Selling Fred was a mistake

He was shite but he was certainly better than Amrabat and Mount isn’t a like for like replacement despite the foolish Ten Hag initially playing him like one.

It’s the DDG issue really. A player that needed to be sold and replaced but we’ve ended up in a worse position. We would’ve been better off having both in hindsight but the truth is their threads would be filled with intense criticism had they stayed.

he had a lot of energy and ran around a lot. Something we are very much missing. if we replaced him with a better version of Fred it would have been the correct move. But we didnt. Therefore absolutely should have kept him. He would have played nearly every game I reckon

Fred was awfully frustrating to watch. Particularly how he could be 10 yards closer to a loose ball than the next nearest opponent, yet it's still a 50/50, in fact probably more of a 60/40 in favour of the opposing player. He had all the agility and acceleration of a 32 year old Casemiro, if not worse.

OnlyTwoDaSilvas said:

Fred was awfully frustrating to watch. Particularly how he could be 10 yards closer to a loose ball than the next nearest opponent, yet it's still a 50/50, in fact probably more of a 60/40 in favour of the opposing player. He had all the agility and acceleration of a 32 year old Casemiro, if not worse.

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Genuinely think you might not know who Fred was? We're talking about the player, not the mascot FYI

OnlyTwoDaSilvas said:

Fred was awfully frustrating to watch. Particularly how he could be 10 yards closer to a loose ball than the next nearest opponent, yet it's still a 50/50, in fact probably more of a 60/40 in favour of the opposing player. He had all the agility and acceleration of a 32 year old Casemiro, if not worse.

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What you've described is the opposite of Fred.

Selling Fred was not a mistake, we needed more quality in that area. Replacing him with Amrabat purely because he had history of working with our manager (who insists on only signing players he knows) was the mistake.

Adisa said:

We are even in worse shape than I thought if we are reeling from the sale of Fred.

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Well it's 3rd summer in a row we will be completely rebuilding the midfield because of the mistakes we make and no/wrong plan.
We are at a point that it only gets worse if Mainoo leaves, the rest I really don't give a feck about.

OnlyTwoDaSilvas said:

Fred was awfully frustrating to watch. Particularly how he could be 10 yards closer to a loose ball than the next nearest opponent, yet it's still a 50/50, in fact probably more of a 60/40 in favour of the opposing player. He had all the agility and acceleration of a 32 year old Casemiro, if not worse.

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Who on Earth are you describing here man?

tomaldinho1 said:

Genuinely think you might not know who Fred was? We're talking about the player, not the mascot FYI

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Sarni said:

What you've described is the opposite of Fred.

Selling Fred was not a mistake, we needed more quality in that area. Replacing him with Amrabat purely because he had history of working with our manager (who insists on only signing players he knows) was the mistake.

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Solius said:

What the feck How can people be so incredibly wrong about players? It's mental.

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Casemiro comparison was obvious hyperbole. Or at least I thought so. But he still had noticeably poor acceleration off the mark, and would be frequently beaten to a ball that he was closer to, which was a common matchday thread complaint.

He worked hard, but he was slow whilst doing so. I'd still rather we had him over McT, but it's a low bar.

Hughie77 said:

No not realy on that one.. selling Elanga and D Henderson were mistakes.. brought in Antony whos pants and Onana who's the same..

Fred I'm sure wouldn't have been injured most of the season either.. Mount was injured for Chelsea ffs then comes here plays pre season wasn't that clever either, then gets injured again who's doing the diligence on these players..

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Agree on Fred, he was far too erratic. His top level was decent but far too often he was turning in 3/10 performances and unable to find a 10 yard pass. "Will it be good Fred or bad Fred, today?"

Henderson was out the door before Ten Hag even arrived. He refused to train in case Ten Hag wanted to keep him and he's not good enough anyway.

Elanga was never good enough. He's found his level and has been ok. Nobody we've sold over the past couple of years has been a mistake. The problem is that we haven't bought well enough because our recruitment has been disastrous but that doesn't mean anyone who left is good enough to have us chasing titles.

