Excellent tonight, was left with a lot to do in midfield as sabitzer was given a weird role up top when we had the ball. Was a constant menace for Brentford whenever they had the ball. In good form lately and clearly a decent player.
39
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 39
- Goals
- 3
- Assists
- 1
- Yellow cards
- 10
- Status
Good performance, alongside the scotland goals this should add to his value when we sell him this summer.
My thoughts completely. I thought he and Malacia stood out in a good team performance. Certainly in 1st half. 2nd everybody was quiet. Well done.
Did what he was good at, and he's so much better when partnered with a ball player such as Bruno. Provided a much better balance then what we saw against Newcastle, and actually, I know deep down ten Had will know he made a mistake with the midfield positioning the other day.
He has some occasional good games in that role, making you wonder wtf ETH was thinking in the game against Newcastle.
He just scored 4 goals in 2 games. We need goals.
Anyway. Excellent game by McTerminator.
He scored four goals during the international break and when played in the 8 role, is known to get the odd goal. I guess ten Hag went into the Newcastle game thinking the same. Problem was, is that we had Sabitzer as the deepest midfielder, as opposed to Bruno, who has the ability to play line breaking passes.
Of course, that much is simple.
Too simple that you would try that in FM or whatever game when you were 12.
Exactly why it was baffling to play him up in No. 10, negating good thing that he offers.
McTominay will be a really good player for a team like Aston Villa but for United he doesn't have the football IQ to play in midfield. He doesn't know what to do with the ball when he has, too many times he tries to run with the ball or hold it and does not even attempt to make pass the ball to the attacker. Off the ball, he does not make himself available, the amount of times he gets marked out of the game on his own is crazy. I hope he gets sold and someone buys him. 20 million would be a good value if I'm honest.
A lot do not do it.
Played as single pivot last night, played very well. Excellent defensive work, drove with the ball through midfield well. Neat and tidy in possession without being expansive.
Asked to keep it simple, hold his position and do the dirty work in midfield he's fine. He hasn't really got the technique or creativity to play further forward.
Asked to keep it simple, hold his position and do the dirty work in midfield he's fine. He hasn't really got the technique or creativity to play further forward.
He made 2 clearances near the end and maybe ran around a bit and looked like he was doing more.Barely touched the ball, barely made any defensive contribution and regularly lost the ball the few times he did manage to touch it. Then people wonder why we consistently look disjointed and lose midfield battles while simultaneously praising that shite.
Bruno made over 3x as many passes, he ran the midfield single handedly while McTominay ran around offering nothing.
Shaw had 30% more touches, he came off in the 36th minuteDe Gea had more touches of the ball for fecks sake.
McTominay completed 74% of passes, second worst of outfielders. Made 1 tackle, 0 interceptions.
And people are actually managing to praise this shit
Overall, I thought he was hiding and was poor on the ball, especially in the first half when Utd were dominating possession. Did his usual run a few yards and pass it badly rather than just release it early.
I genuinely have no idea how people can look at that and think motm.
Wait until you see EtH put Maguire as striker then playing hoofball.
A central midfielder can never be fine when they get on the ball as little as McT and passes it as badly as he does the rare occasion they’re in possession. Being able to consistently receive and make passes is very near the top of a CM skillset. And, unfortunately, right at the bottom of McT’s.
He marks himself out, every gameTo be fair the Brentford's gameplan must have been marking Scott out of the game.
I think he must be talking audibly to himself on the pitch because they seemed to know exactly where he was without turning around a lot of the time.
He wasn't awful defensively however, but we need way more from him than this. Bruno was MotM by some distance today.
Played well for a change, but still needs selling.
Gets a run of games and he starts to play better.....funny that.
Do we definitely sell him? If it’s a choice between selling him or makig Sabitzer permanent I’m really not sure what I’d prefer.
Must have watched a different game because I thought he was shit. Completely invisible for most of it. Benefited from the fact that the few times he did bother to get himself involved in the game he managed to do the right thing. Otherwise, Bruno absolutely carried him.
Sell him and don't sign Sabitzer is the correct choice, sign a better CM than both, infact sign 2.
The funny thing is, that it's not even that hard to get on the ball in that position as the deepest midfielder
Hasn't this always been the McTominay problem though? Along with a lot of our players, has an amazing game followed by about 5 really shit ones. Rinse and repeat. Was at least not invisible last night but if Newcastle or whoever else are stupid enough to give us a decent price we need to ship him out immediately, our central midfield often ghosts and when he plays he's usually a big reason for that.
He was also very far from amazing last night.
31 passes at 74% accuracy from a deep lying central midfielder is poor - as someone said, Shaw touched the ball and passed it more in 36 minutes than McT in 94! Bruno had 96 at 86.5% - that's how an excellent performance looks like in central midfield. McT had those couple of important blocks and clearances near the end and that leaves people with the impression that he played well but overall even his defensive stats were nothing special.
It was very much a standard McTominay performance. A couple of decent defensive contributions, below par 'midfielding'.
He's ok and performed a important block late on in the game but.. just think where we could be with a actual talented midfielder.
Its games like last night where putting him in the shop window would actually garner some strong interest, unlike his awful showing away to Newcastle.
Its games like last night where putting him in the shop window would actually garner some strong interest, unlike his awful showing away to Newcastle.
He's a good player. Gets way too much heat.
It’s difficult, who do we go for? De Jong has made it clear he doesn’t want to leave Barca. Rice will cost close to 100m and Bellingham seems unlikely. Plus our main target this summer is going to be a striker and whether that’s Kane or Oisiman it’s going to take up a huge chunk of our budget.
Irrespective of how much we spend on Striker , We would definitely make top midfielder signing as well .
