I think the point is that he still needs two covers. Kante-Matuidi or Kante-Rabiot. But people who want us to sign a new DM are expecting us to play Pogba and Bruno in midfield 3.
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Oh please .... Mourinho has been gone for so long, why do you try to drag him back to this story. Is he any better after Mourinho gone? No! This is purely his attitude. He plays well for the NT because he can't play for other teams and Raiola cannot negotiate his commission. There were a lot of time he allowed to play as AM with McT/Fred behinde him and he still play unstalbly.
MOTM, good for him and for us, we could sell with high price.
As I don't watch Pogba a lot, I don't have any strong views but what you are saying is that Pogba at his best should be the most offensive of the 3 central midfielders?
Not really because Pogba played in double pivot with Kante while Matuidi played as a left winger/mid with France 2018. You just need balance in XI to make sure there are enough players that can cover the ground for him and for the team. You can't rely on 1 DM alone to cover the ground for the team that has Pogba, you need two work horse players. May be against team that park the bus but not against team that willing to press high.
I think this simplifies things a bit too much.
Of course, having a world class defensive midfielder would help us get more from Pogba. However, in France's midfield the third man is Rabiot. In ours the third man is Bruno. That puts an entirely different level of responsibility on Paul's shoulders when he plays for United.
Rabiot is a worker, France does not rely on him for goals and assists like we do with Bruno. In France's midfield Pogba can do more than at United. He doesn't need to worry about filling in for Rabiot. In fact its Rabiot who needs to worry about filling in for Pogba. That's not the case for Paul at United. Paul and Bruno as a pairing in midfield would leave us vulnerable at the back, even if we had prime Roy Keane anchoring the midfield. Given our back line is not brilliant in 1 v 1 situations that's a problem. It means Pogba has to be more conservative when he plays in the pivot for United.
It goes back to the issue that we bought Pogba without knowing how we wanted to use him. Had we bought him aiming to construct the midfield around him, we might have seen more of the kind of performances he delivers for France. Instead we just wanted a big name we could market. For the most part we've insisted playing him behind a #10, first Mhki now Bruno. Then act surprised that he does different things in a system where he's playing with a defensive midfielder and a box-to-box ratter, than when he's playing with a non-specialist defensive midfielder and a #10.
I thought Pogba was better under Ole but I can be wrong
guy was one of our best players this season, specifically the second half of the season, only behind Shaw and arguably Cavani
People who want to change Bruno's position when he is out best player in ten years in the hope that pogba comes good are brain dead. He might come good he might never, but Bruno is coming good, so build the team to maximise him and not break what not only isn't broken but what is the envy of the world, Bruno putting up frank lampard numbers consistently and being a leader we hoped pogba would be. If pogba can support Bruno even better, but over years and years now he has shown that he cannot consistently be Bruno level
Bruno is our best player - he isn't being moved anywhere to accommodate Pogba or any other inferior player.
Pogba and Bruno can play in the same side, but not in a standard 4-2-3-1 (at least not against decent strength opposition).
Pogba and Bruno can play in the same side, but not in a standard 4-2-3-1 (at least not against decent strength opposition).
With or without Pogba we are crying out for a top class holding midfielder.
I'm not suggesting we copy France's midfield, because technically both Rabiot and Kante are 'workers' neither are DM's - Kante has license to roam forward and Rabiot sits back, and vice-versa. Pogba is the one who has a free role in there, which he has said so himself.
To get the most out of Bruno and Pogba we need better coaching and a DM. City are able to play Fernandinho or Rodri at the base of a 3 man midfield, and Gundogan or KDB switch between being a #10 and a DLP, when Gundogan goes forward, KDB sits back and dictates play from deep, and vice versa. That's what we need to aim for, and both Pogba and Bruno are capable, but maybe our coaching staff are incapable of setting up such a system.
Either way it's a sad indictment because we have a potential title winning squad, we're a few pieces away. Bruno suffers because other teams double up on him because they recognise him as our most creative player - we saw this when Pogba was injured - when Pogba is in our team this dynamic changes because they cant double up both him & Bruno, that's why it's so crucial to keep him. Add in a Sancho on the RW/LW and we have creativity in both midfield and attack. Lose Pogba and we lose a lot of that potency along with it, because assuming he goes this transfer window, it means that our alternative will be one of VdB, McTominay or Fred and that wont bring us closer to City, that will put us right in the dog fight for a top 4 spot and crashing out in the Semi's of various cups again.
Pogba doesn't have a free role, only one player has a free role for France it's Griezmann. Now in the flat 4312/433, all the CMs can run forward but the other two have to cover. That part is going to frustrate me because people will use that fallacy against Pogba.
