The reason Im interested in some Rice is not really because that I think he is a Carrick style deep lying playmaker- it’s more to do with me believing that even after we get that type of deep lying playmaking CDM in to the squad; that we will still need a CDM who is capable of doing what Rice does.
If it’s not this year whilst we focus on a different type of midfielder (camavinga etc) then it will most likely be another.
The guy is 22 and he is very intellectually playing the CDM role in a defensive way. His attacking mindset is shown up to be a bit unnecessarily overly simplified when playing for England - but you can see in the first 30 mins vs Italy that he can make some passes like he didn’t attempt to do for most of the tournament & it was more the style we see him at West Ham. (During that time it was England who was controlling the match before turning it and giving the ball to Italy to hold possession freely towards the end of the first half and the whole of the second half)
If we have Pogba and want to use him as our main creative output in midfield then I think Rice is a good choice. The team gets the creativity of Pogba, Bruno, Shaw, Sancho, the deep ball playing abilities of Maguire/Lindelof and a new CB, the deep lying forward abilities of Martial and Cavani, the clinical ability of Rashford and Greenwood able to focus on it with extra creators in the team etc.
However if Pogba is not going to be here- or only used sparingly like he was a bit last season then Rice is not a good choice because what we need is a deep lying playmaker that replaces Pogba’s role in the squad rather than a deep lying playmaker that replaces Matic. They are slightly different types of CDM and in my eyes we could do we both.
The one player I’m quite interested is James Garner and how ready he maybe to step up for United. If he is potentially good enough to play for us then isn’t he our future deep lying playmaker? If we buy one instead then does it stop Garners ability to play that role in the team? Say if Garner becomes a very good playmaker for us - does Rice become more the type of CDM we need?
I agree with the first half of what you write whole heartedly....its just when you mentioned Pogba. For me its irrespective of Pogba staying or going and its not VDB either as the asnwer. Only way those variables change for me is if we change to one pivot and two midfielders with Fernandes deeper.....otherwise in my opinion we need TWO new central midfielders next season.
I still dont think we need Fred AND McTominay and I see neither of them should be starters in this current set up, regardless of who is signed. They are for me very good squad players for different options.
When I say two new midfielders, as you mention one of them could be a Mjebri or a Garner, as they are different types of players to what we have, whether eithe ris ready to challenge of course is a different story.
But for me nearly every name we are linked with as a signing I try and picture in a starting eleven....and none of them do I look at or midfield and think its still missing something...thats why I think we need two....its just the same as when we signed Maguire, we needed two centr backs and its taken two or thre years now to finally address that (hopefully anyway)