We would be signing him to compete with players like Rashford and Bruno, the same way we need a player to compete with Martial
Jack Grealish / signs new 5 year contract
- Thread starter MyOnlySolskjaer
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Exactly this.
It's pretty infuriating when you see posters wondering if he "could he do a job at RW?" This is a position that we haven't improved on in the last decade, we need to go for Sancho and not piss about another season.
———————DM———————
———Bruno————————
—————————Grealish
Sancho—Martial—Rashford
Against the majority of the PL teams this would be solid, for those needing a less gun-ho approach one of them drops to the bench for a 4231 but then that’s what we need, a better squad with better options on the bench.
You don't sign a player of his calibre to sit on the bench, nor do you pay that kind of money for that. He doesn't improve what we already have if we're honest, he's not better than Rashford or Bruno.
In the Premier league that midfield gets destroyed most weeks. When you have Sancho, Bruno, Martial and Rashford who are already going to lose the ball a lot. You need a presence or an engine in midfield such as Fred and a proper DM, not more cooks.
Put Ndidi for example in that DM slot, combined with Bruno’s willingness to drop deep that midfield would dominate. Look at City with their CM 3 when they were at their best, only one out and out DM.
We'd need a new DM as well. So thats 3 probably expensive players on top of just spending on Bruno. Seems a bit far fetched. We'd be lucky to get 2 expensive players this summer
No we don't need to go for 1 specific player in the right wing. There are loads of good ones
If we sold Pogba for over £100m that would be Grealish and Ndidi paid for. Wouldn’t be too unrealistic.
I'm fine with that, it doesn't necessarily have to be Sancho but we shouldn't experiment with a player that doesn't usually play there like Grealish. This is a position that has been neglected long enough.
Thats my preference too, but everyone seems to want to sign him despite paying a lot for a new AM specialist last window. The idea that one of Grealish, Fernandes and Rashford are going to sit out is laughable. We arent good enough to rest them
Asking Bruno to drop deep and contribute to defensive roles defeats the purpose of Bruno being the Bruno we see today. He is thriving on a free role, he doesn't have to worry about being out of position when the DM isn't there and that should not be messed up.
I'm sorry but replicating City and hoping things work is not the answer, Kevin de Bruyne is one of the best midfielders the premier league has ever seen, he is a big reason that their system works, he presses, he's a great tackler, he's a fantastic playmaker. Grealish is good and has some fantastic qualities but he doesn't have half of these abilities. Gundogan and Rodri/Fernandinho would have to be played even in City's lineup if De Bruyne isn't around.
From the same Leicester team that demanded 85m for Maguire? Hardly. And given the Grealish links (that I assume are pure rubbish) to various European powerhouses I suspect the process of selling him for a huge fee has already begun.
Bruno is the De Bruyne equivalent in our side. Grealish would bring a lot of what David Silva has for City, which is important - the former two are all-action, relentlessly forward-thinking and speculative in their general play. The latter two are more assured and level-headed in possession and balance things out.
City are an obvious example for using two attacking midfielders in a midfield three, but an extreme one - there are other sides who use similar pairings in more conventional ways and are, or have been, successful.
-AWB—--Maguire ——Shaw
————-Fred——-McT
—-Fernandes———Grealish
Sancho————————Rashford
—————Greenwood
————-Fred——-McT
—-Fernandes———Grealish
Sancho————————Rashford
—————Greenwood
The whole reason why we're in the mess we're in right now is because we don't have adequate squad depth. Grealish is versatile and can play in multiple positions and would cost £55m or less.
Most likely he will be replacing Lingard, Pereira and Mata in our squad who probably have combined wages in the region of 300k per week (£15.6m annually). Then if you factor in their transfer fees of say £25m, our net outlay for this position would be £30m max (+150k p/w wages), and a reduced wage bill of £7.8m a season. Amortized over the length of a 4 year contract, the transfer would essentially pay for itself.
So essentially by signing Grealish we get a significant upgrade on what we currently have in the position at no additional cost, so even from a club perspective it makes a lot of sense.
Terrible...
