Thanks. I have a better idea of what a FDJ will do now under ETH.
Frenkie de Jong | The last muppeting lap
- Thread starter davidmichael
- Start date
-
In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
- Status
Interesting that he's a fraud and tap in merchant yet he's the first one with this info. Intriguing.
But people love to complain about Romano for no reason. Him not crediting people he got his stuff from? Fair criticism. The rest? It's just noise and unnecessarily annoys the rest of us. It's like Fridge Chutney with the lower league tweets. People continued on about that and forced unnecessary changes in this forum.
Also Ronaldo.
He could be the missing key in us actually playing on an equal footing with the likes of pool and city instead of just countering and going inshalah.
He looks comfortable with his weaker left foot. This makes it hard to play against him. Excited about this!
Woah 15 pages- has there been a development or just an e-fight?
But, but….needs a team building around him. Pashun etc.
I do agree 100% with your post though. This could be a fantastic move for us. But we need so much more.
Why dont we have more competition over this signing?
a lot of the english press reported we are trying to get it done.
This will be even better than your honeymoon.
Monitoring FC is so so slow.
FDJ is on enormous wages and Barcelona also "need" to sell him to register new players.
The players willing to join Man Utd, no interest from other big clubs, we are not low balling them by opening the bids at 60 mil plus 10mil adds on.
Barcelona needs to be sensible here and accept the offer. This should be quite straight forward. Otherwise we should move on and not waste anymore time.
The players willing to join Man Utd, no interest from other big clubs, we are not low balling them by opening the bids at 60 mil plus 10mil adds on.
Barcelona needs to be sensible here and accept the offer. This should be quite straight forward. Otherwise we should move on and not waste anymore time.
Frankie goes to Manchester
Liverpool instead are super fast
Where is Ehsanul and his infamous tweets? Our expectations need to once again be grounded, too much excitement and hope around here atm
A huge part of ETH’s remit is to coach the shit out of the existing players we have, not just sign new ones. I know this gets a lot of grief on here, and that makes me hesitate to say it, but Fred is a starter for Brasil. One of the best three national sides on the planet. He’s not a shit player. He’s got an incredible engine. I genuinely believe that ETH can make a Fred/De Jong double pivot work very, very well. It all comes down to coaching, systems, and players understanding what’s expected of them.
Before we signed Bruno Fernandes, it was obvious he was a special player, he combined an incredible work rate, a will to win, determination, and an eye for goal. Gradually most of that has slipped away, mainly through a sheer lack of coaching, and a general acceptance of apathy and mediocrity within the club. After a pre-season friendly against Sporting three years ago, Klopp described Bruno as an incredible player. The perfect player I think he said. Said he could do everything and was everywhere, all the time. He wanted to sign him but they didn’t have the budget. And that was the player we saw when he came, but it just ebbed away.
I honestly believe that a Fred, De Jong, Fernandes midfield, playing to its full potential in a properly coached team, would be truly superb. But it all comes back to coaching. Yes, I want us to see a few new faces this summer, but I am far more interested to see what ETH can do with our existing squad. The cycle of just replacing players and managers when it all goes tits up has to change.
At various points all of Rashford, Sancho, Fred, Bruno, Shaw, and Varane have all been highly coveted and/or top class. A really good manager should get a tune out of those players, because they are good players. Very good players, playing in shit systems, in a toxic environment. Whether they are part of that toxicity is almost irrelevant. A good manager and leader should be able to turn that around and get their buy in. Mostly, anyway.
We spent 80m on Maguire. He was never in a million years worth that. We’ve all seen he has the turning circle of a small oil tanker, but he was also never the completely useless lump of hilarious lard he has been for the last 12 months. He was a good player with some obvious deficiencies. Now he is a terrible player with almost no redeeming qualities? No, don’t buy it. Again, he should be able to be coached into some decent form, because there was a time when he was pretty good.
A player like De Jong is the catalyst to bring the idea and system together. To knit it all together from the middle of the park. He will have a multiplying effect on those around him. Like Carrick used to. The system, the approach, the understanding, instructions, and mentality are always more important than the player. That’s how the best managers extract incredible things from teams that are far greater than the sum of their parts. Fergie and Klopp are prime illustrators of this. We came third once with Giggs and O’Shea playing central midfield for half the season.
The squad needs a gradual overhaul for sure, an aggressive ball playing Center half would be another catalysing piece, and I think a versatile inverted, left footed right sided forward would be a very sensible addition. But the real success next season will come down to the coaching of our existing squad.
I’d like to see a serious squad built over the next 3-4 transfer windows, than a rush to fill spots and replace broken parts that may not actually be broken. Just poorly serviced. This summer getting 2-3 quality additions, then giving ETH 12 months to indoctrinate his ideas, methodology, rebuild the culture, and make a truly studious, informed analysis of who works and who doesn’t, and then hitting the market more aggressively, is the way to go IMO. It’s not flashy, it doesn’t satisfy the muppets, but it’s the desperately needed strategic approach that has been lacking for nearly a decade.
