Can you win titles with a lopsided team in terms of quality

[UpWithRivers]

Lets say we manage to sell Pogba for 60/70 and Lingard, De Gea etc for another 50 and get together 200 mill plus. Then we spunk it all on Sancho and Haaland. That would leave us with the same or arguably a worse defense after losing De Gea and a worse midfield after losing Pogba. Everyone says that there is no point having good attacking players if you have no service from the midfield and we wont play well until we have a fast CB so we can push up but Bruno and Rashford have had 20 goal seasons and 10 plus assists so they seem to do ok. Lets say Sancho and Haaland rack up the same numbers as Bruno and Rashford thats 80 goals (on average, maybe Haaland gets 25 and Sancho 15 etc). Add in Greenwood having a decent season, Martial having a better season, possibly VDB getting some goals, McTominay has 7 so can do more etc and we are getting close to the 100 goal mark. We should win a sht load of games with that amount of goals. And our defense is second best in the league now so we shouldn't conceded many. Ok it might not be pretty but would it work? I dont think park the bus teams would be able to withstand that front 4 and if needed we can throw on VDB, Greenwood, James, etc and try to force it like we do now

--------------------Henderson
WB-----Lindelof----Maguire----Shaw
------------McTominay----Fred
Sancho-------Bruno---------Rashford
----------------Haaland---------

 

[DWelbz19]

If Haaland and Sancho were to replicate their numbers they post up currently once joining - we’d be very much up there. Not sure the central midfield is good enough, though.

 

[davidmichael]

Simple answer is no, let’s use Real in their ‘Galactico’s’ days as a prime example. They had a forward line of Ronaldo, Raul, Zidane and Figo who were all in the top ten best players in the world and if I remember right that group only won one La Liga.

I said a few times that it doesn’t matter if we signed Haaland as we’d be no better off due to Haaland not being Mbappe so needing chances created for him in order to score, we struggle to create chances as everyone knows shut down Fernandes and our left side and they’ll stifle us playing a heavy low block.

An example I’ll give is Haaland is in a lot of ways like RVN in that he’ll always score goals and his record will always look amazing but it would be to the detriment of the team UNLESS there’s already a perfectly balanced team in place, RVN was much better than Saha BUT Saha was better for the team overall.

Before getting Haaland we need a centre back to compliment Maguire, a pure out and out defensive midfielder with lots of stamina so we can play Pogba and Fernandes in the same team to boost creativity and a right sided attacker to balance our front line as everything comes from the left right now and once that’s all been addressed someone like Haaland would be perfect as we can attack from everywhere thus giving Haaland the space and chances he needs in order to thrive.

 

[Bastian]

Unless you're managed by SAF, no. And even then it's unlikely. Looking at the teams who've won the league in the past 20 years, they're all very well balanced teams, with maybe just the early 2000s United teams being a bit imbalanced (mainly GK).

 

[Flanders Devil]

Logic says no. But then again Liverpool did pretty much this...

 

[DickDastardly]

Either or.

We don't need Haaland and Sancho.
We have Rashford and Greenwood. You add Haaland up top and we're good.

So, you sell DDG, Pogba and Martial and you buy Haaland and Grealish - you're definetly in contention to lift some trophys at the end of the season, if everybody remains somewhat injury free.

 

[Pow]

Logic says no. But then again Liverpool did pretty much this...

Not really
They had a
Top keeper
2 top full backs
Van dijk plus one
Fabhino a top player
2 hard working players
2 top wingers
And a decent firminho

 

[Flanders Devil]

I get that it’s not exactly the same, but I don’t think anyone would’ve said Liverpool had a great midfield, and their defence was good, but I’d say not a million miles better than the hypothetical proposed here... plus I’m arguing the template rather than the quality.

Not really
They had a
Top keeper - I think the hypothetical is that Henderson is good enough to be out number 1. Alison still edges it, but not a significant amount overall.
2 top full backs - Ours aren’t far off. Plus hypothetical has a new WB (I think)
Van dijk plus one - ours is Harry plus one. Again VVD is better than Harry.
Fabhino a top player - different role but we’ve got Bruno.
2 hard working players - tick (Fred and McTom)
2 top wingers - Marcus and Sancho
And a decent firminho - Haaland.

 

[pocco]

I think it's possible, Leicester did it after all. We did it a few times with weaknesses in our team. But then it's possible to not win with a team of superstars ie the Galacticos.