He just doesn't sit on the bench, I agree by all means Lingard, Pereira and Mata can be replaced but you don't pay 55m for a bench player. He doesn't start over Rashford or Bruno.
You do realise football is a squad game not just a strongest XI
PL appearances so far this season for our bench players
Pereira - 23
Lingard - 20
Mata - 17
PL games missed by players in our starting XI
Pogba - 21
Rashford - 6
McTominay- 9
Martial - 6
Grealish will get plenty of game time.
Grealish will be a direct replacement for JLINGZ, Andreas and Mata. I only dread if Bruno gets injured and go back to that crap.
Still need a striker, right winger and a new midfielder.
Still need a striker, right winger and a new midfielder.
A big club having two quality attacking midfielders capable of playing as 8s is pretty normal. It's a long season and you need all types. Besides in many games they'd be capable of playing together. In some games, Grealish can play on the left.
Sancho should obviously be the top priority. He's a class above the likes of Grealish, Maddison etc and will reach a much higher level in the game and probably already has. However, that doesn't mean I'm averse to us signing a midfielder who is excellent on the ball and would give us something different that Bruno doesn't.
So he'd be a backup AM?
As if we'd spend £50 million on someone to be a backup when our first choice 11 might not get us top 4.
He'd be starting. So would Rashford, Bruno, Martial and Pogba. So someone would have to try and adapt to the right wing or we arent signing him
So we'd need to bring in a DM that would have to play every game.
I dont think its too far fetched that we can work a system with Bruno and Grealish within a midfield 3.
We have 2 fullbacks who's offensive output leaves a lot to be desired, but i think we could use them in a different way based on their skillsets.
Assuming we sign Sancho, Grealish, and someone like Partey
As default, when out of possession
DDG
AWB Maguire Lindelof Shaw
Partey
Bruno Grealish
Sancho Rashford
Martial
When we are attacking, in possession;
DDG
Maguire Lindelof
AWB Partey Shaw
Bruno Grealish
Sancho Martial Rashford
Effectively asking AWB and Shaw not to bother going forward as they dont have the quality, instead move into DM roles either side of whoever we sign for that role - Partey in my example. Giving full licence to those infront to be fluid, interchange and create.
I think Pep did a similar thing at Bayern.
We have 2 fullbacks who's offensive output leaves a lot to be desired, but i think we could use them in a different way based on their skillsets.
Assuming we sign Sancho, Grealish, and someone like Partey
As default, when out of possession
DDG
AWB Maguire Lindelof Shaw
Partey
Bruno Grealish
Sancho Rashford
Martial
When we are attacking, in possession;
DDG
Maguire Lindelof
AWB Partey Shaw
Bruno Grealish
Sancho Martial Rashford
Effectively asking AWB and Shaw not to bother going forward as they dont have the quality, instead move into DM roles either side of whoever we sign for that role - Partey in my example. Giving full licence to those infront to be fluid, interchange and create.
I think Pep did a similar thing at Bayern.
So when somebody gets injured who is replacing them? we made this mistake THIS year already.
Having one set of 11 players is great, but they can't play 60 games a season and not get injured. Do you really expect Bruno to play 3 games a week and stay at his best? It's just not possible. Grealish will give a challenge to players like Rashford and Bruno. City manage to fit in all these stars and keep them happy.
If anything it's worse having less players as they just end up getting complacent. Look at how Lingard has reacted over the last year or 2, he knows he's got no competition and will play every week whether he's good or not.
Having Fred/Mctominay/Bruno/Grealish/Pogba* +1 DM (Partey) would be a great list of midfielders that'll keep eachother hungry.
Getting too much quality can never be a problem in our current state.
You have to bring players in who are happy with being squad players and are prepared to fight for their place. Grealish doesn't look like that kind of player to me.
We need a squad. The game v Everton after a Thursday night game showed exactly why we need more quality players.So he'd be a backup AM?
As if we'd spend £50 million on someone to be a backup when our first choice 11 might not get us top 4.
He'd be starting. So would Rashford, Bruno, Martial and Pogba. So someone would have to try and adapt to the right wing or we arent signing him
We didn't have a bench option to come on and help us when the pressure was mounting.
