Manuel Ugarte image 25

Manuel Ugarte Uruguay flag

2024-25 Performances


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5.5 Season Average Rating
Appearances
5
Goals
0
Assists
0
Yellow cards
1
You can’t be a midfielder for us if you don’t have composure. You don’t have to win every tackle, sometime you just need to slow a player down until help arrives.
Looks like bad buy in terms of fit.
 
Complete nonsense.

He is in the middle of steep learning curve going up against quicker players than he's used to most likely with Spurs breaking very fast and strong enough to ride some of his challenges, but Amrabat struggled even more with that himself and his lack of composure against even the bottom teams was shocking.

Whether its nonsense or not (I'd only say that Amrabat's passing was definitely better though) Urgate currenty looks a million miles off putting in a performance like Amrabat did in the FA Cup final.
 
All his critics in the transfer thread are right so far. Frightening how fans can see what our scouts can't over and over.

Interesting how many said he was poor on the ball before we signed him. Lo and behold he turns up and looks horrible on the ball. Another player who can’t pass 6 yards to a red shirt. It’s early days but Jesus, why are casual football watchers on an internet forum seemingly better scouts than those at United?
Common thing at United over the years. Where a section of the fanbase are wiser than the board, manager and recruitment team. And without sounding arrogant id put myself in that bracket of knowing more than people working at the club.
 
Looks pretty awful at the moment, hopefully he will get up to speed. But it’s a bad sign from a midfielder when they are constantly fouling opponents. Shows that they are a yard behind everything. I remember the point when Lucas Leiva descended into this at Liverpool and it was the point I knew he was done. He also looks very poor on the ball, his passing technique is bad, no zip, they all look scruffy.

Anyway, as I’ve said, for now I’m filing under ‘not yet’. We’ll see if he does indeed get there.
 
Cement foot was a common name for him when I peered onto the PSG forums.

That doesn't mean he's bad but I think he has a couple of obvious flaws in his game, he needs to be used for a specific purpose and nothing more. Bet tuchel can get a tune out of him.
 
Very early days so he should get time. Based on the impressions so far it seems that Casemiro when having a good day is still the better CDM.
 
My prediction is he'll be great in some games where he wins the ball and can just allow others around him to do their thing. But there will be games where a well coached team will use his aggression against him. Draw him into challenges, pull him out of position and have runners in behind doing the damage. Kind of like an exacerbated version of last season.

The big question will be how he adapts to the league and which performance will be the norm for him.

Or Ten Hag will do his usual tricks and have him in and around the box, as he often does Casemiro, McTominay etc. At which point he'll no longer be able to do what he's good at.

This was my prediction for how he will fare here under ETH's tactics when we signed him. The bolded bit is important, because this is what we saw yesterday. Those hoping he'd 'plug the gap' were ill advised, because he's not there half the time having chased a player up the pitch and tried to go through the back of them.
 


Very bizarre way of defending. He just sprints directly at the opposing player with no considerations for angles or the possibility that they might manipulate the ball or change their direction.
 
Massively limited player just like Rice who can only tackle and break up play ala a destroyer, except for the fact that Rice is probably 2 or 3 times at doing that.

Except Rice had 15 direct goal involvements in the league last year...

Tell us you don't watch Arsenal without telling us you don't watch Arsenal.
 
Whether its nonsense or not (I'd only say that Amrabat's passing was definitely better though) Urgate currenty looks a million miles off putting in a performance like Amrabat did in the FA Cup final.
Yet hes played at a higher level than Amrabat has and looked much better. Amrabat was also worse in his first few games for United. Maybe stop judging players in their first few United games.
 
Bad today, but it is far too early for a verdict. Ugarte is supposed to break up opposition play and give the ball to someone, who can pass it forwards (Eriksen, Mainoo or Bruno.) He has done that in the other games, so I am optimistic.
Agree
With Bruno out for a while I would love to see a midfield of
Ugarte
Mainoo Eriksen
 
Needs time to settle I'm sure but I wonder how does Fred feel about the signing?
 
Yet hes played at a higher level than Amrabat has and looked much better. Amrabat was also worse in his first few games for United. Maybe stop judging players in their first few United games.

