I trust that a guy from austria will be unbiased in this thread.
Marko Arnautovic
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
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Since when is Arnautovic some uncultured brute?
He's a technically good player, just extremely inconsistent.
He's a technically good player, just extremely inconsistent.
I quite like the idea of this but I might've been conditioned by the last four years.
Simple question. Is what Pulis does with his team or Allardyce does with his team equal to what Liverpool does under Klopp?Yes because Fellaini has played so much for us this season?
BTW, all long balls are just long passes. The fecking point of the whole concept is to get the ball up field as quick as possible, avoiding it being on the ground.
You can assign whatever name you want to it, a long ball is a long ball. Liverpool under Klopp resulted to "hoof ball" or long ball, whatever the feck you want to call it numerous times this season too.
Fact of the matter is when you pass the ball a long way up field, up in the air, off the ground, it's a long ball/hoof. It's also a fact that Liverpool have done it more than us and it's also a fact that this stance that it's the only football we play is rubbish.
If you're going to criticise someone for something, at least be consistent. I could start branding all our hoofing as 'long passes' too.
Even consistent world class players become inconsistent as soon as they reach Manchester United, what will Arnautovic become here I have no idea....
I would definitely take Mandzukic as a bench option for a couple of seasons.
You could trust that the guy would be more knowledgeable for starters. I'm not saying in any way, that he would be a great success here on the pitch (could go either way really, also which attacking players are a success at United nowadays?), although it would be awesome on a personal level.
However, cheap cliches like "it only takes 1 bad thing for these sort of players to go downhill" are simply ridiculous. He's not a caribbean partyboy ffs. He has a certain "Balkanic" nature/character, but he has matured a lot over the years and I'm not worried in the least about his behaviour.
Yeah. We waste Lukaku's ability to run behind defenders with good aerial through passes, instead we often use him as a target man to win headers
They obviously do it far more often and with far inferior players. That being said, all passes thumped up field are hoofs, regardless of the team's attacking quality. What exactly is the difference between a 'long pass' and a 'hoof'? If Liverpool had a taller CF than Firminho, would you also consider their passes all hoofs, considering there is literally no other difference? Both are sent up field, up in the air, instead of opting to play it on the ground.
You could argue that having a target man controlling the ball is the difference between a hoof and a long pass, but then by that logic you'd surely have to also apply that logic to teams like Bayern, Madrid etc. who don't exactly have small forwards when they make long passes.
I just don't buy this nonsense that all we do is hoof, we do it in certain situations but is few and far between. In fact Fellaini barely featured this season, even with our midfielders being injured constantly. Fecking Mctominany was playing given how thin we were running there.
It's just such a boring argument now, it's false and keeps getting branded out around here like we play like West Brom every week, when it's simply not even close to being true.
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It's very sad to see the team we have become. We don't need Arnautovic or Mandzukic. Why not improve Martial and Rashford instead? We already saw in 2015/16 that both of them can play as strikers and we depended on them for big games.
No we didn't. Stop making shit up.
Would be a solid squad player for us and Mourinho has worked with him before. Why not?
One of them is intent on leaving and the other still has a lot to learn, which unfortunately isn't a sacrifice we can make next season when the manager's job will be on the line? Also we came 5th that season and couldn't qualify from a CL group of PSV and Wolfsburg, so how much did depending on them really benefit us?
I honestly don't see this.
If anything, i don't think we use Lukakus aerial ability enough.
We are too slow through midfield and we focus our attack on working Young and Valencia into attacking positions which they squander time and time again. If we did play long balls we wouldn't see Sanchez lose the ball time and time again when he drops a little too deep etc.
Why do posters automatically equate long ball to defensive football? It's clearly not the case yet we have fans point it out time and time again.
People genuinely think Arnautovic is better than Willian? Jesus.
Surely it's not an either or situation? One's a striker and one's a midfielder.
I think we need back up for Lukaku and Arnautovic has played for Inter under Jose, won the treble there (just about involved) and has been arguably West Ham's best player this season.