Maybe 'free role' wasn't correct but he's certainly given more license to roam forward because either Kante or Rabiot are further back, so he's 'freer' in that sense than at United.
Either way it's clear that each player understands not only their role but the role of others in the team so they are in sync, we clearly don't have that.
Pogba cannot play in a 2 man midfield, he's too slow, loses possesion to easily and doesnt work back hard enough. If we are intending playing him in a 3 with 2 DM's then fair enough. But as it showed against Villareal, hes not dynamic enough in a 2 man. In fact if we had a choice of midfielders to accompany fred or McT in a 2 man midfield - I'd pick Kante over Pogbe anyday of the week.
I kinda agree.
Yeah. The issue could be that fans expect him to dominate and run the game and think he is Gerrard or something.
He has played better for United.
Same. People always exaggerate when he plays for France. I even feel he has played better for us than what he did at the world cup.
Martial Rashford Lukaku, Bruno, Shaw, Zlatan are some he should work well with. The midfield options have been fairly dismal
bingo. Its what Jose said in the last world cup
yep
He should probably leave this summer as he is getting on and is no closer to winning a title with usPogba is soooo fecking good. He is wasting his career with us. I hope he will make a wrong move and sign 5y contract
Well we haven’t won anything yet so we will see. I’m not sure that the envy of world football isn’t hyperbolic Bruno isn’t Maradona. He’s a top player with unbelievable stats, but his performances are extremely inconsistent and he has free reign at United to do as he likes so our attacking performances rely heavily on him. Our other attacking players had better seasons the season before.
No, Rabiot and Kanté aren't further back, it's literally a flat midfield, he is also not given more license to roam. They all have license to roam and are all responsible when it comes to balancing the midfield. In fact yesterday you could clearly see it, during Germany first period of domination, Rabiot was out of position and not tracking back quickly enough which forced Pogba and Kanté to move to the left and oppened the right side for Germany, that's how Kanté's foul around the box happened.
The only player that has license to Roam is Griezmann, he goes wherever he wants and generally does it very well because he rarely forget his defensive duties.
France play with a 10 & play Pogba at CM. No reason he should be benched for vastly inferior players in Fred & McTominay.
I would play Pogba & Fred with Bruno in front. Fred is the closest player we have to a Kante.
I would play Pogba & Fred with Bruno in front. Fred is the closest player we have to a Kante.
Alright.
I thought Rabiot was pretty average and actually the one who needed someone to cover for him, not Pogba.
We either play bruno as a false 9 or play a diamond midfield or set up as 3511 with bruno playing a free role as a second striker behind cavani with pogba, beek and a new dm in midfield, plus a much better attacking rightback
This is like, highly debatable. Shaw, Pogba, Cavani outperformed Bruno for substantial parts of the season just gone. Hell, I'd even say Rashford too.
I don’t see why it’s such a big issue to give Bruno more responsibility for covering and controlling the game. He’s a bit careless with the ball like Pogba but he’s quite adept defensively, takes his team responsibilities seriously, and we could do with him taking a more active role in controlling the midfield too. He’s basically prevented from doing that when he’s asked to get close to the striker and make runs into the channels.
He was great as a #10 but it also creates some problems with our team flow. Mark him out of the game and we lose our connection to attack. And he doesn’t have the technique to make it impossible to mark him out of the game, it’s happened quite often. Plus he’s played there for Portugal well enough. Not as a sparkling individual but an important component in a strong team.
Surely the goal is to create the best team not to provide the best platform for any individual? People compare him to Cantona but we didn’t do that for Cantona either. Yes he had freedom but we didn’t design a team to enable him. We just recognised his quality and used him where it made sense for everybody.
Precisely this. We all love Bruno and his impact has taken us to the next level, but we wont win the title by being dependant on him, the players need to be coached into a better system. That's how Liverpool did it, City are currently doing it, Chelsea won the CL this way too, Bayern are ruthlessly efficient with it etc. Each player has a defined role within the team, that way we aren't waiting for individual skill to get us a goal out of nowhere, yes we know Bruno is capable of magic moments, but it's not sustainable or consistent enough to get us back to winning ways.
Besides Bruno is the type of character who has a willingness to play anywhere on the pitch if needed, him being 10 yards further back isn't going to suddenly make him a terrible player. It might impact his individual stats, but he has made it clear that he doesn't care about individual awards if it doesn't amount to anything at the end of the season.
The issue lies with the limitations of our coaching staff, and also a lack of quality in CM in the holding position.
