Centre Back... Who do we go for?

BR7

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It seems that most agree with the need for a proper center back to partner Bailly in the future. With Lindelöf still being young and not quite ready yet, Smalling/Jones just not good enough and Rojo too inconsistent, it wouldn’t be a big surprise if United spend a decent amount to bring in a new center back in the summer.

Who do we go for?

Some candidates:
David Luiz
Sokratis Papastathopoulos
Kamil Glik
Kostas Manolas
Kalidou Koulibaly
Samuel Umtiti
Ezequiel Garay
José Giménez
Mateo Musacchio
Ömer Toprak
Stefan De Vrij
Jonathan Tah
Eric Dier
Daniele Rugani
Matthijs De Ligt
Lucas Hernández
Alessio Romagnoli
Harry Maguire
Milan Škriniar


I don’t watch that much football outside the Premier League, but from what I know, my personal preference would be Manolas or Koulibaly (if top tier players like Boateng aren’t available)

@Damien or any other modmin, a poll with some of the main candidates would be greatly appreciated.
So you still looking for Bailly’s partner OP? ;-)
 
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Ouch. Probably true. Nobody dense enough to buy Maguire at anywhere near what we did.
I think we should loan him till we can get reasonably fee. Im sure this is what Chelsea would do. We need to accept we got it wrong and move on.
 

BR7

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Maguire stays he’s one of the two best headers of the ball in CBs in prem. we were so bad that any cross, free kick, corner in our box used to cause heart attacks. We seem to have forgotten that he has won most aerial duels in our box. Lindelof is the biggest problem we have as he can’t head a ball he is appalling and is causing the rest of the defence issues and shaw is out of position regularly, AWB isn’t great and the coaching sucks. We need to find the legs around Maguire. I’ve seen every one of our top CBS have horrendous games in the past. Rio got murdered by Bellamy a few times. Bruce got murdered by anyone with pace, Manja got torn to pieces by Torres every game but they were all League winners. Patience with Maguire get rid of rest.
 

Inigo Montoya

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Maguire stays he’s one of the two best headers of the ball in CBs in prem. we were so bad that any cross, free kick, corner in our box used to cause heart attacks. We seem to have forgotten that he has won most aerial duels in our box. Lindelof is the biggest problem we have as he can’t head a ball he is appalling and is causing the rest of the defence issues and shaw is out of position regularly, AWB isn’t great and the coaching sucks. We need to find the legs around Maguire. I’ve seen every one of our top CBS have horrendous games in the past. Rio got murdered by Bellamy a few times. Bruce got murdered by anyone with pace, Manja got torn to pieces by Torres every game but they were all League winners. Patience with Maguire get rid of rest.
Just mentioning him in the same breath as those 3 makes me realise how crap he’s become or was to begin with.
 

BR7

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Just mentioning him in the same breath as those 3 makes me realise how crap he’s become or was to begin with.
Mate, I watched all of them play. If you think Steve Bruce was better than Maguire then in my opinion you’re wrong. Steve Bruce was a walking red card in today’s football. He was very clever with his shirt pulls and had zero pace. He also had a pretty Poor debut.
 

Inigo Montoya

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Mate, I watched all of them play. If you think Steve Bruce was better than Maguire then in my opinion you’re wrong. Steve Bruce was a walking red card in today’s football. He was very clever with his shirt pulls and had zero pace. He also had a pretty Poor debut.
In today’s football.

Context is everything.
 
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Mate, I watched all of them play. If you think Steve Bruce was better than Maguire then in my opinion you’re wrong. Steve Bruce was a walking red card in today’s football. He was very clever with his shirt pulls and had zero pace. He also had a pretty Poor debut.
you can’t compare a player from 30 years ago, and judge him on today’s standards and use that as a negative.

if Bruce was brought up in this day and age, he would have adapted. In the same way, people say Smalling would give away 10 pens a season with VAR yet didn’t do that last season - although he did give away a pen after having the ball booted into his face... he adapted.

By the way, this is not meant to in any way knock Maguire. Actually a comparison between the two is reasonably fair. Bruce played in an era where there were far far more good CBs than we have now.
 

BR7

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you can’t compare a player from 30 years ago, and judge him on today’s standards and use that as a negative.

if Bruce was brought up in this day and age, he would have adapted. In the same way, people say Smalling would give away 10 pens a season with VAR yet didn’t do that last season - although he did give away a pen after having the ball booted into his face... he adapted.

By the way, this is not meant to in any way knock Maguire. Actually a comparison between the two is reasonably fair. Bruce played in an era where there were far far more good CBs than we have now.
I hear you, Brucie bless him was always heavy footed even when’s he was younger at Gills and Norwich. When we got stuffed by Barca I think it was Romario who destroyed both Bruce and Pallister we realised their limitations and that we needed to upgrade specially Bruce. Maguire wouldn’t have got turned over that badly. Love Bruce but he definitely is at the bottom of the list.
 

