[Feed Me]

Can’t believe the stick this lad gets. He’s impetuous, who isn’t at his age?, but he’s a serviceable back up who I can see growing into a very good squad player.

 

[Dozer]

I recall under Mourinho we had countless people on here posting that they would "rather see a team filled with raw, hungry local lads, and finish 15th in the PL".

As soon as one (not a whole team - but one!) such player is included because our first choice is injured, the same people throw their toys out of the pram. How short are our collective memories?

His flaws are obvious. But equally obvious is his grit, determination, and how much he wants to play for the club. Maybe he'll be good enough eventually, maybe he won't - but in the meantime let's cut him a bit of slack.

 

[::sonny::]

Nothing more than a championship player like Lingard and James

But he will improve, Lingard and James not

 

[Skåre Willoch]

I'm still optimistic for this lad. He has some qualities our other full backs don't have, but he has to work a lot on his defensive deficiencies if he wants to make it for real.

Good squad player to have. Hope he does well and stays with us for many years.

 

[Rozay]

Can’t believe the stick this lad gets. He’s impetuous, who isn’t at his age?, but he’s a serviceable back up who I can see growing into a very good squad player.

He’s not a serviceable back up at all.

 

[Feed Me]

He’s not a serviceable back up at all.

He stuck to his task manfully yesterday.

 

[red4ever 79]

Was it the one where he got the tiniest tap on his ankle and started holding his face?

That was the one. Munir caught his left ankle slightly and he went down clutching his face, when he saw the ref had given a fk he jumped back up again. I detest such behaviour no matter which club they play for. Surprised to see a young english lad doing that though

 

[Nick7]

That was the one. Munir caught his left ankle slightly and he went down clutching his face, when he saw the ref had given a fk he jumped back up again. I detest such behaviour no matter which club they play for. Surprised to see a young english lad doing that though

He headbutted yer man in the knee to be fair.

 

[Josep Dowling]

He stuck to his task manfully yesterday.

First goal, the striker was at the far post. Rather than following him he ran into the space being covered by the CB. When the cross came in he realised he was in the wrong position. It was too late, the ball had already past him.

Second goal he didn't stop the cross.

Turned inside out by their RW. Out of position many times. Same thing happened against Copenhagen.

I get he's young but he had an awful game last night. LB needs sorting if Shaw is going to be injured all the time.

 

[Gopher Brown]

I'm still optimistic for this lad. He has some qualities our other full backs don't have, but he has to work a lot on his defensive deficiencies if he wants to make it for real.

Good squad player to have. Hope he does well and stays with us for many years.

What are his best qualities?

 

[Craig Ward]

A gritty battling display - typical of him really.

We all know he's not first choice but his determination is something to be admired

Sadly - he got caught a few times. He looked shattered after 50-60 mins, Ole should have put TFM on much sooner to give him a chance.

I like Williams as a back up - not a lot more. We've missed Shaw lately big time

 

[Feed Me]

First goal, the striker was at the far post. Rather than following him he ran into the space being covered by the CB. When the cross came in he realised he was in the wrong position. It was too late, the ball had already past him.

Second goal he didn't stop the cross.

Turned inside out by their RW. Out of position many times. Same thing happened against Copenhagen.

I get he's young but he had an awful game last night. LB needs sorting if Shaw is going to be injured all the time.

I could also sit here and demolish the likes of AWB and Lindelof for their defending. It’s a collective thing. I’m not down for shitting on a promising young player doing his best when he’s absolutely knackered and we have little other option.

 

[Crimson King]

I'm still willing to give him time. He's young and obviously has a good mentality, if not a bit too rash at the moment. In the youth set up he tore it up at LB, but I fear at the top level he might not be good enough to play there regularly.

However, I think he could develop as good squad cover at RB and then only be used at LB in an emergency. We've been linked with a few young LBs to compete with Shaw, which would make sense.

If he turned into an O'Shea type player then I'd be happy. You need these sort of utility players throughout the course of a long season.

 

[Skåre Willoch]

What are his best qualities?

His work rate is one. He's a decent tackler. He's quite good at man marking and usually gives their wings a proper hard time. He likes to go forward, though with very limited success so far.

