We're getting De Jong to be dm. When he played at Ajax De Jong was the dm. Schone stayed relatively deep to help him but De Jong always played deeper than Schone. I'd imagine based on who we've been linked with we want Eriksen to play this deeper playmaking role. Maybe McTominay or Garner are the backups for the role or in specific games where we need extra defensive stability maybe we'd occasionally try Martinez there.
Lisandro Martinez | Signs for United
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
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We are targeting Antony so the chance of 352 might be slim
Yes slow. As in he's not fast.
He boots the ball under pressure. I call that technically average for a centre back. Maybe it's because he's slow and worried about getting nicked but the end result is the ball getting booted.
Not constructive, not composed under pressure, not good enough.
His pace and size are legitimate concerns but he’s in the 95th percentile for pass completion, 99th percentile for number of passes, 99th percentile for progressive passes and 96th percentile for progressive carries…what are you talking about?
He plays for the best team in Holland against teams that sit back and let the centre halves have the ball. They even let the centre halves 'progress' it up to the midfielders.
I'm talking about football which I know a bit about. When he's under pressure, he boots it. When he's not he's Baresi reborn, he's the greatest libero that ever lived with stats to match. 99% progression, 99.9% passes to an unmarked player.
He'll be targeted by teams if we sign him because he's slow and he boots it under pressure and he'll get much more pressure in the PL. The sexy stats will drop.
Based on what? He's played LCB before and looked good there, from memory.
Unlucky. Those are his CL stats. I’m assuming this is all some hilarious WUM - but here’s another sexy stat for you - he’s in the 94th percentile for passes under pressure.
I hope you're right mate, I really do.
Would be one of our shrewdest business moves if he turns out to be a success.
What do you mean there aren't any tall technical CBs in the market? No one is saying get one as good as VVD, I'm not suggesting that at all. Regardless, the CB market isn't so barren that we'll have to resort to a CB that's literally as tall as Messi. I don't care what ten Hag thinks about this, getting a 4 foot centreback for 50 million euros is lunacy. It'd be okay if he was a winger, midfielder, striker, or fullback. But a CB? No way. What's next, getting a 5'6 goalkeeper because apparently heights not important there either?
CB is one of the only two positions on the pitch were height is a requirement. If we have 50m euros to spend on a midget, we have 50m euros to spend on a decently sized CB.
Not convinced about this guy. Unless of course you tell me he can play as a defensive midfield and is the second coming of mascherano.
He does play DM
He’s absolutely fine over 20 yards, he’s not asked to run half the pitch.
He boots the ball in the right situations, something I always like in a defender and we don’t see enough of at United who try to play the ball about in the last 30 when under pressure. I saw Rio, Stam, Hansen, Buchan, etc boot it plenty of times, all good defenders for decades have… at the right time.
And again, he’s not technically average. His CL games alone show that up
I don't know what your definition of a DM is, perhaps the player at the base of midfield, rather than via action? But I wouldn't consider De Jong to be one despite him obviously working through that area of the pitch, particularly so in collecting the ball deep in his own half - deep-lying something or other who needs complete freedom and licence to roam with someone picking up turnovers and being in place to cover for him.
Perhaps we can use Beckenbauer or Sammer as definitions of that sort of role who both had cover whenever they went walkabouts. But whatever we use, it's a unique role with a unique set of parameters to facilitate and that facilitator - the guy sitting, covering and essentially enabling, is the DM, for me as he is the player expected to be studious and resolutely doing the job that allows De Jong to do his. Basically a water carrier with a vital hand-holding job.
Unless you have a CB that can seamlessly push up and occupy a covering role in midfield periodically, you definitely don't want a CM doing that job as he's too far up the pitch and not in a position to cover an unexpected turnover of possession. All that to say, we don't have a partner for De Jong at the club right now, imo and we'd be wasting him trying to dump what's here into such a specialised role that they've all proven they are incapable of playing (Garner excluded).
Yep see. He even boots it when he's not under pressure. Thank you
Enjoyed your post. I'm not inclined to agree with all of it, but it's logical and well constructed.
I personally think needs must and we'll be more dynamic until the right pieces can be brought in over a few windows, so what was the norm at Ajax won't necessarily be so here, or at least not until we can get all the players in that we need, which is why someone like Martinez, who can be shuffled into numerous systems and ways of playing, would be readily utilised for what the manager needs right now, rather than 9months+ down the line.
