Appearances for United: Maguire 100 - Bailly 100

RashyForPM

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I have seen quite a few people say that other people overrate him because he's English. I wouldn't class that as xenophobia though.

In saying that I don't read either football twitter or the match day thread, as both are full of absolute cancer and the dregs of society.
Overrate, I can admit that I definitely have. It’s probably due to the English tax where due to registration rules and selling to rivals in the same league, English players need more money to be prised out of their clubs. Thus, people start inexplicably rating Maguire on his £80m price and call him overrated.

However, I have simply never seen a single person tweet “Maguire is awful because he’s English”. That just would not make sense whatsoever.

And yeah, agree on football Twitter and the match day thread. Match day thread is generally perpetually negative even if we are winning, but I still read and post there because some posters give decent, balanced views. Football Twitter is just a disgrace.
 

RashyForPM

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I would have to say they do. I'm not British btw but it is clear that people on here really think that British players are given preferential treatment by the club and so are quicker to criticize them. Before this season, Shaw was regularly criticized despite his quality being apparent to anyone with a trained eye. Rashford gets an enormous amount of abuse on here despite being one of the most effective players in the league. AWB has made enormous strides in his attacking play this year but people still use the lazy stereotype that he's rubbish offensively. McTominay is another one people underrate for no reason other than he's an academy lad.
Generally agree with your judgements, but completely disagree that they are criticised because they are English. Pogba, despite being our 2nd or 3rd best player, is genuinely vilified in his thread by many posters. De Gea, some don’t even think he’s a legend.

About the bolded bit though, AWB has definitely not improved in his attacking play, or if he has, it’s by a marginal amount. He’s the most clueless player on the ball in the entire first team.
 

Zen86

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Remember when people lost their fecking minds because Lindelöf got his starting spot back after returning from injury? Bailly had a few perfectly acceptable games and one stand-out performance, and people were acting as if he'd been brilliant.
I do love the "he's a brilliant defender when he's not injured and/or doing stupid things" argument. Basically judging our CBs based on theoretical ability, rather than actual.
 

harms

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Genius line of thinking there.
Well, is there any evidence of this bizarre anti-English sentiment’s that’s such widespread on caf? And how it’s different to how people treat our French players or our Spanish keeper, for example?
 

Jezpeza

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I do love the "he's a brilliant defender when he's not injured and/or doing stupid things" argument. Basically judging our CBs based on theoretical ability, rather than actual.
yeah its bizarre. Would be ridiculous in another context, like lauding the positives of a car thats a broken down Traveller and talking about how nice it would be to take on a roadtrip if it could start and not break down every 6 miles.

we really need a centre half who is more reliable than Bailly for fitness and had more ability than lindelof. But i dont even think bailly is any better than lindelof
 

MadDogg

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Overrate, I can admit that I definitely have. It’s probably due to the English tax where due to registration rules and selling to rivals in the same league, English players need more money to be prised out of their clubs. Thus, people start inexplicably rating Maguire on his £80m price and call him overrated.

However, I have simply never seen a single person tweet “Maguire is awful because he’s English”. That just would not make sense whatsoever.
To be fair it doesn't have to be a straight up "Maguire is awful because he's English" to be xenophobia, just as it wouldn't have to be ".... is awful because he's black" to be racist. If people are treating him worse because of him being English then that does fit the category.

Personally I can't think of any of our regulars except maybe Shaw (and he got plenty before this season), Greenwood and maybe McTominay who doesn't get over-the-top dislike. Some of that over-the-top dislike towards Maguire does mention him being English, but I think that's more them saying people overrate him because he's English, cost too much because he's English, and was only made captain because he's English. Some of which is probably true to be honest, but more importantly in this discussion he'd probably get just as much dislike if he were some other nationality but they'd say other things. The dislike isn't caused by him being English.
 

Robbie Boy

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The Swedish xenophobia is worse tbf - Lindelof gets way more shit. We should call this place 'Lets look for outrage Cafe'.
 

Zen86

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Well, is there any evidence of this bizarre anti-English sentiment’s that’s such widespread on caf? And how it’s different to how people treat our French players or our Spanish keeper, for example?
Me saying "some users on here" has now become "such widespread on caf", nice embellishment there. Great job. You can poke your nose through this thread if you really want to see some examples, but I suspect you won't.
 

harms

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Me saying "some users on here" has now become "such widespread on caf", nice embellishment there. Great job. You can poke your nose through this thread if you really want to see some examples, but I suspect you won't.
I'm not replying only to you though and you can look through this thread to see that I'm not inventing quotes from thin air.

