probably fancied a trip to London
Remember takeover or not our budget doesn't really change this summer unless we can shift a few players for decent amounts. Seems like our main targets are Mount, striker, goalkeeper then defence.
Remember takeover or not our budget doesn't really change this summer unless we can shift a few players for decent amounts. Seems like our main targets are Mount, striker, goalkeeper then defence.
Would be wary of this signing anyway, I mean what are the chances that both the Ajax cb defenders when ETH left would just so happened to be good enough for United? not very imo.
I think it's fair to say that we've got the best two already.
I think it's fair to say that we've got the best two already.
Nobody in the Prem's tried it so your question's non-answerable because there's no team that's tried it and failed for the reasons you claim they would. But here's one example from abroad. Ajax. And the bonus is that it's literally the same two guys that we're discussing. Conceded 19 goals in 34 games in the league and reached the CL semi finals.
Outperformed what? 15th place? Yeah, if that's what you mean I'll take your point. And then once Pulis left and took his "cheat code" with him they went from finishing 12th, 11th, 13th, 14th and 13th to finishing 9th three seasons in a row.
They got to the Semis with De Ligt - someone who's actually good in the air and funnily enough after he left, they only made the group stage twice and then last 16 where they were knocked out by Benfica. And wouldn't you know it, how did they go out...
Timber losing a header to Nunez at a corner.
Pulis got them into the Fa cup final and Europe for fecks sake, with Kenwyne Jones and Jonathan Walters.
My bad, got the CL seasons mixed up.
In any case, my point is that a player can be good or bad in the air regardless of their height (see Weghorst for the opposite example), but it's only ever the height that's used as an example. Having tall centre halves doesn't guarantee that you don't concede goals from corners as we've seen with us shipping goals from set pieces long before we had a short centre half. It's more a matter of organisation (and having a commanding keeper which we haven't had for the past decade) among all the players defending the corner, and not conceding more corners than necessary.
Stoke had some good results obviously and had some upsets, but if it was such an easy exploit to just be taller than the opponents and bombard them aerially then surely they'd be more consistent performers which is reflected much more over a 38 game season.
I do understand what your saying, I just don't think your logic tracks. Having tall centre halves doesn't mean we'll definitely not have problems defensively, but that doesn't mean you go the opposite way and disregard height in your CBs as ever possibly being an issue.
The upsets are literally the point though. They would be against teams like us if we had that glaring vulnerability.
1) The poster above is correct that height isn't the same as aerial ability. But Timber is relatively lacking in both regards, so it doesn't particularly make a difference in this case.
2) The fact that there aren't other examples of sub 5ft 10 CB pairings doesn't tell you it can't work in the right system, because there's an availability issue at play. Because of all the teams that play football only a portion play that sort of system at the highest level. And when those teams look to buy a CB, they are shopping in a market where nearly every player is taller than 5f 10. So teams are unlikely to end up with that pairing even if a given pairing would fully function.
3) The basic argument that height/aerial ability is overrated in a possession based team is sound. Aerial duels make up a tiny portion of the actions they engage in during a game, including in England. In real terms ability in space, in ground duels and on the ball are all vastly more important attributes.
However, there will still be moments where that aerial weakness will hurt, so there's no getting around that it is a negative. And while it can be ameliorated in open play somewhat (though not entirely) it would certainly be an issue at set-pieces, requiring greater aerial ability in other positions to compensate. At which point you have to ask whether there really isn't anyone in all of world football you could sign other than Timber who is excellent at all the more important aspects of being a CB he's good at while also being less weak in the air. How much weaker would that other player need to be in those areas for some trade-off for aerial ability not to be worthwhile?
2) The fact that there aren't other examples of sub 5ft 10 CB pairings doesn't tell you it can't work in the right system, because there's an availability issue at play. Because of all the teams that play football only a portion play that sort of system at the highest level. And when those teams look to buy a CB, they are shopping in a market where nearly every player is taller than 5f 10. So teams are unlikely to end up with that pairing even if a given pairing would fully function.
3) The basic argument that height/aerial ability is overrated in a possession based team is sound. Aerial duels make up a tiny portion of the actions they engage in during a game, including in England. In real terms ability in space, in ground duels and on the ball are all vastly more important attributes.