I think a lot is down to preparation, getting the most out of what you have and being well coached. As well as Leicester, Chelsea under Conte is a great example. They had so many average players but he got the most out of them by changing to 5 at the back with wingback, getting the likes of Victor Moses playing well and effectively.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

Lets say we manage to sell Pogba for 60/70 and Lingard, De Gea etc for another 50 and get together 200 mill plus. Then we spunk it all on Sancho and Haaland. That would leave us with the same or arguably a worse defense after losing De Gea and a worse midfield after losing Pogba. Everyone says that there is no point having good attacking players if you have no service from the midfield and we wont play well until we have a fast CB so we can push up but Bruno and Rashford have had 20 goal seasons and 10 plus assists so they seem to do ok. Lets say Sancho and Haaland rack up the same numbers as Bruno and Rashford thats 80 goals (on average, maybe Haaland gets 25 and Sancho 15 etc). Add in Greenwood having a decent season, Martial having a better season, possibly VDB getting some goals, McTominay has 7 so can do more etc and we are getting close to the 100 goal mark. We should win a sht load of games with that amount of goals. And our defense is second best in the league now so we shouldn't conceded many. Ok it might not be pretty but would it work? I dont think park the bus teams would be able to withstand that front 4 and if needed we can throw on VDB, Greenwood, James, etc and try to force it like we do now

--------------------Henderson
WB-----Lindelof----Maguire----Shaw
------------McTominay----Fred
Sancho-------Bruno---------Rashford
----------------Haaland---------

That midfield 2 and CB 2 will never win a PL title.

 

[Bilbo]

Not with an opponent as strong as City and/or Liverpool have been

 

[Pow]

I think it's possible, Leicester did it after all. We did it a few times with weaknesses in our team. But then it's possible to not win with a team of superstars ie the Galacticos.

I think a lot is down to preparation, getting the most out of what you have and being well coached. As well as Leicester, Chelsea under Conte is a great example. They had so many average players but he got the most out of them by changing to 5 at the back with wingback, getting the likes of Victor Moses playing well and effectively.

Ferries used to do it all the time.
He won the league with the likes of cleverly welbeck etc playing a decent amount.

 

[Giggsy13]

Based on our owners and budget, we need to take risks on players that are good and playing at smaller clubs and hope that they can make the step up and reach world class levels. The scousers did that well with Mane, Salah and Robertson. Leicester city have built a squad challenging top 4 on very smart and under the radar transfer business. The question is whether we have the footballing structure in place to employ the same approach.

 

[Chabon]

Ferries used to do it all the time.
He won the league with the likes of cleverly welbeck etc playing a decent amount.

We won one title with neither of those players starting more than half of the matches. That title winning team had the best keeper, the best full backs, the best midfielder, the best number ten and the best CF in the league that year. The defence was a little dodgy at times when Vidic was out, but I’d hardly call it an unbalanced side.

I’d say the closest you could come to saying a title-winning United was ‘unbalanced’ was 96/97, and we won that title with 75 points, which is obviously never happening again.

 

[Skills]

Of course. A clever coach can mask a teams deficiencies while at the same time maximising their strengths. Fergie was a master of this.

 

[Crashoutcassius]

Even if we couldn't challenge next year you'd still do it, you are swapping pieces that are near the end of us in pogba and ddg for younger talents. We could add quality in cm the next window

 

[Tom Cato]

Are we playing the "The players you have available isnt that important to a teams success" game again?

 

[youmeletsfly]

Yeah, Sell Pogba and play McFred for a whole season and get dominated in midfield by teams like Burnley and Brighton.

Modern football starts with with good fullbacks and good CM's, which we obviously lack. How would eliminating our best CM help our 11's stength?

 

[UpWithRivers]

Not really
They had a
Top keeper
2 top full backs
Van dijk plus one
Fabhino a top player
2 hard working players
2 top wingers
And a decent firminho

Yes but even though everyone thinks our defense is sht and our midfield is sht its still 2nd place quality. Third last year. The defense has been one of the best for a couple of seasons. Our goals for is not bad considering everyone says its sht as well. McFred drives me up the wall in terms of the ability to actually pass the ball forward but they have come up against the top teams and done brilliantly. So the base is there. Its not top top level but its not bad. Add an attack thats levels above and surely that compensates. I would say it would be the best in the world (if they perform obviously) Neymar and Mbappe is class and any team with Messie is class but not only would we have Bruno, Rashford, Haaland and Sancho. We would have a bench with Greenwood and Martial. Both capable of 20 goals a season. Even Man City and Liverpool cant compete with that attacking wise

 

[TheRedDevil'sAdvocate]

That midfield 2 and CB 2 will never win a PL title.

While we should not deal in absolutes in life, i think that this, pretty much, sums it up.