The revisionism on here is nuts. People want De Gea back and there's a thread calling for the return of Ole ffs

He's probably been my favourite midfielder since Fergie left

Wouldn't have mud us any worse but he wouldn't have made us any better either.

El Jefe said:

He was shite but he was certainly better than Amrabat and Mount isn’t a like for like replacement despite the foolish Ten Hag initially playing him like one.

It’s the DDG issue really. A player that needed to be sold and replaced but we’ve ended up in a worse position. We would’ve been better off having both in hindsight but the truth is their threads would be filled with intense criticism had they stayed.

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De Gea's lack of ability with his feet had disadvantages too, I'd say. So maybe short term it would be better, but long term we have to get to a ball playing keeper.

But yeah he'd have made better/more saves and probably looked better when looking individually and isolated at the goalkeeper. Ultimately Onana cost us Champions League advancement and maybe around 6-9 points. De Gea had his blunters too but to a less degree.

In the end Fred got us 13m gpb and with De Gea out (saved 14,3m gbp), they practically financed part of Onana who's a failure.

We also saved about 5m gbp in wages by going from Fred to Amrabat, but Amrabat's loan fee then cost 8,6m gbp. Worse off too basically.

Lay said:

He's probably been my favourite midfielder since Fergie left

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Me too I think, always underrated here dud teo being so erratic.

Lay said:

He's probably been my favourite midfielder since Fergie left

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Same. He’s definitely the midfielder who put in the highest number of impressive big game performances since Fergie left. Although that’s balanced out by a similarly impressive number of incredibly bad performances. That’s just the way he rolls.

I always liked him. He was one of the few who put effort in but he was very much a system player, if the game wasn't going his way he would be lost. If we were set up to his strengths he would invariably be MOTM or close to it and we would usually win because a team set up to his strengths was a good team in modern football. Unfortunately all our managers eventually resort to low block counter attack and he's possibly the worst player imagineable for that setup.

Our main mistake was selling him without a replacement ready. Every player we have brought in since has been significantly worse.

Selling Fred wasn't a mistake. Replacing him with dross was the mistake.

He had a poor first season, and a fairly poor calendar year of 2021. In the other three years that he was here he was fairly good, and not as inconsistent as people make out. It was just that when he was having a bad performance he was really really bad so it stood out more than most players. But the good significantly outweighed the bad in those three years, and even in 2021 it was 50/50.

The fact that ETH changed to this (ridiculous) formation, then sold the one midfielder we had who could have made a decent attempt at actually covering all the ground that's left in midfield really does blow my mind.

In hindsight, Mainoo at DM with Fred and Bruno in the more attacking roles would clearly have been our best midfield this season. Still not a good midfield obviously, but better than what we have been putting out each week.

It was a huge mistake, I think he'd play every game as the season has gone on. He was the only midfielder with good mobility and energy in the team.

We went and signed a worse player on loan too, with a similar fee to that which we got for Fred.

2mufc0 said:

Wouldn't have mud us any worse but he wouldn't have made us any better either.

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This is true but it's the same issue we're going to face this summer. No one's going to want Casemiro so we hypothetically sell Bruno instead and replace him with a child, a free transfer, or a defender. Rinse and repeat. We can only sell players who have interest in them but that doesn't mean we should just because we need the cash.

Selling Fred wasn't a mistake. He wasn't good enough and was keen to leave. The mistake was not properly replacing him.

I thought Fred was utter shite for the most part, far too erratic to be trusted every week, but yeah we definitely miss that profile of player.

Should either have kept him or replaced him with someone just as energetic and possibly better on the ball. Didn't do that...

NZT-One said:

The Brazilian history keeps being somewhat problematic I guess. I always liked Fred, he definitely had his disadvantages but his running and energy was often gold for the team, that for a long time has issues with intensity and workrate. Fred was able to mitigate that to a degree.

It is a shame, that we sold him only to switch to a formation, where he might have really thrived in (something that funnily also applies to DVB)... I agree, our squadbuilding is really weird. I guess, it is a bit of a shame, that both Mount and Amrabat were rather underwhelming, I think, if both at least had decent to good seasons, it wouldn't be that much of an issue. ETHs decision to play Eriksen as CM, McTominay finally stepping out of midfield, Casemiro hitting a rock this season and what I mentioned about Mount and Amrabat created a pretty perfect storm for our midfield.

