United's midfield woes 2025-2026

Solius said:
Quite worried about the midfield going into the new season. Seems it's down the list of priorities but I just think it looks so leggy. A year older Casemiro, an ok Ugarte who probably works better a bit higher up, Mainoo isn't very quick or physical, Bruno isn't very physical and extremely easy to play around. Apart from that we have Collyer and maybe Kone? Both not really ready.
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Clearly things aren't moving on this area too much at the moment, can see that by the fact they still haven't mentioned specific targets in these weekly updates.
 
Well the same midfield that was getting ran by teams is a year older, so it should be great for us going into the season.
 
Baneofthegame said:
Well the same midfield that was getting ran by teams is a year older, so it should be great for us going into the season.
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So what should we do to improve it and please don't suggest something like signing Baleba/Wharton
 
croadyman said:
So what should we do to improve it and please don't suggest something like signing Baleba/Wharton
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Someone previously mentioned a young midfielder (early 20s) who plays in Serie A, looks fantastic.
 
Not my intent to be overly negative but as we put the pieces together to assemble out front line of Sesko? ahead of Cunha and Mbuemo I still just hate the thought of going the entire season having to shoehorn Bruno into one of those two 6/8 roles.

I think it could be the one thing that stops us from really progressing this season.
 
Nothing new will happen next season. We know the good and the bad
 
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In preseason central midfielder really hasn't gotten full control yet. It's the biggest worry.
 
Hammondo said:
In preseason central midfielder really hasn't gotten full control yet. It's the biggest worry.
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Agreed but I'd maintain that unless there's an option available that's affordable and better than we what have now, we can get away with addressing that next summer.
 
KStandBarmyArmy1993 said:
Agreed but I'd maintain that unless there's an option available that's affordable and better than we what have now, we can get away with addressing that next summer.
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Probably right. If that's the case I'd get a keeper.
 
dutchred said:
I think Kone will get quite a few games this season
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He hasnt even featured in last 2 games. I doubt he will get much time.

We should take a punt with Hackney if we arent signing anyone else. Worst case is selling him for same or a profit.
 
Escobar said:
Nothing new will happen next season. We know the good and the bad
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I fear you’re right. I’ve only watched highlights of the games but I still see Casemiro getting skipped by and lunging in more times than you’d like from your main DM, and still see the build up being clunky in the middle. We’re still missing both physicality and ball playing ability in the middle.
 
Posted this in last night’s match thread:

But I’ve come to the conclusion that this just does not appear to be his style. I couldn’t actually tell you what the purpose of his midfield two is, especially with the ball. They seem to be only allowed to take one-touch, with that touch being a low-percentage through pass or flick around the corner.

If you watched the game last night, you might have noted countless times Yoro gave the ball away. He got the ball in the outside right channel, and his pass was always to jump over/go around midfield and look for someone in the last line. Most of the time these passes failed. There was no midfield pass for him, nobody comes short to get onto the ball.

I know people will simply dismiss this as ‘negative’, especially as the general reaction to the game seems so positive - but it wasn’t for me. This plan is destined to failure in my view. We deliberately have no semblance of control, and our game seems to be shock and awe.

Control is the key word for me, and I think that’s one of the primary functions of a midfield. A so-called heart/engine of a team. Control possession with the ball, and control space/transition without it. Both of these are difficult with two players, and it just seems that Amorim doesn’t value these things anyway. So I do wonder what their actual purpose is.

Our defensive line was deep last night, the passes we made from back to front were being received at the halfway line or in our own half. How do we establish territorial advantage/control? How do we ‘play the game in the opposition half’ without even trying to keep the ball in there? It seems that the passes we DO put together are all low percentage ones to try and get in behind.

I have other concerns too that were visible even in success last night, but I’ll just leave my rant to my midfield concerns for now. But 8 months on, I still don’t see how this vision can take us anywhere meaningful. It’s very low percentage football, and we’re nowhere near good enough individually to get away with playing like that.
 