I also see a new trend on the Caf, the "we were the same under Fergie" narrative. Take the majority of our performances this season for instance: While the lack of consistent form could be explained by the hectic schedule since Covid-19 and by the sheer lack of depth in the squad, we have people telling us that this was a normality in the Ferguson days. No, it fecking wasn't. Under Ferguson were never synonymous with low/mid-tempo football which leads to a game with fewer chances and depends on our better quality to scrape a win. We did it occasionally and under certain circumstances, but it wasn't the norm. If anything, up until the mid 00s, we were underachieving in Europe because the Spanish and Italian sides (and Bayern under Hitzfeld) would not allow us to play at a higher tempo and we couldn't find a way around it.

Here you get the "Fergie won the title with a similar midfield". Again, no, he didn't. The only mainstay in the midfield was Carrick and his preferred partner was, most times, either Scholes or Giggs. Let's see: Positional awareness, football intelligence, vision and range of passing, calmness and ability to find pockets of space to receive the ball... all check. We had the long diagonal, the pass through the lines, the - on time - switch ball, the crisp short passes. It's true that Ferguson never really cared about winning the "midfield battle" (exception are the 2007/08 and 2008/09 seasons) because he valued a lot what he could get from his partnerships up front. But not being that interested about the numbers in the midfield doesn't mean that he didn't want his midfield to possess certain qualities, especially on the ball. This obsession of the Caf with midfielders who run a lot, cover lots of ground and are good water carriers is baffling. Ferguson never in his career opted for such a starting midfield for United. I'm also pretty sure that, if Pogba leaves, Solskjaer will immediately start looking for a top quality midfielder to replace him.

 

[MU655]

Possibly. I wonder how a team like this would perform:

-------------Van Nistelrooy----------Macheda

Ronaldo-------Scholes-------Djemba-Djemba-----Bebe

Evra------------Ferdinand---------Spector-----------Varela

Can't split the goalkeeper, unfortunately.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

While we should not deal in absolutes in life, i think that this, pretty much, sums it up.

I also see a new trend on the Caf, the "we were the same under Fergie" narrative. Take the majority of our performances this season for instance: While the lack of consistent form could be explained by the hectic schedule since Covid-19 and by the sheer lack of depth in the squad, we have people telling us that this was a normality in the Ferguson days. No, it fecking wasn't. Under Ferguson were never synonymous with low/mid-tempo football which leads to a game with fewer chances and depends on our better quality to scrape a win. We did it occasionally and under certain circumstances, but it wasn't the norm. If anything, up until the mid 00s, we were underachieving in Europe because the Spanish and Italian sides (and Bayern under Hitzfeld) would not allow us to play at a higher tempo and we couldn't find a way around it.

Here you get the "Fergie won the title with a similar midfield". Again, no, he didn't. The only mainstay in the midfield was Carrick and his preferred partner was, most times, either Scholes or Giggs. Let's see: Positional awareness, football intelligence, vision and range of passing, calmness and ability to find pockets of space to receive the ball... all check. We had the long diagonal, the pass through the lines, the - on time - switch ball, the crisp short passes. It's true that Ferguson never really cared about winning the "midfield battle" (exception are the 2007/08 and 2008/09 seasons) because he valued a lot what he could get from his partnerships up front. But not being that interested about the numbers in the midfield doesn't mean that he didn't want his midfield to possess certain qualities, especially on the ball. This obsession of the Caf with midfielders who run a lot, cover lots of ground and are good water carriers is baffling. Ferguson never in his career opted for such a starting midfield for United. I'm also pretty sure that, if Pogba leaves, Solskjaer will immediately start looking for a top quality midfielder to replace him.

I can't stand the "But Sir Alex also.." arguments. Yeah, Messi and Heskey both sometimes shoot the ball off target. It means feck all.

 

[Ali Dia]

Based on our owners and budget, we need to take risks on players that are good and playing at smaller clubs and hope that they can make the step up and reach world class levels. The scousers did that well with Mane, Salah and Robertson. Leicester city have built a squad challenging top 4 on very smart and under the radar transfer business. The question is whether we have the footballing structure in place to employ the same approach.

This really

 

[kouroux]

I can't stand the "But Sir Alex also.." arguments. Yeah, Messi and Heskey both sometimes shoot the ball off target. It means feck all.

I feel we almost need to ban use SAF as a reference to judging anything related to the current team. What that man and his staff did for years was special

 

[hubbuh]

I can't stand the "But Sir Alex also.." arguments. Yeah, Messi and Heskey both sometimes shoot the ball off target. It means feck all.

It's fecking infuriating! Well, not really infuriating, but a bit infuriating.

 

[Bobcat]

If we have a similar defensive record like we've had from Christmas until now, yes, but that team lacks quality in midfield