Who is going to buy McTom for any serious money? Plus we have no attraction for Rice at the mo until we get ourselves sorted, West Ham could finish above us as things stand. Think he’s nailed on to go to Chelsea at some point so think we need to look elsewhere
Declan Rice
- Thread starter roonster09
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Nah man, you're overdramatising this. McTominay is an academy proffesional, not even a bought prospect. Fred was bought under Mourinho for 50m and instantly flopped. Since then they've both made themselves starters in midfield, and also starred in our second place finish. Our options until they started performing to a certain level were all worse, more expensive flops themselves and are nowhere to be seen right now. These guys are top 10 PL midfielders, theres nothing wrong with their mentality, so yes, they can clearly be strength in numbers as squad players at United right now. What you don't want in your backup midfielders is those that have no particular strengths or adaptability. McTominay can be used for his strength and physical assertiveness, while Fred can be deployed to harass and cause havoc. This is things that help winning midfield battles.
You are making the mistake of devaluating here, thinking they are worthless because United in this current predicament has overplayed them and asked more of them than what they're capable of, asking them to be something they're not. Arrogant with good faith, or an elaborate effort and excuse to not invest in midfield? Either way is probably fine, but blaming the lack of standard in this club on a couple of honest players actually giving it a go is stupid and covers up for the real issues, such as lack of investment in midfield.
Nah, they’re both shit..end of
Lovely argument.
England hasn't played w 2 CBs in majority of matches since Southgate took over. West Ham is a defensive side looking to hit on the counter. Rice hasn't never been a solo pivot with two 8s or two central midfielders ahead of him. He's a very good player, but not a player worth that much.
Fred is. McTominay isn't. Most of the teams battling relegation have better midfielders than him.
I'm not sure if Fred is the right partner for De Jong though.
We should stay far, far, farrrr away from him. Beyond average footballer.
Rice with defensive positioning that allows De Jong to play at his own tempo would be amazing.
They are like the Ying and Yang of the perfect CDM.
Rice is defensive whilst De Jong is more about creative attacking. De Jong technically dribbles from deep to further up whilst Rice is more about power box to box role.
Rice focuses on keeping simple passes to make sure the ball gets to his partner- whilst De Jong is more creative to get the passes to various other players.
Ten Hag’s most important tactical area is how the team is positioning during different ages of the match.
Rice defensively positioning himself to provide cover during a time when we are the team going on the attack will be more than useful because that’s what Rice’s best ability is - defensive repositioning.
They are like the Ying and Yang of the perfect CDM.
Rice is defensive whilst De Jong is more about creative attacking. De Jong technically dribbles from deep to further up whilst Rice is more about power box to box role.
Rice focuses on keeping simple passes to make sure the ball gets to his partner- whilst De Jong is more creative to get the passes to various other players.
Ten Hag’s most important tactical area is how the team is positioning during different ages of the match.
Rice defensively positioning himself to provide cover during a time when we are the team going on the attack will be more than useful because that’s what Rice’s best ability is - defensive repositioning.
I agree that this could work very good, but atm. no one seems to connect us with Rice. Couple of rumors that started last summer and that is all.
Rice is too expensive and not worth the money that is being quoted but he is still a good player - it’s why he will only come here as the last piece to the puzzle where rest of the first team has been built and the money for Rice is not going to get in the way for our other transfers.
We need a RW, LCB, RB, GK and ST before even looking at Rice.
And you think a player of Rice's quality is just waiting in the Belgium league for those scouts to "unearth"?
No one will buy Rice this summer as you are right he’s too expensive. His contract runs until 2025 and he turned down an extension to that in May.
Summer 2024 is when I can see him moving and there will be lots of competition.
I agree he is too expensive, where I disagree is that we need GK an RB more. Same goes for LCB, I agree we need someone but I don't see how we can possibly get rid of Maguire or Varane since if get another CB we'll have Maguire, Varane and Lindelof plus another signing and that is too much regarding the salary.
But DM... we should've sorted that one out several years ago
This is why I feel like we will go for someone like Lisandro Martinez this season.
We can have him provide cover as a LCB, LB and even a CDM.
It will give us a quite varied player, leaving us only needa RB to replace wan Bissaka, a left footed RW and a striker.
This summer window, January transfer window should have alot of this covered - with someone like Rice being targeted next summer.
Think Rice could be the next phase of our rebuild next season.
What are you on about? Arguably the best player in the league is De Bruyne who came from GENK which is in Belgium league so yeah I wouldn’t mind if we unearth our own De Bruyne from the Belgium league.
Belgium league, Italian league, Spanish league, French league, German league, Scottish league, Dutch league etc. All leagues have talents to unearth. Making it sound like Rice is one of a kind
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We're really missing a trick not getting this guy for £150 million.
Pairing FDJ with Rice would be like pairing Scarlett Johansson with me
Donny is a weak and Garner is unproven so I dunno how you use the word "strong" set.
