Is Fred the worst regular starter for United in living memory?

[Litch]

According to some stats, Fred is as good as Jorginho. I am not a fan of Jorginho, but some press claim he is 1 of the best in EPL. By mathematical equation, Fred is 1 of the best.

Honestly speaking, don't think Ole has any choice. He needs someone very mobile to cover for Pogba (mistake), someone who can pass, and someone who can intercept and block. His only options are Matic and Fred, hence Fred.

The original question should be asked, why did we buy Fred, instead of ..... Whether foreign or domestic.

IMO, Fred is short. Not just physically, but short in passing, short in shooting, short in header of course, short in physical challenge / tackle.

I'm not defending Fred, it's clear his failings but genuinely this is embarrassing. Why at the start of every season do we need a scapegoat goat for the clubs failings. Has he played well, no but any person with 10% of football IQ can see the issues go a lot deeper than Fred. Can we improve on him, course but I said it last season, there is absolutely no CDM that can anchor that midfield on their own, allowing Pogs and Bruno to do what they want. It's an impossibility. Also Fred is not a CDM, which would be like playing Harry at CF. Yes he can head the ball but so what.
In fact, which top teams play with a 'true' CDM anyway?

As for the worst playing in living memory, what an absolute joke. Do people think you can finish second and get to semi's and finals with 10 men?

 

[romufc]

I do not want to look at stats or anything else anymore, Fred has led to alot of mistakes recently.

Leicester with his dumb back pass
Southampton with some poor blocking and erratic passing
Wolves away with erratic passing

As a CDM you cannot lose the ball with a 5 yard pass in the opposition half knowing there are 2 CB's only to cover, he has done it over and over again for us.

He is not good enough.

 

[KennyBurner]

I more or less agree. I think we could certainly upgrade on Fred but in reality the bigger issue is who plays alongside him as I think he offers more in most games than Matic/McT and as you say the issue is more the other midfielder. If it's McT/Matic alongside Fred, then Fred is our best CM which isn't great (but with our attack I think it's something we can work with) and if it's Pogba how he played against Wolves (albeit 2nd half was better from him and the team in general) we're leaving ourselves exposed as Pogba doesn't want to do the hard work that comes with playing there and we compound the situation by how high we push the attacking players to try and beat the offside trap.

I personally don't think there's any midfielder who on their own could cover as much ground as we were asking Fred to cover against Wolves, he certainly made mistakes but the biggest issue for me was the tactics. I don't think it's impossible to have Pogba there either in a lot of games but not if we're going to push the attack so high and therefore leave so much space in midfield.

At least you get it. He is being asked to press next to Pogba and a nonexistent attacking midfielder who plays as a striker. Not excusing his poor touches on the ball but ole is at fault for our team structure. Its so bad at the moment. We are always asking Pogba to longball it to our forwards who cant even make it stick consistently. This leads to a counter which sees Fred being overrun. It happened so much against wolves.

Unless we are in quick transition we need to play a 433 instead of a 4231 which would see bruno playing as deep as Pogba. But ofcourse I dont think Ole is tactical enough to male the change.

 

[Salus Populi Suprema Lex]

I forgot to mention Kleberson. He arrived with high hopes but was terrible.

 

[Ash_G]

At least you get it. He is being asked to press next to Pogba and a nonexistent attacking midfielder who plays as a striker. Not excusing his poor touches on the ball but ole is at fault for our team structure. Its so bad at the moment. We are always asking Pogba to longball it to our forwards who cant even make it stick consistently. This leads to a counter which sees Fred being overrun. It happened so much against wolves.

Unless we are in quick transition we need to play a 433 instead of a 4231 which would see bruno playing as deep as Pogba. But ofcourse I dont think Ole is tactical enough to male the change.

Yeah, I mean regardless of formation I just don't think we can have the whole front 4 as pushed on as we have been trying to get them to be or if we are then we need to accept that we're essentially playing a game of attack against attack which I don't think is a great long term strategy as you just can't effectively control a game playing the way we have been.

 

[Withnail]

No, clearly not.

