Thing is, VdB is just as much, if not more, of a liability than Pogba is in the pivot.
We really dont need anything special in our pivot. Energy and decent a enough passer to facilitate the front quartet.
Luckhurst: United prepared to move for a holding midfielder in January
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We really dont need anything special in our pivot. Energy and decent a enough passer to facilitate the front quartet.
The player that compliments VDB would be pretty much the same player that would complement Pogba.
I agree that Ndidi is better than Neves, but he doesn't partner any of our current midfielders well. Like others have said, I don't see anybody who is able to consistently play next to Pogba in a deeper role. Ndidi might allow us to do it a little more than Fred or Scott does, but ultimately we're still going to have the same issues. So take that out of the equation and looking at our other options, Ndidi would be a poor partner for Fred, Scott, Matic or VDB. We'd probably have to go out and buy another midfielder to then get a good balance with Ndidi.
On the other hand Neves is a completely different type of player, and while on the individual level isn't as good as Ndidi (although I think he does have the potential to take a big step up), he would provide a better balance with our current options. In theory at least he should be a great partner for Fred and maybe Scott. He's more the style of player that we should be looking for IMO, even if I do have question marks if he's the right specific player.
Of course you did say 'somebody at Ndidi's level', so I guess somebody of Neves' style (more a deep-lying playmaker who does a lot of defensive work) but a bit more proven like Ndidi would be great. Not sure who that would be though.
He was the only fit striker available on Sunday. Still think he's more likely to get moved wide than martial and cavani. And he should be, martial isn't as good wide.
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Honestly where is this coming from? I've read this more than once on here now and it doesn't make any sense. Why do people think we don't need anything special in central midfield or just a decent enough passer? We already have that for what it's worth. Every team that wants to win something has at least one very good central midfielder, that has the ability to control the game with their passing.
Unless we can get a DM who will be a “natural starter” I feel like RB should be a bigger priority.
If Wan Bissaka gets an injury we have to play Dalot.
Whereas if Fred gets an injury we still have options who can do a job: Matic, McTominay, possibly Van De Beek.
If Wan Bissaka gets an injury we have to play Dalot.
Whereas if Fred gets an injury we still have options who can do a job: Matic, McTominay, possibly Van De Beek.
Isn't that exactly what we have right now in McFred which is why everyone this summer is banging on about getting a top class holding mid?
There's a huge difference in our play when Fred doesn't play, everything is slow and zombie football at it's best, noone leading the pressing and we struggle off the ball. That energy will be missing because even if McTominay stepped up, he's not a dynamic player to cover as much ground. I'd hope we would have that covered but Solskjaer seems a bit complacent about it, which is a shame because we will get found out. And mentioning Matic as an adequate replacement, that's a bit too much. Last year he was at his last legs, a palyer who dwells on the ball so much and can't defend nor track back to save his life. VdB is very unproven, would be a risk, but Id'be willing to give him a shot there, just need to work on his defensive ability big time, otherwise he will not get many chances..
All in all we need a midfielder and I'd rather be short on the right with Dalot than being one midfield dynamo injury away from having average midfield.. seemsunfortunately we are after the right back more than midfielder. Perhaps Solskjaer is willing to wait for VdB? Garner while not a significant upgrade or quality player with a right fit for us emerged this year, perhaps it's money issues as well..
Might be true - for now. Van de Beek still has time to adapt, and if there's a future for him at United it's in midfield.
With Pogba as CM, well, we know what we're getting.
There's a difference between his own opinion and info he gets from the club. I'm surprised this thread grew as much as it did over Luckhurst's own thoughts.
Does anyone know if there any sites which do stats like FBRef for players of the past? I'd love to see Carrick's graph like that to see who in the modern game he is more comparable to, statistically.
There aren't any, if I'm not mistaken. Opta is behind a paywall. What you see on FBRef is also limited in terms of what Statsbomb provide. The best thing you'll probably get for free is whoscored and they don't exactly have a lot of metrics. I'd hazard a guess that once Scholes retired and Carrick became the main midfielder, he was statisically most comparable to Busquets, Jorginho and Locatelli.
To be fair, I'm sure there was probably some expectation that we'd get some money for Lingard, Pereira, Dalot (if Trippier was to come). The fact we haven't moved anyone on is a bit of a joke. Especially Pereira who must be 5/6th choice in all his positions.
Who is better?
That's a shame. RedCafe whip round so we can all wank over some xGAs?
Sarr is very inexperienced in comparison to Tchouameni who is a established first team player at Monaco. They're also stylistically different, with Sarr being more of a Yaya Toure and Tchouameni being a defensive box to box midfielder who has the ability to play as the deepest midfielder in a lone role if required tactically.
