“We don’t need him we have”

I like two great players in each position. Football is a squad game, we need quality back ups as back ups end up playing 20-30 games

Well yeah....

Those people are clueless. They think you only need 11 players. The concept of injuries, fatigue, rotation etc. doesn't exist in their heads.

Ironically a lot of them are the first to moan when injuries, fatigue and rotation happen, and some dud squad players are forced to fill in.

World class squad depth.

/thread.

4 top quality interchangeable players for 3 positions is the way forward. Martial, Greenwood, Rashford, Sancho and you have at least 2 players who can play RW, CF, LW. You don't lose anything when one of them is injured, and you won't have the '4th player' being unhappy as they will get plenty of minutes in rotation. After that, you probably need another back-up who can cover two of the positions at the least which we have in James.

Also isn't the whole 5 subs thing staying for next season as well, my guess is once it stayed for a year and a half it might be kept.

More good players is always a good thing. I want Sancho or havertz and may the form player start.

Anybody wants to ask Sancho if he wants to come to United and not have guaranteed starting position? Or how much he cares about "but team needs depth"? Modern-day football stars have huge egos and you cannot ignore it.

That said, people say Sancho can play left, right and attacking center midfielder with equal success. If that is the case, we should stop the talk of nonsense and pay whatever it takes to get him. Period.

I don't get it. 2 world class players in each positions? I struggled to maintain their happiness in FM, let alone real life!

See the benchmark team now, Liverpool doesn't have 2 world class players in each positions.. the team just work as a team, and that's good enough to win titles.

Signing Sancho is fine, but don't be surprised if Martial or Rashford left sometime in the near future.

Why is this a thread? It's an accepted opinion, not a thread for debate or open questions for the forum.

meamth said:

I don't get it. 2 world class players in each positions? I struggled to maintain their happiness in FM, let alone real life!

See the benchmark team now, Liverpool doesn't have 2 world class players in each positions.. the team just work as a team, and that's good enough to win titles.

Signing Sancho is fine, but don't be surprised if Martial or Rashford left sometime in the near future.

Click to expand...

I love them both, to the every bit. But isn't this how squad development supposed to be? And I don't think they'd leave. There's like 5x-6x games there if we get CL next season. Greenwood is just 18, he can't and should not play that much imo. Neither Martial or Rashford I think.

Strelok said:

I love them both, to the every bit. But isn't this how squad development supposed to be? And I don't think they'd leave. There's like 5x-6x games there if we get CL next season. Greenwood is just 18, he can't and should not play that much imo. Neither Martial or Rashford I think.

Click to expand...

Ronaldo was a starter when he was a teenager.
Rooney was a starter.
Messi, Mbappe, you name it. Greenwood is ready.

If you bring Sancho in, for sure someone will have to be like James, Mata and Ighalo now. No player of martial or Rashford calibre would be happy with this and will leave.

meamth said:

Ronaldo was a starter when he was a teenager.
Rooney was a starter.
Messi, Mbappe, you name it. Greenwood is ready.

If you bring Sancho in, for sure someone will have to be like James, Mata and Ighalo now. No player of martial or Rashford calibre would be happy with this and will leave.

Click to expand...

All cases you mentioned have a common thing: they were all fully physically matured at a very young age. Greenwood is still developing physically and playing him too much would do him no good imo.

This season we basically have our full trio available for like two months. I don't know about next season but what if it's the same ?

Regarding Bruno as well, he's effectively our only capable AM. Fit as he is, playing 50-60 games a season is really too much imo.

Signing Sancho would cover not only RW, LW but AM position as well. Considering injures risk, fatigue, rotation and the development of Greenwood we definitively should sign Sancho imo. Plus a talent as Sancho, if we don't sign him when we could, one day we're gonna regret it I think.

And no I don't think Rashford would ever leave. Even if he or Martial leaves, because of we have better options. Then I can live with that. Sorry but the club must be first I think.

meamth said:

I don't get it. 2 world class players in each positions? I struggled to maintain their happiness in FM, let alone real life!

See the benchmark team now, Liverpool doesn't have 2 world class players in each positions.. the team just work as a team, and that's good enough to win titles.

Signing Sancho is fine, but don't be surprised if Martial or Rashford left sometime in the near future.

Click to expand...

Well, you can keep them happy by the fact that we'll be in the hunt for major titles. Two, if one leaves, it means that we're left with the best 3 players of the 4.

Finally, it's entirely possible to give all 4 players 36 starts each, which is basically what Sancho got this season at Dortmund, and more than what Greenwood got this season (so he would have an improvement in terms of playing time for his development).

