Did United Rebuild the Wrong Way Round?

Walters_19_MuFc

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Watching United at times, I wonder whether we’ve gone about this rebuild the wrong way round.

Last summer was basically about fixing the attack. Cunha, Mbeumo and Sesko came in and, to be fair, you could understand why. United desperately needed goals and all three have improved us in that department.

This summer, the attention has switched to midfield. Andrey Santos and Tielemans have already arrived, with Baleba the final piece of that particular rebuild.

So, if you look at the bigger picture, there seems to be a clear pattern.

2025: Attack.
2026: Midfield.
2027: Defence?

And that's where I wonder whether we've done it backwards.

There's that old saying: forwards win you games, defences win you titles.

Would we have been better off sorting the defence first, then building the midfield in front of it, before finally putting the finishing touches on the attack?

Because right now, Carrick is trying to play a pretty aggressive style of football with a defence that, for the most part, wasn't actually built for him. When the press works and we control games, it can look fine. When teams play through us or force us backwards, though, some of the same old problems are still there.

Yesterday's defeat to Hull was another reminder of that. And after the AC Milan game in pre season, there were already questions being asked about whether the centre back options were good enough for where United want to go.

Of course, you can't rebuild an entire squad in one window. We had massive problems everywhere when the rebuild started, and goals were arguably the biggest one. There's an argument that fixing the attack first gave Carrick enough firepower to get results while the rest of the team caught up.

But imagine doing it the other way. Building a quick, aggressive and dominant back four. Put a younger, more athletic midfield in front of them. Then go and spend big on the forwards once you've got the foundations in place.

Maybe we'd be less exciting initially, but perhaps we'd also be a lot harder to beat.

The good thing is that the midfield now looks sorted, so you'd imagine the defence will be the next major job.

The question is whether we'll look back at the end of the season and think United rebuilt the squad sensibly, one department at a time - or whether we spent two years decorating the house before fixing the foundations.
 
We did attempt to start with the defence, but the club didn't account for De Ligt being so injury prone or Yoro struggling to adapt to the league.
 
I’d say we’ve probably done the right things so far. We definitely needed to prioritise attack last year because Hojlund, Antony, Garnacho and a Rashford who didn’t give a feck were a number of our ‘best’ attacking options. The fact we couldn’t threaten that Spurs side in the Europa League final should have been the moment everyone said that we needed a new attack.

We were right to target midfield this summer because Casemiro was leaving and it became a problem area last year, especially when he was not on the pitch. Ugarte regressed a lot and Mainoo is still young and relatively inexperienced.
 
I think United largely did what circumstances dictated. Last summer you were crying out for better attackers, so you splashed big on three and did pretty well overall. This summer you were crying out for midfielders, so that was the focus.

But the broader point does hold that its hard to build a title contending side adding the defense last because nobody in a decade has contended for a title without controlling matches by playing higher up the pitch and you simply can't learn to play that way without the right defenders in the side. Not just the right athletic profiles to play in space but also defenders that are really up for the duels and aggressive in the counterpress. United doesn't have the players to do it right now IMO and that will be a major issue for Carrick this season.
 
I still don't think we've fixed the attack. Bruno is still pretty much our only player who creates anything, we don't have wingers who can dribble the opposition full backs consistently or create for others, and CF is still up in the air. Sesko may come good but there's still question marks around him.

Too soon to say we've sorted the midfield either. I'm not big on Santos myself but I do like Tielemans and Baleba. The thing with them is we have to hope Tielemans gets up to speed quick and remains playing at a high level in his 30s, and hope that Baleba's previos season was a blip and that the season prior is his true level. So the potential is there but it's far from a sure thing.
 
Absolutely not. There was no point in approaching it with some generic, ideological method - we had to act in accordance with what our squad was like. And the squad last summer had zero goals in it. We had a handful of goals across the entire squad. We were going absolutely nowhere if we did not improve on Hojlund, Zirkzee, Garnacho, Antony etc.