City didn't unearth De Bruyne from Genk. they bought him ready and made for 80m euros when he was one of the best players in the German league. And yes Belgium, do produce top top players who often come from their home league, sometimes they go the way and develop like KDB sometimes they are Mangala. Top players come from all the leagues, they also come from the PL.What are you on about? Arguably the best player in the league is De Bruyne who came from GENK which is in Belgium league so yeah I wouldn’t mind if we unearth our own De Bruyne from the Belgium league.
Belgium league, Italian league, Spanish league, French league, German league, Scottish league, Dutch league etc. All leagues have talents to unearth. Making it sound like Rice is one of a kind
The truth is, there are not many 23 year old CDM like Rice around. Certainly not for peanuts like some of you think. City just went and bought Philips, who is even less proven and they are better talent spotter then our disastrous scouting system.
Rice is way way overpriced, and I would say 60m pounds is top what I would pay, but is a good player and exactly what we need. I also think that there are talented CDMs out there but not many ready made ones like Rice.
I never once said City unearthed De Bruyne. I said he came from the Belgian league straight to Chelsea. I was replying a poster who pretty much said there aren’t talent across all leagues.
And I agree with you on the price. Overpriced
He never said there is no talent, just asked who would you sign instead. And you reply about scouts and finding talent, which is fine. But what type of talent are you taking about, which other similar quality CDM and similar age profile are there?
And you couldn’t tell he was being sarcastic from his post even with the “unearth”? He was clearly insinuating that there’s no talent in the lower tier leagues.
Theres Kessie, Brozovic, Bellingham(would rather spend big on him than Rice) etc.
The idea that Rice is the only DM/DLP in the world we should get is absurd especially if the reported price is 100 million.
The only DM close to rice was tchouameni and he went for some few quids if am not mistaken,if we wanted a top talent we would have gone to the academy, goodluck unearthing a top class DM able to play at a high level consistently
No-one’s talking about Rice any more. I suppose there’s zero chance of us going for him any time soon.
But with all the talk of FDJ and then the question of how we line up whether we get him or not, I always end up thinking the line up would be much stronger with Rice in there. As long as we have a more creative type along side, his intelligence and physicality would allow us to adapt our style to the opponents or to the game situation without changing the line up.
Pretty much every predicted line up looks either too light or too lacking creatively. Rice plus FDJ solves that problem. Two players we probably will never get, of course. The more I think about it, FDJ alone will not solve the problem. Looking at the rest of the squad I think we actually need Rice more.
But with all the talk of FDJ and then the question of how we line up whether we get him or not, I always end up thinking the line up would be much stronger with Rice in there. As long as we have a more creative type along side, his intelligence and physicality would allow us to adapt our style to the opponents or to the game situation without changing the line up.
Pretty much every predicted line up looks either too light or too lacking creatively. Rice plus FDJ solves that problem. Two players we probably will never get, of course. The more I think about it, FDJ alone will not solve the problem. Looking at the rest of the squad I think we actually need Rice more.
We have zero chance of getting Rice this season at least. Would cost over 100m And he’s not worth anywhere near that much.
Can see Chelsea blowing their load on him if they miss out on Kounde.
Can't wait for West Ham to put their chest out again and ask for £150m next summer
Yeah. Maybe next year. I’m happy as long as we’re building properly. So far this window, not bad (on paper at least).
Hopefully
I think people will have to learn to accept that ETH's preferred style of line-up is likely one that will look "light" to a lot of people. If you hire the type of manager who plays a 5ft10 & 5ft9 CB pairing or gets to a CL semi-final with a midfield of FDJ, Schone & VDB then that's what you get.
From that perspective FDJ is obviously a better fit than Rice, even if Rice makes the team look more robust, so.... *shrugs*
He prefers technical ability over physical.
His contract runs out in 2025. If we really want him, we need him to run it down
No one's talking about him because he, like Bellingham, is off the market this summer. Next summer however it will be a battle royal for their signatures I believe. In Rice's case I can't see him ending up anywhere but Chelsea.
Yeah I think ETH does prefer something that looks light. But I don’t think he believes he has the players to do it.
I also think the way teams run at each other in the Prem makes physicality and positioning in CM particularly important. Either he knows this and will adapt or he doesn’t agree and may prove me wrong (which wouldn’t be a shock).
They’re off the market unless someone pays silly money for them, yes.
Clubs are just waiting for him to run his contract down. He’s refused to extend his contract, and no one will pay what West Ham want this summer. I can see them pricing Rice out of a move until 2024 where he’ll end up going for about £60-70m with a year left.
I think people are generally correct when they describe the PL as a very physical league but they often get the most important aspect of that physicality wrong. It isn't tall, strong players top sides tend to need so much as Bernardo Silva type running machines.
Given the emphasis he's placed on fitness in pre-season and the need for us to press aggressively, I'm sure ETH values that sort of physicality. Sheer physical size less so.
Fitness yes but also pace and strength. Weight and height probably not particularly important but often go hand in hand with pace and strength.
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