As for the Greece incident — I've seen that thread and there surely were a lot of generalisations about Brits in Greece, and there were a lot of questionable posts there. I'm not seeing this sentiment spreading out from that thread though, while you've said that this is something that's focused on English players & Maguire and not something limited to the Greece incident.
 

Zen86

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I'm not replying only to you though and you can look through this thread to see that I'm not inventing quotes from thin air.

As for the Greece incident — I've seen that thread and there surely were a lot of generalisations about Brits in Greece, and there were a lot of questionable posts there. I'm not seeing this sentiment spreading out from that thread though, while you've said that this is something that's focused on English players & Maguire and not something limited to the Greece incident.
There are also plenty of "wouldn't be captain if he wasn't English", "another overrated English player", and of course the good old "brexit united" type comments in that thread and throughout the forum also. I'm not saying this is a huge prejudicial issue, but it's quite clearly something that counts against him and our other British players also.
 

RashyForPM

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To be fair it doesn't have to be a straight up "Maguire is awful because he's English" to be xenophobia, just as it wouldn't have to be ".... is awful because he's black" to be racist. If people are treating him worse because of him being English then that does fit the category.

Personally I can't think of any of our regulars except maybe Shaw (and he got plenty before this season), Greenwood and maybe McTominay who doesn't get over-the-top dislike. Some of that over-the-top dislike towards Maguire does mention him being English, but I think that's more them saying people overrate him because he's English, cost too much because he's English, and was only made captain because he's English. Some of which is probably true to be honest, but more importantly in this discussion he'd probably get just as much dislike if he were some other nationality but they'd say other things. The dislike isn't caused by him being English.
Agree with all this!

Anyway, back to the thread, Maguire is having a top season and is now definitely one of the best CBs in the league, while Bailly is still one of the most injury prone players I’ve seen play for us. Unfortunately, Bailly is one of the first I’d less go. I love his aggression and frankly nuts style of defending, but I’d be looking to sell Varane if he was only available for 4 games before heading right back to the treatment table again for 2 months.
 

OleTheGreat

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What's your thoughts on AWB? With Shaw and Maguire looking good we are halfway to having the defence settled..
AWB is wonderful in defense but every left back and right back work in cohesion with their left and right sided forwards and I think that's probably why AWB is finding it hard to move forward on the right. A good right sided winger will prove AWB to be good on the right as well and like Ole has mentioned numerous times, we need a left footed CB to partner Maguire.
 

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I'm not the biggest fan of Maguire, but fitness (injury resistance) is an underrated quality, particularly in defenders, where familiarity among the back four corresponds with overall defensive stability.
 

Cast5

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There are also plenty of "wouldn't be captain if he wasn't English", "another overrated English player", and of course the good old "brexit united" type comments in that thread and throughout the forum also. I'm not saying this is a huge prejudicial issue, but it's quite clearly something that counts against him and our other British players also.
This, I don’t have the time to post tonnes of posts and tweets, here’s some posts..

He should be... Maguire has shown zero credentials to be club captain apart from being English.
I couldn't agree more, while Lindelof isn't at the required standard that I'd like to see starting for us. Maguire is overrated by some due to the fact that he's English and expensive when in reality he's a complete liability.
Here’s some posts from a poster called “lsd”

What is this "he's a leader " nonsense that gets trotted out as a reason to buy these players

What about Maguire makes him a leader other than he is English and white ?

I don't even think it is being English

You don't see Nathan Ake being called a leader even though he is a better defender .

Are Utd players like Pogba and Fernandes supposed to be inspired by Maguire because he sometimes wins a few headers ?
Footballers especially English players are absolute idiots . That's why Rashford stands out so much as a good role model .

Perhaps it is a lack of guidance and education from an early age when they join clubs youth set ups
Being English apparently as there is nothing else in him i can see that points to him being a leader or having any sort of personality
I actually find it funny that people on here ( 2 mods) called my post baseless, which means no evidence, there’s more than the ones I’ve posted and there’s plenty of it on twitter. I’m not going to go on twitter and find loads of tweets to post on here for “evidence” my post was praising Maguire and I mentioned he receives xenophobic criticism, some people have taken it as I’ve said all criticism is xenophobic.. Strange.
 