Where have I done that?

Also Amrabat actually had a decent debut for us if I recall but that's by the by.
 
Early days and he needs time to settle but considering his best attribute is meant to be his tackling and ball winning skills I haven’t been that impressed so far. He just seems to run and bundle into players giving away a foul more often than not. As I said though it’s early days and he never had a pre season so not writing him off yet.
 
Not quite the answer just yet, but merely another guy to be exposed in the midfield as every opposition team just storms through.

A new low this week with a defender zooming 70metres through 4 or 5 of our semi paced players.
 
3 games??

Is this a cafe record? I hope none of you who were campaigning for this guy in the summer are shitting on him now!
 
Where have I done that?

Also Amrabat actually had a decent debut for us if I recall but that's by the by.
I've totally forgotten the context of this post, it was too long ago :lol:
But yeah point taken!
 
3 games in and playing for one of the worst performing teams I can remember, the manager is a shambles, the team is a shambles, our experienced players are a shambles. Is it any wonder any new player looks poor for us?

Until we get a new manager in who can get them well drilled and playing as a team, picking a settled side, there’s no point judging them.
 
I never got why people expected him to come in and make a massive difference immediately. Playing in Ten Hag's midfield is a thankless task. I would like to see us bring in a coach who values the ball and values a midfield that can control, suffocate and create - the midfield is supposed to be the engine room but for us it's just a conduit to punting the ball for isolated wingers to try and get in behind.
 
3 games is more than enough to judge his limitations on the ball because he has already shown that his entire career before coming here

That he's been poor defensively as well might just be a case of settling in but even if that improves, is that enough?

We need midfielders good on the ball and Ugarte is not that. Not 3 games in or 100 games in.
 
Onana was right there for 50 mill. I presumed we passed him up because Ugarte was better. Let's see.
 
Onana was right there for 50 mill. I presumed we passed him up because Ugarte was better. Let's see.

We should've made our interest in Youssouf Fofana concrete by signing him. He's a much more accomplished passer and dribbler than Ugarte and he's playing more of a 6 at Milan than he did at Monaco where he was more of an 8. His transition so far has been seemless
 
We should've made our interest in Youssouf Fofana concrete by signing him. He's a much more accomplished passer and dribbler than Ugarte and he's playing more of a 6 at Milan than he did at Monaco where he was more of an 8. His transition so far has been seemless

If we were really interested we would have signed him because he was cheaper. We chose Ugarte because he fit whatever scheme our football brains trust is working towards and so we have to wait to see if they got it right. INEOS mentioned remaking the squad was a multi window process and so I am not sure how we judge the new signings until their overhaul is complete as presumably their roles will change as the right players are signed to work with them. I do think Ugarte is a good player and I have been impressed with him at International level but he is a poor fit for the role he was given this weekend. With that said, I don't think for one second that ETH is the Manager INEOS want and they are going to go ahead with building a squad for the next man at which point hopefully it will all become clear. Sadly, it is the hope that kills you with this club.
 
I'm not impressed so far. His passing has been shit, he gives away a lot of free kicks, and Spurs players were knocking the ball around him like a training cone on Sunday.

I'm going to cut him some slack in that he hasn't had a pre season and has been dropped into a dumpster fire. But he definitely needs to improve pronto.
 
If he doesnt perform this season, can we sell him for 50M like PSG did? Ofcourse not.

We'd be lucky to get 25M.
 
Our best midfield this season has been Mainoo--Eriksen.

Mainoo--Ugarte, just lacks any sort of passing volume, the play just bypasses them. Folks were telling me over the summer that Martinez and MDL/Mazroui would be enough to play out from the back, but your playing out from the press is a as good as the weakest link. With Ugarte at #6, you pass all the responsibility of playing through the lines to the CB/FBs, which is not a good idea.

This is why I thought a playmaking #6/#8 would have been a much bigger priority, rather than a pure destroyer #6.

Its a profile we are lacking, and I just dont understand how you look at a Mainoo-Bruno midfield, and think what we need is a pure DM, and not someone who can control games.
 
Our best midfield this season has been Mainoo--Eriksen.

