I want to see him next to Varane. Needs more of a leader besides him
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He was already written off the moment he signed for us. By media and fans.
Not to mention that their games complement each other a lot more. Martinez is an aggressive, front foot defender and Maguire's instinct is to try to step in and make challenges as well. Varane is more of a containing, covering type and should match up a lot better.
If he can play as a dm why dont we play him there? We have no one else while we have cover for CB.
could say this about EVERY manager including Conte. They didn't want Conte because of his demands and he is hard to handle
Good points. We had an awful start that year in 2021 getting thrashed by Spurs and came back to finish 2nd.
No 2nd duels if players like Welbeck can simply control the ball whilst holding him off. Really looked like Drogba in those contests
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Varane is a good player but he definitely hasn't shown himself to be a leader at all. Makes sense as he spent his career next to Ramos.
Varane is by everyone's admission the leader of the french team and was seen as a leader when he was a teenager.
He hasn't shown that at United has he?
Maguire is loved in the England camp and considered one of their leaders.
How would you know that without being in the dressing room?
Martinez actually won quite a few headers in that game. The issue was when they pressed short we couldn't kick accurately long. And when we did occassionally the forwards are timid cowardly and lazy (mostly) and didn't compete. I lost count of the amount of times I would see Rashford, Sancho, Bruno and even Cr7 not jump/compete in the air for a ball or lose the 2nd 3rd ad 4th bounces.
Exactly and this happened all over the pitch.
He is not vocal on the pitch, he does not front up the media after bad results, he is not first choice, you never hear about him when you hear rumblings of what important things are going on amongst the squad.
You are asking me to have a level of access before making a distinction that you are not holding the opposite opinion (that he is a leader) to but everything we have to go on says he is not a leader in this dressing room.
How do you know he is a leader? You have never been in a dressing room with him.
The only reason Martinez is at MU ibecause he was "comfort" signing for our manager. Like somebody new manager/coach knows and can trust.
Another CB was least of our problems. I think during negotiations ETH asked for one signing with "no questions asked" and he chose Martinez.
If MU had real DoF it should've been blocked. But again - it's MU so I'm not surprised. Last year it's was 45M for Dialo and Pelistri - did they make our club better last year or this year? Wil they ever? Nothing changes. It will be the same next year.
Another CB was least of our problems. I think during negotiations ETH asked for one signing with "no questions asked" and he chose Martinez.
If MU had real DoF it should've been blocked. But again - it's MU so I'm not surprised. Last year it's was 45M for Dialo and Pelistri - did they make our club better last year or this year? Wil they ever? Nothing changes. It will be the same next year.
No. You suggested that he has never been a leader and you didn't limit to United since you used Ramos as an example. I stated he was considered to be the leader of the french team to which you responded that he didn't show it at United which is not something that I can confirm or deny, I would have to hear from his current teammates to know that because leadership goes beyond being vocal on the pitch, fronting media or being talked about in the press.
Someone like Vidic wasn't vocal on the pitch, he was seldomly doing media stuffs and there was no talks about him in the press.
Well I mentioned he spent his entire career next to Ramos who is renowned as a leader. Ramos doesn't play for France and honestly I don't care what he has done for France. I also think being a leader in a squad that spends such little time together is totally different hence why I mentioned Maguire and the England camp.
Varane has not shown he is a leader at United, he is a very good player but has spent his time with us on the peripheries. Saying "Varane should play next to Martinez as Martinez needs a leader next to him" makes no sense based on what we have seen from Varane at United.
Erik clearly bought him to play CB, but lets see if he adjusts at least for the time being.
How do you know who is at the periphery in the dressing room?
You have misread my post.
Didn't you say that he has spent his time with us on the peripheries?
Yes, that includes multiple aspects of his time here... How often he plays, whether he is put in front of the media, whether our new coach comes in and decides to instantly buy a new player in his position and start someone else next to the new player, whether he appears to be talking and organizing the defence when he plays. You could be forgiven for barely noticing him.
Again you are trying to ween it down to the time that obviously I nor you has any visibility of to make some kind of point.