For me it would also be Rafael over Fred. But Casemiro really had a good season last year and Ando was also a likeable chap. So I don't know about the order, I definitely don't think we should stop bringing in Brazilians because we have bad luck with them, United of the last years were masters when it comes to create the worst possible environments for players to succeed in.


Yeah this is exactly my stance on the matter as well.

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Rafael and Anderson were injured every 3rd game. Fred was always available and playing overall on OK to decent level, and he did have some very good periods (and some very bad games as well, mostly when the next manager wanted to play him as a #6). To me Fred is higher than all other Brazilians (incl Casemiro).

It was a mistake not to replace him with a like for like replacement, Fred was 30 but he’s always been super Athletic and covers the ground fantastically, we needed to replace Fred, Weghorst and Sabitzers energy, all three were incredible hard workers but all 3 were possibly not the quality the club needed maybe with the exception of Sabitzer especially for £15m, Letting Henderson go for £15m when he was PL proven was a huge mistake, we bought Amrabat, Onana and Mount for £111m with loan fee and received £29m for Fred, James Garner, Dean Henderson as well as sending Sabitzer packing.

The Man United squad this year with D Henderson as number 1 and Bayinder as number 2 and T Heaton 3 would have been more than suitable and we probably would have qualified for CL round of 16, the options of Casemiro, Eriksen, J Garner, Fred, McTominey, Sabitzer, Bruno and K Mainoo would have handled 55-60 games this season even with the injuries and always allowed a bench to be selected with serious options.

The club would now have spent £111m - £44m(players kept and Sabitzer fee) would have saved the club £67m.

Add £28m to Hojlund fee and the club could have bought Kane and still had £39m left over to buy J C Tobido and still sold Varane for £15m when he was wanted by Bayern and others.

This is how bad this club has been run, I have no sympathy for ETH because he didn’t do his due diligence and buy players who were PL proven, he gambled with a squad that had done well in its first season, it didn’t need radical changes with Onana, Amrabat, Mount and Hojlund this was his attempt to strengthen the spine with a calamity keeper, a hugely unproven DM who played for Fiorentina, A English player who has become the new Darren Anderton and a very young unproven striker, this is on him; had he bought Sabitzer(15m), KMJ or J C Todibo and H Kane or V Osimhen, he’d still be in a job because that team gets a minimum of 22 to 23 pL wins and 72-75 points again!!

ROFLUTION said:

De Gea's lack of ability with his feet had disadvantages too, I'd say. So maybe short term it would be better, but long term we have to get to a ball playing keeper.

But yeah he'd have made better/more saves and probably looked better when looking individually and isolated at the goalkeeper. Ultimately Onana cost us Champions League advancement and maybe around 6-9 points. De Gea had his blunters too but to a less degree.

In the end Fred got us 13m gpb and with De Gea out (saved 14,3m gbp), they practically financed part of Onana who's a failure.

We also saved about 5m gbp in wages by going from Fred to Amrabat, but Amrabat's loan fee then cost 8,6m gbp. Worse off too basically.

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I only hope there were clauses in Amrabat's loan that reduced the fee if he didn't play a lot.

And before people say the transfer team wouldn't have thought to do that, they showed in their deal with Reguillon and some of the youth transfers out that there are various clauses in there to end loans early or get more funds if the player does well out on loan.

It is the whole mindset behind the structuring of his midfield. There were clear signs towards the end of last season that Casemiro's burst of effectiveness was already diminishing, Eriksen fell off after half a season, he was trying to sell McT to bring in Amrabat, Mount is a runner but lightweight, Bruno the same and Mainoo a youngster with a lot of physical development needed.

Ten Hag has consistently, not just in midfield, underestimated the level of physicality needed for this league. If he sold Fred with the idea of playing a more composed, controlled game, with possession key to it, no issue. When you sell Fred, and then move towards a chaotic, transition based game, which leaves massive space for the opposition that his physically limited options have no chance of coping with, it looks like another hugely questionable decision.

I don't understand how he thought it was a viable set up, Bruno and Mount ahead of Cas.