He's got some Zlatan traits and unless Rashford turns into Drogba next season, we're going to need someone who can hold the ball up at the top.
I am with you on this. People create some narratives, make them stick and the rest of us just never let go.
I'd like him as an option, I've said before I think he would sort out his attitude problem at a bigger club. Would probably cost more than £40m though so not sure if he's worth it.
Only thing making this speculation even slightly bearable is the fact that Fred is already pretty much in the bag. If our first impending signing for the summer was Arnautovic I would have cried
He's actually been very good as a striker for West Ham.
When we played them away he absolutely terrorised our defence, never seen Smalling have such a hard time before.
He runs behind really well, very strong and has a great shot, what's not to like?
Oh yeah he played for Stoke before so he can't be good enough
When we played them away he absolutely terrorised our defence, never seen Smalling have such a hard time before.
He runs behind really well, very strong and has a great shot, what's not to like?
Oh yeah he played for Stoke before so he can't be good enough
Carribean party boy, balkanic nature....that's some sweeping generalisations down there. I've worked with both type of people and i assure you that they are some of the nost hardworking people i've worked with. The balkans provided some of the most hardworking and talented players in the world from Savicevic to Boban right to Vidic and mihajlovic.
If I wanted to stoop low i would suggest you tone your austrianish attitude a notch. That would of course be wrong considering not every austrian is a kurz let alone a haider or a hit...
Who cares about where we finish, it's more important to develop Rashford and Martial so he can feck off to Madrid, Juve or PSG afterwards ! and get out of here with your reasonable arguments.
As a back up to Lukaku, i would gladly take him, for less than 20/25 Mil though. he is a handfull, and i was impressed when we played against them. and surely he wouldn't moan about being a back up as it's one of his only chances to play at a big club. i would have prefered Mandžukić personally, but he's 32, so unless he comes for 10 Mil or less ....
Yeah, at a snails pace with zero excitement. I suppose it’s wishful thinking that we change our approach rather than continue doing what’s not working and what’s boring the fans to death.
I like him, he has that presence and arrogance that I love in United players. If he's ok with being a squad player then I think it would work. Would be a better plan B than Fellaini anyway! Does anyone know if he can play on the right?
a Moyes-esque signing
Godwin's law, nice!
Well, serves me right for wasting my scarce amount of posts on this. Have a nice day, my good man!
Same to you.
Never actually thought i'd ever see this happen.Another take from another Austrian on Arnautovic.
Ability wise he would definitely increase the quality of our attack. What some might underrate here is his technical ability. Obviously he is really strong and also quite fast. He is capable to destroy a defence pretty much on his own, as seen in the match against us. Now imagine that with decent team mates.
I also think that he has no problem with selfishness and his decision making is most of the time on point.
I don't know how he did it, but when he became a father he went from one of the most irresponsible to a person who didn't make a single mistake off the pitch. He is hard working on the field and if you tell him to track back, he is going to. His mentality is the reason why he wasn't world-class 6 years ago. I don't see any problem now.
That being said, I don't know if he wants to come here. He loves to play, and he knows that he won't play as much at Man Utd.
The problem is, that he simply isn't a RW. And we have Lukaku + 3 other players who can play on the left and upfront. Unless Martial is leaving I wouldn't sign him nor Mandzukic.
TLDR, his ability, his mentality and his work rate are all decent/top class. There is no Red flag. Unless martial is leaving I still would not sign him.
Ability wise he would definitely increase the quality of our attack. What some might underrate here is his technical ability. Obviously he is really strong and also quite fast. He is capable to destroy a defence pretty much on his own, as seen in the match against us. Now imagine that with decent team mates.
I also think that he has no problem with selfishness and his decision making is most of the time on point.
I don't know how he did it, but when he became a father he went from one of the most irresponsible to a person who didn't make a single mistake off the pitch. He is hard working on the field and if you tell him to track back, he is going to. His mentality is the reason why he wasn't world-class 6 years ago. I don't see any problem now.