I guess he'd be better off on the right, where he would be a lot more useful going forward as well. Right now he's a good and verstaile squad player for both full back positions imo. I reckon he's shown a lot of potential, and that the people writing him off as a "championship level player" are wrong.

 

[Josep Dowling]

I could also sit here and demolish the likes of AWB and Lindelof for their defending. It’s a collective thing. I’m not down for shitting on a promising young player doing his best when he’s absolutely knackered and we have little other option.

Wan Bissaka had an awful game. He provides nothing going forward at all. Lindelof was okay but was the main reason the second goals goes in. This is a thread on Brandon William though so why would I mention them? You can still criticise a player who is young and a United youth product. In my opinion he had two very poor games against Copenhagen and Sevilla. Over the season he has done well albeit his major issue is his positioning. He needs to cut out the diving as well, I thought he came from a boxing family?

 

[limerickcitykid]

He was positionally all over the place even in the u18s. I thinks it’s actually impressive it’s taken this long for him to start falling apart in the first team. Unfortunately, his ability on the ball in the u18s which made up for his defensive woes seem to be non-existent in the first team.

 

[Nou_Camp99]

Never make it as a left back in memory of man. He might have a chance as a right back. Maybe.

 

[Terminator]

Poor performance and caught out multiple times but the lads only 19 and can improve.

 

[dev1l]

He s just a kid ffs playing probably the most important game of his career. Give him a break.
He s still young, so he has good chances of improving.

 

[red4ever 79]

He headbutted yer man in the knee to be fair.

Nah no one touched his face.

 

[Feed Me]

Wan Bissaka had an awful game. He provides nothing going forward at all. Lindelof was okay but was the main reason the second goals goes in. This is a thread on Brandon William though so why would I mention them? You can still criticise a player who is young and a United youth product. In my opinion he had two very poor games against Copenhagen and Sevilla. Over the season he has done well albeit his major issue is his positioning. He needs to cut out the diving as well, I thought he came from a boxing family?

I don’t mind the diving, I think we need to be cuter in Europe. Sevilla deceived the ref a lot. I think his positional deficiencies are normal in one so young and you would expect that to improve with time. It is acceptable to criticise a youth product, but the venom in certain posts is unnecessary.

 

[red4ever 79]

I don’t mind the diving, I think we need to be cuter in Europe. Sevilla deceived the ref a lot. I think his positional deficiencies are normal in one so young and you would expect that to improve with time. It is acceptable to criticise a youth product, but the venom in certain posts is unnecessary.

There's diving, and there is rolling around holding your face, when the guy caught you on the ankle. No one is saying we dont need to be cuter with our tactics, but we dont want that type of behavior

 

[saivet]

Can’t believe the stick this lad gets. He’s impetuous, who isn’t at his age?, but he’s a serviceable back up who I can see growing into a very good squad player.

If we're honest, he's just not very good. It's reminiscent of Blackett, McNair and CBJ in the LVG era who all had some okayish performances but it was pretty clear to see that they weren't all that talented, yet many fans had much bigger hope. I would like to see him prove me wrong but to me his ceiling is being a squad player at United or starting at a bottom third PL team.

 

[GlasgowCeltic]

Definitely the kind of player fans will deny having ever sang the praises of once he’s shipped to Sunderland for an undisclosed fee

 

[Nick7]

Nah no one touched his face.

When he fell down he tried to turn his body and head butted his knee.

 

[Mercurial]

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

This one?

 

[Rozay]

He stuck to his task manfully yesterday.

That isn’t where the bar is drawn, in my opinion. Williams will always ‘stick to his task manfully’, as would almost any academy kid for us, I’d imagine.

I’ve been meaning to start a deeper thread about squad players, as I suspect many have different opinions on what this means. For me, every player, including squad players, need to be good enough to start, in the main. The squad players just have someone better in front, but they themselves, are good enough.

I see no point in a second choice who is not good enough to play every week. That is what will need to happen if the first choice is unavailable, so being a back up, you still need to be a United standard player. Players can’t hide behind the squad player title. Lingard and Pereira, due to circumstance, started 40 games each this season. They aren’t good enough to start even when we have injuries or suspensions. Dan James is ‘back up’ - yet he’s seemingly not considered a good enough option from the bench when the attack is struggling.

