Martinez supposedly wins most aerial duals but if it is an issue, why not just have Maguire man mark Toney?
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He is streets ahead on calmness and passing under press than the others deffo.
You love to see it.
Put him next to Varane & we have a top CB pairing. Put VVD next to Maguire & even he'll look like a Championship CB.
People severely underestimate how bad it is for our defense to have an unathletic, poor decision maker leading our team let alone our defense. There are a million videos on youtube showing his idiocy. For whatever reason, manager/club doesn't want to admit we made the worst transfer in the history of the premier league.
Bevause if your playing counter attacking football and that’s all we are currently good enough for you need pace and Rashford is our quickest striker.
Because Toney won’t allow that? It’s really not as simple as that.
When Mitrovic gets his hands on this guy I fear Skysports will receive complaints from Ofcom.
Bit like when Lukaku and Benteke 'got their hands on' Blind? he'll be fine, as he's an intelligent CB, he has played 150 minutes for us
Again, or simply how Welbeck got his hands on Martinez.
Can’t help but agree with this. How did Ajax bend us over for that fee? Just how?
so you've never seen a player struggle in their first game in a new league? after 60 minutes of pre season?
1 fecking Game.
Evra and Vidic spring to mind
and he was nowhere near as bad as either.
You don't sign a centre back for £50m to drop him or move him to midfield every time the opposition has a striker who's good in the air.
You sign him because you expect him to be able to deal with the situations centre backs are meant to deal with.
Probably. I’ve never seen a player get bigger and stronger in time for their second game in a new league though.
For the record, I think he’ll do well here. But he won’t against Ivan Toney on Saturday if Toney is allowed to ‘get his hands on him’. He’ll do well because not every striker is like Toney. But sadly, Toney is like Toney.
Because that's not the way it works. You can't have your centre back following players around being dragged out of position because he doesn't trust his partner to deal with it. And most teams have several players who are 6ft+ who are good in their air so you can't cover all of them.
Reminds me of when people pretended Maguire not being able to run wouldn't matter as long as you put a fast centre back alongside him, which doesn't work either.
Actually a club like United does not deserve players like Martinez. We have fans questioning the transfer after 1 game.
We deserve characters like lingard and pogba because the fans are horrendous. Just whiny entitled kids.
We deserve characters like lingard and pogba because the fans are horrendous. Just whiny entitled kids.
Maybe we have a couple of air heads upstairs just like your post.
yup, it's actually fecking ridiculous, toxic.
have you watched martinez before he came?
Obviously this doesn't cover the full game and the runs/dribbling Welbeck made but I'm really baffled by the 'he got bullied' or 'he looked weak/slow' comments.
Could he have been more defensively sharper in terms of covering runs etc yes but I don't remember much of the game where I thought 'he did a Lindelof there' (i.e weak and passive).
Are people just confounding how sh|t we were and then directly tying it as a criticism of the player's individual performance?
His passing was really good considering the crap movement and options in front of him and he actually got involved in a couple of chances in their box too. With the tweet above mentioning his recoveries, it does align with my judgement of his game in that he was quite involved. Wasn't MOTM single handedly keeping them at bay amazing type of stuff but looks a good player with good reading of the game. Ultimately though, like everyone else he is a system player.
Really astounded by the hammering of criticism tbh.
Can he play in midfield
He played a back 3 in his last Ajax game and he did it consistently at Utrecht.
You say it goes against "a lot of ETH theory", but last season Ajax consistently set up in a set up in a 3-1-5-1 when they had possession.
I don't see how the long ball is relevant when the intention is to play a high line. It's mostly relevant for set pieces, in which case, any player on the pitch can provide the necessary height.
Not extensively. That said, I can’t imagine I will find a performance from one year ago more relevant than one from 48 hours ago.
I’ve also watched football from before Martinez was even born, and have a basic understanding of physics.
People have it in their head that he'll get bullied because of his size, so every time he doesn't play well they'll twist what they see to fit that narrative, even when it has little or nothing to do with that.
In this case he just straight up didn't play well, in exactly the same way any other CB making a step up to the PL with little pre-season next to a CB partner they've never played with before might.
People fretting about Ivan Toney is ridiculous. He's 5ft 10, an inch taller than Martinez. By the same height-is-everything logic applied to Martinez, he can't be that dominant in the air.
In this case he just straight up didn't play well, in exactly the same way any other CB making a step up to the PL with little pre-season next to a CB partner they've never played with before might.
