Having two quality players on every position

[Andycoleno9]

Why we are only big club who don't do that? We are all happy with first 11 but we all accept that our depth is dire.
Juve, Madrid, Barca, City, Bayern, Inter, Chelsea, Psg are clubs in our level and clubs with which we must compare ourselves. They all have on the bench pretty quality players for nearly every position. We on the other hand sell quality player if he is not in first 11. Di Maria, Lukaku, Depay, even Blind in some way are sold because they were not in manager's plans for first 11.

Same is when we are buying players. For example, we have AWB and Shaw as fb. We will not look at another quality fb on the market. We are happy having Williams and TFM as cover. Same goes for every position. We will not search for quality lw while we have Rashford etc...

Season has 60 games. If you want to win something you must have quality players on the bench. Not just "he is good enough for backup" as people like to describe some of our players

 

[Web of Bissaka]

Di Maria, Lukaku, Depay, even Blind in some way are sold because they were not in manager's plans for first 11.

?? I'm sure you know why those players are sold or let go.

 

[Web of Bissaka]

I get the points you're making.

We need to retain and add in more quality players.

 

[Bastian]

There are very few - if any - clubs that have two quality players for every position.

I remember Mourinho at Chelsea asking for that, and they got a good B team, but at most I'd say there are 5-6 quality players in reserve at top clubs.

That being said, our depth is dreadful.

 

[Andycoleno9]

I get the points you're making.

We need to retain and add in more quality players.

Exactly that. With us when quality player loses first 11 spot, our solution is to "cut our losses". Bloody hell, i refuse to believe that in every other club good players are happy to fight for minutes but in United it is first 11 or nothing. I would never sell those 4 players. They were unhappy? feck that. You have contract. Shut up and play.

 

[Bastian]

Exactly that. With us when quality player loses first 11 spot, our solution is to "cut our losses". Bloody hell, i refuse to believe that in every other club good players are happy to fight for minutes but in United it is first 11 or nothing. I would never sell those 4 players. They were unhappy? feck that. You have contract. Shut up and play.

What players are you referring to? We sold Lukaku because he doesn't fit into our style of play and was not going to sit on the bench. And it financed the deal for Magurie, mostly. We sold Sanchez because he was simply the worst transfer in the history of football, all things considered.

I do think Woodward fecked things up royally with Herrera, who could have signed a non-outrageous deal if it had been addressed in time.

The players we let go under van Gaal is a different story. Plenty of usefulness there and they were sold for pocket change.

 

[George Owen]

What quality player would be happy to be a reserve?

 

[Andycoleno9]

What quality player would be happy to be a reserve?

Look at bench of other big clubs and there is your answer

 

[Ecstatic]

What is the debate?

 

[UNITED ACADEMY]

Why we are only big club who don't do that? We are all happy with first 11 but we all accept that our depth is dire.
Juve, Madrid, Barca, City, Bayern, Inter, Chelsea, Psg are clubs in our level and clubs with which we must compare ourselves. They all have on the bench pretty quality players for nearly every position. We on the other hand sell quality player if he is not in first 11. Di Maria, Lukaku, Depay, even Blind in some way are sold because they were not in manager's plans for first 11.

Same is when we are buying players. For example, we have AWB and Shaw as fb. We will not look at another quality fb on the market. We are happy having Williams and TFM as cover. Same goes for every position. We will not search for quality lw while we have Rashford etc...

Season has 60 games. If you want to win something you must have quality players on the bench. Not just "he is good enough for backup" as people like to describe some of our players

Or let's just accept we can't buy everyone in one window. There is a reason why last year Ole mentioned it'll take 3-4 years before United can compete again.

Anyway, we are trying to sort out the attackers this year and we are linked with 2 potential quality players Sancho & Brooks. That's proven we are trying to improve the depth of our attack.

 

[cyril C]

I would say this statement is totally rubbish. Why do you need 22x quality players when your manager always start the same 11 players? City spent 200m on 4 full backs, do you honestly think we can, in fact any club in the world with or without FFP, can afford 50mx22?