King7Eric

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Generally agree with your judgements, but completely disagree that they are criticised because they are English. Pogba, despite being our 2nd or 3rd best player, is genuinely vilified in his thread by many posters. De Gea, some don’t even think he’s a legend.

About the bolded bit though, AWB has definitely not improved in his attacking play, or if he has, it’s by a marginal amount. He’s the most clueless player on the ball in the entire first team.
That's very harsh imo. He has improved quite a lot, think even Ole mentioned it in the presser the other day.
 

RashyForPM

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That's very harsh imo. He has improved quite a lot, think even Ole mentioned it in the presser the other day.
I just feel like he has conned people because he got into good positions to score two goals this seasons. And of course, good positioning doesn’t make him a better ball player. His defensive positioning is alright too, hence why he’s always in position to dominate 1v1s.

Watching the games, the guy is really bad with the ball a lot of the time. Passing is very inconsistent, and if it’s accurate, it’s either sideways or backwards a lot. Dribbling, he has a good thing going with that left to right shift he does, but when opponents block that off, it’s worse than non-existent.
 

ReallyUSA

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Bailey is WHAT now?!
Best CB and I stand by that. Look at how we play, how he disrupts play, and the calmness Maguire gets because he knows his partner can keep pace with the attackers. Our best run this year was with him in the team.
 

Roosney

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Best CB and I stand by that. Look at how we play, how he disrupts play, and the calmness Maguire gets because he knows his partner can keep pace with the attackers. Our best run this year was with him in the team.
I have no problem agreeing with you. Sure, Bailly might bicycle kick the ball in his own hand in 95th minute under no pressure inside our box but overall he's at least on par with Maguire.

He has that menacing presense too that's similar to Vidic and Rio. I'm pretty sure attackers are not as intimitated playing against Lindelöf or Maguire as they are against Bailly.
 

Djemba-Djemba

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I have no problem agreeing with you. Sure, Bailly might bicycle kick the ball in his own hand in 95th minute under no pressure inside our box but overall he's at least on par with Maguire.

He has that menacing presense too that's similar to Vidic and Rio. I'm pretty sure attackers are not as intimitated playing against Lindelöf or Maguire as they are against Bailly.
Bailly plays about 12 games a season though.

His fitness record is appalling.
 

Kag

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It’s an abysmal statistic. Bailly should be out on his arse.

Maguire is great, though. Comes in for a stick for a range of reasons: price, being English, being a little bit slow in spite of it seldom costing us goals. His big head, too.

He’s one of the best centre halves around and always fit to play. You’d think after years of paying defenders to sit in the stands it would be appreciated a little more.
 

Djemba-Djemba

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It’s an abysmal statistic. Bailly should be out on his arse.

Maguire is great, though. Comes in for a stick for a range of reasons: price, being English, being a little bit slow in spite of it seldom costing us goals. His big head, too.

He’s one of the best centre halves around and always fit to play. You’d think after years of paying defenders to sit in the stands it would be appreciated a little more.
It's definitely something loads of people take for granted, myself included.

Having a centre back at Utd that is actually consistently fit and able to play every week, what a novel concept. Especially after having sick notes like Jones and Rojo and Bailly at the club for years and years. Even Smalling had his fair share of injuries especially in the first few years.
 

Walters_19_MuFc

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Mr consistent. People can chat shit about him all they want but having at least one consisteny centre back makes a massive difference, which prior to Maguire, we didnt have the luxury of doing for many years.

Lindelof has also been consistent.

Going into next season, as good as he is when he plays, we must replace Bailly. Having only two reliable centre backs is a massive risk.

Maguire
Lindelof
New CB
Tuanzebe
 

Walrus

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I agree with the premise of the thread. Out of curiosity though, it would be interesting to see the defensive stats for each players 100 games.
 

Will Singh

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A fit Bailly is our best CM BUT Maguire as someone above said is a freak of nature and like Neville said on $ky his England's biggest loss if injured and the same can be said at United!!!
 

Sandikan

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Honestly, 92 percent seems low for maguire.

I can't recall any injuries.
Does sound low, but the you think 100 games, 92%, that's only 8 missed, and split that over 2 seasons and missing a few low key early round europa/league cup, and very easily adds up.

Think someone mentioned it's 109 games, but same situation really.
 