 

[Crustanoid]

Not the worst ever but massively below what we need to challenge this year. Astounding that the club seemingly aren’t bothered by this.

 

[Schmeichel's Cartwheel]

I forgot to mention Kleberson. He arrived with high hopes but was terrible.

He was never a regular though.

 

[roonster09]

At least you get it. He is being asked to press next to Pogba and a nonexistent attacking midfielder who plays as a striker. Not excusing his poor touches on the ball but ole is at fault for our team structure. Its so bad at the moment. We are always asking Pogba to longball it to our forwards who cant even make it stick consistently. This leads to a counter which sees Fred being overrun. It happened so much against wolves.

Unless we are in quick transition we need to play a 433 instead of a 4231 which would see bruno playing as deep as Pogba. But ofcourse I dont think Ole is tactical enough to male the change.

Irrespective of who is next to Fred, who is ahead of him, when the player tries to tackle and lose every tackle, then it's a problem.

Fred works hard, he is by far our best player when it comes to pressing, covering distance but he is too weak and loses tackles which creates dangerous situations, add that with his loose touches and passes because of lack of concentration, then it becomes bigger problem.

 

[Ali Dia]

I do not want to look at stats or anything else anymore, Fred has led to alot of mistakes recently.

Leicester with his dumb back pass
Southampton with some poor blocking and erratic passing
Wolves away with erratic passing

As a CDM you cannot lose the ball with a 5 yard pass in the opposition half knowing there are 2 CB's only to cover, he has done it over and over again for us.

He is not good enough.

He’s one of my favourite players but this is true. I’m cringing looking at the TV this season. I genuinely think there are a few reasons for this. He’s not playing with any confidence and is starting games off on the back foot. I think that’s because he knows he’s in for a trashing with Matic or Pogba in beside him. It’s fairly aimless all action stuff that looks horrible when there’s only one person doing it. He’s being double pressed because he’s the only one taking any responsibility to set a tempo or battle it out. Yeah we could upgrade on him but give him a partner and I think he can get back to progressing us up the field and winning the ball back high up. He wouldn’t lose the ball in shite areas if he wasn’t actually trying stuff. It’s easy knock the ball off 5 years and shirk. I don’t think Fred does that

 

[Van Piorsing]

SAF would give him proper hairdryer and chances are it would work wonders.

 

[laughtersassassin]

Hi is right up there for sure.

I'd say he is because the others mentioned never stayed starting week in week out for as long as Fred has

In many ways Fred still has most of the flaws he had in hist first season when we never played him.

The difference now is more so that Matic is too old and Hererra left.

Both of whom where better than Fred.

Also so many blaming Pogba and aging it's impossible.

Fred puts in these performances with Matic and with McTominay as well.

Also Fred has no doubt been regressing since Last January. The mistakes are near constant now. He is simply the definition of erratic.

 

[Siorac]

Fred has led to alot of mistakes recently.

Leicester with his dumb back pass

That was in an FA Cup game in March. Stretching the definition of 'recently' there.

To answer the question of the OP: no, obviously not. For a start, he's better than his regular midfield partner. And we had Fellaini playing regularly for us at one point.

 

[romufc]

That was in an FA Cup game in March. Stretching the definition of 'recently' there.

To answer the question of the OP: no, obviously not. For a start, he's better than his regular midfield partner. And we had Fellaini playing regularly for us at one point.

I mean in game terms it wasn't that long ago, he has been costing us alot in games with his erratic passing. As a DM, you cannot make such errors on a regular basis, you can forgive players for making 4/5 a season not 4/5 a game.

 

[United in sin]

Look at the players Man City did not buy

Fred, Sanchez

Enough said.

They also didn't buy Ronaldo who was offered to them before us. Pep had nothing but good things to say about Fred, he wanted him. They wanted Sanchez too, they just didn't want them as badly as we did and refused to go pay over what they were willing to part with for their services

 

[Relem]

Fred's just average. A PL standard player, but for someone like Palace, not United. Fred's (very) occasional goals are enjoyable though, and far worse players than him have donned the colours.