Hammondo

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I hear you, Brucie bless him was always heavy footed even when’s he was younger at Gills and Norwich. When we got stuffed by Barca I think it was Romario who destroyed both Bruce and Pallister we realised their limitations and that we needed to upgrade specially Bruce. Maguire wouldn’t have got turned over that badly. Love Bruce but he definitely is at the bottom of the list.
Maguire would have been humiliated. Against anyone who has any pace or can turn well, he falls apart.
 

Ali Dia

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We are still trying to replace Rio and Vidic seven years later and we knew they were leaving in advance.... it doesn’t really matter who we get. if our recruitment doesn’t improve it’ll always be the wrong player or we will end up overpaying when we should have just went in early and decisively but missed out.

I would say Upamecano. It’ll be really interesting to see how he does this year. Hopefully he’s awful against us and mad to join us after we comfortably beat them home and away! Ahem, probably not though.

Badiashille looks another interesting prospect for the LCB move Maguire to the right and try that. The world is going to be watching Harry and waiting for him to mess up this year. It’ll make or break him here. He’s been poor since the lockdown and then Greece happens... I hope he’s not a busted flush
 

BR7

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Maguire would have been humiliated. Against anyone who has any pace or can turn well, he falls apart.
You can’t compare the players Bruce had round him and in front of him to maguire. We were a good side during Bruce’s time, now we ain’t so much. It’s not quite as simple as you’re making it I don’t think.
 

Sparky Rhiwabon

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Mate, I watched all of them play. If you think Steve Bruce was better than Maguire then in my opinion you’re wrong. Steve Bruce was a walking red card in today’s football. He was very clever with his shirt pulls and had zero pace. He also had a pretty Poor debut.
Yeah but you play to the rules of the day. Brucey was a great defender, a brave warrior.
 

Hammondo

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You can’t compare the players Bruce had round him and in front of him to maguire. We were a good side during Bruce’s time, now we ain’t so much. It’s not quite as simple as you’re making it I don’t think.
He gets humiliated by average players at the moment.
 

devilish

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I showed concern about Maguire from long before we signed him. I highlighted his lack of pace and I questioned his defensive skills which I thought they were massively overrated. However while I do believe that he will influence greatly the style we play, I very much doubt that we'll sell him anytime soon. The club has yet to fully lose hope on Jones. In fact they gave him a long term contract to protect such 'asset' I very much doubt that they are ready to look silly by selling slabhead for 1/3 the price.

As said Maguire will influence our game. Because of his lack of pace we'll be forced to play with a deep line. We'll have to partner him with a CB who can do the running and the thinking on his behalf and we might even have to switch to a 3 men CB.
 

devilish

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you can’t compare a player from 30 years ago, and judge him on today’s standards and use that as a negative.

if Bruce was brought up in this day and age, he would have adapted. In the same way, people say Smalling would give away 10 pens a season with VAR yet didn’t do that last season - although he did give away a pen after having the ball booted into his face... he adapted.

By the way, this is not meant to in any way knock Maguire. Actually a comparison between the two is reasonably fair. Bruce played in an era where there were far far more good CBs than we have now.
Bruce would end up in a mid table club UNLESS some idiot buys him for 80m. He was basically a slight upgrade of Maguire (equally slow, stronger, meaner, more intelligent, better in air)
 

UNITED ACADEMY

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Demiral would be a good shout and punt to me. I haven't watch him, well he's not getting game time at all due to Bonucci, Chiellini & De Ligt. But lot of people were comparing him to Vidic and his idol grown up was Vidic. I'm sure he would love to come here and would rather play as starting XI in here than sit on the bench at Juventus.
 

BR7

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Bruce and pallister had extraordinarily good CMs infront of them they were extremely lucky. Fred for example bless him for all his running round and effort does make CBs lives more difficult because of his choices in our half specially when we’re playing from the back. Pogba is even worst. You lose the ball the way he does just outside our box and Ince, Robson, Keane would be in your ear and you wouldn’t contemplate doing it again. Pogba does it three times a match. Can’t compare the players Bruce had around him to maguire. Compared to Bruce’s team, This team are a shambles tactically and positionally.Maguire is in very very simple,terms firefighting. You can’t have confidence when you have such inconsistent players around you, you eventually catch the disease. It can’t get much better when you’ve got Robson and ince playing in front of you. Protected!!!! When you have two wingers tracking back all game protecting the wings which then helps you maintain your shape and this team have Dan James jogging back (palace game) while palace are in the counter and when you pause the screen you see AWB jogging back next to him the impact that’s has on you’re line is massive and when you’re tactically not being coached well it leads to one thing, chances. This is not a one player problem. This defence have been poor since ole took over and have not improved and look shot in confidence. Ole, get a defensive mastermind coach in he could save your job...... plus we didn’t play then ball out of the back much during bruce’s days and faced less attacked than we do today. We controlled matches.