Sandikan

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A fit Bailly is our best CM BUT Maguire as someone above said is a freak of nature and like Neville said on $ky his England's biggest loss if injured and the same can be said at United!!!
I don't even think this is true.
A fit on form Bailly is better than Lindelof, but the truth is clear - we only have that about 5 games a season. The rest is injuries, and poor recklessness
 

Alfie092

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Frightening thing is he also managed to play every game by playing all 38 PL games in in first season at Leicester. In his second season he player 31 out of 38 league games due to a knee injury where he was out for a month in December 2018. Other than that, for over 2 years now he has been available for selection.

He has been involved in some heavy challenges as well in that time and just seems to brush it off...

Before Rio and Vidic started to pick up injuries late in their careers, that was the last time we had a CB available for at least 90% of the time and that was a decade ago!

I love Bailly and feel if he can get 40-45 games a season and get some consistency he would be a good partner for Maguire. However, if he is to continue only average 20 games a season then we need to sell him, get whatever we can get for him and free up some of the wages and sign probably 2 CB's in the summer because I feel Tuanzebe requires a loan either abroad or to another PL club first, while Lindelof is being manager with a consistent back problem, Rojo is basically gone, Jones is Jones, which leaves us with only Maguire.

Options of Maguire, Lindelof, Kounde and Milenkovic seems like a good mix to me!
 

Marwood

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What is this based on if I may ask? Do Rashford, Shaw, Henderson and Wan-Bissaka suffer from the same treatment?
AWB does. The key to the bias is how much you pay for a British player. If it's deemed too much the player will forever be regarded as overrated. As we see with Maguire. Rice would get the same treament if he came. It's already been decided by some he's overpriced and overrated. He'd have to be perfect every game to avoid criticisms such as inconsistent. How anyone can say Maguire has been inconsistent is beyond me.

Rashford and Henderson obviously didn't cost anything so they dodge that particular bullet.
 

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That's why I've never been that annoyed about Maguire's price tag, it was too much for what he is (he's not the best defender in the world) but to United it was worth it just to have a Centre Back that's actually fit and can play 40+ games a season, which is something we've seemed to have lacked since Rio left.
 

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AWB does. The key to the bias is how much you pay for a British player. If it's deemed too much the player will forever be regarded as overrated. As we see with Maguire. Rice would get the same treament if he came. It's already been decided by some he's overpriced and overrated. He'd have to be perfect every game to avoid criticisms such as inconsistent. How anyone can say Maguire has been inconsistent is beyond me.

Rashford and Henderson obviously didn't cost anything so they dodge that particular bullet.
This is a massive reach here. Fred is called overpriced as is Pogba as was Lukaku etc, etc. Players are called overpriced regardless of what nationality they are. It doesn't help either that English players generally come with a massive premium.

And yeah, Rice is overrated but I also find Kante to be overrated. So nah, overrated is overrated and overpriced is overpriced, no matter where you're from. Fml.
 

elmo

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Bailly has to go imo. 100 appearances in 5 seasons, an average of 20 every season. That’s nowhere near enough at any level.

Move on, thank you for generally being solid when you sporadically stepped out on to the pitch.
How many where he actually played the full 90 mins too. Seems like he's always coming off because he picked up a knock
 

Marwood

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This is a massive reach here. Fred is called overpriced as is Pogba as was Lukaku etc, etc. Players are called overpriced regardless of what nationality they are. It doesn't help either that English players generally come with a massive premium.

And yeah, Rice is overrated but I also find Kante to be overrated. So nah, overrated is overrated and overpriced is overpriced, no matter where you're from. Fml.
I'm not saying this is a science, that it applies exactly to form on every occasion.

But there is a stigma around expensive British players. They have to be faultless to avoid criticism.

I bet when Fred first arrived most were open minded, gave him time to bed in. Despite it being an incredibly high fee given where he was as a player. Felt to me like he was given a year.

Now imagine we sign say Ben White for the same fee, £50 million. In fact adjust for inflation, maybe £55-60million. The knives are out from the get go. He'd have to hit the ground running or be called another expensive British player. Within months it would be "why didn't we sign the cheaper foreign version etc etc."

Even now we have lots still saying Bailly is better than Maguire. Which is crazy.

Personally I don't think folk like the slight superiority complex English football has and it's a reaction to that.
 
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MadMike

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They'll make Bailly an improved contract offer to keep him. It'd be a shame to leave Jones without company.
 

Robbie Boy

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I'm not saying this is a science, that it applies exactly to form on every occasion.

But there is a stigma around expensive British players. They have to be faultless to avoid criticism.

I bet when Fred first arrived most were open minded, gave him time to bed in. Despite it being an incredibly high fee given where he was as a player. Felt to me like he was given a year.