If him and Martial leave thats two of probably only about five players at the club that are comfortable playing football in tight spaces
Yup. People and particularly pundits have the bad habit of mixing the team and individuals. And from the little I know Fernandes seems to be the kind of player that just enjoys football wherever he plays, he wants to win and loves having responsibilities. Putting him in a role where he can maximize his talent and mentality shouldn't be a problem but a priority, even if Pogba isn't at United and we bring Grealish I would try to use Grealish as the most advanced central midfielder with Bruno as a box to box. Bruno is a high energy player who could have a more consistent impact on the team as a box to box, he wouldn't be dropping 60 meters to make a tackle but moving 20m which should allow him to do it more often, he is good on the ball, a good passer, a good tackler, also if I'm not mistaken he mainly scores from the edge of the box which is exactly where a box to box is supposed to find himself at the end of the transition.
There is nothing essentially wrong with Bruno playing more of a box-to-box role. When Portugal needed to open up Hungary yesterday that's exactly the tactical tweak Santos made. Pulling Bruno back into midfield and sacrificing Jota and Bernardo Silva for Rafa and Andre Silva to get Portugal more of a focal point. Bruno ended up playing the pass to Rafa Silva that led to the cross for Guerreiro's goal. He's very adept at playing as an #8.
The issue for United is: if you take Bruno away from goal what does that mean for the rest of the team? I think that's what our coaching staff is thinking about. From their perspective Bruno offered 28 goals and 18 assists last season. If you play him in a less attacking fashion his numbers are likely to be less impressive. So the gamble you are taking is that others will pick up the slack. Its hard to say for sure that will happen. Yes, you will get a bit more out of Pogba. Although Bruno's not a Rabiot so Paul will still need to play on the cover more than he does with France. However, how much more? Will it be enough to mean a reduced goal contribution from Bruno doesn't affect our ability to win games? Its an open question. I don't have the answer to it. I don't blame Ole for sticking with the devil he knows though. Given Bruno's goals and assists are the main reason we went from being stuck in 6th place to top 4.
I think this is also a bit simplistic. Manchester City's squad is much better suited to playing a style of football that means they can set up as they do. A better defensive midfielder and better coaching will not suddenly make it possible for us to adopt a similar style. Pep has replaced every defender he started with, and with good reason. For his possession heavy tactics you need ball players. Even if Pep underwent a Damascene conversion, and decided he was going to leave City for United, we could not expect him to instantly recreate what he's done at Wastelands. We've all seen what it looks like when United play out from the back.
City can play the way they do because basically all their players are comfortable in possession and they have multiple threats in the first XI and off the bench. Most teams will sit off them, which means they never really get exposed for having a lightweight midfield, because most teams are scared are what City can do. United's squad doesn't inspire that fear. Nobody really believes that the ball being at the feet of our defenders is something to fear. Teams advance knowing they can box us in at the back. Not to be harsh on the lad but the ball going to Wan-Bissaka is basically a pressing trigger for the opposition. That requires us to play a completely different style of football to City.
The reason we see the Pogba we see is as much the sum of the parts in our squad than anything else. I may be wrong, I hope to be cos if I am we're much closer to City than I think, but I don't see there being a magic bullet that suddenly changes everything. The reason why Pogba and Bruno have the roles in the squad they do is because of the squad composition as a whole. If we had a centre back with the touch and foot speed of a prime Rio Ferdinand. If our full backs were as good on the ball as Patrice Evra and Rafael Da Silva. If we had a defensive screen like Michael Carrick. If we had any form of genuine right winger over the last five or six years, Nani would've done fine. Many things would be different in what we could do with Pogba (and Bruno for that matter). However, we are, for the most part a fairly straightforward proposition to set up against. Ole's shape and selection is often conditioned by the weaknesses in the squad he's trying to cover for, rather than anything else.
Our failings in recruitment are what has led us to the point where we need Pogba in a double pivot and bet the house on Bruno doing something magical 9 times out of 10.
Mostly agree! Personally I’m not such a big fan of the systems-obsessed football we have right now - what Fabregas recently called robotic football, mostly led by authoritarian coaches - so I wouldn’t be completely against having an individuals-focused team. I just don’t see any reason to believe Bruno needs it to be that way, and I don’t think he’s anywhere near good enough to justify it anyway. If it was Messi or Ronaldo, even now, maybe!