Sounds good to me

This idea is the strangest thing on this board. It's like people don't want us to sign WC talent because it might ruin what we already have (and what we already have for the most part isn't good enough yet)

We need lots of competition. I would love to have a Bruno back up, a DM, a left back, pacy CB and a RM this summer.

The drop off in quality From our front 4 is huge! Clearly why we struggled so mu Much before. I I’d argue we need another LW and sancho.

everyone would play enough, covering rest and injuries, and they’d likely all love it as we would batter most teams!

meamth said:

Ronaldo was a starter when he was a teenager.
Rooney was a starter.
Messi, Mbappe, you name it. Greenwood is ready.

If you bring Sancho in, for sure someone will have to be like James, Mata and Ighalo now. No player of martial or Rashford calibre would be happy with this and will leave.

Click to expand...

No they won’t, the amount of mid week games we have will give them loads of chances, and there will be general rotation.

432JuanMata said:

Weird thread title I know but hear me out.

I’m seeing a lot of (especially about Sancho) people commenting on the caf about signing a certain player will stop the development of another. Now I know our front 3 have been excellent lately and developing well but our backups to Rashford,Tony and Mason are James Mata and Ighalo.
Martial was out early on in the season and Rashford was up top and we came to the conclusion he wasn’t good enough as a 9 this also meant we had too replace him on the left with a player with a lot less quality.
Then Rashford got injured In January and again we were left with James and Lingard starting regularly.


Anyway we have a seriously strong starting 11 at the moment but our backups are a lot less in quality mainly in the attacking sense. If we qualify for CL next year we will have 55+ games we need a strong squad.
We should try sign Sancho and play the front 3 who are in form and it can be rotated.

Click to expand...

"We dont need" depends on what you're talking about. We certainly dont need him to come in the top 3 next season. Do we need him if we want to win the league next season? Yes. Do we need him if we want to be a threat once we're back in the champions league? Yes. But if we sign him and we're coming 3rd, then yeah we didnt need him and he hasnt delivered

Rewatch the Norwich game and see how flat we were.

Watch a City game and see who they're bringing on every week.

5 subs allowed next season as well, will suit bigger better quality squads.

Our fans seem to be against having strong squad depth for some reason.

meamth said:

I don't get it. 2 world class players in each positions? I struggled to maintain their happiness in FM, let alone real life!

See the benchmark team now, Liverpool doesn't have 2 world class players in each positions.. the team just work as a team, and that's good enough to win titles.

Signing Sancho is fine, but don't be surprised if Martial or Rashford left sometime in the near future.

Click to expand...

“We don’t need Sheringham & Solskjaer we have Yorke & Cole”

Having strong squad depth is the reason we won the treble. Keane & Scholes missed the final & our 2 main strikers weren’t firing, our bench came on & won it. Why are our fans so against us having good depth? If we lost Bruno & Pogba before a final & Rashford & Martial weren’t firing, you think Fred, McTominay, James & Ighalo could win it for us? No chance.

Samid said:

Those people are clueless. They think you only need 11 players. The concept of injuries, fatigue, rotation etc. doesn't exist in their heads.

Ironically a lot of them are the first to moan when injuries, fatigue and rotation happen, and some dud squad players are forced to fill in.

Click to expand...

Yes with Rashford’s injury and Pogba’s absence we’ve been stretched thinly this season especially before Bruno’s arrival, our replacement options have been brutal.

One interesting one is centre half where I literally can’t make my mind up if Bailly is a potentially excellent back-up/competitor for a first team place if he can stay fit, or a Jones-like liability. His performances vary in quality so much, which is probably its own answer to my question.

meamth said:

Ronaldo was a starter when he was a teenager.
Rooney was a starter.
Messi, Mbappe, you name it. Greenwood is ready.

If you bring Sancho in, for sure someone will have to be like James, Mata and Ighalo now. No player of martial or Rashford calibre would be happy with this and will leave.

Click to expand...

I agree and have been hinting at exactly this. The thing is, with Greenwood being a natural no 9 it won’t be Sancho competing with Greenwood it will (and should be) Martial for the no 9 spot.

Greenwood is coming through like a steam train now, you cannot stop the Greenwood Express.
Play him in his preferred position, he looks like an elite level striker - which we DO NOT have even though Martial has been great recently.

It’s a must we sign Sancho, perfect candidate for a position that we have abandoned for a decade.

We have to have competition for places and I hope we can keep them all happy with sufficient rotation.