People fretting about Ivan Toney is ridiculous. He's 5ft 10, an inch taller than Martinez. By the same height-is-everything logic applied to Martinez, he can't be that dominant in the air.
You don’t know what people have in their heads. And size is not exclusively vertical. And your take on his performance is not necessarily the same as another persons. For instance, mine is that he struggled with the fact that Welbeck is clearly much stronger than him. I wouldn’t expect him to be pushed around by Peter Crouch in the same way. Toney is also very strong, and I watched Toney bully Ben White last season, who is of a similar stature to Martinez (only bigger).People have it in their head that he'll get bullied because of his size, so every time he doesn't play well they'll twist what they see to fit that narrative, even when it has little or nothing to do with that.
In this case he just straight up didn't play well, in exactly the same way any other CB making a step up to the PL with little pre-season next to a CB partner they've never played with before might.
People fretting about Ivan Toney is ridiculous. He's 5ft 10, an inch taller than Martinez. By the same height-is-everything logic applied to Martinez, he can't be that dominant in the air.
People can say what they like, but there is a relevance to the physics of the matter. Martinez will not easily cope physically with opponents who are much bigger and stronger than him because you want him to, and the argument that he will struggle with them doesn’t even require an extensive amount of thought and research. Physics are physics. He can cope with certain scenarios, and try to reduce the amount of physical battles he has to engage in of course, but when he does find himself competing physically in the air or on the ground with an opponent who has greater physical capability, he will invariably lose. He can be as brave and determined as he likes, if his opponent is also brave and determined, he has an advantage and will more likely succeed.
The positive thing is, the majority of his opponents are not of such profile. Defenders like him belong in certain types of teams (like Ajax), where possession is high and opponents have little attacking threat. What he can do with the ball is of greater significance. However, until we become that team, what he can do without the ball is of greater significance. This isn’t Ajax. We’re a struggling team that invites pressure from all angles.
so the fact he's played against some very physical strikers and coped very well has no bearing because he didn't have a 10/10 debut? suggesting that maybe sunday was a exception rather than the norm?
Again, it is more my understanding of physics that suggests to me that a man struggling physically against a physically superior man is not an exception. It was not a shock or surprise to see him pushed around by Welbeck, simply because I know that Welbeck is stronger than him.
You can’t mark a striker when you are a CB. CBs can not keep interchanging with each other during a game. If Toney wants to target Martinez, he will just keep peeling away on his side. Maguire would be at RCB. He can’t just keep following Toney otherwise the defence will be all over the place.
I agree. I also think the team needs to be balanced around him. Most sides who have had a shorter CB, have tended to have a tall DM sat quite deep in front of the CBs (Busquets at Barca with Mascherano CB, Alvarez at Ajax with Martinez, Rodri at City with Fernandinho etc). Martinez can deal with the height difference on occasions, but in aerial duels against much taller strikers he's going to lose out often enough that it will be costly if he's isolated too frequently. Having a DM who can sweep up some long balls, or drop into the box/into a back 3 when the opposition are looking to get crosses into the box is vital, to ensure Martinez isn't facing numerous 1v1 aerial duels against a tall, physical striker every game. Its partly why the links to Rabiot and that Guido bloke make sense to me in terms of profile.
I don't think that's correct.
For all those dreaming of him playing DM, you are going to be very disappointed. It’s not going to happen.
I’ve seen Martinez play enough to see that he has weaknesses which would get exposed at CDM. He’d probably do a better job than Mctominay but that’s not the reason we’ve brought him in.
I’ve seen Martinez play enough to see that he has weaknesses which would get exposed at CDM. He’d probably do a better job than Mctominay but that’s not the reason we’ve brought him in.
I don't disagree with you, but given that we have stronger options at CB than DM right now, moving him to midfield might still be the least bad option in the very short term.
Can you recall any specific moments in the game so I can reference or see?
In my previous post, I said I honestly don't remember much of these moments i.e 1 vs 1s or 50/50s where he came out looking really bad specifically due to lack of physique.
The biggest issue was Welbeck's movement and the acres of space in front of defence where they got the ball or was able to break through without much challenge imo.
This is just not how it works.
Look at the first clip starting 25 seconds. A long ball from the goalkeeper and the striker pinned the smaller centre back, easily won the flick on and was through on goal 2 seconds later. In the 2nd clip at 1:59 striker wins the aerial long ball and Dortmund briefly had a 2v1 or 2v2 but messed it up. You cannot avoid physical battles just by playing a certain style of football.
