At £17/18M, he’ll do the job for now at least. We just can’t continue relying on the limited midfield we have.
Adrien Rabiot | signs 1 year deal at Juventus. See you all next year
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“ Lindelof, Elanga, DVB, Bailey, Henderson and AWB should all have been sold to finance our summer spending. Best part of 150m there and none of them would be missed.”
Absolutely correct and goes without saying.
Absolutely correct and goes without saying.
Throw Chong in there along with Dalot.
Rabiot plus another. Makes sense in that case.
I'll be honest, I thought that he could do it, though his ability to tackle is questionable. So for me it's a bit disappointing but it makes sense. Now the interesting part is if he also decided to not trust McTominay which seems to be the message sent to media, in that case Rabiot or someone with that profile make sense, though I would prefer Bennacer or if we want a bigger body, Kondogbia.
Definitely, forgot about ‘Chong’!
Chong is probably a candidate for a free transfer at this point. Objectively Levitt had a far better loan last year and is younger and we only got 350K for him.
Exactly. Gives us depth and means we wouldn’t have to play mctominay and Fred together. Rabiot on his own though will be a disaster and they’ll be more riots outside old Trafford.
Great shout. He's impressed me in our games against Atletico, definitely a player flying under the radar.
Is he a starter there? I suspect he wouldn't want to leave them for us right now though.
Before the second half of last season he was a squad player but gained a starting spot. Now I don't know how Simeone will use him this season.
The funny thing about Kondogbia is that he had a similar issue in Serie A to Rabiot's and his reputation plummeted. He regained form in the past 2 years but before that people would call him names if he was linked to a big club.
We're short in numbers in midfield so letting DVB go wouldn't be wise and I think he could still work out.
Message in the sense of us trying to sign a mid or ETH said something in that sense?
We are allegedly trying to sign two starting CMs that have complimentary skills. Which implies that the ones we have are not seen as starting material.
The major problem with Kondogbia, at least during his time in Spain, is that he has a long list of niggling injuries, that hold him back at times. Otherwise he is a classy and underrated player. When fit, he is a starter for Atletico. My impression is, that Atletico would sell him, if there is a decent offer. No idea about his personal preferences, but I don't think that it would be impossible to convince him.
Fred isn't a horrible player. He can be very good from time to time.
But whether he actually covers the areas he needs to cover, whether he actually makes the interceptions he needs to make, whether he actually tracks the runners he needs to track...and so forth as a defensive midfielder...seems almost random to me. Sometimes he does, sometimes he obviously doesn't.
He's just...frustrating, more than anything. And - yes - part of that has to do with coaching. But can you honestly say that he's - ever - shown any signs of being naturally good at the things a defensive midfielder (not a specialist - but a midfielder who is at least partly defensive) needs to master: reading the play, being in the right position at the right time, tracking the right opposition player, covering in a timely fashion for a defender pushing up...and so forth?
He can do it - he has done it. But - again - too often it seems like it's completely new to him.
Compare him to someone like Matic. Who was absolute shite for us on many occasions. But he looked sluggish, off his game, slow as feck - what have you. He didn't look like he didn't understand his role, though - he did get the basic function, he just wasn't up for it.
Nor should he be. Fred does his best work much further up the pitch.
The defensive box to box is the one playing higher in that system.
If we can sign 2 for good fees, we would have elevated the entire team. I don't think people understand how big of a weakness midfield has been for us and how much the rest of the team is affected by it.
Our CB's consistently lack legible passing options outside of our fullbacks - which was incredibly problematic when the likes of AWB, WIlliams and Telles were occupying those roles.
De Gea was constantly called into action and his distribution and sweeping has been spotlighted so much due to the fact that the people ahead of him can't move the ball forward well enough.
Our strikers have been expected to hold up the ball and score from opportunities in a way most teams don't simply because our midfield struggled to find them in good positions.
Our other attackers actually suffer the most. They barely get the ball in good positions. They essentially have to create chances out of nothing due to how stagnant the build up play is. When they lost the ball, like most attackers do, they are chastised more frequently, as our midfielders offer zero protection on the counter. Yet they attack far less than other top teams due to not recieving the ball frequently enough.
Mctominay is a championship player. Fred should be more of a squad player chipping in within different games where he always has a stronger partner.