Exactly, he was guessing, he knows nothing. Like I said, he hasn't got a fecking clue since he's deliberately backtracking on his earlier, made up statement.
Considering how many on here turn their nose up at the mere mention of stats, you won't find a lot willing to chip in for that, I'd guess. With that being said, I would love to see those stats for certain players from the past, too.
Smarterscout is free-ish and includes 16-17 season, where Carrick played around 2000 minutes. It's better than nothing, but only slightly.
However, this expectation was always a bit delusional.
I have repeatedly posted that we would be lucky to get money for these players. Yet many on the CAF responded that we could expect to be getting £20 to £ 30 million for some of them.
Some people genuinely thought our deadwood could raise £50m this summer. I don't want to go digging for the posts but I've seen them.
Nobody was ever going to buy these players for any sort of real fee. Not only has football's finances been given a kick in the nuts by Covid, none of them have shown themselves to be worth pushing the boat out for. Lingard did well at West Ham, that's true. However, well enough to consider paying £30 million for after 18 months without matchday revenue?
If you believe the papers we were looking for €20 million for Andreas, which is completely insane. How is a player who has failed at Granada, Valencia and Lazio gonna fetch that kind of price? We're deluding ourselves. We've had to loan him to Flamengo and share his wage costs until next summer because, predictably, nobody wanted him at the price we were offering.
Not only do our valuations of players come across as crazy, we also pay these players a lot more than anyone else would. One reason Chelsea and Liverpool can get big money for their castoffs is that they don't have big wages. You might pay £20m for a player if their wage demands are in the £20,000 per week range. If they're asking for the kind of money they get at United, which might be double that, then you're going to want to even things out by paying half the transfer fee.
That's our problem. We renew players on inflated contracts, to protect the book value of them, but then those contracts make it impossible to sell them. A lot of these players will follow Romero etc out of the door on free transfers cos nobody is dumb enough to pay what we want for them.
You'd be surprised how many footballing professionals turned their nose up at stats. Below is one example.
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We need to go back in for Longstaff now Newcastle are trying to flog him for 10m.
Not really, dodged that bullet, 50m asking price after a couple of decent games
Not really, dodged that bullet, 50m asking price after a couple of decent games
Not sure what your point is. It just shows Cruyff's ignorance, and that twitter person writing off Garner isn't representative.
Apparently we had a scout at Benfica v PSV according to Sport Witness, maybe watching Florentino Luis
It's not showing Cruyff's ignorance at all because he was asked a question regarding the use of statistics and his answer was, 'according to stats he'd have failed to make the grade'
My point is that it's not only people on Redcafe who turn their nose up at stats, it's also people who have achieved at the highest level in the game. I can give more examples. People on here from my observation don't watch games of prospective new players and run to these stats sites to form their opinion on players without even having a modicum of understanding of the tactical plan or watching said player play. So you then get circular arguments with people willing to die on the basis of their interpretation of statistics.
I wonder who his source is at United? He's been very, very active regarding United transfers this summer, I've seen him once or twice in the past but never seen him tweet so much about United.
We do already have it and it works, which is why I feel Ole always goes for Fred and McTominay in the big games, and more often than not, they do well. Normally, if we fail to break teams down, it's due to our front four plus our full-backs failing to be creative enough in the final third.
Our pivot is there to press, win the ball back and distribute to the front four, which they do reasonably well. Could we upgrade on them? Yes! As a team, you could always upgrade.
Maybe I shouldn't have said we don't need something special but I think Ole wants someone who can do a job similar to Fred and McTominay. A dynamic all-round midfielder, hence the Camavinga/Saul/Goretzka links and the Caicedo links last season. Neither of these players are specialists but are pretty decent at everything.
I also don't think every team has someone to control the game. I personally didn't think a midfield of Fabinho, Henderson, and Wijnaldum had your typical ball-playing midfielders in it, however, their energy and ability to win the ball back and distribute to the front three/full backs were on a different level. I think this is what Ole is trying to create.
Not sure everyone is banging on about a holding midfielder, though. The midfielders we have been linked to certainly doesn't suggest we have anyway.
