The keyword was and. Bruno and Pogba. In both their cases they were the most free, unshackled from positional responsibility CMs in their previous teams. Having one of those works, but having two of those in your starting XI, surprisingly doesn't seem to work that well.
By the time we can sign anyone Pogba will have left us as a free agent so that's not going to be happening.
What I see on the pitch is that formation isn’t the problem but it seems like the coaching staff thinks just like some people that playing attacking football means throwing loads of attackers on the pitch and sane for defenders . Modern football doesn’t work like that . You can play 4-5-1 but be attacking if the players are attached to each other and attack & defend in sync . But any formation you play will leave you wide open if your players have no clue what to do when they lose the ball
I still disagree. City played a 433 just fine with David Silva & De Bruyne. Barcelona dominated everyone doing it with Xavi & Iniesta, neither of which were a great defensive presence. Hell, there was even a time where City played with Nasri & David Silva in the midfield 3. It absolutely can work if we had a remotely competent coach because you'd take care of the ball well enough to not need so much defensive presence in the team.
I agree. But ultimately we are stuck with mcfred and a declining Matic unless we invest there. Pogba going is odds on to happen. He isnt going to sign the contract. I Wouldnt be surprised if by this time next year Real Madrid have Mbappe, Haaland and Pogba for a net spend of about £65m.
I think you can because it was predicted by many as well. How it went is exactly how many thought it would.
But look at the players you've listed. They're all really good at retaining the ball. Bruno and Pogba just aren't.
Why did we buy DVB? I am sure he cost more than 30 million. We could have bought a decent midfield player for that and sold Martial too?
You can still disagree and we can agree to completely disagree with each other too. For the record, I also disagree with you
Pogba & Bruno are perfectly capable of keeping the ball, they don't give it away with simple passes, they give it away with speculative hoofball because that's what we're clearly coached to do. We were hitting hoofballs to Sancho last night ffs, like he's going to pick a ball out the air with 2 defenders on him. Clueless.
Don't twist the narrative. The issue is when it becomes a pattern and we are entirely dependent on an individual skill every fecking time.
But why can't we dominate possession with Pogba & Bruno in a 3? They're elite passers of the ball & Pogba can retain possession almost better than anyone.You can still disagree and we can agree to completely disagree with each other too. For the record, I also disagree with you
Neither Sporting nor Juventus played the Pep way (Barca/City) of dominating possession and pressing high up the pitch. I doubt Bruno and Pogba would work well together in a Pep team either, he wants players who are great at retaining possession. You're stitching two entirely different topics together. How Pogba/Bruno played in their previous teams and how Pep coaches his teams and picks his players. Neither of which has anything to do with Pogba and Bruno playing together in the same starting XI for Man Utd.
Agreed. Yesterday, as we've seen in other games, we kept pushing fwd all our attacking players high against their defence, and Pogba and were left with McT/Lindelof/Varane trying to make a long pass. That's a difficult pass in any case, let alone when it's not our best passers and I just don't understand why we try to play like that. Further it just leaves us open to the counter.
He's managed for over 10 years, for reference that's only 2 years less than Pep and 3 than Tuchel. Would've you call the former two "young managers still learning" 2-3 seasons ago? Nonsense.
Exatctly, they both did it with 2 supporting players, being allowed to be the most offensive mids. You can't fit them both with just one player behind.
If they were played as proper 8s in a deeper role with proper coaching I'm sure we'd get enough defensive input from them. Bruno works his socks off and Pogba makes more tackles & interceptions than McTominay ever does so why not?
What are you talking about? Are we watching the same players?
This is my point, 4-3-3 with Bruno and Pogba is very difficult because the way they play. Bruno won't sit in one position, he wants to play closer to goal and Pogba is not good enough to over Bruno's deficiencies either, so we are left with McTominay on his own in midfield.
You think they aren't capable of a simple pass? That's ridiculous. You're clearly confusing playing ability with coaching. They don't keep it simple because of what comes from the coaches.
Number of reasons why this isn't happening anytime soon but let's leave it.
If pogba intends to run down his contract he should rot in the reserves anyway. Why keep him nice and match sharp for real madrid or whoever? Dont waste minutes on players that arent part of the future
Exactly. Guy is left alone and gets the blame for not being able to hold the midfield against Villareal. The same happened in France - Switzerland game where the midfield was completely exposed and the Swiss were running riot, guess which one of Kante&Pogba got blamed for not being able to handle the midfield.
If we brought in a competent manager Pogba would be signing his contract in blood.
Retaining and circulating possession isn’t as simple as it sounds, what is ridiculous is thinking that it is. It requires quick decision making, fast crisp accurate passing, great first touch/control and constant movement.
I don't think anyone really knows why we bought DvB. But it sure doesn't seem like Ole has a lot of faith in him, and he's hardly set the world on fire in the games he's played. But as always in this place, the solution is the players who didn't start the game.
Have to agree with you here. I mean, of course they are capable of playing a simple pass, but they don't seem to have the capacity to dictate when to play the killer pass and when to retain the ball.
Agreed. It's impossible for any one player to cover the amount of ground we ask them to when we play Pogba in cm, particularly if we approach the attack as we did yesterday by pushing so many players forward at the same time.
You said: 'The state of us when you had to literally cherish that moment against Villarreal at home'
You put Xavi in this team, he'd look just clueless as well. And our fan base would be crying why Xavi isn't making lung bursting runs and putting in tackles. Pogba and Bruno can both make any pass, it's just that there are no options for them. The main thing is the constant movement that you mentioned, that should come from your teammates, they should show themselves to receive passes, they should give more options for the players to pick a pass. Then when there are more options, Pogba or Bruno can make that quick decision on which teammate is better placed to receive a pass that will hurt the opposition. Instead we have the same brain dead lethargic movement because players are not coached to make the runs.
You need to educate yourself. Just watch these coaching conferences on YouTube, there a lot of them. There's a lot of work that goes into keeping possession, outnumbering the opponent and creating passing lanes. It's not simple can you pass a ball?.
It's not really just about defense but ball retention as well. Xavi or Iniesta wouldn't have to be amazing defensively because they hardly ever gave the ball away. You can't punish a team for lack of defensive presence in the middle of the park if you don't have the ball. Besides they had Busquets playing next to them who was basically a top 10 midfielder himself.
"educate yourself" ffs. It's obviously not only about a simple pass but the argument that was being made against them is they only play hollywood passes that often end in losing the ball, as if that meant they were somehow only capable of 30 yard passes.
They were missing their best player and top goalscorer. Luckily Everton are missing all of their goalscorers too!
