Grace Clinton | PFA Young Player of the Year

Nice article in the Guardian this morning:
Grace Clinton embracing the pressure back at United after breakthrough year

“Honestly, I do feel like a new signing,” says Clinton of her summer back at United. “It’s a weird feeling of knowing a lot of the players but also coming in and feeling like a new signing, because I’ve not played with them. [But] I’ve always got on with the girls – we have a really good group at United.

“We have quality players and the club has a lot of pressure; you’re expected to win, it’s a big club, with big signings, so I think it’ll be really exciting to feel the pressure of needing to win every game. [Pre-season] has been intense, definitely hard, but we actually had some decent time off, so it’s been really nice to get back on the ball.”
 
It is great to see her in red and with the rest of the squad. She’s still very young so I don’t want to put too much pressure on her, but I can’t remember being this hyped for any of our actual signings over the last couple of years. Don’t feck this up Skinner
 
After watching the game against West Ham, in which I thought she was clearly Player of the Match, I got the impression that she could potentially compete for the league's Player of the Year. She looks like the kind of player who will not only put up big numbers in both goals and assists, but also make everyone around her better. It boggles my mind to think that she's only 21.
 
Lobster11 said:
After watching the game against West Ham, in which I thought she was clearly Player of the Match, I got the impression that she could potentially compete for the league's Player of the Year. She looks like the kind of player who will not only put up big numbers in both goals and assists, but also make everyone around her better. It boggles my mind to think that she's only 21.
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To have both her and Ella Toone could be a real luxury going forward. Could have had her breakthrough with us last year, but fair to say it looks like it’s turning out alright for all parties that she went to Tottenham and got to develop with lots of responsibility there last season. Looks a really mature player at a very young age.
 
Grande said:
To have both her and Ella Toone could be a real luxury going forward. Could have had her breakthrough with us last year, but fair to say it looks like it’s turning out alright for all parties that she went to Tottenham and got to develop with lots of responsibility there last season. Looks a really mature player at a very young age.
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My fear coming into the season was that Toone and Clinton might be competing for the same position, with one starting and the other coming off the bench. I'm super happy that we didn't see that on Saturday. I agree that it would be a "luxury" to have either of them available as a backup to the other, but getting them on the field together doesn't seem to me so much like a luxury as a potentially supercharged, twin-engine offense. Hopefully the only thing they will be competing against each other for is the league lead in assists.
:cool:
 
I like the dynamic of starting both Clinton and Toone both starting - it certainly worked against West Ham. We also had quite a flexible formation. My concern is how inflexible Skinner generally is. We really need to pick a starting XI and have a formation to suit the tougher fixtures - and that could possibly mean starting only one of the two.
 
Lobster11 said:
My fear coming into the season was that Toone and Clinton might be competing for the same position, with one starting and the other coming off the bench. I'm super happy that we didn't see that on Saturday. I agree that it would be a "luxury" to have either of them available as a backup to the other, but getting them on the field together doesn't seem to me so much like a luxury as a potentially supercharged, twin-engine offense. Hopefully the only thing they will be competing against each other for is the league lead in assists.
:cool:
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Demon Barber said:
I like the dynamic of starting both Clinton and Toone both starting - it certainly worked against West Ham. We also had quite a flexible formation. My concern is how inflexible Skinner generally is. We really need to pick a starting XI and have a formation to suit the tougher fixtures - and that could possibly mean starting only one of the two.
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Yea and this is what I mean by luxury - the opportunity to do different things, to have tactical variation without lowering the quality of players in different positions.
 
I'm hoping we'll see an approach that's tailored to who we're playing. We're a long way from being able to dictate games by "playing our way" against top opposition.

I'm hoping that along with finding ways of confidently beating weaker teams, we've also been looking at the big games against the big teams. First question I'd ask about the Clinton/Toone dilemma is why not both :lol:

Ok, I'm basing that on the idea that we can move to a 442 formation with the idea that Naalsund and Janssen can give us a solid base and Clinton/Toone can play ahead of them. There's a risk of losing width of course. However if we do learn to switch quickly to an assymetrical back four then I reckon we can come up with an attacking 2+2 that can still use and cover the wings. Got to try anyway!
 
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