Do we need a creator?

[poacher]

Have we ever had a proper number 10? My minds drawing a blank.

Mata

 

[TRD]

Currently Pogba is our main creator. He was playing well before he got injured. But we need another who can perform at same level. Ozil will be good for the team. Ozil along with Matic and Pogba in midfield can dominate any team. Matic will do defensive duty, attacking duty to Ozil and Pogba can be given free role or a box to box midfielder.

 

[Deleted member 101472]

Mata

We’ve never really played him as a traditional 10

 

[Raees]

Personally think there is no point bringing in another 10, if wings are still not working to full capacity. Until United do not sort out our wing issues and producing exciting football down the flanks, there will be no space to work with for the 10.

Get the wings right and then bring a 10 in.

 

[The holy trinity 68]

We had a creator, Sir Alex Ferguson. He created the heavens and the earth, he is omnipresent. Oh and he knocked Liverpool off their perch.

 

[Charles Miller]

I'll tell you what we need:
- Manchester United is the only top club that its not bothered to sign the top South American players.
South Americans will bring a different peespective and other options.

 

[poacher]

I don't think one player is going to fix the lack of fluidity. Look at Man City they have skilful technical players across the board. We need CB and fullbacks and wingers that are better on the ball and we could do with a playmaker that can dribble and lace 30m passes. It's not just personnel though as the manager has to believe in playing fluid football. If we resort to Hoofball then we could have Messi and it wouldn't make a difference. The alternative is we buy big physical players like Jonathan Tah and Savic, Ghoulam and Fabinho and just outmuscle the opposition.

 

[Bestietom]

I think we need 2 creative players in the mould of De Bruyne and Silva. But don't know whether Mourinho would play with 2 like these.

 

[Marcky411]

Yea, he will probably be another poor cnut to lambast when we struggle to score goals, but if you have actually watched our games this season, you will find out that Mkhi is not being lambasted because we struggle to score goals, but because he's been awful, shocking and a disaster. Ozil has the best per min chance creation ratio in the EPL, but he will solve sod all. Keep going.

Before the injury of Pogba and Fellaini, Miki had the best assist rate in the league this season. As for Ozil, he hasn't really been lighting up the skies at Arsenal either, otherwise they would quite happily pay his asking wages. I see a lot calling Griezmann, has anyone seen his dip in form this season?
I sometimes get the idea that players are only great when playing for other teams, when they come to us they turn into sh1t, maybe the manager, tactics?

 

[Infra-red]

I think we need 2 creative players in the mould of De Bruyne and Silva. But don't know whether Mourinho would play with 2 like these.

Pogba and Jean Michael Seri with Matic mopping up in behind, would be rather nice.

 

[glazed]

Before the injury of Pogba and Fellaini, Miki had the best assist rate in the league this season.

Seems to me Miki has been asked to do more defensive work to compensate and has done it. That's why he's still in the team when his attacking has taken a nose-dive.

 

[walkinhop]

Personally think there is no point bringing in another 10, if wings are still not working to full capacity. Until United do not sort out our wing issues and producing exciting football down the flanks, there will be no space to work with for the 10.

Get the wings right and then bring a 10 in.

Don't you think that with Matic protecting we can use the fullbacks to push forward and provide width, thus allowing a number 10 to excel in the middle pockets?

 

[aditya826]

Is it just me or this title sounded religious? LOL

I think we do need a creator, but I think we need more of a DLP guy, a Maestro more like (probably Weigl seems to be the ideal candidate) who can free up Pogba to do his thing.

But I don't think that a creator will solve our problems.

The reason is our forwards don't run at all, they don't run at spaces at all, its almost that they aren't coached to do that. When you have pacey attackers, who always demand the ball and provide no off the ball movement, a creator is basically useless to the system. This is why I think, Herrera has regressed through out. In Bilbao's Bielsa system and Valverde's system, he had 3 forwards who constantly pressed and ran into open spaces which helped his creativity. He was robbed of those in United. One could say the same for Mata or even Mkhitaryan (who had Auba and Reus in Tuchel's Dortmund).

 

[Zlatattack]

Creativity is moreso a product of approach rather than personnel.

We would buy Griezmann and Ozil and encounter very similar problems.

I mean, bloody hell, I don't think there is a better central midfielder in Europe when it comes to lifting balls over the top than Pogba. But, of course, now he's here and disregarded as a byproduct, of course he isn't good enough at accelerating an attack with a pass...

How many players do we need to churn through before it's widely accepted that the players aren't the problem? Yes, like all sides we can improve, but our general inability to play with any sort of freedom, verve and excitement isn't a personnel problem. It's a coaching one.

We've had the same problem with 3 different coaches... maybe it's not the coaches either?

 

[Nikelesh Reddy]

When Pogba comes back,we"ll look much much better,he just takes us to another level...We need a top class winger but I don't think we need a central attacking player,probably just need a back up midfielder who can step in for Pogba...

 

[Inigo Montoya]

Oh this is about football...

I was expecting a religious thread

 

[Walters_19_MuFc]

He was shit.

That's that then.

 

[Mcking]

Before the injury of Pogba and Fellaini, Miki had the best assist rate in the league this season.

Before Pogba's injury, he had five assists. After Pogba's injury, he's got none. Pogba's injury might have had an effect on his form, but those assists kind of masked the fact he was playing badly. Two of his assists were from set-pieces to be fair too.

As for Ozil, he hasn't really been lighting up the skies at Arsenal either, otherwise they would quite happily pay his asking wages.

Actually, Ozil has been good this season, its just that he hasn't played a lot. He's created the joint most chances in the league this season(30 alongside De Bruyne) despite playing just a few games. I think he's requesting something close to 300k? If so, I don't see Wenger and Arsenal paying him that.

I see a lot calling Griezmann, has anyone seen his dip in form this season?

Yea I have, and he's probably the last player I'd spank 85m on right now. He's been poor since the Euros and we don't need him. I hope we don't go after him.

I sometimes get the idea that players are only great when playing for other teams, when they come to us they turn into sh1t, maybe the manager, tactics?

Maybe, but Matic, Lukaku, Bailly didn't turn to shit, and Pogba is still settling. The manager tactics is definitely not the reason Lindelof keeps making school boy errors and Mkhi keeps giving the ball away. I thinks it more of an inability to make the step-up. There's also the Caf's tendency to overrate players playing for foreign clubs, underrate players playing for us and shit at good players playing for our rivals when we're linked to them. Its the sentiment really, there's nothing you could do about it.

 

[gearoid]

We just need Pogba back, then Ibra and it will all fall into place.

 

[Brightonian]

When Pogba comes back, Miki will also click back into form, and we'll look stupidly creative all over the park again.

Which isn't to say it isn't a problem. But top class #10s who don't slip in and out of form are hard to come by. Look how average Antoine Messiah Griezmann has been this season.

I still think we should be playing Rashford and Martial on either side of Mata (with Lukaku up front, obviously). The latter might have weaknesses in his game, but the things he's good at he's always good at, game after game after game.

 

[VeevaVee]

Pogba's the spark and it looks like he got the best out of the link between him and up front, but imagine what we could do with someone who can get the best out of themselves with Pogba behind them? If it does go back to Mhki being better, then the priority becomes the rw, if not then we need a 10 as well. A rw, 10, and lb isn't that unrealistic and would improve us drastically.