I remember a 3-3 draw at Hillsborough when we were down 3-1 I think. Lee Sharpe kicked in and tore the wings up and we got back in the game with a beautiful cruyff turn (we had a couple of matches like that against them in close proximity I’m sure) check our defending out and who we’re the CBs. When our midfield had the odd off day, our CBs struggled.Lindeloff won’t cut it, Maguire will with the right team and CB partner
 

Cassidy

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Bruce and pallister had extraordinarily good CMs infront of them they were extremely lucky. Fred for example bless him for all his running round and effort does make CBs lives more difficult because of his choices in our half specially when we’re playing from the back. Pogba is even worst. You lose the ball the way he does just outside our box and Ince, Robson, Keane would be in your ear and you wouldn’t contemplate doing it again. Pogba does it three times a match. Can’t compare the players Bruce had around him to maguire. Compared to Bruce’s team, This team are a shambles tactically and positionally.Maguire is in very very simple,terms firefighting. You can’t have confidence when you have such inconsistent players around you, you eventually catch the disease. It can’t get much better when you’ve got Robson and ince playing in front of you. Protected!!!! When you have two wingers tracking back all game protecting the wings which then helps you maintain your shape and this team have Dan James jogging back (palace game) while palace are in the counter and when you pause the screen you see AWB jogging back next to him the impact that’s has on you’re line is massive and when you’re tactically not being coached well it leads to one thing, chances. This is not a one player problem. This defence have been poor since ole took over and have not improved and look shot in confidence. Ole, get a defensive mastermind coach in he could save your job...... plus we didn’t play then ball out of the back much during bruce’s days and faced less attacked than we do today. We controlled matches.

I remember a 3-3 draw at Hillsborough when we were down 3-1 I think. Lee Sharpe kicked in and tore the wings up and we got back in the game with a beautiful cruyff turn (we had a couple of matches like that against them in close proximity I’m sure) check our defending out and who we’re the CBs. When our midfield had the odd off day, our CBs struggled.Lindeloff won’t cut it, Maguire will with the right team and CB partner
What you are missing is that back then defensive organisation as a team was not what it is now. Its easier to be a CB today because you inherently get more protection due to how teams setup and the evolution of tactics
 

BR7

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What you are missing is that back then defensive organisation as a team was not what it is now. Its easier to be a CB today because you inherently get more protection due to how teams setup and the evolution of tactics
I think I touched on it in the post, Maguire isn’t being protected much. Fred’s passing on the edge of our own box and pogs with his little two touch pirouette outside our own box which get snuffed out all too often I see no protection or the kind of protection Bruce and pallister had to deal with that often. In essence most of the time our keepers (whether Leighton, Sealey (RIP) Turner, Walsh, Schmeichel) used to hoof the ball over the halfway line, There wasn’t the added pressure of playing it out of the back and having pogs and Fred doing their crazy just inside or outside the box.
 

Sparky Rhiwabon

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I would like to know how the whole club - Ole, Woody and everyone else - went through the whole of the longest ever transfer window thinking “yep, we’re fine at CB”.
 

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I would like to know how the whole club - Ole, Woody and everyone else - went through the whole of the longest ever transfer window thinking “yep, we’re fine at CB”.
Problem with that is we'd just spent £130m on half the backline and added it to two other expensive signings for their positions plus a keeper who is the highest paid in the league.

From the owners perspective, they must think it's a pisstake that the money going into the backline is reaping zero dividends (excuse the unintended pun) and could fairly ask why pumping more money in back there will change anything.

We can't keep wasting money like we do. Our signings have to be better and more considered across the board. We want to play a high line, yet got one of the slowest turning or accelerating defenders in the league for the task; we want to play out of the back, yet we got ourselves a fullback who really struggles with doing anything above basic with the ball.

It probably takes some stones from the manager to say he needs more money for such a costly backline when we have so many other areas of the pitch in need of attention.
 

Scroto Baggins

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Maguire would have been humiliated. Against anyone who has any pace or can turn well, he falls apart.
I mean one on one vs pacey tricky wingers most CB's dont look comfortable. Having said that, Bergwijn rounded him like he was a training cone, should be doing better than being almost non existent.
 

Harry190

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Tell you what, despite his relative lack of height, Kounde is very interesting. Think City made a mistake getting Dias instead of him for the amount they disbursed.
 

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When I look at age, quality and experience, the only CB I see that could be on the market for a reasonable price is Upamecano. Him and Maguire would complement each other.
 

beingshe7don

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Maguire isn't complimenting anyone. We need possibly two new CBs and have him be our 3rd choice CB. I would go for Upamecano and either Badiashile or Pau Torres.