We need 2 players for each position alright, but some players may be able to fit in multiple role. Ideal scenario is 15-16 field players plus 2-3 Academy kids who can fill in. But then, when more than 1 players played 50+ games last season, ask how many game time do you think bench warmers will get?

The reason that Young wanted to leave is because of game time, he got the most opportunity compared with Jones, Valencia, Rojo, Sanchez, Fred, Mata.... Not everyone take golf as primary career goal.

 

[Jackal]

What quality player would be happy to be a reserve?

You'd be surprised.
Bayern Munich have Alaba and Alphonso Davies as left backs, Pavard and Odriozola as right backs, Kimmich also plays there when he's arsed.

The worst full back in Bayern is better than the best full back in Man Utd. That's strength in depth in a holy matrimony with sterling quality.

 

[Bojan11]

We are trying. This sort of thing doesn’t happen overnight. Madrid literally had nobody on the bench in 17/18 or 18/19 @carvajal to change the game? Before that they had Morata and James.

Even Liverpool need work on that department.

 

[SteveW]

It's a process. The signings of Moyes, LVG and Mourinho have left us with a bloated messy squad with many awful players on high wages. It's going to take time to get them out of the club and replaced.

Ole knows he needs good options for rotation. That's why we are looking for Sancho despite already having a super talented front 3. It's about depth. By this time next year I'd expect us to have a balanced strong squad. 4 or 5 more signings and the likes of Henderson, Axel, Laird, Mejbri, Mengi, Garner establishing themselves as well.

 

[Kaos]

I think what we’re forgetting is the reason some of these aforementioned clubs have such impressive depth is many of their signings were not intended to be bench warmers, but simply didn’t impress enough to warrant being starters. City have four decent fullbacks because they’ve been struggling to sign one they’ve been completely happy with. A club like Madrid just get bored of their older signings who get overlooked for newer shiny signings.

 

[carvajal]

We are trying. This sort of thing doesn’t happen overnight. Madrid literally had nobody on the bench in 17/18 or 18/19 @carvajal to change the game? Before that they had Morata and James.

Even Liverpool need work on that department.

We had Asensio playing terribly bad and Mariano. It was noticeable when the very starters were not playing and even now, with all the planning in the world, if Kroos is injured 6 months we are really fecked.
Without that long squad Madrid wouldn´t have been able to win la liga + champions in the same year.
United are doing well, they already have a solid block, but it is true that they still need to accumulate more talent.

 

[Class of 63]

Why we are only big club who don't do that? We are all happy with first 11 but we all accept that our depth is dire.
Juve, Madrid, Barca, City, Bayern, Inter, Chelsea, Psg are clubs in our level and clubs with which we must compare ourselves. They all have on the bench pretty quality players for nearly every position. We on the other hand sell quality player if he is not in first 11. Di Maria, Lukaku, Depay, even Blind in some way are sold because they were not in manager's plans for first 11.

Same is when we are buying players. For example, we have AWB and Shaw as fb. We will not look at another quality fb on the market. We are happy having Williams and TFM as cover. Same goes for every position. We will not search for quality lw while we have Rashford etc...

Season has 60 games. If you want to win something you must have quality players on the bench. Not just "he is good enough for backup" as people like to describe some of our players

Why should we compare ourselves? We pride ourselves on clearing a pathway into the first-team for our better Academy Grads, unlike the clubs you've named who all tend to stockpile players to stop other clubs getting them with little thought of their own youngsters. I know which model I prefer.

 

[carvajal]

Why should we compare ourselves? We pride ourselves on clearing a pathway into the first-team for our better Academy Grads, unlike the clubs you've named who all tend to stockpile players to stop other clubs getting them with little thought of their own youngsters. I know which model I prefer.

I don't know a lot of players from the Juve or Inter academy, but the rest of the teams that you name are developing young players in one way or another, and like at United the fans/club have the highest expectations.
However, giving them a chance does not ensure that they are talented enough.