That being said, I don't know if he wants to come here. He loves to play, and he knows that he won't play as much at Man Utd.
The problem is, that he simply isn't a RW. And we have Lukaku + 3 other players who can play on the left and upfront. Unless Martial is leaving I wouldn't sign him nor Mandzukic.
TLDR, his ability, his mentality and his work rate are all decent/top class. There is no Red flag. Unless martial is leaving I still would not sign him.
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Yes if Liverpool play a tall targetman upfront and aim longballs at him and hoping that the targetman upfront knocks the ball down and holds it up, then yes they are also playing hoofball. But that's not how they play, they play long balls when they are counter attacking and their front three use their pace and movement to run into the space behind the defenders.
Yes Bayern and Madrid have tall forwards but they don't use them like we use Lukaku and Fellaini(whenever he's been fit). Fellaini didn't feature because of his injury concerns and his contract situation, and he doesn't play as a midfielder for Mourinho, he plays as a number 10 or as an attacking midfielder.
So would you consider players like Scholes and Pirlo etc. the masters of hoofball? They would ping long balls into players regularly, especially those out on the wing. Also, it's still the same, we use our long balls as a way to counter attack too and the hold up play from the target man allows other attackers to run into space ala the goal we scored against Spurs, as an example.
The only difference is people don't like Jose and we have a taller striker. Otherwise the intention is the same.
Because they've both proven themselves to be shit this season. Rashford needs to get out and learn how to play football, and Martial is not a striker. If we're going to sign a backup for Lukaku - and I think it's pretty important that we do - he needs to be experienced and able to make an impact immediately. So according to this thread we either go for a 32 year old who's already done it all - he might do a job, who knows - or a 29 year old who's had an indifferent career but might just be finding his feet..
We won't sign him - he'd cost too much - but I like him and he'd do well. He'd challenge Lukaku for a starting position for sure.
Watching a lot of his highlight videos on YouTube he seems to pop up on the right side quite a lot, he also seems very comfortable on both feet (scored a beauty with his left foot where he dribbles round the defender and slots it into the bottom corner).
I think he’d be more than fine on the right, we’ve been playing Mata and Lingard there anyway, the right side winger doesn’t really need to be a right winger because they usually don’t stay there. He won’t be a hug the touchline type winger so to me it’s fine
Come on guys let’s just put our differences about Mourinho aside for one minute and just collectively be Manchester United fans. Under them circumstances I think we can all agree that signing fecking Arnautovic would be a huge back step.
The thing with Arnautovic is that some think he is a good backup striker. For the fee we would have to pay, you would expect him to start. He isnt good enough for a top 4 team to be a starter. And he is too expensive to be a backup. I wouldnt mind him for 10m if he was in his last year of contract, but thats not the case. He will cost a nice chunk of our transfer budget and wouldnt improve our starting eleven. He wouldnt come here to sit on the bench anyway
I concede that we can't have world class players as backup. What concerns me is not his age but his attitude and the fee around such deal.
You sure, seen him get terrorised by attackers a fair few times?He's actually been very good as a striker for West Ham.
When we played them away he absolutely terrorised our defence, never seen Smalling have such a hard time before.
He runs behind really well, very strong and has a great shot, what's not to like?
Oh yeah he played for Stoke before so he can't be good enough
Reading a lot of the posts here reminds me of when we were linked to Mane under LVG, and everyone thought LVG was crazy and that Mane wasn't good enough for us.
Smalling seems the type who have troubles opening the toilet door on his way out.
Honestly think Arny is a good player and capable of beating teams as an individual. Similar to a Ben Arfa in my eyes, but prolly not as good of a dribbler but more physically dominant. Would be nice for squad depth but I dont feel like West Ham would let him leave for less than 40 mil and I think we could get a much better player for that money. Maybe a Pastore, Draxler, El Shaarawy, Mandzukic, Douglas Costa, even a discount Shaqiri would be just as good. For 20-25 mil I wouldnt mind him adding depth to the squad. Would prolly bang in 10-15 goals/season if he stayed healthy
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