Selling Fred was only a mistake because we have not bought a good player in that position yet. It was time for Fred to move on, but we should have done better replacing him. But as the squad is now, he would be playing every time.

It’s also a sign that the transferteam wanted to please the new manager with new signings where it maybe wasnt necessary. Sign of a wrong structure where the manager holds too much power, instead of listening to the club’s analytical side and transferteam (if it was actually good)

Sarni said:

What you've described is the opposite of Fred.

Selling Fred was not a mistake, we needed more quality in that area. Replacing him with Amrabat purely because he had history of working with our manager (who insists on only signing players he knows) was the mistake.

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It says a lot about the state of our recruitment under the old regime that the manager was identifying players apparently off his own bat. They made this point on the recent Talk of the Devils that Ten Hag went and basically got Wout himself as we were so stuck for options.

Hopefully this Summer, with the changes we've made we're better placed to make good signings who'll improve the team.

A call to bring McFred back
I've seen it all

Some amount of revisionism about Fred.

Fred was mostly crap, he had good halves here and there but by and large the bad outweighed the good. He only really started featuring regularly last season when Eriksen was injured from Jan onwards, he only started in 26 out of 61 games.

Selling him was not the problem. The mistake was buying a midfielder who didn't know how to play midfield and keeping him for 5 years and not replacing him with a better player.

You guys are hopeless

Oranges038 said:

Some amount of revisionism about Fred.

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In current state, there's always something great about the unlegendary legends.

Withnail said:

Agree on Fred, he was far too erratic. His top level was decent but far too often he was turning in 3/10 performances and unable to find a 10 yard pass. "Will it be good Fred or bad Fred, today?"

Henderson was out the door before Ten Hag even arrived. He refused to train in case Ten Hag wanted to keep him and he's not good enough anyway.

Elanga was never good enough. He's found his level and has been ok. Nobody we've sold over the past couple of years has been a mistake. The problem is that we haven't bought well enough because our recruitment has been disastrous but that doesn't mean anyone who left is good enough to have us chasing titles.

The revisionism on here is nuts. People want De Gea back and there's a thread calling for the return of Ole ffs

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Elanga imo is better than Antony, Henderson went before its documented but surely that was a error? Ole shouldn't have stayed on after his interim job he did.. DDG had to go only through his wages, imo he should have stayed. Mount Onana were not needed this season.. that £100 million should have been used to get a experienced striker in.. let's see what happens this summer. Be interesting

He bandaided so many tactical issues just through sheer work rate. I miss pastor Fred. You can play your double #10s and 3-1-6 and press high but the moment the press fecks up Fred was at full tilt getting back in and stopping the counter attack. No surprise that we leak as many shots on the counter as we do this season. He single handedly would've cut the shots conceded number in half.

Problem was he wasn’t upgraded on. He wasn’t good enough and mctominay isn’t either.

Same as De Gea - getting rid wasn't the mistake, replacing them adequately was.

Hughie77 said:

Elanga imo is better than Antony, Henderson went before its documented but surely that was a error? Ole shouldn't have stayed on after his interim job he did.. DDG had to go only through his wages, imo he should have stayed. Mount Onana were not needed this season.. that £100 million should have been used to get a experienced striker in.. let's see what happens this summer. Be interesting

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Elanga showed very little at United. Imo he'll never be good enough for a top side. He's doing ok for a team battling relegation where he's not under the same scrutiny as he would be at It United and we got a decent fee for a young player who wasn't going to make it here. Our recruitment being poor doesn't mean anyone who left should have been kept. Henderson burnt his bridges and isn't good enough for a top team. He seems to have a high opinion of himself but statistically he's actually one of the worst keepers in the league and miles behind Onana.

I disagree on DDG. He had to go based on performances. He was bad and getting worse year on year. Allied with being stuck on his line and shitting himself when called upon to pass the ball short under any kind of pressure there's no way we should have kept him as far as I'm concerned. He's still not got a club either.

A goalkeeper and CM definitely were needed and we spent quite a lot on a striker. It boils down to how bad out recruitment has been and yeah we'll see how it goes this Summer.