People on here would have you think that type of football got left behind in the 90s and it's not something we need to worry about any more. In reality crosses, set pieces and long balls are just an inevitable part of the game that you will have to deal with in every match. Playing a high line and keeping possession reduce the frequency of dangerous situations but not to the point where you can afford to have a weakness in those incidents.
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We’ve not bought a player for 60m with the full intention of playing him CB to then move him to DM because our current options are poor.
The problem is we are concluding he will make a good CDM just by his performances as a CB. Playing CB when you are facing the play all the time is so much easier than playing CDM where you have to have your eyes in all 4 directions. It requires a totally different level of awareness to play that position. We already saw Martinez get caught on the ball near the half way line when he wasn’t facing the play and was pressured from 2 sides.
It’s similar to the scenario we had with Blind. He looked like he had all the qualities to play CDM but when played there he was really underwhelming and lost at times. He didn’t have the engine or awareness to get around the pitch like a midfielder needs to. It is the same with Martinez. I can already see traits in him during the handful of times I’ve watched him play which make me realise he would be much less valuable in CDM.
I can assure you even McTominay would look a much better player on the ball if he played from CB instead of CDM. It’s so much easier to remain composed with no one behind you.
Anyway, the whole point ETH bought him wasn’t to add numbers to the defence. It was because he wants us to play out from the back with some balance on both sides. Martinez is the only one that provides that from the left side. ETH isn’t going to now abandon that just to shoehorn Martinez into CDM. It makes more sense to give one of the youngsters a chance who primarily play in that position than moving a CB there.
I don’t remember Martinez actually getting tested physically one v one against welbeck.
I remember 2 instances where welbeck got the better of him. Once where they ball was played in behind our defence and Martinez tried to slide intercept it but missed it. Welbeck got in behind but luckily Martinez was able to get back and get a recovery tackle in. Another was when welbeck outjumped Martinez for a cross that came in which welbeck headed well over which should have been on target.
I don’t think it was a bad debut as some have said here. But it was also a debut which gave me some concern of potential problems going into future games.
We can hide it all we want but I’ll say it again, defending set pieces is going to be a major issue for us this season. Maguire and Mctominay were our only players who had any physical presence in the box. If we come up with a team which has 3 or more big lads, we will struggle on corners and set pieces.
Rabiot and Savic are 6'2 and 6'3, maybe another reason for the links?
I don't need to know what's in people's minds when they make it clear with their comments.
Your premise is that Martinez' size means he will struggle against certain types of strikers, citing the reality of basic physics. And you point to Ivan Toney as an example of the type of striker Martinez will struggle against.
Yet Toney is only minimally bigger than Martinez physically.
This could mean you think even that scale of a physical advantage is significant enough for Martinez to be as outmatched as you anticipate, in which case you straight up don't understand physics as applied to body dynamics. Because that minimal a size difference simply doesn't confer the degree of innate advantage you are anticipating when you say Martinez will "invariably lose".
Or you're basing your assesment of Toney's ability to dominate players on more than just his physical stature, in which case you're applying a different standard to him than you are to Martinez.
Or you simply didn't know Toney was as small as he is, not realising that framing him as such a physically dominant presence undermined the point about size you were trying to make regarding Martinez.
Either way, the argument makes no sense. If physical size is that limiting, it should apply to Toney versus the 6ft+ CBs he regularly beats physically even more than it applies to Martinez versus Toney. By the standard of your argument against Martinez, Toney should "invariably lose" those duels he regularly wins against far larger opponents.
welbeck did all his work off the ball with clever forward running. He’s hardly a small weak striker either, he’s always been great at hold up.
I do think their size would be a factor in acquiring them. It ticks one of those boxes.
We are replacing Mctominay in our first eleven. We are possibly still going to lose Ronaldo depending on what unfolds.
We can not just pretend height isn’t an issue when we only have Maguire in our whole team who is adept at heading the ball while physically challenging a man. It’s football suicide. Most teams will have as a minimum 3 big players who will attack the ball on set pieces. It’s normally 2 CBs at least and then one other player (often a striker). We will concede a shed load of goals if Maguire is the only one capable of marking them.
On Sunday we had a situation where Malacia was marking Dunk on a set piece. I know it was late in the game but that was just mental.
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