Mainoo--Ugarte, just lacks any sort of passing volume, the play just bypasses them. Folks were telling me over the summer that Martinez and MDL/Mazroui would be enough to play out from the back, but your playing out from the press is a as good as the weakest link. With Ugarte at #6, you pass all the responsibility of playing through the lines to the CB/FBs, which is not a good idea.

This is why I thought a playmaking #6/#8 would have been a much bigger priority, rather than a pure destroyer #6.

Its a profile we are lacking, and I just dont understand how you look at a Mainoo-Bruno midfield, and think what we need is a pure DM, and not someone who can control games.
Ten Hag seems to have this transition thing in his head, he doesn't really believe in slowing it down and taking control of a game. It's why he got Mount and Ugarte. Even Frenkie is more a ball carrier than a passing metronome. It's the downfall of his game plan as a United manager.
 
I think he will be fine.

He just needs that chance to be :

Casemiro
Modric - Kroos

Right now people are expecting him to play like one of the passers or play gung ho out like Casemiro's first season at United.

If he gets to play the role Casemiro did for Real Madrid - he could be massive for us. A player who looks simple, but is always kind of there when you need him.

Right now our tactics are horrible because we are playing him in a midfield two and our AM pressing as high as a striker so we pretty much play him as a destroyer by himself alongside one creative player in midfield which is mainoo or Eriksen which is not enough to make up for then the lack of possesion/creativity when Bruno was playing almost as a SS.Bruno pressing so high up pretty much makes us play a 424 which is just shambolic to Ugarte and so many other players.

When Eriksen & Mainoo play as our 2 CM, Mainoo plays as the more defensive player but both together can rotate possession and be creative enough in midfield so we hold on to the ball better than with Ugarte because then there is only one creative outlet playing beside him. Ideallg there should be two in front of him which allows him to play as the sole destroyer but with two creative players making up for his.

Personally I dislike the 4231 and much prefer the 433 even though they are different tactics - small changes but allows our wingers to play like forwards, instead of wide midfielders (RM & LM vs RW & LW) - allows us to have a midfield 3 that can have both quantity and quality of creative players with defensive players etc. The 4231 looks better when like Arsenal you play with two defensively solid midfielders in Partey & Rice with 1 major creative outlet in Odegaard (though Jorginho does play sometimes aswell, who I think is still a CDM but can dictate play).

If we want to play 2 of Eriksen, Mainoo, Bruno in any system then we should play a 433 to allow 2 of them to play in front of a destroyer like Ugarte to max their creativity and blunt out the opposition's at the same time.
 
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He just needs that chance to be :

Casemiro
Modric - Kroos

Right now people are expecting him to play like one of the passers or play gung ho out like Casemiro's first season at United.

If he gets to play the role Casemiro did for Real Madrid - he could be massive for us. A player who looks simple, but is always kind of there when you need him.
His best performances came for Sporting in a 2 man midfield. He played as the sole pivot in PSG last season and didnt perform, because the sole pivot in a 4-3-3 has to take the responsibility of the ball. Even in the lineup you mentioned, it was very often Kroos who would drop deep and form a midfield 2 with Casemiro to help with buildup.

He doesnt seem to have the positional discipline of a #6 either, he likes to press high.

So in other words, he will have to play in a 2 man midfield, even more so, because Bruno is never gonna be dropped.
 
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I think he just needs time to adapt. He'll be our steady Eddie hopefully with regular 7/10 performances.
 
Without Bruno we should be looking at


Ugarte
Mainoo - Eriksen



Or


Ugarte
Mount - Mainoo​
 
Can't really judge him under this manager because ten hag doesn't know how to set up a midfield and no matter who he puts there looks equally off the pace and in the wrong positions defensively. There are no midfielders who can succeed under him
 
Find it quite astonishing people are writing him off as a bad signing after his first start. More so given the 9 outfielder players around him were also incredibly poor.

Goal conceded against Twente a perfect example. Both cbs rushing so far up the pitch when eventually Ugarte was the one to win the ball. Can’t be helped that Eriksen had a brain fart and at least one of the cbs wasn’t deeper.