For me, Williams looks out of his depth starting, which means he’s not at the requisite standard even as a squad player, as God forbid he is required to start 15 in a row. He is spirited for sure, but has nothing else that indicates he should be a Manchester United player to me.

Fair play to Williams for giving it a go. I was saying in the reserve forum around January that in an ideal scenario, he would have been loaned this season to a lower league, and many were angered with me. I just think that is where he was at in his trajectory at the time. He wasn’t really pushing for the first team based on performance as such, he needed to go and get experience and then we’ll see if he’s good enough. Anyway, football is of course about opinions. I saw Whitwell the other day saying he should be on Southgate’s radar. God forbid Mbappé gets his hands on him at international level!

 

[Feed Me]

If we're honest, he's just not very good. It's reminiscent of Blackett, McNair and CBJ in the LVG era who all had some okayish performances but it was pretty clear to see that they weren't all that talented, yet many fans had much bigger hope. I would like to see him prove me wrong but to me his ceiling is being a squad player at United or starting at a bottom third PL team.

I’d like to see him more on his own flank before writing him off. I think he has more in his locker than the trio you’ve mentioned, not least his good recovery speed and aggression.

 

[red4ever 79]

When he fell down he tried to turn his body and head butted his knee.

Nah
Actually I have just seen the vid on this page coming from Twitter, and that is not even the incident I am talking about. Into the second half Munir had the ball, turned back and caught William's left ankle. He went down clutching his face, rolled over a few times, saw the ref had given a fk then bounced up again right as rain.

 

[Feed Me]

There's diving, and there is rolling around holding your face, when the guy caught you on the ankle. No one is saying we dont need to be cuter with our tactics, but we dont want that type of behavior

We don’t have enough shit houses, like it or not, we need to be cuter.

 

[red4ever 79]

We don’t have enough shit houses, like it or not, we need to be cuter.

I beg to disagree then. That's not what I want to see from our players.

 

[Nick7]

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

This one?

Nah

It's literally right there on video. He headbutts the guys knee.

 

[Feed Me]

I beg to disagree then. That's not what I want to see from our players.

We’ve had loads over the years. I recall Vidic being one of the worst for it.

 

[saivet]

I’d like to see him more on his own flank before writing him off. I think he has more in his locker than the trio you’ve mentioned, not least his good recovery speed and aggression.

This is true, it's difficult for him in an attacking sense playing down the left when he strongly favours his right, but given he AWB doesn't get injured much and was bough for big money recently, rightly or wrongly, I don't think he'd be given the opportunity. Do agree though that he's better and showed more than the 3 I mentioned though.

 

[red4ever 79]

We’ve had loads over the years. I recall Vidic being one of the worst for it.

It's not what I want to see. Maybe you are ok with that. First thing I thought off was the famous Rivaldo incident from the world cup. After the second roll and peep towards the ref, i reached for the remote and put the snooker on

 

[Feed Me]

This is true, it's difficult for him in an attacking sense playing down the left when he strongly favours his right, but given he AWB doesn't get injured much and was bough for big money recently, rightly or wrongly, I don't think he'd be given the opportunity. Do agree though that he's better and showed more than the 3 I mentioned though.

AWB isn’t good on the ball but better than what he has shown. I think he is exhausted at this point and we need to find ways to get him more regular rests throughout the season. This is where Williams can come in useful in my opinion and think he will look even more polished on the right flank.

 

[red4ever 79]

It's literally right there on video. He headbutts the guys knee.

It was even a different incident.

 

[Tony247]

Poor kid put into precarious matches when he is supposed to be a backup for Shaw (as a sub) and playing mostly without pressure and learning. Hang in there buddy.

 

[Feed Me]

It's not what I want to see. Maybe you are ok with that. First thing I thought off was the famous Rivaldo incident from the world cup. After the second roll and peep towards the ref, i reached for the remote and put the snooker on

That’s a very laudable view. I think most of the best teams in history knew how to mix it when it came to dark arts like close to the edge aggression in the tackle, pressuring officials or being cute to gain an advantage in penalties or red cards. Top level sport is defined by such fine margins and you have to be adept at finding an edge or be the bridesmaid.

 

[Nick7]

It was even a different incident.

No it's not, that's the incident where he was rolling about holding his face.