If the new manager is to play the possession based football, he needs someone like Busquet to be the deep lying playmaker and that's why Kalvin Philips is linked. Whether he is the right player for Man Utd, or if he is a good fit that is another story.
Kalvin Phillips
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There is the other possibility, that we didn’t brief the Manchester press, and that sports tabloids just did what sports tabloids do.
That would fit better with this info. Unless, of course, this is just something that Leeds briefed the press for bargaining leverage.
Entire thread is spot on and what most of us are saying in here.
Just a thought here, yea?
Before we start completely writing off this potential transfer, lets take a moment and think of the transfers that were “approved” by the vast majority of the fanbase and how they did for the club during the post SAF years.
Schneiderlin, Depay, AWB, Maguire, Pogba, Van de Beek, Mkhitaryan, Mata, Alexis Sanchez
Even Sancho and Varane have been underwhelming at best although both deserve another season before we can judge them properly.
Some of you might’ve been against the signing of one of these players but I know for a fact the majority of the fanbase was all for each and every one of these signings, yes even AWB.
So after a decade of struggle, perhaps its time we did the complete opposite of what we’ve been doing and sign players that fit the manager’s plan and actually build a team with purpose to play a certain type of football instead of signing the “sexiest” name or the flavor the week next big talent, or their marketability, etc
I don’t think Philips is worth 50 million, nor do I think we should be signing players for 50 million at our current state, but he’s certainly a decent player who I thought outperformed Rice at the Euros.
He’s certainly much better than what we currently have in midfield, and if ETH thinks the right signing then so be it.
Before we start completely writing off this potential transfer, lets take a moment and think of the transfers that were “approved” by the vast majority of the fanbase and how they did for the club during the post SAF years.
Schneiderlin, Depay, AWB, Maguire, Pogba, Van de Beek, Mkhitaryan, Mata, Alexis Sanchez
Even Sancho and Varane have been underwhelming at best although both deserve another season before we can judge them properly.
Some of you might’ve been against the signing of one of these players but I know for a fact the majority of the fanbase was all for each and every one of these signings, yes even AWB.
So after a decade of struggle, perhaps its time we did the complete opposite of what we’ve been doing and sign players that fit the manager’s plan and actually build a team with purpose to play a certain type of football instead of signing the “sexiest” name or the flavor the week next big talent, or their marketability, etc
I don’t think Philips is worth 50 million, nor do I think we should be signing players for 50 million at our current state, but he’s certainly a decent player who I thought outperformed Rice at the Euros.
He’s certainly much better than what we currently have in midfield, and if ETH thinks the right signing then so be it.
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surely we need whatever Ten Hag approves? and as has been widely reported he has the power to veto any transfer? if we're exploring a deal it means he's already approved and thinks he fits into his system?
whenever ive seen Phillips play i don't see him as a box to box, he's a #6 he's got great long range passing and is great in the tackle, you don't need to be scholes to dictate the tempo of a game.
I don't think we should over pay but if he's available at the right price we should be all over it. to me he's a player that's ready to go up a level
English player has english tax. Even Ben white cost Arsenal 50m and Ramsdale 30m, so i don't think 50m for Philips is overvalued.
No more overvalued English players please.
For god sake, we just need an effective defensive midfielder. Why on earth should we be paying huge money for a position like that?
We should have produced a production line of capable defensive midfielders if we had any sort of proper coaching at the club.
No more overhyped English players from other teams please.
We should have produced a production line of capable defensive midfielders if we had any sort of proper coaching at the club.
No more overhyped English players from other teams please.
I wouldn't put him in the top 5 performers for England in the Euros.
He doesn't get enough on the ball and lacks quality under pressure, two requirements for any midfielder we're aiming to sign.
The Euro finals where we were completely beaten in midfield? It was our biggest weakness.
I think the trouble is we can't get either of top targets which I reckon are Rice & Tchouameni, god knows why we aren't in for Kamara when he's going to be a free agent in the summer
English, overrated.over priced, made of glass, getting on.
Pass.
Pass.
Not many top English teams have a capable defensive midfielder that came from their academy - City (Rodri and Fernandinho before him), Liverpool (Fabinho, and then Mascherano, Alonso), Chelsea (Kante, Jorginho, Makalele), United had Carrick but bought him from Spurs and moved him towards the defensive line as he aged. Currently, among English clubs, it's Rice and Phillips.
While Phillips is a good midfielder, he's not world class by any stretch, however I'd still take him over McTominay, that is for sure.
If United can get Kamara on a free and allocate transfer funds to a more traditional box to box midfielder, draft in Garner, and then address the other positions of need, that's much more ideal.
This. People think that limited destroyers (which he is not given that he has been central to Biesla's team) have no role to play in a progressive team but if he can be able to protect the back four, win balls and lay them off to more gifted passers then he'd be a huge improvement. We are never going to transform from this ragtag of egoistic underachivers to a top team that can go toe to toe with Liverpool and City in one season.