Our CB's consistently lack legible passing options outside of our fullbacks - which was incredibly problematic when the likes of AWB, WIlliams and Telles were occupying those roles.
De Gea was constantly called into action and his distribution and sweeping has been spotlighted so much due to the fact that the people ahead of him can't move the ball forward well enough.
Our strikers have been expected to hold up the ball and score from opportunities in a way most teams don't simply because our midfield struggled to find them in good positions.
Our other attackers actually suffer the most. They barely get the ball in good positions. They essentially have to create chances out of nothing due to how stagnant the build up play is. When they lost the ball, like most attackers do, they are chastised more frequently, as our midfielders offer zero protection on the counter. Yet they attack far less than other top teams due to not recieving the ball frequently enough.
Mctominay is a championship player. Fred should be more of a squad player chipping in within different games where he always has a stronger partner.
ETH won't want 2 x defensive players as his pair which is why I think Fred can work, albeit he's not ideal. He's best where Carrick/Ragnick used him and where he plays for Brasil; post Ole sacking he played 19 games in the PL (and that's including all sub appearances) and got 3 goals, 5 assists in a dysfunctional attacking team. That's him being directly involved in 25% of all our goals during that time. If we keep playing him deep he's cack but he's actually good as a CM - our issue is gettign Rashford/Sancho more involved and sorting out the deepest lying CM.
I can see Rabiot competing with Fred next season but he'll be a stop gap in De Jong's role in my opinion if he comes now. It's not ideal but it's better than what he have.
What he describes as a connector isn't a defensive player, that's De Jong or whoever replaces him such as Eriksen during the second half of the last game. The other player is a defensive box to box. He may change things but that's what he has done with us and when he had De Jong and Schone.
If he does more of this it's all good. 
I read his comments as the opposite, that the connector is a more limited player whose job is to link the defence with the midfield and do the general hard yards offensively/defensively. Fred = Schone in that regard. I don't think he's currently operating with a player in De Jong's role because we don't have one who can play it - Eriksen is best current option but I feel he will be pressed too easily, VDB could fill in but he's not got the passing range.
Ridiculous wage requests being reported at around 180k-200k a week. Walk away.
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The connector isn't a limited player, he is the one in charge of the transition, that links everything up in possession. Fred should be Schone for us but we have no one to play the more technical role, outside of Eriksen.
Is that just your interpretation though? I haven't seen ETH define the role outside of linking defence/midfield and De Jong did a lot more than that at Ajax.
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Yeah De Jong and then at least CM has been upgraded, still leaves holes at RB, RW and ST
What do we think about Kean?
Not for me, Clive.
…per week?
Mbappe is on around £1m/week. Maybe if you spread the signing bonus out over the life of the contract, it’s around £1.5m/week or £800k/week after tax, but he’s not earning that much just on his salary.
Unbelievable Jeff.If he does more of this it's all good.
Yeah it simply has to be two or we will end up playing one of the comedy duo alongside him
Do that at Anfield in 93rd min and doesn't matter what happens the rest of Utd career
Didn’t realise rabiot was at city in his youth years. They obviously didn’t think much of him if they let him go. But saying that Chelsea let go of a lot of talent when they was younger aswell. It’s mixed feelings for this signing to be honest… for one of the biggest clubs in the world we shouldn’t be settling for 2nd 3rd or 4th choice targets, that’s if he even was a target because we weren’t even being linked with him up until we made the offer for him. Was all about de Jong, and neves or tielemans being the other targets. Sounds like a desperate and panic buy to me.
If we sign him, will he play CDM?
IF it happens will give him a chance
Suppose everyone deserves a chance. He could surprise us all. Least it’s only like 15m signing and not a really expensive one. The one thing that worry’s me though is he’s meant to have bad attitude. Bit like pogba and we don’t want that again after getting rid of a couple like that.
It's based on the role that Fred played, me watching De Jong with Ajax. But also on something that ETH said about De Jong's role for him, he said that he criticized De Jong for wanting to go too far up, that he wasn't a 10 or a box to box. He also described him as a supplier for his teammates, that supplies the players making the assists. Now if you look at how we have played up until now McTominay has been given license to roam high when Fred hasn't, Fred has been our main passing outlet while McTominay hasn't, McTominay is the one acting as a box to box not Fred.
Don't think we'd get 50m for them, let alone 150m.
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