The main difference between the rebuild of our attack and the rebuild of our midfield is that our approach was to rebuild the midfield for the future and rebuild the attack for the present. Again, I would argue that this was a necessity due to the desperate nature of the frontline. That said, there’s every chance that the attacking ‘rebuild’ will need to be repeated again very soon. I don’t see any of Mbeumo, Cunha or Rashford being first XI forwards for us in a couple of years, whereas Santos, Baleba and Mainoo could well be. Tielemans too.
 
The window isn’t over yet.

I’d love to get some big lean fast CD in, someone like the Arsenal have - literally no idea who that should be mind you, maybe there’s some monster in the German or French league, would be a very welcome surprise
 
You can’t expect to bring any centre backs in without sales first. We have 5 centre backs with Shaw that can also play there. The problem we have is that our two best centre backs are made of fecking glass.
 
we didn’t need either of Mbuemo or Cunha, so yes. 100% we did it wrong.

Any decision to not sort the CM in the past 10 years has been the wrong decision.
 
Giggsy13 said:
It was one game…
Click to expand...
No it wasn’t, it wasn’t just one game man, it was catastrophic, devastating, embarrassing, (every other click bait word). We had zero shots, not 20, and not 72 percent possession we had zero percent possession.
We never touched the ball once dude.

We never even had one pass…
One game?
 
The year before we rebuilt the attack we signed Yoro, De Ligt, Mazraoui, Dorgu and Heaven.
 
Bubz27 said:
The year before we rebuilt the attack we signed Yoro, De Ligt, Mazraoui, Dorgu and Heaven.
Click to expand...
Yeah I thought we did defense first, just didn’t count on MDL & Martinez being so injury prone and Yoro taking longer to progress.

They also must have thought Maz would have taken Dalots spot too.
 
We did the defence in the first year De Ligt, Yoro, Mazraoui. It 100% needs doing again next year though with question marks over every single defender at the club at the minute.
 
I don't think the order of the rebuild is the issue. There are clear problems with how the team is being prepared to play certain types of game. It was obvious to everyone that Hull were going to be on an absolute high in their first game back in the PL after so long, combine that with it being a home fixture and you've got a team that is going to stretch beyond their usual limit. For some reason the management and players though the best way to counter that was with slow, ponderous play.
 
TheRedHearted said:
No it wasn’t, it wasn’t just one game man, it was catastrophic, devastating, embarrassing, (every other click bait word). We had zero shots, not 20, and not 72 percent possession we had zero percent possession.
We never touched the ball once dude.

We never even had one pass…
One game?
Click to expand...
We didnt even have a game and we lost. Let that sink in.
 
Why do we need to sort out one area at a time anyway? I’d rather a striker, mid and defender each year than sit through the trash of our attack 2 years ago, or the painfully obvious midfield issues last year.
 
You don't win titles without a midfield and front line anyway.

Those were the most pressing areas. Going into last season the team needed more goals so attack was the focus. This Summer we had no midfield so obviously that needed sorting.

We also brought in Lammens, Heaven and Yoro recently so I don't really get the point of the thread. If we get another striker and improve the fullbacks next summer after bedding in our relatively young midfield, I really fail to see how anyone would be complaining we should have done things differently.
 
Our attack needed doing first. We scored something like 40 goals in the season before last, and had Hojlund and garnacho starting every week.

We've also been moaning about midfield for years, and before this window had literally one fit first team midfielder. It made perfect sense to sign 3 midfielders and focus our rebuild here next.

Defence was the strongest area of the 3, it just so happens that we lost yesterday due to defensive errors, and compared to our freshly revamped attack and midfield, it looks a bit shit. However, we currently have both first choice centre backs missing, and defending set pieces is completely coachable. We don't need any more centre backs, we've got 5 for 2 spots. I won't argue we don't need full backs, but midfield was more urgent this summer.

So in short, no. I think we've gone about it very sensibly. We just need everyone back to full fitness asap.
 
Walters_19_MuFc said:
Watching United at times, I wonder whether we’ve gone about this rebuild the wrong way round.

Last summer was basically about fixing the attack. Cunha, Mbeumo and Sesko came in and, to be fair, you could understand why. United desperately needed goals and all three have improved us in that department.

This summer, the attention has switched to midfield. Andrey Santos and Tielemans have already arrived, with Baleba the final piece of that particular rebuild.

