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2022-23 Performances


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5.3 Season Average Rating
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31
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17
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A-man

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Why would he give a feck about England in the WC ?
I don’t think he cares about England personally, but it’s a great way for him to get back a player from injury and possibly also poor confidence. Basically Maguire would get high quality game time, which is very positive for a bench player.
 

romufc

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What I am interested to see is whether he gets pressed as much as he was before. I’ve noticed teams in recent weeks don’t press us as much now as we seem to be able to break the press comfortably. Largely down to Casemiro, Varane, Eriksen and Martinez all being comfortable on the ball.

Will be interested to see if Maguire is still targeted by teams to be pressed.
Hopefully that isn't an issue because Varane isn't the greatest on the ball. He knows that so Varane usually gives it to people who are good.

The Maguire issue is that he might think he is too good and might try holywood passes when really he shouldnt, let Martinez pass between the lines.

I really hope Maguire has improved, he has a tendency to take too many touches which invites the press.
 

Globule

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I think Martinez has put that myth firmly to bed that Maguire is good at playing out from the back .
He isn't and as soon as he comes Into this team United will start losing again.
He's Woefully out of his depth trying to play in any progressive back line
This. His passing from the back is fine, but he's not great at carrying it. He dwells too long on the ball too often, and when pressed he really panics.
 

Chief123

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Hopefully that isn't an issue because Varane isn't the greatest on the ball. He knows that so Varane usually gives it to people who are good.

The Maguire issue is that he might think he is too good and might try holywood passes when really he shouldnt, let Martinez pass between the lines.

I really hope Maguire has improved, he has a tendency to take too many touches which invites the press.
I think Varane is decent on the ball. Especially in situations when being pressed. He knows how to manoeuvre out of tight situations.

The problem with Maguire isn’t his ability on the ball. It’s the fact he wants to take 4 weeks, pull out a deck chair, have a cup of tea while he assesses which person on the pitch he’s going to attempt a pass to. By the time he’s decided, both teams are already in the dressing room for the half time team talk.
 

Chief123

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I think Martinez has put that myth firmly to bed that Maguire is good at playing out from the back .
He isn't and as soon as he comes Into this team United will start losing again.
He's Woefully out of his depth trying to play in any progressive back line
I agree to this in general. Passing out from the back doesn’t make you good just because you can find a successful pass. The speed, timing and precision of the pass, the weight and angle is where the finer details make those passes very effective. This is something Martinez is brilliant at and much better than Maguire.
 

romufc

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I think Varane is decent on the ball. Especially in situations when being pressed. He knows how to manoeuvre out of tight situations.

The problem with Maguire isn’t his ability on the ball. It’s the fact he wants to take 4 weeks, pull out a deck chair, have a cup of tea while he assesses which person on the pitch he’s going to attempt a pass to. By the time he’s decided, both teams are already in the dressing room for the half time team talk.
What Maguire fails to understand or grasp is the understanding of pressing. Yes, he could draw them in but when he waits 4 weeks for a pass, the team is set and players he wants to pass to are pressed so the likelyhood of keeping the ball is lower.
 

Chief123

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What Maguire fails to understand or grasp is the understanding of pressing. Yes, he could draw them in but when he waits 4 weeks for a pass, the team is set and players he wants to pass to are pressed so the likelyhood of keeping the ball is lower.
Sometimes it feels like he’s holding on to it longer just to try and show he’s comfortable on the ball. It’s so annoying. Pogba used to do the same just to show his strength holding players off.
 

Stadjer

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Sometimes it feels like he’s holding on to it longer just to try and show he’s comfortable on the ball. It’s so annoying. Pogba used to do the same just to show his strength holding players off.
Passing the ball to Fred is a risk and McT tries to avoid being part of the passing game. Hopefully Maguire his tendency to keep the ball comes from that and not from anything else. Hopefully he does pass it quicker with Casemiro and Eriksen as receiving options in front of him.
 

Sandikan

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Sometimes it feels like he’s holding on to it longer just to try and show he’s comfortable on the ball. It’s so annoying. Pogba used to do the same just to show his strength holding players off.
Ah the glorious "hold off" Pogba signature move.

Usually amazingly holding off 2 or 3 players, but overdoing it for 5 seconds longer than was necessary, losing the ball in a criticial deep centre midfield position, and allowing some pacey player to romp through and get a shot on target.
 

Chief123

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Ah the glorious "hold off" Pogba signature move.

Usually amazingly holding off 2 or 3 players, but overdoing it for 5 seconds longer than was necessary, losing the ball in a criticial deep centre midfield position, and allowing some pacey player to romp through and get a shot on target.
It was incredibly frustrating to see because he would have left his man behind but would then send out another invite to him to come and battle again.
 

justsomebloke

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I think Varane is decent on the ball. Especially in situations when being pressed. He knows how to manoeuvre out of tight situations.