One thing I think is not considered in posts about our midfield vis-a-vis Ajax's is that the latter's was a well-oiled machine with all the cogs in the right places and even the defence behind them knowing their midfield at an intrinsic level. By contrast, ours is a mess, being built from the ground up. We need the fundamentals down pat before we get to the level of being expansive and automaton like Ajax's was. It's going to take more than one window, I think.
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The dm is the deepest cm, simple as that. Carrick was a dm despite not being somebody who went flying into tackles. Ndidi is also a dm despite being far more of a tackling machine. Similarly you have box to box midfielders who are excellent tacklers and effective at winning back possession like Keane, Kante or Fred but who probably go forward a bit too often to be considered dms. FDJ is probably closest to a Carrick, Rodri or Kimmich but he still drops deeper than any of these. He progresses the ball but then drops back into position when he should. His positional understanding is right up there with the best in the world imo.
In terms of a partner to play alongside him, Eriksen has played a disciplined role in cm before. I think it's wasting him a bit considering his creative ability but I assume ETH sees him being able to do the equivalent of what Schone did alongside FDJ. FDJ has already played his best football playing alongside a deep lying playmaker, not a traditional hard tackling dm. FDJ constantly dropped into the back 3 to progress the ball at Ajax and did his fair share of defensive work. The role he was asked to perform at Barcelona was completely different so if you're comparing stats on fbref or an equivalent site they're not really going to tell a particularly accurate story of the job ETH will want FDJ to perform.
So I’m told but struggling to see any highlights where he actually plays in midfield.
You should care what ten Hag thinks because he’s our manager, we will play the way how he wants to play not how you want to play.
Did you not read what I said? I said some are not available in the transfer market and some are available with more expensive cost, which the point is they are not available in the range price to suit the given transfer budget we have right now so ten Hag has to find someone cheaper in the range of 30m-40m and that is this guy the 175cm.
Go on suggest some names who we could buy with the same price or less. May be if you put some effort to suggest the names of these tall ball playing CB, you will start to understand what I meant.
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This is a good in depth report on Martinez.
https://totalfootballanalysis.com/p...021-22-scout-report-tactical-analysis-tactics
https://totalfootballanalysis.com/p...021-22-scout-report-tactical-analysis-tactics
It's not as simple as that at all though. Deep-lying playmakers have taken that role and been covered by others whose job it was to enable them to function for literal decades.
I haven't ventured into De Jong's thread for a proper read in quite some time, but I'd be surprised if this isn't a yo-yo topic that goes round in circles, and probably will for a number of seasons yet; what he does isn't something new, just not seen very often throughout the decades; primarily, we agree that he needs to be enabled to do hs thing and I think we're at odds in how or whom it requires for that to be so as I'm a firm believer in solid cover for him with someone ahead of both who works hard going backwards when needs be - Eriksen either ahead of the aforementioned or not featuring; certainly not in CM, as in side-to-side partner with De Jong, for me.
I've read some of the Schone discussions some weeks back and it is interesting reading. If we can find someone who harmonises like that who will be able to do it in the PL with our team, then by all means, but I favour the bog standard, dutiful guy who can play well enough to hold his own as a first port of call for us.
I'm not saying a magical Schone type should be overlooked, I just think that's more needle in a haystack than realistic this window.
I think we need to keep in mind that it is very important for FDJ's partner to be very good at passing the ball as possession is very important to ETH. I saw a lot of people mentioning Sangare for example as someone worth considering. Sangare's an excellent tackler, very much in the mould of the bog standard type you suggest but his passing isn't very good, certainly not good enough for an ETH side. A bog standard cm won't suit the possession style ETH wants us to play. If we got someone like Rice that would be perfect as he can do everything we need while still being an excellent passer, but obviously we're talking massive fees for him and it definitely won't be happening in this window. I wouldn't completely discount Eriksen's ability to perform the role, even though I do agree that I think he would be better further up the pitch. I personally would go for Douglas Luiz from Aston Villa for the role (only 1 year left on his contract), but haven't seen any links with him at all. In general, we're linked with Eriksen and no other cm (not counting FDJ) so I assume that's who ETH sees playing the role. Again, if he wanted a versatile cb/dm to be his dm I don't see why we wouldn't be targeting Alvarez instead (and again this wasn't the type of player that played alongside FDJ at Ajax in the first place).
Surely without a DM next to him we are fair game against the best midfields in the league
I find this really interesting because there has been a lot said about how De Jong needs a proper holding player next to him. A Fabinho or Rodri type. If this is not the case, then what profile of player do you consider to be the ideal partner for De Jong?
Yeah I am intrigued on who is the best fit there
Not sure we need him unless we are selling Baily, Jones, Tuanzebe in this window itself. Rather spend the funds on a RB CM and RW which we lack in quality.
