not Mike Phelan
34
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 2
- Goals
- 0
- Assists
- 0
- Yellow cards
- 0
To be fair, basically every account of Phelan's return to the club said he didn't do any coaching, so it's not like he was coaching young Donny here either.
and our ‘best’ players are incapable of playing well consistently and are reliant on conjuring moments of magic to justify their stay in the team. We need to move away from the rubbish football where we hope some players turn up and do something special each game.
Even players like Varane and Casemiro struggle to perform well consistently and that’s because we’re so reliant on the likes of Rashford and Bruno that the team is effectively playing like a man down when they’re playing like shit.
Our very own Danny Drinkwater. The fact we paid 135M to Ajax for Antony and Van de Beek should have cost many people their jobs.
Technically Danny Drinkwater was our very own Danny Drinkwater
Generally I agree; our system definitely makes the weaknesses of these players stick out and doesn't adorn their talents, but most of these weren't that good anyway. Only Mkhitaryan picked it up on his exit - and he's changed his game a lot to fit a specific tactical role at Inter.
On van de Beek -- really don't get all the comments on this page. He was a dime a dozen shadow striker/off the ball no.10 that Dutch teams tend to produce all the time. See Klaassen, his original prototype, or Guus Til at PSV, De Wit etc.
I thought we sold him. FFS
Pretty sure Donny played more often in an attacking position than he did in a deeper position for us. Indeed, the only time he looked like he might have a future here was when he was played in the deeper position a few times towards the end of his first season and start of his second season. He had a few good performances there where he was one of our best players (albeit some of them were against weak teams), and it was the only time in his career here where I felt he was unfortunate not to get more game-time (especially considering both Fred and McTominay started that second season terribly).
Whenever we played him in an attacking role he was just a non-entity, even more than Scott is.
I really wanted it to work but it hasn’t, aside from the transfer fee we’ve paid Donny north of 30m it’s never going to work and Mason Mount is probably headed in the same direction.
Mount has been injured for most of the season. I don't know how people are writing him off after such a small sample size of games. I wasn't the biggest fan of buying him but even I recognise you at least got to give a player a decent amount of time to adjust to a team, ideally a season.
It’s been so long ago since we saw Donny play a full 90, and even longer — if ever — that we saw him play two full 90s back to back that it’s hard to remember where he played when he did get starts, but I have no recollection of Donny ever getting a start over Bruno.
What typically happened on those few occasions when Donny came on is it was really late, we were chasing an equalizer and Donny was chucked onto the pitch with Bruno, who is rarely subbed off no matter how shit his play is, and nothing would come as there really isn’t much one can do coming on that late unless your name is McTominay and your sole positive attribute is preying on the box for a loose ball.
Maybe Donny is shit, but it cannot be argued that we ever gave him a proper chance to play in the role he’s best suited at. I fully acknowledge that Donny is no deep lying midfielder or destroyer.
Edwin Van Der Sar asked us to look after Donny. We failed to do so.
He started most of the cup games as a #10 in his first season while we rested Bruno. From memory a lot of his sub appearances were also coming in to play as a #10 while Bruno moved out wide.
I certainly do agree we didn't see a great deal of him, but he did get enough game time that he could have earned more time. It's not like he's in a situation like Amad is at the moment where he's barely getting any time on the field at all (even after good performances).
Makes for horrendous reading. Even worse is, when I criticised the transfers at the time, everyone defended them.
Yeah I remembered the times. I thought it was clear we were going for him because we ran out of options, rather than someone that Ole thinks will truly strengthen the team; but many on the CAF somehow think differently back then.
Our transfers and negotiations team are truly horrendous.
Didn't get off the bench in yesterdays game.
Which is pretty damning considering that three midfielders (Chaibi, Shkiri, Götze) were subbed on during the match.
125 PW at us. Crazy. Hopefully we now see a better policy in terms of getting players or more so alternatives when first choice isn't available or a crazy price
Dutch papers reporting Frankfurt wants to send Donny back to United.
Edwin Van Der Sar asked us to look after Donny. Frankfurt failed to do so.
At first I was confused about him. Then I was angry at him. Now I'm just sad for him. What in the world has happened to his career..
Anyway, we could use a striker for our amateur team here if he's up for giving it a go. Our #10 is decent and a good lad so he'd have to play the #9, but I know the manager well and could probably get him in if he's really keen. £5 a week subs, tour kitty is shaping up well this summer.
Let me know Donny.
Send him to Nice. I believe he has a big fan club over there, we can probably get £100m off them for him.
Seems to be the kinda player who just needs to play a lot to maintain strength and confidence. May just have to return to the Eredivisie and play for a smaller club and hope he plays himself back into the spotlight of a step up for final years of his career. Surely he himself recognizes he is flat out wasting his time not playing at all, even if the pay check is a bit higher.
He got more chances than he deserved in Frankfurt. He still failed. That's definitely just on him, not on the club.
Yeah, agree. Can see him becoming a solid Erdevisie player again. He'll be 27 in less than a month, time flies so he has to get his career back on track soon.
Another one of these many players we have had over the years where we’re just waiting for their never ending contract to end
When does it end anyway?
When does it end anyway?
Sounds like a plan. Also i didnt know Dan posts on this forum
He was really unlucky to get that injury last year from that wild tackle when he was starting to find a bit of form. Even when it was sort of looking like it might work for him, he got injured for challenging for a ball. That basically derailed any chance he had here. Shame.
Just needs to accept his Davy Klaasen status, head back to Ajax and start afresh.
I wonder if Everton fans had as much delusion around Davy as some Utd fans built around Donny.
I wonder if Everton fans had as much delusion around Davy as some Utd fans built around Donny.
Hasn't left the bench in the last 2 games (5 of the last 8).
We'll probably need to release him on a free with his wages.
We'll probably need to release him on a free with his wages.
Feels a bit like he dropped even further in the rankings. Shkiri injured today, so a place in midfield is open. What does Toppmöller do? Keeps all his usual midfielders on the bench, moves Tuta from CB to DM and gives Collins his debut at CB. So despite Shkiri's injury all other midfielders who were subbed on before Donny lately are also all on the bench now.
Shame, really hoped he'd enjoy a bit of success at Frankfurt so he could find himself a decent club this summer.
When does his contract expire?
Pretty sure he’d have never been offered a new one or had an option triggered but it feels like he’s been here 4 years or more
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What an absolute disaster this turned out to be for everyone involved.
This is partly what made me excited about having Ten Hag come in as our manager. The fact he can take players like Van De Beek, Haller and Tadic and turn them into world beaters.
Turns out it’s probably just the Dutch league
Turns out it’s probably just the Dutch league
They took one look at him in training and decided he wasn't worth registering for their European squad, so it's hardly surprising.