 

[MadDogg]

It's not about having two players for every position (which ends up being 22 players). You're never going to get that and it will cause problems as players aren't playing. It's about having 15-16 quality players who are able to rotate amongst a number of positions.

A good example are the two attacking players we've most been linked with this window. Sancho and Grealish. We won't go into the price tags that their clubs supposedly put on them, but just the players themselves. Sancho can directly play LW and RW, most likely also #10, and then indirectly also cover the striker (from being able to move Rashford or Greenwood forward with Sancho playing on the wing). Grealish can directly play LW and #10, most likely RW and perhaps CM, and indirectly cover the striker. Bringing in those two would then give us 6 quality players directly competing for the front four positions, which really is the perfect scenario of what you want. Then we have other, less effective squad players like James, Mata, Lingard and Pereira (some would be sold but some would remain) making up the numbers further down for less important games and emergency cover. Young players coming through also fall into that category until they prove they are ready to step up to the main group.

Di Maria, Lukaku, Depay, even Blind in some way are sold because they were not in manager's plans for first 11.

Blind yes, I certainly agree there. Di Maria and Lukaku were on too high a wage for what their performances deserved and were causing problems in the dressing room, so it was important to let them go (especially as we got good fees that we could then put towards players that would be more effective). Depay I'm not sure about. In theory he should have been kept for longer, but in reality he was so very very bad for us.

 

[Class of 63]

I don't know a lot of players from the Juve or Inter academy, but the rest of the teams that you name are developing young players in one way or another, and like at United the fans/club have the highest expectations.
However, giving them a chance does not ensure that they are talented enough.

I doubt you'd be able to name an XI of Academy Grads who are regular starters from the teams named combined.

Obviously, and if they are not good enough they are moved on, and their place in the squad is taken by the next in line.

 

[Sb_16]

You can't do that unless you are offering more money to the lesser one than he can make elsewhere along with consistently winning multiple trophies every season.

However, having a few versatile backup players equally capable of playing different positions to a high standard is the way to go.

 

[Mark Pawelek]

Don't think you need 2 quality players in each position but should still aim for 2 squads. To challenge for PL you need about 18 players who you trust to start against the top 6 sides and play at least 1000 minutes of PL football each. You don't need 2 for each position because players can often fill more than one position. The right combination can challenge for PL. You have to account for periods when up to 6 players will be injured, and need to rest and rotate. I think United currently have about 11 of the 18 they need.

Last season Bayern brought in 3 loanees; 2 of them were top quality. This summer United need to buy or loan in about 6 very good players so we can challenge for medals next season. Gabriel is about the minimum level we need. We don't need to recruit the best in the world. We need to make sure everyone is in the top 20, or close, for their position. It also makes sense to have no big weaknesses in your 25 man squad, and to have 25 senior players in the squad.

 

[hmchan]

Looking at Chelsea's bench against Bayern, I can't agree they have a better squad depth than us.

 

[Mark Pawelek]

Looking at Chelsea's bench against Bayern, I can't agree they have a better squad depth than us.

Of course they do. They're a player warehouse. They have about 2 squads worth of players on loan too. Now City and 'Pool are copying Chelsea. Is it a coincidence that 3 of the top 4 PL finishers aim to be player warehouses?

 

[hmchan]

Of course they do. They're a player warehouse. They have about 2 squads worth of players on loan too. Now City and 'Pool are copying Chelsea. Is it a coincidence that 3 of the top 4 PL finishers aim to be player warehouses?

What do you mean by a player warehouse? How are City and Liverpool copying Chelsea? Can you list Chelsea's bench against Bayern?

 

[Mark Pawelek]

What do you mean by a player warehouse? How are City and Liverpool copying Chelsea? Can you list Chelsea's bench against Bayern?

1st question. Player warehouse = a club with more than 1 teams worth of players (21 and over) loaned out to other clubs. For example - both City and 'Pool have players on their books loaned to South American sides but those players have never played in England for their parent club.

2nd question - irrelevant.