Now imagine we sign say Ben White for the same fee, £50 million. In fact adjust for inflation, maybe £55-60million. The knives are out from the get go. He'd have to hit the ground running or be called another expensive British player. Within months it would be "why didn't we sign the cheaper foreign version etc etc."

Even now we have lots still saying Bailly is better than Maguire. Which is crazy.

Personally I don't think folk like the slight superiority complex English football has and it's a reaction to that.
I still disagree tbh - I think what happens sometimes is that there's that bit of the unknown about a player arriving from another league, so people can't pass judgement as quickly on a fee. Who would have had the bollocks to say "hey Fred is well overpriced and I know this as I'm an avid watcher of the Ukrainian league".

The Ben White example isn't great at all: If we paid that kind of money for him, it would simply be too much. He hasn't even had a full season at PL level and has been fairly inconsistent. Don't forget that the majority on here watch a shit load of PL football, so would be far more able to pass judgement on who they feel is overpriced etc. If anything, there's perhaps a snobbery from buying within the PL at times, as opposed to it having to do with the nationality of a player. I've seen Ndidi and Neves shit on as much as Rice, for example. It doesn't help though that buying within the PL is exceptionally difficult at times.
 

Marwood

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I still disagree tbh - I think what happens sometimes is that there's that bit of the unknown about a player arriving from another league, so people can't pass judgement as quickly on a fee. Who would have had the bollocks to say "hey Fred is well overpriced and I know this as I'm an avid watcher of the Ukrainian league".

The Ben White example isn't great at all: If we paid that kind of money for him, it would simply be too much. He hasn't even had a full season at PL level and has been fairly inconsistent. Don't forget that the majority on here watch a shit load of PL football, so would be far more able to pass judgement on who they feel is overpriced etc. If anything, there's perhaps a snobbery from buying within the PL at times, as opposed to it having to do with the nationality of a player. I've seen Ndidi and Neves shit on as much as Rice, for example. It doesn't help though that buying within the PL is exceptionally difficult at times.
I take your point on an element of the unknown buying a player more time. I also agree that snobbery does extend to generally buying from within our own league, it's not just English players. My point was never about race as such.

Ben White is just one example off the top of my head but your take on it kind of proves my point.

Fred was a 25 year old barely capped Brazilian playing in the Ukranian league. £50 millilon. Everyone has an open mind. Player even gets a year to settle before we make a judgement.

Ben White, same fee, younger, year in championship, year in premier league and you think £50 million would definitely be too much.

Can you see the contrast?

Now Fred might get more leeway as you hadn't seen him play. That could be the reason. But honestly how much of Ben White have you seen? How many 90mins?
 

Robbie Boy

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I take your point on an element of the unknown buying a player more time. I also agree that snobbery does extend to generally buying from within our own league, it's not just English players. My point was never about race as such.

Ben White is just one example off the top of my head but your take on it kind of proves my point.

Fred was a 25 year old barely capped Brazilian playing in the Ukranian league. £50 millilon. Everyone has an open mind. Player even gets a year to settle before we make a judgement.

Ben White, same fee, younger, year in championship, year in premier league and you think £50 million would definitely be too much.

Can you see the contrast?

Now Fred might get more leeway as you hadn't seen him play. That could be the reason. But honestly how much of Ben White have you seen? How many 90mins?
Personally speaking, I've probably watched quite a-bit of Ben White, but wouldn't really be able to speak about him, as I can't say I've ever watched him intently. Nevertheless, I would certainly be able to pass better judgement than I would have been able to regarding Fred.

Let's also not forget that Fred had played over 30 games in Europe and was a Brazilian international when we bought him. Not to mention, he had some big performances in the CL. City were linked with him when we signed him, so he did seem an exotic foreign signing of sorts, with a-lot of unknown about him. It would seem fairly disingenuous for people to pass rash judgments on a player they clearly haven't seen much of.

I still think the snobbery and biases are more around signing players from within the PL. The amount of stick Liverpool got when they signed VVD for example, and when we were linked with Mane at Southampton, no one was remotely interested.
 
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UnrelatedPsuedo

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People need a reality check. Ledley King was one of the best defenders of his generation. He’s in nobody’s all time PL XI as his body couldn’t handle professional football. Same for Paul McGrath.

Staying fit is part of football. It’s so important. 20 ten out of ten games a year is less valuable than 40 eight out of ten games. (If the talent gap isn’t huge).