 

[RetroStu]

Remeber when we bought him and he barely played for ages?. How bad must he of been in training.

 

[KennyBurner]

Irrespective of who is next to Fred, who is ahead of him, when the player tries to tackle and lose every tackle, then it's a problem.

Fred works hard, he is by far our best player when it comes to pressing, covering distance but he is too weak and loses tackles which creates dangerous situations, add that with his loose touches and passes because of lack of concentration, then it becomes bigger problem.

This is true which im not contesting but we haven't built on his impressive performances in the 19/20 season. Its all on Ole again because we should see him start next to a secure midfielder. We haven't even tried him next to VDB for a consistent amount of time. There are also other options like playing in a 3 which would be more secure when he is pressing. His loose touches wouldn't be a severe problem if we had extra bodies in the middle. So many ways for us to get the best out of different players but our squad utilization is in the gutter.

 

[Annihilate Now!]

Falcao is definitely the worst

 

[roonster09]

This is true which im not contesting but we haven't built on his impressive performances in the 19/20 season. Its all on Ole again because we should see him start next to a secure midfielder. We haven't even tried him next to VDB for a consistent amount of time. There are also other options like playing in a 3 which would be more secure when he is pressing. His loose touches wouldn't be a severe problem if we had extra bodies in the middle. So many ways for us to get the best out of different players but our squad utilization is in the gutter.

We have played him next to McTominay for couple of years now, they compliment each other well. Not sure about de Beek. Don't think he suits playing CM, especially in a 2 or in a 3 alongside Bruno.

Also players should be responsible for their mistakes too, we can't blame coach for player losing concentration. It's on player to stay focused all the time. His loose touches are not because he lacks ability, it's because he switches off few times.

Anyways right now he is part of our best team, no doubt about it.

 

[Bleu]

Have people seriously forgotten Bebe??? Fred is infinitely better then Bebe!!!

 

[Annihilate Now!]

Have people seriously forgotten Bebe??? Fred is infinitely better then Bebe!!!

Bebe was never even close to being a regular starter

 

[Thanos]

Fred hasn't had a great start to the season, but to suggest he is the worst starter is really harsh.
I really want him to be replaced with a better player, like Bissouma or Neves, but we have had Cleverly and Pereira who have started for us regularly and been far worse.

 

[RedSinha]

There were moments during the last match where he was completely alone in midfield against 3 wolves mildfielders, with Pogba way higher up. Not saying it was a bad performance, but the lack of support in midfield coupled with the superhero physique of Adama Traore made it look worse.

 

[Samid]

He's up there for sure.

 

[paulscholes18]

Hopefully Rangnick doesn't believe any of the lies that Carrick said in his press conference about him.

 

[Ferguson’s Hairdryer]

He's up there for sure.

He’s actually better than people realise. I’d argue he’s a player that will thrive under Rangnick, a bit like Henderson at Liverpool ….


What a goal

 

[Deery]

Assist.

 

[ivaldo]

Hopefully Rangnick doesn't believe any of the lies that Carrick said in his press conference about him.

Cry more.

 

[Vidyoyo]

He's good if you don't ask him to defend

 

[paulscholes18]

Cry more.

Obviously one good thing out does the 5 bad for you.

 

[youmeletsfly]

AWB, by a fecking mile.

 

[harms]

Assist.

You can argue that he’s had two assists already.

 

[ivaldo]

Obviously one good thing out does the 5 bad for you.

That's really stung, bless ya.

 

[CallyRed]

You can argue that he’s had two assists already.

 

[Amar__]

His partner is far worse, and isn't even trying unlike Fred. Fred is far from great tbf.

 

[Real Name]

Another good game thus far.

 

[Real Name]

Hopefully Rangnick doesn't believe any of the lies that Carrick said in his press conference about him.

Hopefully Fred will thrive under Ragnick.

 

[AndySmith1990]

He's not great, but I don't understand why Fred gets all the criticism when Mctominay is as bad, if not worse?

 

[Kramer]

He’s up there for sure. Yes he runs around a LOT. But that is base expectation from any United player.

He has so many mistakes in him every game.It’s so frustrating.