Our bench players: cause for concern?

[simplyared]

Looking through our squad I’m thinking we haven’t got the back-up we need should we get injuries to key players.

The game in midweek against Sheffield is just one of many games that highlight this imo. Apart from MacT for Martial, which was purely tactical. Replacing Greenwood for Mata and Fernandes for van de Beek just felt like huge downgrades.

The reverse happened in a previous game this year where we started a game with Fernandes and Rashford on the bench. We were so far off Olle had to bring them on and we’re a different side.

Noticed in midweek we didn’t have a cover on the bench for our CB’s. We’ve got Bailly, Tuanzebe and Fosu-Mensah and none of them on the bench. Ask yourself the question – what happens if we lose Maguire or Lindelöf have we got the quality to replace any one of them amongst our fringe players? Phil Jones with his situation at present I don’t see as an option.

I’m saying we are in a vulnerable position with the present squad and not only at CB. If we lose an ”in form Pogba” or Fernandes, our midfield suffers a big downgrade. Without Rashford our counter-attacking becomes almost non-existent.

Comparing our bench with the other top clubs. Do we have the same quality?

Views on this!

 

[dev1l]

The biggest concern I have is central defence. Maguire and Lindelof are the only two cbs which are available most of the time. Bailly, Jones, Rojo and Tuanzebe are out most of the time.
So in order to replace one of the 2 starting cb s we have to hope that one of the 4 backups is not injured.
Hopefully we will stay away from signing injury prone cb s ....that s why I am a bit skeptical about Upamecano and Konate.

 

[Zen86]

The funny thing is our bench is so much better than it was last season, which says a lot. That said, we definitely need another CB.

 

[Vidyoyo]

It's a bit half and half. VdB, McT and Cavani (arguably TFM) are good options but then we have players like Mata and Shaw who are much better when starting and kinda useless as sub options.

Then we get into Lingard and James territory who just don't seem to have any role.

 

[simplyared]

No Maguire = no defence
No Fernandes = no creativity
No Rashford = no attack

 

[united for life]

Let’s take it position at a time:

goalkeeper: i think we’re covered there. Degea and Henderson are both good.

left back: shaw and telles. That’s an OK.

right back: wan-bissaka then probably williams now (i guess he’ll go back to RB after signing Telles). TFM can play there. Also not back.

center backs: i think we need signings there for sure. Signings to improve our starting line up and not just our bench. Jones and Rojo are as good as gone. Bailly is always injured. Tuanzebe, well I always want him to turn into a starter but not sure this will happen, especially that he is also injury prone. We need a CB yes.

central midfielders. We need a proper DM to replace matic. A DM to improve our starting 11. If we consider Pogba is the second CM, the we’d end up with fred and mctominay who are not bad covers (of course matic is there also). VDB can also play there. So yes, we need a midfielder (but more of a DM to start).

AM: VDB is a good cover for bruno. Mata/Pogba can also play there. So it should be fine.

LW: rashford starts. James is the back up player. We desperately need someone there to cover for rashford. Martial can also play that position but considering that he is our first choice starter, we need a back up.

RW: for sure we do need. Probably a starter. Greenwood is good, but we don’t want to overwhelm a 19 year old.

striker: for this season, with cavani and igahlo, we are ok. But for sure going forward we’d need a proper #9.

 

[ReddBalls]

RE: Thread.

No.

The bench is a sign of progress. Even if it's lacking as of now, it is immensely better than previous years.

 

[Gerald G]

No. Many times earlier in the season we made changes and improved. It's not an issue right now.

 

[Lay]

Our bench is a lot better than last year. I wouldn’t have brought on a single player last season.

 

[711]

Looking through our squad I’m thinking we haven’t got the back-up we need should we get injuries to key players.

The game in midweek against Sheffield is just one of many games that highlight this imo. Apart from MacT for Martial, which was purely tactical. Replacing Greenwood for Mata and Fernandes for van de Beek just felt like huge downgrades.

The reverse happened in a previous game this year where we started a game with Fernandes and Rashford on the bench. We were so far off Olle had to bring them on and we’re a different side.

Noticed in midweek we didn’t have a cover on the bench for our CB’s. We’ve got Bailly, Tuanzebe and Fosu-Mensah and none of them on the bench. Ask yourself the question – what happens if we lose Maguire or Lindelöf have we got the quality to replace any one of them amongst our fringe players? Phil Jones with his situation at present I don’t see as an option.

I’m saying we are in a vulnerable position with the present squad and not only at CB. If we lose an ”in form Pogba” or Fernandes, our midfield suffers a big downgrade. Without Rashford our counter-attacking becomes almost non-existent.

Comparing our bench with the other top clubs. Do we have the same quality?

Views on this!

The bench is generally much better now than it has been for a few years. To answer the centre half question, in case of injury Matic would drop back, or even Shaw or McT drop in. Not ideal of course, but you did ask.

 

[Bondi77]

We

Looking through our squad I’m thinking we haven’t got the back-up we need should we get injuries to key players.

The game in midweek against Sheffield is just one of many games that highlight this imo. Apart from MacT for Martial, which was purely tactical. Replacing Greenwood for Mata and Fernandes for van de Beek just felt like huge downgrades.

The reverse happened in a previous game this year where we started a game with Fernandes and Rashford on the bench. We were so far off Olle had to bring them on and we’re a different side.

Noticed in midweek we didn’t have a cover on the bench for our CB’s. We’ve got Bailly, Tuanzebe and Fosu-Mensah and none of them on the bench. Ask yourself the question – what happens if we lose Maguire or Lindelöf have we got the quality to replace any one of them amongst our fringe players? Phil Jones with his situation at present I don’t see as an option.

I’m saying we are in a vulnerable position with the present squad and not only at CB. If we lose an ”in form Pogba” or Fernandes, our midfield suffers a big downgrade. Without Rashford our counter-attacking becomes almost non-existent.

Comparing our bench with the other top clubs. Do we have the same quality?

Views on this!

We lose an “in form Pogba” two games in every three and VDB will be an upgrade regardless.
Axel will be better than Lindelof once he gets a decent run in the team and we have Cavani, Martial and Greenwood and Rashford as strikers.
We have decent depth in our squad but our players are younger than the more seasoned benches.