When you understand the system, you understand the player you need. That’s when you can start to use data analytics to make better recruitment decisions, and stop with this YouTube, eye test scouting nonsense. There are constantly players emerging who are on the cusp of becoming top talents. Where was Tchouameni two years ago, or Bellingham, or Haaland 3 years ago (we missed him on two moves), or Declan Rice 3 years ago. There are loads more and there will be loads more. But it’s hard to buy these players speculatively, thinking “well they may turn out great but we don’t have a plan to currently use them, so let’s watch them develop elsewhere to prove themselves and then spend 100m if they make it”. I know we tried with Bellingham, and sort of half arsed tried with Haaland, but they both went to clubs that knew what they were getting and most importantly how they would use them. That’s no coincidence. All the data analytics in the world don’t mean anything if you don’t know how you play or what you really need.
That is ETH’s job next season. And that’s why I support his pursuit of De Jong. Not because he’s a top player, because top players don’t mean a thing in a poorly coached and unstructured side, but because he knows exactly how he wants to use him, how he wants him to play, and where he fits in.
Last edited:
Frenkie says: RelaxThe clubs who can afford 400k a week wages don't need a central midfielder.
A Fred, FDJ and Bruno midfield will be dribbled past way too easily in the Premier League with the powerful running on the counter attack.
It would require a miracle in progress for Bruno and Fred to make it work.
As unpopular as McTominay is around here, statistically he is right up there for tackles (30th most in the premier League and generally the only midfielders who made more played 35+ games). A midfielder that can't pass is no good to us though, unless Ten Hag can make it work, we need more. But between Fred McTominay FDJ and Bruno there's got to be something we can work with
First reason: The man which the player rates highly and the player likes/feels better to play in his system.
Second reason:
The big teams already have the position/role that FDJ would prefer to play at (Bayern - Kimmich, Chelsea - Jorginho, City - Rodri, Liverpool - Fabinho) so they have no reason to pay big money for backup or position that is not priority, while PSG are interested but they can't make the move since there is uncertainty with their current manager. So far we are the frontrunner because we are taking this very seriously as he is the manager's number 1 target.
They don't need to change half a squad as we do.
Unless we sign another midfielder I think we'll see a lot of McTominay, particularly when Bruno is at the 10.
Fred might be an option while VDB is at the 10, because while he's also not a good tackler he is better at maintaining a defensive shape to protect the pivot when Fred is pushing high.
van de Beek could also play in the pivot but Im not convinced by his physicality and defensive work.
Garner is a possiblity and would be a good match for FDJ play style wise. The question is experience and mentality/ character because high pressure PL football is new to him.
Eh, per 90 minutes, Fred blows him out of the water for tackling stats.
€60m + €20m was reported the day before. No more credible than this guess that will never be proven. BBC say no bid.
I was looking at the premier League official statistics and it had McTominay making 65 tackles to Fred's 63, interestingly. I'm not arguing the case - I feel like comparing Fred and McTominay is not great when players from mid table clubs are blowing them the feck out the water, statistically and in reality when we play them (like Brighton and Villa). Neither is good enough for me but then it's not my job to make them work. They were good enough to get us second and third but that was because they were carried so hard by other players (de Gea, Bruno and even Rashford a few years ago). But if you had to stick with either of them it's a toss up for who, but I guess I prefer McTominay physicality Vs Fred, even though Fred is probably a better player (without saying much there)Eh, per 90 minutes, Fred blows him out of the water for tackling stats.
There’s not much that McTominay is actually good at. It’s harsh and I don’t like being this absolute about our players, but true. The hope here is that we sign another midfielder to play alongside De Jong. In fact I actually think we need it massively. FDJ replaces the ‘Pogba’ we just lost, we need someone to replace the ‘Matic’ profile.
I forgot about Garner. He offers something from dead balls and a genuine goal threat too, despite being a DM. I think Garner is going to make it as a decent premier League player at the MINIMUM, so hopefully he can fill the boots Matic left. Matic was a passenger against so many top sides (when him and Pogba started Vs Liverpool it was obvious we'd get demolished) and hopefully he gets to our level quickly because we need him to.
He wasn’t even close to be being first with this information though?
He’s also contradicted him else in that tweet. He’s been banging on for the last month that De Jong is only interested in Barcelona or CL football and now suddenly Romano is saying that De Jong has never indicated his desire to anyone. He’s basically admitted that he’s been making it up.
He would be a great signing but would essentially be a replacement for Pogba. He’s a cleverer team player than Pogba and reminds me of Xavi somewhat.
The balance of the team will still be off without a Rice type, someone with a great engine, aggressive and defensively intelligent. I hope we can find and afford somebody with those qualities as well.
The balance of the team will still be off without a Rice type, someone with a great engine, aggressive and defensively intelligent. I hope we can find and afford somebody with those qualities as well.
He will hopefully be what Pogba should’ve been. But you’re absolutely right, we’d still need a defensive midfielder as well
Today will be a good day!
Big day today.
Day Jong today.
I've not got anything against Romano but he was not the first one with that info, if you're talking about the reporting of the bid:
Tweet
— Twitter API (@user) date
Can't imagine we'll see anything official until Nations League ends
Barcelona want 100 million? How the feck do they justify that. They paid less for him and want to offload him because they're poor as feck. They're like an alcoholic trying to pawn of their shitty watch the buy a bottle of Vodka. Take the 60 million and feck off init.
Very good post
As much as I want him just walk away, beggars can’t be choosers. Barca will come back desperate.
Or just sell him to someone else. I think we’d come off looking daft if we didn’t get this done now.
- Status