The problem with Maguire isn’t his ability on the ball. It’s the fact he wants to take 4 weeks, pull out a deck chair, have a cup of tea while he assesses which person on the pitch he’s going to attempt a pass to. By the time he’s decided, both teams are already in the dressing room for the half time team talk.
I agree with this. Watching Martinez' quick passing has been one of the biggest joys of this season, feels like having a really bad itch scratched, every time. :)
 

Sandikan

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It was incredibly frustrating to see because he would have left his man behind but would then send out another invite to him to come and battle again.
I always think whenever you start making the "he just needs xxx formation, or pace around him, or xx and yy players round him", it's time to give up on them.

We played that game with latter day Rooney, we repeatedly did it with Pogba too and a bit Maguire as well.

It looks ridiculous when you bring in a Casemiro, Martinez and Antony and a month or so in they're all performing well.
Good, motivated players look good regardless of what's around them.
 

Chief123

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I always think whenever you start making the "he just needs xxx formation, or pace around him, or xx and yy players round him", it's time to give up on them.

We played that game with latter day Rooney, we repeatedly did it with Pogba too and a bit Maguire as well.

It looks ridiculous when you bring in a Casemiro, Martinez and Antony and a month or so in they're all performing well.
Good, motivated players look good regardless of what's around them.
Yeah I think Eriksen has in some way brought an end to the argument that “Pogba needs a proper DM to unlock him”. Eriksen’s already shown he’s been more effective for us even without a proper DM as he’s been doing it alongside Mctominay.
 

Chief123

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I agree with this. Watching Martinez' quick passing has been one of the biggest joys of this season, feels like having a really bad itch scratched, every time. :)
I must have lost count how many times Martinez plays a first time pass which instigates a dangerous move for us. Yet, I can’t even remember Maguire trying first time passes to break the lines.
 

justsomebloke

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I always think whenever you start making the "he just needs xxx formation, or pace around him, or xx and yy players round him", it's time to give up on them.

We played that game with latter day Rooney, we repeatedly did it with Pogba too and a bit Maguire as well.

It looks ridiculous when you bring in a Casemiro, Martinez and Antony and a month or so in they're all performing well.
Good, motivated players look good regardless of what's around them.
I don't think that's true. To perform well, a player needs to be put in a position where he can play to his strengths, and not get constantly exposed on his weaknesses. You could say that if he's got weaknesses that needs protecting then he's by definition not a good player. But I think that would be too simple - few players does everything well, and it's as much about which weaknesses gets exposed through collective failings/other players/inappropriate role as it is about how many or grave weak areas you have.

That being said, you don't want to carry too many players like that. And we have done exactly that, with far too many players with weak areas they need others to compensate for. Also as a group, the squad has been very badly composed in that regard. Especially if you look at how the weaknesses and limitations of the central axis (Fred-Pogba-McT, Maguire-Lindelof, De Gea) have interacted - not only do they not compensate for each other, they have mutually reinforcing shortcomings. ETH seems to have largely fixed that already, and he deserves huge credit for his foresight in investing three of his five signings in that area.

With Casemiro and Eriksen, I think there should be greater scope for Maguire to do well. It's more that it's just very hard to see why he'd be preferred over Martinez. There's not much he does better, or equally well. Given that, it would seem to me natural to move him on, if the opportunity should arise.
 

Hammondo

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Sometimes it feels like he’s holding on to it longer just to try and show he’s comfortable on the ball. It’s so annoying. Pogba used to do the same just to show his strength holding players off.
I think they are both just slow on the ball, not out of choice.
 

RedOrange

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The fact that a lot of other players have dramatically improved with ETH even since August (McTominay, Fred, Dalot, Shaw, Rashford) has made me cautiously optimistic about Maguire.

He looks a bit slimmer from recent training photos, which might improve his pace and agility. The players around him improving will also be helpful, with De Gea sweeping a bit more, Casemiro actually defending the space in front of the back line, and Martinez being an excellent ball mover.

I think he developed some bad habits from having opposing forwards get free runs at him several times a match. On a lot of those he had little choice but to lunge in for a tackle, so that started to be his automatic reaction to everything. Let's see how it goes after getting a significant break from matches and a few months of the new manager and coaches giving him instruction.
 
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Red the Bear

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Was he getting booed?
He's arguably a bit shit but I don't really think he deserves that, that wasn't nice.

Edit: nvm apparently they were chanting shoooot.
 
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Solius

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I was sure some of it was booing. You could hear it even when he was super far out from goal.
 

The United

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Thought we were far better in the air in both attacking and defense with him in the team.
 

A-man

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Did ok and kept it simple. All three CBs won every situation but were never really tested.

It started every time he approached the final third, but never otherwise, so I'd go with it being "Shoooooooot"
Some of the “Shooooot”s came through as crowd being ironic as he was basically 50 yards from goal.
 

Abraxas

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Pretty hard to take anything from this game for any of the defenders in terms of actual defending. They didn't have any quality to get up the pitch, there were no attacks. Couldn't have had a better game to get some comfortable minutes in. Passed it well. Again, under no pressure.
 
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