Budget for these two positions would be made available irrespective of sales everything else might be dependent on outgoings .
You don't need to go for big names to get improvements on McTominay, and not just an improvement but a better profile of player for what Ten Hag is trying to achieve.
I'd quite like us to look at Bennacer from Milan but not sure if they would sell. In any case there are plenty of midfield players out there that would fit the profile better than McTominay.
I would also sign Tielemans on a free transfer as a squad option, think he has the talent but has not kicked on, but I think there are the ingredients of a good player there.
Overall though signing a quality midfielder in my opinion is number 2 priority behind a striker, we need to move to controlling games and not only when our starting midfielders are available
He's played over 200. He was the least impressive of the trio. Defended well but evaded possession. Mainoo can take his spot next year and will be a big improvement.
Sounds like a classic McSauce performance.Barely touched the ball, barely made any defensive contribution and regularly lost the ball the few times he did manage to touch it. Then people wonder why we consistently look disjointed and lose midfield battles while simultaneously praising that shite.
Bruno made over 3x as many passes, he ran the midfield single handedly while McTominay ran around offering nothing.
Shaw had 30% more touches, he came off in the 36th minute
McTominay completed 74% of passes, second worst of outfielders. Made 1 tackle, 0 interceptions.
And people are actually managing to praise this shit
My version of this is:
We started the season with Casemiro, Eriksen, McT and Fred as our CMs. For simplicity, let's say we need one #8 and one #6 as our starters. EtH mostly went with the status quo and Fred / Eriksen became the #8s and Casemiro / McT became the #6s.
Our build up happens in some form of 3-1-6. Typically it is the below or its mirror (with Dalot dropping and Shaw advanced):
---- Varane -- Martinez -- Shaw ---
---------------------- #6 -----------------------
-- RB ------ #8 --------------- #LW -----
-- RW ------ CF---------- Bruno ---------
All of his weaknesses as a #6 are well documented. And for historical reasons (starting with Jose) people decided he was a #6. The fact that we didn't sign a DM forever also contributed.
When Eriksen got injured, we went and signed Sabitzer, so it was still Sabitzer, Fred at #8 and Casemiro, McT at #6.
After Casemiro's second suspension, we started with McT at #6 (against Fulham in the game with the two reds where we couldn't keep a hold of the ball and got lucky). He was terrible.
EtH then tried Sabitzer. Didn't work. (Newcastle 2-0)
I think he tried Fred there at some point during Casemiro's first suspension. That didn't work either.
Ultimately he used Bruno as the playmaking #6 during build-up and McT at #8 and it worked really well.
In my view what he ideally wants is a #6 like Casemiro who's good on the ball and to pair him with someone who can carry and pass the ball like FdJ.
we have already seen he just isnt high enough quality for a team that should be pushing for a title in the league/UCL. Now is the time to sell while he still has decent value. Instead we will keep him for a couple more years, watch more average at best performances with the occasional good one, then wonder why we cant move him on and bring in better players. Club needs to be proactive here and get some funds from his sale.
I would love to know what ETH thinks of McTominay. He's developed terrific strength. There's potential untapped there, as we have seen from time to time.
Agreed!
ten Hag used this kind of partnership with his Ajax team in 18/19, with De Jong and Schone. De Jong would often drop into the defensive line to help with the build up phase, whilst Schone was the 1 in the 3 + 1, to provide a wall pass. He also did the same thing with Gravenberch and Alvarez, and we're now seeing it with Eriksen and Casemiro/McTominay.
Problem is, since Eriksen has been out, as you said, we've replaced him with box to box engines, as opposed to playmakers. As a result, our build phase has taken a hit, as we've lacked that balance of ball player and ball winner.
Yesterday, and against Real Betis, where Bruno was deeper, was amongst our better games this season, in regards to dominating possession, and it was no surprise that McTominay looked better, as he didn't have that responsibility to get on the ball and dictate.
When you look at the stats yesterday, Bruno made 96 passes. Sabitzer and McTominay, on the other hand, had 31.
Now, Bruno won't always get the time and space to do what he did yesterday, but I'm surprised ten Hag didn't use this more whilst Eriksen was out injured.
Bruno have been playing this role against Betis, Southampton, Newcastle, partially against Fulham after Sancho Antony double sub; and Brentford. That's plenty enough.
Bruno helped a bit, but him be able to dictate the midfield is still very opponent related. He couldn't against Newcastle and to Southampton even before Casemiro sent off. So it's not always a good trade off for his reduced creativity moving him away from his natural no 10 position.
Bruno is also a bit ill disciplined defensively. It's not wild aggressive tackle McTominay does so often. The penalty soft foul for the Barcelona game is the type I refer here. Bruno didn't give another penalty yet, but he seems to give soft freekick away close to our goal.
Yeah sorry, I'm in the camp that doesn't quite get where all the hype from yesterday's performance is coming from. He was fine. I thought both Bruno and Sabitzer put in more impressive performances. McTominay was decent enough but I cannot see for a moment how he was man of the match over any of Licha, Bruno, Sabitzer, Varane, or De Gea.
What have you seen of Mainoo to suggest he is ready to start for us in the Premier League next season?
If you mentioned Hannibal then I could run with that but to suggest Mainoo whom has only looked good at lower levels is ridiculous.
If Scott does not fit into Erik's plans then we will find out in the summer.
I really don't think Bruno played the same role in those games. Sure he might have dropped a bit deeper but against Brentford he basically played the role Casemiro plays during our buildup.
I agree with the rest of the stuff around being erratic + losing his creativity at #10. There were several times where McT got free yesterday and had that been Bruno on the ball we'd have had atleast a couple of goals.
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