We need to build a team that can resist the top teams by not conceding silly chances and goals first, develop the capacity to beat midtable sides whilst playing cohesive football first. Our first objective should be to win that top four trophy and then look to reestablish ourselves as a bona fide CL team. Then and only then we could start looking at signings that elevate us to another level. Pretty much what Ole had done but without the major flaws at the core like Maguire, McT, Pogba etc.
That's not good enough. Modern football requires more from every midfielder.
Not to mention we don’t even have the “more gifted passers” in the first place. That’s exactly what we are missing in this team. Not more guys who can run about.
Keep seeing a lot of links to Phillips and neves… Phillips gets a lot of stick but at Leeds he’s only playing in basically a 1 man midfield or he was under bielsa so that’s asking a lot of him, for England in a midfield 2 he was a beast. Not sure if he’s the type of midfielder we need though. As for neves i don’t think he his the type we need, is he even a DM? He can play deep lying playmaker but I’m not sure what he’s like with his tackling. We need a tackler and a ball winning midfielder in there to break up opposition attacks.
Checking all the boxes of our current transfer strategy. Only overpaid missing
It feels like the story was created just to be able to then write the "snub" articles, as incompetent as many of our dealings have been I'm sure the brass would see if he was interested before even broaching any potential deal.
He's nothing like Busquets so I don't think that's the reason he's linked.
More likely reason he's linked: Ralf has banged on and on about energy and being "physically present." Well, that's exactly the area Phillips is statistically dominant in. I don't think it's about deep lying buildup in the Busquets/Rodri mould because Phillips has nothing on record that says that's a strength. We'd have to look elsewhere for that.
I just want us to have technically skilled players from top to bottom. Spain and Pep style. Not enforcers like Matic.
Klopp and Pep have proven that you "need to have a physically imposing midfield" to compete in the PL is a myth.
Klopp and Pep have proven that you "need to have a physically imposing midfield" to compete in the PL is a myth.
Are we seriously being linked with him? If that’s the case then I would rather spend some more money and get Rice.
Would prefer to pay the extra 50 million on Rice, if this was the choice. A much better player and 3 years younger.
Phillips would be perfect to play in Klopp's system as an 8. He's a machine physically and has some quality on the ball. Football is actually more physical than it ever has been. The expression of that is hard running for 90 minutes.
If anything they've shown how important physical attributes are. Particularly stamina, aggression and workrate.
Phillips to us was never going to happen though.
Yep.
Someone like Bernardo Silva isn't physically imposing, but he's still a proper athlete who can run and harry opponents for days. That sort of physicality matters.
Indeed. Klopp is actually known for using less talented workhorses in his midfield. Pep is a little different and there needs to be a higher technical level but the player has be able to press for 90 minutes.
Fans don't know enough about football even at the best of times to offer any kind of sensible judgement. But when the club is limiting itself (correctly) to players that are capable of doing specific things that only Ten Hag knows, then the fan opinion is utterly irrelevant except in hindsight two years later.
The only Leeds player we should be interested in is Rafinha.
Was he crap yesterday?
Don’t get why we’d be looking at Philips when Kamara is available for free and is 4 years younger. He’d be perfect in my opinion. Then we could spend money on a few of the other positions that we need to upgrade. It makes sense, we’d be getting a player in a position we desperately need whilst being able to sign more players.
Have a niggling feeling that we'll end up with him if Leeds get relegated and seeing how likely that's becoming im not happy at all.
Frankly I don't rate him much hope we stay clear.
Frankly I don't rate him much hope we stay clear.
Yeah Kamara would give us chance to go all in for a De Jong and a Nkunku/Nunez too
It's another embarrassing stain on our Brexit scouting department that we're even linked with him.
Thankfully he'd probably reject any transfer to United provided Leeds stay up, but if they go down it'd be a worry.
And on that note watching him vs Arsenal today he's been trash. I want Leeds to go down but feck me, if we end up signing that sack of shite it'll set us back even more years.
Thankfully he'd probably reject any transfer to United provided Leeds stay up, but if they go down it'd be a worry.
And on that note watching him vs Arsenal today he's been trash. I want Leeds to go down but feck me, if we end up signing that sack of shite it'll set us back even more years.
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Hope we never ever sign this dirty Leeds bastard
What did he do?
I'm getting less bothered about this one now. Unfortunately had to watch their match today with my sisters other half who's a dirty Leeds fan. He was pretty shite I thought, just playing diagonal Hollywood passes constantly.
If they were relegated, I'd have been very interested in Gelhardt. He looks like he's waiting to have a break out season.
He plays for them and is born and bred. Isn't that enough?
Is this what happens when we turn into a rubbish team. We become patriotic about nonsense.
I don’t care where he was born. Is this going to brining us closer to being the best club in England again? All I care about.
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