We need to get our CBs performing to better standards Varane, Maguire, Lindelof, Baily is a good mix but are not performing well.
We need to get our CBs performing to better standards Varane, Maguire, Lindelof, Baily is a good mix but are not performing well.
Off topic, but this vid reminds me of Silvestre pinging those balls in between 03-06 and how good he could have been as a modern LCB
I made previous post about Martinez's ability to step into the base of midfield and operate as DM. This sort of versatility as both a CB and DM would be highly beneficial to this new United side. Blind has done that for Ajax quite brilliantly.
I don't get this obsession with a DM destroyer. Carrick wasn't a destroyer and had very good spatial awareness to snuff out attacks but could also dictate from deep. Martinez has that same ability if he drops into the base of midfield.
Jones and Baily are injury prone.
Can't rely on just Maguire, Varane and Lindelof. Not one of them are really comfortable on the ball. We need ball playing goalkeeper and CB's.
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Can he dab though?
Thanks for the info. The other thing that makes me think that he wouldn’t play with a three is that it would effect Frenkie’s role. (If we get him)
I've looked up Ajax's 2018-2019 CL line-ups and in most cases it was a trio of Schone, De Jong and Donny. Therefore, it could be a myth that De Jong needs a destroyer to partner him in midfield. However, there was at least 1 game (against Bayern) where Blind played as DM instead of Schone.
If so, I can see why we are in for Eriksen. His defensive stats for Brentford is comparable to Onyeka's last season (https://the18.com/en/soccer-entertainment/how-christian-eriksen-transformed-brentford) with multiples better offensive stats. It is possible that we line-up with a midfield trio of Eriksen, De Jong and Bruno against most opposition. Against stronger opposition is where we might see Martinez come in for Eriksen/Bruno to provide more steel in the midfield. I honestly wouldn't mind seeing one of McFred depart if he and Eriksen join us.
This is an excellent, and criminally overlooked factor.
I read somewhere that dabbing is an area of concern following recent departures.
Pretty sure the club are in the process of identifying a dabbing coach to address the issue.
Today will be big
Gargantuan
A partner for De Jong has to be a player who's able to create offensive opportunities when left open (in case De Jong being manmarked) or willing to make runs towards the box to create more space for De Jong to operate. I think Fred might be good enough, he can make runs or dribbles, technically okay, and probably more comfortable playing a bit higher up where he can take more risks in his actions (De Jong will take a lot of risks playing deep, but that's not a playing style suited for just anyone).
If Eriksen signs with Man Utd, I would be interested in watching a midfield of Eriksen - Van de Beek - De Jong. Maybe I'm too much of an idealist, but that midfield would have so much technical ability, passing ability, creativity, scoring ability, IQ, offensive awareness and selflessness. Defensively I'd count on De Jong tracking back.
Thanks for the reply. An Eriksen - Van de Beek - De Jong midfield does sound tasty and I think you could get away with it for the majority of games due to the reasons you mentioned. The real test would come against the top sides where I think you would need a bit more steel. Although Ajax were very competitive in 18/19 without sacrificing their usual midfield makeup, so under the right manager and system, it might be possible?
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Which is a 'problem' in transference from Dutch to English football, as even by far the most offensive sides in the country have more studious and dutiful players working through the middle to enable them to do what they do whilst keeping reprisals at a bare minimum.
I'm not sure even peak ten Hag sides will be able to have such idealism in midfield. The very first thing that will be looked at in any midfield we put out is how to best deconstruct and compromise it, and a very obvious tactic out the gate is to let De Jong roam, as he does, than absolute drive into the space he vacates and draw defensive bodies to that area of the pitch. Without the correct cover, there will be potential for chasms to run into through midfield, which is, I believe, the first thing we ourselves have to cater for and have contingencies in place for. Hence 'DM' or anchor who is ready and able to sweep up at a moment's notice and recycle the ball back to a De Jong who is already in place to receive it and redouble the attacking or transitional action.
Ajax were by far the most dominant team in Holland in terms of progressive stats and what it enabled them to do as a unit; even City at their very best cannot be so overwhelming with that kind of abandon, and we're some way off them, so it's even less so for us. I doubt ten Hag can implement such overwhelming football here, or certainly not initially anyway, which is where compromises must be made, I would think.
I don't disagree with most of this, but I think such a player is quite the unicorn, especially for us, which is why if we can't get him, we need something robust and dependable in his stead in the meantime.
I'm absolutely all for the kind of player you're talking about, I just feel they are like gold dust.
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