Funny go back to January time when Pogba was unavailable and Fernandes not signed, everybody was lauding McTominay especially for us and the improvement of Fred.
Fast forward and finally a lot of fans are seeing that these two are good squad players not starters.
Do think some of these stats are misleading though. With Pogba and Fernandes we got dominated the first 15minutes and the same was starting to happen again before they were taken off, let alone the ten men problem later on. Also this is the same SOuthampton beat City days earlier, they played very well against us.
The good thing about this game is hopefully it has stopped people getting carried away. Yes we are moving in the right direction and improving, we have a large squad.....but we are still quite a long way away from being right back in there.
As for do we need a new midfielder? Some recently saying we need just a couple of additions.....piffle. Even since the restart and our very good performances where Lindelof has played quite well there have been several instances at the back that have or nearly proved costly. We need a new centre back for sure. We do also need another midfielder yes, maybe even two? We have no genuine competition for Matic and his role. Both Fred and McTominay really in a different way are more Pogbas role. We also have no competition/cover really for Fernandes, the bet option maybe Mata?
Then there is our forward line. People rightly have been raving about our front three recently.....but Lingard/James/Mata/Ighalo....can talk about the drop off in midfield, how big a drop off is that up front? And this is a drop off from Rashford/Martial who are not yet consistently at the top of there game and a very young talent in Greenwood? The Greenwood whos future is probably in the middle up front.
So for me our first eleven needs a centre back upgrade and a right winger. Our squad also needs a defensive midfielder, attacking midfielder and better attacking competition on the flanks if we are to move Greenwood inside. That is six players. Whether some of the can come from our youth such as Garner/Mjebri it is too early to tell. It does to me straight away though scream out Grealish as he gives us competition in pretty much half of those positions. Sancho, Grealish and a centre back for me is a must this summer, then we can address Matic and his position next season.