It does though, since he has no way of knowing whether actual professional analysts would have dismissed him at that level. Leicester's and Liverpool's recent success in the transfer market is well documented to be that of their analytics teams. Every single PL team is employing Statsbomb, since they very much value their expertise and the service that they provide. So you and other people can turn their nose up, but the reality is that practically all clubs around Europe, that play in their country's first division likely have an analytics department and/or employ a company that provides said service. I'm guessing that they aren't just doing that for shits and giggles. Not sure why my post prompted that response from you, since it's quite clear that stats are being used in addition to the old-fashioned scouting reports, which I never dismissed. Thankfully the caf has you though, since you watch plenty of games and have a modicum of understanding of the tactical plan or various teams.
It's a positive that we have been at least been linked to some midfielders even though gut feeling is we don't sign one until at least January but more likely it will be the top priority next summer along with replacing Edi of course
Liverpool's team along with Leiceister's title winning team are just about the only teams that did not have said player. Their are the exception not the rule. If teams want to have maintained success, they need that player, hence why Liverpool signed Thiago for example. Even Henderson and Fabinho provide control through their passing to an extent in recent years. Wijnaldum was also exceptional on the ball for a period of time for them.
Last season, when we failed to break down teams, it wasn't just the lack of quality in our front four or AWB on the right, it was also the lack of quality in terms of passing in the centre. There is a reason Matic regularly for about 15 to 30 minutes looks like our best midfielder, since he actually has that distribution of the ball in his locker.
Cruyff's career was saved by the eye test along with Virgil Van Dijk, who if it wasn't for Martin Koeman's eye for spotting talent, he would've been lost to the footballing scrap heap.
There's a big difference between analysts at professional football clubs and the average fan. Yes clubs like Leicester etc have a whole department dedicated to analysing players from a statistical perspective. United also have a team dedicated to doing the same which is headed by Mick Court, who has several analysts working under him. But it's well documented that before the final list of names are passed onto the analysts, it goes through the scouting department and Marcel Bout, who then decides on which names will be passed on to the analysts to perform analysis on. So the eye test takes precedent over the statistics because people like Marcel Bout have a bit more than just a 'modicum' of understanding of the modern game when it comes to deciphering players in a low block, midblock and high line etc both on the ball and off the ball due to his experience as a coach working with some of the biggest names in football and as a analyst.
So when you say people on the Caf turn their nose up at statistics, then all I'm saying is that I'm not surprised they do with people running to stats sites before they've even watched the player play a full game.
And I'm not criticizing you mate, because I do believe you watch games in from various different leagues around Europe. It's just something I've observed from various different posters on here.
It's not delusional though - Lingard came into West Ham and was their best player, or up there. Ings has gone for £30m, one year left on his contract and presumably not on low wages. It's not too unfair to think Lingard could fetch £20m, or something tangible at least. Pereira is bang average but still a top flight level squad player, 25 and not on huge wages. Should certainly be fetching up to £10m for him from somewhere. Dalot is a young international RB who is versatile. City have been binning much less distinguished youngsters for reasonable money.
£25-30m from sales / loan fees would make a dent in the RB or CM fund.
No doubt there are people who don't know how to interpret them or without them giving context. I think anyone can fall into that trap and I have certainly made mistakes interpreting stats, too. I just think they are extremely valuable and provide a different persepective, which is why I think they shouldn't be dismissed, even if they aren't used correctly or a in flawed manner. DWelbz and I were mostly wondering how Carrick would compare from that point of view to other players currently.
Believe me mate, I'm not someone who is dismissive of statistics. And if someone like yourself puts forth a argument using stats, (I'm sure you'll contextualize your findings) I'd be interested to read what you'd have to say. Because I know you watch football outside of the EPL.
My problem has always been with people who use statistics blindly, which then causes much consternation.
We should be very careful with our contract extensions or salary offering to new ones.
The way we are struggling to move out some of the players is really depressing.
Mata/Matic/James/Jesse/Perrera/Williams/Dalot/Jones/Baily ---we still have 9 players who are average OR not needed at club but we still stuck with most of them. Only possibility is just loaning them out.
Dont know how chelsea / Pool always manage to ship out their players very well for a good profit
The way we are struggling to move out some of the players is really depressing.
Mata/Matic/James/Jesse/Perrera/Williams/Dalot/Jones/Baily ---we still have 9 players who are average OR not needed at club but we still stuck with most of them. Only possibility is just loaning them out.
Dont know how chelsea / Pool always manage to ship out their players very well for a good profit
United really need a new midfielder but two issues that remain, are not being able to sell the dead wood and also the Pogba situation.
Matic need replacing end of this season, Pogba also likely gone. That leaves a big hole in midfield especially when we have to focus on buying a TOP World Class Striker.
Matic need replacing end of this season, Pogba also likely gone. That leaves a big hole in midfield especially when we have to focus on buying a TOP World Class Striker.