So, if you look at the bigger picture, there seems to be a clear pattern.

2025: Attack.
2026: Midfield.
2027: Defence?

And that's where I wonder whether we've done it backwards.

There's that old saying: forwards win you games, defences win you titles.

Would we have been better off sorting the defence first, then building the midfield in front of it, before finally putting the finishing touches on the attack?

Because right now, Carrick is trying to play a pretty aggressive style of football with a defence that, for the most part, wasn't actually built for him. When the press works and we control games, it can look fine. When teams play through us or force us backwards, though, some of the same old problems are still there.

Yesterday's defeat to Hull was another reminder of that. And after the AC Milan game in pre season, there were already questions being asked about whether the centre back options were good enough for where United want to go.

Of course, you can't rebuild an entire squad in one window. We had massive problems everywhere when the rebuild started, and goals were arguably the biggest one. There's an argument that fixing the attack first gave Carrick enough firepower to get results while the rest of the team caught up.

But imagine doing it the other way. Building a quick, aggressive and dominant back four. Put a younger, more athletic midfield in front of them. Then go and spend big on the forwards once you've got the foundations in place.

Maybe we'd be less exciting initially, but perhaps we'd also be a lot harder to beat.

The good thing is that the midfield now looks sorted, so you'd imagine the defence will be the next major job.

The question is whether we'll look back at the end of the season and think United rebuilt the squad sensibly, one department at a time - or whether we spent two years decorating the house before fixing the foundations.
Click to expand...

There's no right or wrong way. We simply bought players according to the needs of the managers/head coaches we've had over the past 3 years - which obviously means the players we're buying in the present aren't what were needed 2-3 years ago.
 
I don't think it really works doing a full focus on one area per summer. You gotta address everything regularly. Keep targeting the weak points and improving. For all the praise of last summer's improved window, only Lammens and Sesko are really in our best 11 both now and long term (IMO). Not that Cunha and mbeumo weren't useful buys (especially given there are other concerns with those ahead of them), but this summer would've been good to also aggressively change the defence.

Next summer should be CBs, but also what's Bruno going to be like? Will we need to go back to our front 3 as we kinda lack real wingers? Will all of the midfield be a hit?

Anyway, I don't disagree with our order of priorities so far, though the exact choices we picked weren't always my main choices. You always have to make do with previous players for one reason or another even if you have long term replacement plans, so it takes time sometimes to clean it up. Our attack is in a good spot now on paper, just needs to perform. The defence is a problem but it should be good enough to finish top 5, once we get a LB for depth and competition.
 
My issue with our rebuild is not the order but the fact that most of our players are still only suited to play counter attack rather than a controlling one. With the money we spent we should be much more than that.
 
No dribbler is criminal and neglecting technical ability is not keeping up with future trends.

Pressing will be done soon. We are going back to Tikki Takka and ultra direct football. Not really hard to see this either. The 2005-2015 era is back.

Teams that can truly defend will excel if they have enough quality.
 
Blood Mage said:
We did attempt to start with the defence, but the club didn't account for De Ligt being so injury prone or Yoro struggling to adapt to the league.
Click to expand...
A true defensive rebuild would have been the entire back 4 of starting quality established players, whilst letting go of players who clearly aren't good enough, past it or too injury prone.

It was also not hard to predict signing an 18 year old CB for £55 million was an inefficient use of resources that would not look wise in the short and medium term, but could pay off long term.
 
I think a lot of INEOS's decisions making around squad building has been around circumstances and contracts ending.

The summer 2025 window was all about the attack + GK after the abject goal scoring record of our forwards in the 24/25 season, the culminated in Amorim having to play a terribly off form and shot of confidence Hojlund in the Europa League final. Then you add in the mix Amorim putting Rashford, Sancho, Garnacho and Antony in the bomb squad. With all that in mind, we were left with Amad and Zirkzee once the opportunity to sell Hojlund arose. So it made sense to buy Cunha, Sesko and Mbeumo to add to Amad and Zirkzee. We couldn't have gone into the season with anything less than five for three positions.