That said two things should be the priority:
1) Signing Sancho
2) Greenwood’s Development

I like Martial and Rashford but neither fill the RW spot and neither have Greenwood’s potential to become an elite level striker imo (that’s not to say they can’t have an excellent career at United.) IMO they are Good but not elite and Manchester United should always have a world class no 9.

Lay said:

I like two great players in each position. Football is a squad game, we need quality back ups as back ups end up playing 20-30 games

Click to expand...

To have two great players in each position is great in theory, put it doesn't work in the real world.

You can Probaly get away with have 15 or 16 great players and the rest have to be made of young hungry players or players who are over their peak but can still do a job.

If you get the in position when some of your great players are from the youth team, they are the players who will never moan about being "rotated" and will probably never leave.

Williams, Greenwood, Rashford are those players. Just like we had with the class of 92. (Beckham was a one off due to off the field crap).

I just find it incredible that this is a thing. Have people not been watching football over the last, I dunno, 20 years? The idea of having more than 11 first team quality players in the squad is so completely normal that I find it completely bizarre than anyone is still discussing it.

Having 30 world class players in your squad is obviously the holy grail, but you are never going to get that because world class players don't sit on the bench.

So you compromise and end up with the Lingards, Pereiras, O'Sheas and Phil nevilles. They aren't world class but they ar decent and will be happy to sit on the bench until you need them.

meamth said:

Ronaldo was a starter when he was a teenager.
Rooney was a starter.
Messi, Mbappe, you name it. Greenwood is ready.

If you bring Sancho in, for sure someone will have to be like James, Mata and Ighalo now. No player of martial or Rashford calibre would be happy with this and will leave.

Click to expand...

I think you’ve been too quick with this Martial/Rashford leave bollocks. Martial played on the bench a lot for Mourinho and is still here.

Martial, Rashford, Sancho, Greenwood, Pogba, Bruno, Matic. In most games that’s basically 7 starters with 6 positions available. With the amount of games we have that’s a perfect mix with Ighalo, James, Fred, Mctominay & mata providing support.

I think the squad balance will be perfect if we sign sancho, well just need another centre back to contend.

EwanI Ted said:

I just find it incredible that this is a thing. Have people not been watching football over the last, I dunno, 20 years? The idea of having more than 11 first team quality players in the squad is so completely normal that I find it completely bizarre than anyone is still discussing it.

Click to expand...

This, I honestly don’t understand it, no one is saying we need 22 world class players, but having extra options is what you need now and to have class players competing is the standard Manchester United need to aiming for.

There is more than enough games for them all to play even if there isn’t injuries, but there is always injuries and suspensions and fatigue and many many matches.

Fitting Martial, Rashford, Sancho, Greenwood is honestly really easy.

spiriticon said:

Having 30 world class players in your squad is obviously the holy grail, but you are never going to get that because world class players don't sit on the bench.

So you compromise and end up with the Lingards, Pereiras, O'Sheas and Phil nevilles. They aren't world class but they ar decent and will be happy to sit on the bench until you need them.

Click to expand...

Don’t put Pereira in with O’Shea and Phil Neville, for goodness’ sakes. The latter were able deputies and versatile and had quality in their positions. Pereira is a Chanpionship Level 10.

Berbasbullet said:

This, I honestly don’t understand it, no one is saying we need 22 world class players, but having extra options is what you need now and to have class players competing is the standard Manchester United need to aiming for.

There is more than enough games for them all to play even if there isn’t injuries, but there is always injuries and suspensions and fatigue and many many matches.

Fitting Martial, Rashford, Sancho, Greenwood is honestly really easy.

Click to expand...

Until the one that plays the least of the four throws a strop and requests a transfer....

fps said:

Don’t put Pereira in with O’Shea and Phil Neville, for goodness’ sakes. The latter were able deputies and versatile and had quality in their positions. Pereira is a Chanpionship Level 10.

Click to expand...

Pereira isn't that bad.

meamth said:

No player of martial or Rashford calibre would be happy with this and will leave.

Click to expand...

Where on earth would they go that they'd expect to be in the first team without any competition for their place?

spiriticon said:

Until the one that plays the least of the four throws a strop and requests a transfer....

Click to expand...

And goes where?

Now now, to be fair..
Remember what happened before?

Examples.
Case 1 - Getting Sanchez?
Fans made a big deal out of it, eg. "why should we get him if we already have Martial and Rashford at LW." Isn't it good to have greater squad depth at that time? Of course, turns out it's bad but hey we can't predict the future but we can sure predict most likely the newer expensive player will play more in replace of the others. Double standard?