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I see mentions of City and France system we should use to accommodate Pogba and Bruno but I think Leceister deserves a shout too. Have mentioned it before but in 2019 they played Ndidi - Tielemans -Maddison in a midfield 3. Tielemans and Maddison have similar skill sets to Pogba and Bruno
I'm not suggesting we play a similar style to City, i'm saying it's possible to have players who are capable of understanding when one goes forward the other sits further back. Not everything needs to go through Bruno all the time, thats how we become predictable to defend against and teams just sit in a low block against us. If we have the option of both Bruno and Pogba, plus the addition of someone like a Sancho we become much more fluid and capable of mixing things up. Pogba can dictate from deep and ping balls across the pitch, Bruno then has license to go forward and play 1-2's with the wide forwards, or Pogba can press forward and play through balls behind the defence, while Bruno sits back and builds up play from midfield. All the while we have an anchor in midfield who recycles possession and provides defensive stability. None of this is out of our reach.
Teams sit off us too, just for different reasons. We saw early in the season when Pogba was injured against the likes of Sheffield, Burnley etc that those teams are comfortable letting us have possession because they will double up on Bruno. Why? Because they recognise that a McFred midfield isn't capable of providing that creative spark. So there's no need to mark them when we have possession, instead doubling up on Bruno stifles his ability to impact the game. Likewise a low block means the likes of Rashford can't use his pace to run in behind the defence, Greenwood struggles to find space on the wing, and Martial/Cavani are making runs but there's no one in midfield who can play the ball to find them.
And as soon as Pogba returned from injury we were much better at breaking down those teams because they know that we have two players who can create a chance out of nowhere, and they can't afford to double up on both at the same time, that gave us more space in midfield, which opened up the space behind defence for Cavani to capitalise on, and likewise on the wings both Rashford & Greenwood were able to create more chances for themselves. I know you singled out AWB, but it's no surprise that as Pogba returned from injury, AWB & Greenwood on the right both found form because they had much more space on the wings.
I believe we are much closer to City than we realise, the difference is City are consistent, we are not. KdB had a fairly average season by his standards but their results didn't drop massively. If Bruno has an average season next year or is injured for large parts, I think it's fair to say that with our squad as it currently is, we will struggle for top 4, that's the difference. Like you said, our recruitment is where we have failed massively, but we have the opportunity to begin to fix this, i'm not suggesting we get a DM and suddenly we are favourites for the title. But we get a DM and we have more options for rotation, so the likes of Bruno, Rashford & Fred aren't running on fumes or playing through injury - this helps us maintain the consistency needed to keep up with City.
That's a good point, I don't think United have ever had a clear way of playing, even under Fergie. But we can't live & die by Bruno (or anyone) and still expect to catch up to City.
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He is a good player, no question. However, if there is no agreement with him we need to sell this summer after him probably being one of the Euro stars.
I am just not sure which club could be interested and interesting enough for him. English clubs are not in the quotation, Barca and Real have been on the decline and probably cannot afford him. Also Juve does not look like a club on the rise at the moment and I do not see how this would be an upgrade for him.
Bayern would be great from a footballing perspective, but it is well known that there are limits when it comes to salaries.
So only PSG remaining as optional buyer.
I am just not sure which club could be interested and interesting enough for him. English clubs are not in the quotation, Barca and Real have been on the decline and probably cannot afford him. Also Juve does not look like a club on the rise at the moment and I do not see how this would be an upgrade for him.
Bayern would be great from a footballing perspective, but it is well known that there are limits when it comes to salaries.
So only PSG remaining as optional buyer.
Completely doesn't make sense in the narrative that kante and rabiot "covered" pogba
Crazy, right? Someone in here said it was a midfield pivot behind him! People really do see what they want to see.
If he's unwilling to sign a new contract this summer due to wanting more faith in our return to the top (depending on signings we make and how they perform) and we can't get above £30m for him I'd rather keep him another year than sell. His contributions next to our incoming signings is likely worth more to us than >£30m.
Then try to get him to commit again over the season, even if that includes a hefty loyalty bonus to rival what he could get in sign-on fees elsewhere.
Then try to get him to commit again over the season, even if that includes a hefty loyalty bonus to rival what he could get in sign-on fees elsewhere.
Very disrespectful to one of the main official sponsors of the tournament. I don't get the thinking of these superstar players, it's like they don't understand where all the money comes from, yet they expect constant rise in their wages.
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You'll need a much more astute coach/manager than Solskjaer to pull it off though. Guardiola managed it with David Silva and De Bruyne (two genuine number 10s) - I don't think Solskjaer can pull it off.
Totally agreed, if we signed Kante from Leicester we could have won few trophies by now
Chelsea done well with Makelele, Essien, Kante from that perspective and City got players like Fernandino, Rodri in the most crucial position on the pitch
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