Let's be realistic and say that based on every indicator we have access too my point that Varane does not appear to be a key leader in this squad is definitely more likely true than your assertion that he is. Let's not hold each other to ridiculous standards that we are both well aware the other can't confirm. I won't ask you to give me examples of Varane taking team talks on the changing room as that would be silly because you don't get to be there.
I have made zero assertion, you questioned his leadership beyond United and I responded. You then made a claim that neither of us can substantiate which is why I haven't even tried to claim a thing about him at United, I simply asked where your claims come from, personally I only saw one mention of leadership regarding Varane at United and it was Bruno saying that he was a leader and would be important for the team in 2021.
Well there would be a few reasons you'd want Martinez specifically rather than just any taller ball-playing CB.
One, the factors ETH is prioritising that would sway him away from some of the alternatives and towards Martinez. Being left-footed, obviously. But also his aggression. For example we know the recruitment department's suggestion was Pau Torres, who has additional height but isn't as aggressive a defender as Martinez. And indeed ETH has since publicly cited the need to add aggression in that regard, while there have also been reports in The Athletic that he wanted to balance the team with more left-footers generally, as well as specifically in defence.
Two, Martinez has already worked with ETH for years, so ETH knows and trusts his character . Which given both the dressing room and recruitment reputation of the club ETH has just joined, is both a vital quality and absolutely not something guaranteed with other purchases.
And third, what ETH demands from his CBs may not be so straightforward that any ball playing CB can handle it. Below is a section of analysis from someone on how Ajax played under ETH:
When pressed from goal-kicks, Ajax utilised vertical decoy runs from their centrebacks to open passing lanes directly from the keeper. Ajax could play out – or at least play to areas of lower risk despite sticking to their principles. The degree of tactical complexity that the centrebacks must be aware of is rare – centrebacks do not usually move ahead of play in this regard, as they’re typically the most important constituents of rest defence (rest defence = predictive defending in possession).
Even from a throw in, we can see how aggressive Martinez is at occupying vacated space, making himself an option. This occurred despite causing him and Timber (the centreback pair) to stagger to quite a severe degree. It *appears* high risk.
Furthermore, in settled build-up, Martinez was often found vacating his post in centreback entirely. It may be a stretch to call him a centreback in this regard, because of how much conviction he’d stagger the lines with.
Alvarez, one of the deep midfielders actually dis-marked to receive deep in this scenario. Martinez is still seen staggering the lines. This is a vertical rotation as such: the CB advancing and the CM dropping in. Blind (out of shot) has dropped narrow to aid rest defence.
These vertical counter-movements are typically seen further up the pitch, when looking to progress (and sometimes force) play. Seeing it executed with such regularity in deep positions in build-up is unconventional.
Three things to note in that piece of analysis. 1) It's describing aspects of the game we saw our team struggle with far more against Brentford than dealing with aerial threat. 2) Martinez is centrally involved in the examples of how it should work. 3) The use of the words "unconventional" and "rare" to describe how it functions.
Accepting that analysis is accurate, at that point it's just a case of ETH deciding to trade-off one quality (height) for a collection of qualities neither you nor any of our scouts could likely name with certainty in any other alternative option (ball-playing, left-footed, aggressive, sound character, leadership, a rare capacity for a high degree of tactical intelligence and sure to fit into ETH's system). And even then the height trade-off is ameliorated by Martinez being good in the air for his height and ETH already knowing he can protect Martinez within his system, having already done so previously even while surrounding him with a much shorter LB and CB pairing.
I think Martinez is a great player, I have no doubts about him. He will thrive in a few months people are quick to kneejerk especially pundits.
If we don't sign a DM i would be tempted to play him there, anything is better than Mctom
What I said
" Varane is a good player but he definitely hasn't shown himself to be a leader at all. Makes sense as he spent his career next to Ramos."
The second part indicates before his time here as he has never played with Ramos here. Meaning I am talking about never showing it at United.
If that is not clear then I will be clear. He has never shown it AT UNITED, this should also be fairly obvious considering this is a United forum and I am talking about him playing next to a United player. What he has shown anywhere else means literally the square root of 0 to me. If he is a giant leader in the French squad good for him, he hasn't shown a single jot of that here so I fail to see how that particular aspect of his character will benefit Martinez unless Lisandro discovers a French grandmother and a way around his previous caps for Argentina.