Case 2 - Schweini & Schneider & Matic
It meant Herrera play less games despite arguably being one of our best players the season before. The managers who brought them will also gave them more chances even if it's plain day and night their form and performances are rubbish and should get dropped.

I'm sure there're more examples, can't remember now.

Case 3 - Vidic
It also meant Pique getting less gaming times, and eventually left seeing no immediate future at United. Of course we can argued that he wasn't ready at that time, and Vidic actually took time to improve and adapt.

Case 4 - Veron
Expensive, and SAF tried hard to fit him in. Generally it's a failure in domestic competition. Team became more imbalance and had to push Scholes up top, and had to cut down the other strikers chances, and basically change into a 1 striker system with Scholes as permanent SS. Wasn't it Forlan that are affected? I mean no way RVN is getting dropped.

---

Conclusion?
I don't blame fans/posters who think that way because they are concern about current players and the team.

Thing is, newer expensive players will almost always the case get the advantage in playing times. If it fits the team immediately and improve the team, then everything's good. The problems are when the player need time to adapt, but of course managers tend to kept on shoe-horning the new expensive players into the team even if it leads to imbalances and problems to the team. In addition, current players eg. youth who are cheap will go down the pecking order and may get frustrated with limited gaming times. It's also possible they are not given fair chances at all because of manager's favoritism, etc etc.

The current lineup, our best 11 works very well.
New player joining in to replace that 11 can either make it works more, improve it more or "dismantle" it with stubborn problems.
Squad in terms of morale to individuals may also be affected.

Ideally, squad competitions should bring out the best, but reality proved different.
That ideals are only possible if manager do not play favoritism and actually gave open fair chances to everyone. Not just lips service.
Let's admit it -- Ole is not that kind of manager. He does play favoritism at times, eg. with Rashford, and Lingard before this. Martial tend to get subbed out even if he's performing well isn't it while other specific players gets more and more chances.
Favoritism and preferences are normal I suppose.

In the end, it's a trade-off.

That said.
I just don't agree with them.
Get the players first to improve squad depth, then think about the next problems (playing times, balance, adaptations, etc etc) later.

spiriticon said:

Until the one that plays the least of the four throws a strop and requests a transfer....

Click to expand...

Except there is enough games for all 4 of them to play an equal amount, and if there is one that is used least then they are the one that is the least valued.

It’s called being an elite club, no guarantees anyone starts, it’s how you create and exceptional team.

What if Greenwood gets injured day one of the season? Then we’re stuck with James on the right again who isn’t good enough on the right.

EwanI Ted said:

And goes where?

Click to expand...

Anywhere where they'll start more games? Juventus? Barca? Atletico? Inter? Dortmund? Munich? Ajax? Who knows?

We should still get Sancho nevertheless, but I think it would be a big job to keep all 4 main players happy for more than a couple of years

Competition is great, especially in the case of Sancho when we already have 3 versatile forwards. Any one of them can drop out if they're out of form or need a rest, it makes perfect sense.

Sancho is a must buy imo because he can basically cover for all 3 AM spots or just Rashford and Greenwood. It would still mean everyone one of these three could start 2 out of 3 games and I don't think that would hinder anyones developement.

Berbasbullet said:

Except there is enough games for all 4 of them to play an equal amount, and if there is one that is used least then they are the one that is the least valued.

It’s called being an elite club, no guarantees anyone starts, it’s how you create and exceptional team.

Click to expand...

Reality proved different.

Would be great if that actually happen though.

Plenty of elite clubs including us do guarantee certain players start always. Plenty of examples for that eg. United, Real, etc.

Berbasbullet said:

Except there is enough games for all 4 of them to play an equal amount, and if there is one that is used least then they are the one that is the least valued.

It’s called being an elite club, no guarantees anyone starts, it’s how you create and exceptional team.

What if Greenwood gets injured day one of the season? Then we’re stuck with James on the right again who isn’t good enough on the right.

Click to expand...

I agree we need competition for the good of the club. But with competition you always have losers, and the loser is likely to be unhappy.

But what I am saying is that even if I wanted to have 30 world class players in my squad, natural human behaviour will probably limit that to around 11 players anyways..

Lay said:

I like two great players in each position. Football is a squad game, we need quality back ups as back ups end up playing 20-30 games

Click to expand...

Has any team ever had two great players in each position? ... I mean good/functional players sure... but great?

I think you need a few great back-ups in a few key areas (namely midfield and attack)... but a full squad of them would be totally unmanageable.