Its a huge step forward though. Not having to boot the ball long anytime an opponent forms a high block when we have a goal kick. And a center forward who gets into goal scoring position and is good with his back to play.
Certainly it is a significant step forward. But still not enough to beat City in the league - we would need 3 signings on top of those to do so. Maybe even 4
It's hard to say what is needed to beat City in the league. They have one of the best coaches of all time who dominates every league. Best you can do is what Klopp and Liverpool did, and they only managed to beat them to the title once despite making a crazy team themselves. It's not a certain amount of signings. It's more luck.
I’m with you. Only in very very rare cases would a goalkeeper have a transformational affect on the squad’s effectiveness. They simply don’t touch the ball enough in dangerous areas. If you look at launch % and number of passes, well, Chelsea has the lowest launch %, followed by Liverpool and Man City. We’re in the middle, about the same as Newcastle, with Arsenal at an even higher launch %.
I absolutely think we will be better dealing with the press, but I would argue we were a lot better dealing with the press anyhow when we had Licha and Varane playing and not Maguire and Lindelof. To compound things, Fred and McTominay aren’t exactly Xavi and Busquets on the ball. Much of our improvement in playing through the press was Casemiro and Eriksen. In other words, Maguire + Lindelof + Fred + McTominay + DeGea was a high press disaster. We now have Eriksen/Mount + Casemiro + Licha + Varane + Onana. I wouldn’t call the addition of Onana as “transformative”. Ederson and Alison have had a bunch of passing mistakes like DeGea, it’s just they went on to win those matches because they were so good everywhere else on the pitch whereas we lost.
Yup for sure. It'll be the first time in a very long time that we don't have a glaring weakness, that we've addressed every position and have solid cover everywhere. Past that it's getting some very good players to be elite players, and then just slight adjustments like getting more suitable depth to the manager (so a proper DM cover rather than McTominay next to Eriksen which isn't bad, just very different to the starters). Or swapping Maguire with a CB who fits Ten Hag more. But those 2 are relatively minor needs as we still have them as cover regardless.
I think if you look back and just compare the fa cup final with the CL final, the difference between the 2 goalkeepers can't be bigger. Even Pep spoke about it. The FA Cup final, they pressed high, we couldn't play out from the back, de Gea went long and gave it away time and time again. The CL final, City tried to press and Onana effortlessly played through it and got Inter into decent positions.
When do they go to the US? I assumed the Leeds match tomorrow was in the US
It's in Norway
We play Arsenal over there on 22nd. We play Lyon in Scotland on 19th, then we must travel on 20th.
We are very close, you could say close to close. But not super close. But close enough.
Only under assumption our best XI is fully available (which is rarely the case - so we realistically need 3 or 4 more quality signings for depth - and God knows how many outgoing transfers to make it happen)
Agree hope we get Onana and a good #9 soon. Then we'll see what we can do.
I think we’ll have to agree to disagree mate. I totally respect your opinion, but the mistake wasn’t really in the way we played out of the back. Ten Hag got his tactics right. Ederson didn’t even play in the final!!!. Our xG was superior to theirs. Gundogan’s two goals were .03 and .04 xG. DeGea didn’t try to save the first one and muffed the second. You look at Garnachos’s near miss, that pinball in the 90th minute in front of City’s goal… Our xG was superior even taking away the penalty of .8 xG. Sometimes “luck” is the difference. People look at possession stats and assume the better team is the one with the most possession. Real Madrid has proven time and again that possession is not what makes a team great.
About the same that Chelsea and Liverpool were going to offer him.
If we don’t announce tomorrow, medicals don’t happen on Thursday. And Friday is a day of flight to USA…
Have to get the OK from the Glazers?
It is. Norway is our 51st state.
This makes sense in theory, or so we would think.
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If you read between the lines it sounds like he knows nothing
Our depth isn't bad though.
Really poor planning by the club
I agree we were relatively unlucky in the final and that de Gea bottled the 2nd goal (and first was a fluke). But in general play, we had a really hard time to build up anything. We couldn't go long, we couldn't play out from the back. It resulted in a weird and choppy game but we did get a couple of big chances. Onana changes that loads IMO, but anyway. Think you'll be surprised!
I expect the fee is actually agreed and its now just terms of payment I.e. up front or phased.
Another non-update update
I know Onana likes to play like a centre forward, but playing with no keeper at all is a new strategy on me...
As a 'I can understand if people don't see things as rosy and have doubts', you were doing so well until the bolded.
We had one of the deepest defensive lines in the Premier league last season. Watch that change this year.
I'm still optimistic that we'll get a DM. We need to get sales over the line but Fred, Elanga, Amad, Greenwood, McT are all attracting interest. Hopefully one of Fred / McT leaving is enough to fund the Amrabat purchase and we'll be sorted in terms of the depth. Casemiro will still be a big miss but we don't need to overhaul the tactics for one player. Amrabat will be plug and play. Also feel like we're in a comfortable position with Case, so we should take a punt on a cheap DM from South America or Japan or something.
I would say it's the right side of our back four more generally. There's an obvious imbalance between what Varane + Dalot/AWB offer in possession on one side and Martinez + Shaw on the other. Or what Timber + Mazraoui provided for Ajax.
I feel Dalot and AwB each have their qualities that make them decent enough in possession. AwB is pretty hard to dispossess when he runs with the ball and Dalot has a decent line breaking pass on him. Varane seems to be able to carry the ball okay but doesn't do much after he runs with it. I also don't think he's the type to pull off those quick movement patterns (Casemiro drops and Varane darts off into LCM or whatever to create the passing angle for Martinez for a few seconds).