However, there will still be moments where that aerial weakness will hurt, so there's no getting around that it is a negative. And while it can be ameliorated in open play somewhat (though not entirely) it would certainly be an issue at set-pieces, requiring greater aerial ability in other positions to compensate. At which point you have to ask whether there really isn't anyone in all of world football you could sign other than Timber who is excellent at all the more important aspects of being a CB he's good at while also being less weak in the air. How much weaker would that other player need to be in those areas for some trade-off for aerial ability not to be worthwhile?
The height thing wouldn't be as important because I think wherever he goes it is likely he will be at right back most of the time.
I don’t get why Arsenal have very publicly bid when he has a release clause that activates in two weeks.
He does?
Arsenal seem to be trying to please their fans at the moment, Havertz, Lavia, Timber and Rice?
Yeah right.
According to some Dutch article this evening there’s a clause in the contract extension he agreed last year that is active in two weeks - and it’s not that high.
It would make sense if the clause was lower than our bid but there's no way he managed to get a 30M or lower release clause in his contract. Ajax could get 40/45M from a PL team.
But why do you think that is?
I’m guessing because most players that end up playing at CB tend to be tall due to being put there in their youth years, so in order to stand out as a centre half of lower stature you need to stand out in terms of other attributes, attributes which have only recently become much more important for certain managers.
It’s the same with goalkeepers where shot-stopping ability was the main thing previously but where other attributes normally associated with outfield players have now become much more important due to the evolution of football.
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Release clause is usually paid as single lumpsum amount, Arsenal will want to split the cost into multiple years to align with FFP and complete other bigger signings.
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I don't think the timing of the actual cash flows has any relation to the way costs are amortized for FFP/FSP.
Good post @sullydnl, that is what I'm getting at. There is always going to be trade offs, you can't have the perfect specimen in every position, but you have to account for that trade off somewhere in your team, otherwise it's an obvious area to exploit regularly.
Taking your GK example, people aren't going to start suddenly signing a 5ft 10 keeper because he's good on the ball, that's why Claudio Bravo got moved on and City signed a 6ft 2 version of him. There are certain positions where it's extremely advantageous to being tall. CB and GKs have obvious reasons for that.
I think you probably need to give youth coaches a bit more credit at the top level. They don't just get put there because they're tall, it's more likely because there's a strong correlation to winning aerial duels and height. There will always be exceptions and I don't think managers in this day and age would ever sign a taller CB who is statistically worse in the air than a smaller one. They may trade off that a smaller CB adds more to the team, like Martinez does, but there's no way you can just disregard aerial threat and just double down on other attributes and not expect it to cause issues in the long term.
Taking your GK example, people aren't going to start suddenly signing a 5ft 10 keeper because he's good on the ball, that's why Claudio Bravo got moved on and City signed a 6ft 2 version of him. There are certain positions where it's extremely advantageous to being tall. CB and GKs have obvious reasons for that.
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Is it just me but why are so many players "interested" to work with that fraud Arteta? What has he ever achieved besides bottling the league last season?
Yes FFP would be an issue. But that does cause cash flow problems.
You don't think its possible every top flight manager has some height and strength at CB because they think it essential?
Have any Caftards watched much of him? Can you tell me your thoughts, where he might fit, etc?
From what I've read, and the (very) little I've seen, he looks like a talented versatile defender that's good on the ball. I like what I saw.
But IMO it's hardly a pressing need. Though obviously good squad depth is what's needed to compete on multiple fronts.
From what I've read, and the (very) little I've seen, he looks like a talented versatile defender that's good on the ball. I like what I saw.
But IMO it's hardly a pressing need. Though obviously good squad depth is what's needed to compete on multiple fronts.
How is he a fraud? Clearly he's well respected by players and coaches in the know.
He'd play in White's role I'd imagine and he probably would be an upgrade sooner than later. He's excellent on the ball and as a passer. Last year under ten Hag, playing as a RB on paper:
If you didn't know that he was listed as RB today, one might have thought that he was playing in midfield. Going forward he definitely looked class.
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