Fair enough. But the point about Ramos makes your point about more than United otherwise the sentence is pointless. But again fair enough.
its been two games for him. you guys are lashing out
Carragher just showed some stat analysis on how Brentford and Brighton had 21% of their passes as long balls to target Martinez. Double their normal average of long balls.
He reckons Martinez in a back 4 will never work in the premier league and every manager would be stupid not to target him.
He reckons Martinez in a back 4 will never work in the premier league and every manager would be stupid not to target him.
He said it 5 minutes into the first game. Martinez hadn’t even done anything wrong and Carragher was making his point. He will beat that drum now no matter what.
He's probably right.
I assume you have watched him play regularly for Ajax?
Obviously every manager is going to target him. The question is how well it does/doesn't work.
It's not like teams in the Eredivise didn't have the option of doing the exact same thing to Martinez and his 5ft 10 CB partner. Ditto pretty much every team that faced them in the Champions League. It's the easiest tactic in the world to identify when both CBs are that short.
But it's nonethless a fact that Ajax and ETH nullified that threat to such an extent that they had by far the best defence in their domestic league while also beating CL teams who "should" have been able to exploit that supposedly glaring weakness. It's not an accident that they couldn't do so, we've seen the blueprint for how this works.
And so far I've seen no rational argument that explains how a blueprint that so successfully protected a 5ft9/5ft10/5ft11/6ft backline is impossible to make work with a 5ft9/6ft4/6ft1/6ft backline in a different league where players are generally shorter.
The question is whether we have what's needed to get that blueprint functioning in our team and even if we do how long will it take? Because we look very far from that point right now. That's where I have my doubts. But either way it's gonna take time and patience to find out.
It's not like teams in the Eredivise didn't have the option of doing the exact same thing to Martinez and his 5ft 10 CB partner. Ditto pretty much every team that faced them in the Champions League. It's the easiest tactic in the world to identify when both CBs are that short.
But it's nonethless a fact that Ajax and ETH nullified that threat to such an extent that they had by far the best defence in their domestic league while also beating CL teams who "should" have been able to exploit that supposedly glaring weakness. It's not an accident that they couldn't do so, we've seen the blueprint for how this works.
And so far I've seen no rational argument that explains how a blueprint that so successfully protected a 5ft9/5ft10/5ft11/6ft backline is impossible to make work with a 5ft9/6ft4/6ft1/6ft backline in a different league where players are generally shorter.
The question is whether we have what's needed to get that blueprint functioning in our team and even if we do how long will it take? Because we look very far from that point right now. That's where I have my doubts. But either way it's gonna take time and patience to find out.
I've seen a few games for them, more so in the CL.
I think a lot of what is said is knee jerk honestly, Pau Torres might have been a better move for dominance of course but if United can shift to a pressing team that keeps the ball I don't think it'll be a big issue really.
Pressing high its going to a foot race to the box it's not going to be a long ball that he has to win a header IMO, right now the problem is the lack of a midfield.
Carragher on MNF saying him at CB won't work in the PL, Neville didn't flat out disagree with him. The same pair that said Pep's football would never work in the PL
Much like Pep's football if the opposition can't get the ball off of you you can protect your CB's pretty well
Much like Pep's football if the opposition can't get the ball off of you you can protect your CB's pretty well
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Thats not true though because he was bought from Argentina as a CB where he was playing week after week in that position. They just had a spot to fill with De Jong going and thought they could play him as DM to help them move forward
I think we can all see what ETH likes about Martinez, but the squad is so lacking in confidence and basic football skill that his weaknesses are being exposed.
One day if ETH gets the chance to build a squad for the football he wants to play then Martinez will be perfect.
However until that day comes Martinez will need to adapt and other players will have to cover for him.
One day if ETH gets the chance to build a squad for the football he wants to play then Martinez will be perfect.
However until that day comes Martinez will need to adapt and other players will have to cover for him.
I think he'll likely be given a 'rest' for a few weeks personally. Not a bad idea. To much scrutiny on him.
Yet Pep still doesn't have small CB's playing for City.
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