 

[roonster09]

Di Maria, Lukaku, Depay, even Blind in some way are sold because they were not in manager's plans for first 11.

2 of them were sold as they didn't want to stay at ManUtd, one of them didn't bother to turn up for preseason training to push for transfer and other had "Ankle injury" for whole of preseason.

Also you have to consider squad positions at that time. We had Rashford and Martial who competed for same position, we had Mkhi, Rooney, Zlatan, Mata for attacking positions. We can't keep them all, we have squad size limit.

Blind should have been retained and should have offloaded players like Jones.

Blind was third choice LB, not sure which choice CB as Jose prefered Rojo and Jones in 2016-17 season when we had injuries.

Also Inter depth is not good. If you mean just numbers instead of quality then we have that too.

 

[hmchan]

1st question. Player warehouse = a club with more than 1 teams worth of players (21 and over) loaned out to other clubs. For example - both City and 'Pool have players on their books loaned to South American sides but those players have never played in England for their parent club.

2nd question - irrelevant.

It's irrelevant to the topic when these players are not up to the required standard and they can't bring quality to the bench.

 

[Beanz]

Or let's just accept we can't buy everyone in one window. There is a reason why last year Ole mentioned it'll take 3-4 years before United can compete again.

Anyway, we are trying to sort out the attackers this year and we are linked with 2 potential quality players Sancho & Brooks. That's proven we are trying to improve the depth of our attack.

Brooks is not what i'd class as a quality player. Okay at best. And they're asking 40m, not worth it

 

[eltigreFalcao]

Or let's just accept we can't buy everyone in one window. There is a reason why last year Ole mentioned it'll take 3-4 years before United can compete again.

Anyway, we are trying to sort out the attackers this year and we are linked with 2 potential quality players Sancho & Brooks. That's proven we are trying to improve the depth of our attack.

As if being liked were actually doing business on it?

 

[Freak]

Because every time we get linked to a good player in positions we already have good players in, people go "but this signing will stall the development of Martial/Rashford/Greenwood" or "why pay so much money for a backup?".

 

[LucasXXII]

I wonder if anyone ever thought why a lot of players would rather sit on the bench at clubs like Madrid/Bayern/Barca than being a starter at United, and with the ones that actually came to United, as soon as they can't start at United they want out?

I mean, take a step back and consider how United is perceived from the outside:

• Manchester doesn't have the glamour of a Paris/Madrid/London. The cold and rainy weather in general doesn't help either from the perspective of continental players.
• Compared to other big clubs, United literally has no footballing structure in place. As soon as a new manager arrives he can pretty much chop and change as he wishes, and players bought by the previous manager may well fall out of favour. Stability is not guaranteed.
• Fans are as demanding as any club in the world, and trigger-happy ex-players in media are coming out with unsubstantiated bollocks on a weekly basis.
• Result-wise, United is currently a club that yo-yos between the UCL and EL spots. Pretty much on the level of the likes Sevilla/Roma/Leverkusen if we look at other leagues.
• All the DNA stuff since OGS arrived may be appealing for childhood United fans, but it's an intrinsically non-inclusive ideology, and a foreign player with no ties to United has to wonder whether he'd fit in this sort of environment.
• Players that have no ties to United are hardly rushing to play under Solskjaer, as he's far from a reputed coach in general consensus.

That United can dish out high wages is pretty much the only thing that sets United apart from most top European clubs in a good way these days.

So it's only natural that United finds it hard to attract quality players that are willing to be rotational options. We are picking from a smaller player pool than most top clubs anyway, and there's a higher probability that incoming players treat United as a stop gap or a second choice.

 

[NoneBmStore]

Like having Coutinho and Perisic on the bench?

 

[eire-red]

I think more realistic is to have a core of 15-16 quality players, and within that core group having some real top class players in key positions.

City are the only team I can think of that could potentially replace their entire midfield and attack like for like, and clearly depth isn't the great answer given their season.

I think the greatest teams have a really strong, consistent and professional core to their squads, with a top class spine and match winners up top.