Having Grealish, Bruno, Pogba, Rashford allows us to rotate, and if we do get CL football, we will need quality players because we all know players will not stay fit for a full season.
So he'd be a backup AM?
As if we'd spend £50 million on someone to be a backup when our first choice 11 might not get us top 4.
He'd be starting. So would Rashford, Bruno, Martial and Pogba. So someone would have to try and adapt to the right wing or we arent signing him
Our fanbase lives in lalaland. You don't sign £50m players (on wages that £50m players earn) to provide back up. You sign them to start. It's no wonders these idiots lose their shit every second day about the Woodward/Glazers not spending enough when they want us to spend £100s of millions to provide 'depth'
I think with Shaw and AWB as our fullbacks we probably do need to play two attacking midfielders. It might leave us a bit porous in the middle, but you can't have everything.
It's not backup though is it, it is rotational. If Pogba leaves and we do not sign another creative player and Bruno is injured along with one of Rashford / Martial we are fecked again.
When you play 50 odd games a season, most players will play 35/40 games even with rotation. We have seen this season, Martial cannot stay fit for a full season.
Seems City seems to manage that quite fine. Yes, they have more money, but that kind of squad is what you need to do to be competative, unless your Liverpool and gamble on having all your players fit more or less all season.
And as the poster above me said, its not backup, its rotational. Also as another said, Graelish, like Bruno, is versatile in his positions which gives us more options in-game as well.
Yes an oil state backed club manage it fine by committing fraud and embezzling money they don't have into the club.
Was more too how they have so many quality high-priced players that isnt playing each and every game.
I like Aston Villa as a club and Villa Park is among my favourite away grounds, so I really don't want them to get relegated but at the same time do if it makes it easier for us to sign Grealish (lower transfer fee, him being 100% sure of leaving etc.). The ideal situation would be if we could strike a deal now and he spends the rest of the season dragging Villa out of the relegation zone and himself into the Euro squad (which, frankly, should be a no-brainer already).
We arent buying £50 million players to "rotate" them. We're buying them to play them in the same team as our best players
You can easily fit Grealish Bruno and Sancho into a starting 11. All are versatile to an extent. There's a million games a season. It's very doable and should be what we do if Pogba goes.
I dont get this narrative that we cant sign him because he will be backup.
We have seen this season where we have had injuries / loss of form which has had a huge impact on our season.
I would rather have a Grealish in my team than Mata/ Perreira/ Lingard to chose from. Considering we play 2 times a week, getting game time would not be an issue.
If we've learnt anything this season it's that we can't rely on just having a first XI with a massive drop off in quality to the back ups. We need high quality options that are interchangeable whether its Grealish or others.
You seem insistent on strawmanning people's arguments as literally no one is claiming he will sit on the bench every week.
He will play 50 games a season and can literally play in 4 different positions on the pitch. For a player of his quality it won't be difficult to give him game time due to injuries, form and squad rotation.
We also spent £40m on Matic who sits on the bench everyweek and likewise £50m on Fred & Martial who a lot of people don't think are good enough to be starting week in week out. The point is that £50m for man utd in order to add squad depth is pretty normal especially in attacking areas. Even after signing a RW we will have no one to challenge any of our attacking players without a significant drop in quality, which is a massive problem when you want to compete on all fronts.
The output and quality of Grealish is levels above the combined output of Lingard, Mata and Pereira who he will most likely replace in our squad. Then factor in things like wages and transfer fees. When looking at the whole picture you start to see why signing Grealish is actually good business.
I guess its more about if he wants to come to be backup.
We do need squad depth of course, and I'm sure if we could offload Lingard & Pereira for good fees then that would open up the possibility of this transfer, but that is doubtful. Given how we are stocked in his preferred positions, Grealish would be a luxury item for a club that still needs to address specific positions, most urgently RW. It could be a case of right player at the wrong time, although I'm not as convinced as many that he is the right player, and certainly not when you add the English tax on top of the United tax on top of his actual market value.
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