Yes, we also needed a midfielder back then, but i think the club knew Casemiro would leave on a free at the end of the 25/26 season, and it was only fair to give Ugarte at least a second season too. Plus, Amorim wanted Bruno to play as one of the two mid. Add in Mainoo and there was 4 players for 2 spots.

Summer 2026, Amorim gone, Bruno moves to 10 and we are left with only Mainoo after Casemiro leaves and Ugarte is injured. I think the plan was always to buy three midfielders. Two plus one if/when Ugarte was moved one. As he was injured, we had to go with three, especially with a CL campaign to play. In the same way as Lammens came late, we hope we get one more player, maybe a LB or another striker.

In Summer 2027, i believe the contracts of Maguire, Shaw and Martinez all expire. Maguire and Shaw, it feels, wont get a renewal. We will see about Martinez and hit form/fitness. We all hope Yoro can show something and MDL gets fit before then.

Maybe ideally, in an ideal world, we would strengthen in a different way, but out forward line and midfeld being bare bones in summer 2025 and summer 2026 respectivly, i dont see another way it could have been done.

The big issue is the lack of player sales over the last few years. A rebuild was always going to be hard, but with so few saleable assets, it is even harder. Hojlund and Garnacho helped last summer, but really nothing of real value this summer.
 
Dominos said:
A true defensive rebuild would have been the entire back 4 of starting quality established players, whilst letting go of players who clearly aren't good enough, past it or too injury prone.

It was also not hard to predict signing an 18 year old CB for £55 million was an inefficient use of resources that would not look wise in the short and medium term, but could pay off long term.
Click to expand...

Someone got Real Madrid fomo.
 
Dominos said:
A true defensive rebuild would have been the entire back 4 of starting quality established players, whilst letting go of players who clearly aren't good enough, past it or too injury prone.
Click to expand...

Are you implying that we haven't rebuilt the midfield yet?
 
In 2027 we have Martinez, Maguire, Shaw and Amass on outgoing contracts for defense.
It gives us a natural point to invest in new defenders, as it takes out 3 high-cost contracts. We have a fair lot of defenders numbers-wise.

This season we absolutely needed midfielders. A season with Mainoo as the only senior midfielder would've been insane. Ugarte's injury just made it so they couldn't pretend we had 2.
I don't think we honestly can afford to have mistakes in the transfer market for a couple of years, and I think that is why there is put so much value on "Premier League proven". We can't have multiple complete duds in our current situation.
 
The problem with buying multiple players for a specific part of the team is it takes time for those players to settle. So despite spending big sums on 3 players, if one doesn't work out, it affects the other two because they need to perform as a unit.

Also, only buying players who are from other premier clubs comes at a premium. When you see clubs like Brighton and Bournemouth signing cheaper players from other leagues come in and perform straight away, it makes you question where are Utds scouts and why they don't identify these players? They seem scared to spend money unless it's on someone who's performed in the PL but it still doesn't guarantee they will be a success.
 
Powderfinger said:
I think United largely did what circumstances dictated. Last summer you were crying out for better attackers, so you splashed big on three and did pretty well overall. This summer you were crying out for midfielders, so that was the focus.

But the broader point does hold that its hard to build a title contending side adding the defense last because nobody in a decade has contended for a title without controlling matches by playing higher up the pitch and you simply can't learn to play that way without the right defenders in the side. Not just the right athletic profiles to play in space but also defenders that are really up for the duels and aggressive in the counterpress. United doesn't have the players to do it right now IMO and that will be a major issue for Carrick this season.
Click to expand...
Completely agree with you.

In the present day you should always (imo) build your attack first and the attack always starts from the back and deeper midfield. Because as you've correctly pointed out, to play the game in the opponent's half, you have to have a strong base at the back and in midfield that not only can build play vertically but also defend transitions in 1v1 scenarios in a higher line. What our genius's did was they started to build the roof of the house without a solid foundation beneath it. So hence we carried on looking our best in counter attacking situations. We still have the same problem but Baleba could make a diffrence in that regard, with the two CBs defending the channels and Baleba containing the central space.

When your CBs and midfielders are weak as far as the above concepts are concerned, then the entire team dynamic is going to be affected adversely.
 
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