Rozay said:
Posted this in last night’s match thread:

But I’ve come to the conclusion that this just does not appear to be his style. I couldn’t actually tell you what the purpose of his midfield two is, especially with the ball. They seem to be only allowed to take one-touch, with that touch being a low-percentage through pass or flick around the corner.

If you watched the game last night, you might have noted countless times Yoro gave the ball away. He got the ball in the outside right channel, and his pass was always to jump over/go around midfield and look for someone in the last line. Most of the time these passes failed. There was no midfield pass for him, nobody comes short to get onto the ball.

I know people will simply dismiss this as ‘negative’, especially as the general reaction to the game seems so positive - but it wasn’t for me. This plan is destined to failure in my view. We deliberately have no semblance of control, and our game seems to be shock and awe.

Control is the key word for me, and I think that’s one of the primary functions of a midfield. A so-called heart/engine of a team. Control possession with the ball, and control space/transition without it. Both of these are difficult with two players, and it just seems that Amorim doesn’t value these things anyway. So I do wonder what their actual purpose is.

Our defensive line was deep last night, the passes we made from back to front were being received at the halfway line or in our own half. How do we establish territorial advantage/control? How do we ‘play the game in the opposition half’ without even trying to keep the ball in there? It seems that the passes we DO put together are all low percentage ones to try and get in behind.

I have other concerns too that were visible even in success last night, but I’ll just leave my rant to my midfield concerns for now. But 8 months on, I still don’t see how this vision can take us anywhere meaningful. It’s very low percentage football, and we’re nowhere near good enough individually to get away with playing like that.
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To be honest you got valid points, though we had a good game with great score line, times I felt no control in the midfield and the proper teams can easily cut through our midfield just like last season, also our defenders will have limited passing options to the midfield area.

Looks like Ruben's game more depend on wingers as we could it is working a bit with an improved Dorgu, but I still want a solid midfield with good ball control and intelligent forward passing as it could make this time look a lot better.
 
I think we'll go all out next summer in overhauling midfield, like what we're doing with the attack this window
 
AndySmith1990 said:
I think we'll go all out next summer in overhauling midfield, like what we're doing with the attack this window
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As do I, but I’m still a little puzzled about what the midfield is there for. How does it fit into Ruben’s picture? Because I’m trying to work out what profile we might even target. For example, there’s been a lot of fan talk of Wharton, but I do wonder if he’s even the type of midfielder Amorim would like. Would a Palinha be more preferred to a Carrick? Would he want one of each? Does he want a Gavi and Pedri or is it a different profile? The game play just doesn’t seem to focus enough on midfield for me to understand its purpose.
 
Rozay said:
As do I, but I’m still a little puzzled about what the midfield is there for. How does it fit into Ruben’s picture? Because I’m trying to work out what profile we might even target. For example, there’s been a lot of fan talk of Wharton, but I do wonder if he’s even the type of midfielder Amorim would like. Would a Palinha be more preferred to a Carrick? Would he want one of each? Does he want a Gavi and Pedri or is it a different profile? The game play just doesn’t seem to focus enough on midfield for me to understand its purpose.
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Yeah we need to get the right profiles in that midfield or will continue to struggle controlling games
 
If Sesko goes through I'd say it's a fairly safe assumption there will be big money spent on a midfielder next year, but I can also see an element of mitigation when opposing teams have to account for a front three of Cunha, BMB and Sesko in terms of spacing and how confident the opposition is leaving spaces behind their midfield. A prominent feature in the way we were defended last season were press traps set by surrounding our midfielders forcing us to funnel the ball into the wide traps set fairly deep in our half. There was no threat from our attackers that opposing center backs needed too much support for, and we indeed rarely punished anyone for dedicating heavy numbers to disrupt our build up play. My hope now is teams won't feel as comfortable surrounding our midfield because we (hopefully) will have a front three they can't afford to defend with less numbers.
 
Big Ron’s Coat said:
Yeah concerning. Only proper holding midfielder in the squad is Casemiro who will be starting regularly a few weeks into the season despite his legs being gone because no one else has his positional sense or physicality.
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Could happen even sooner than I thought. His composure is also a level above any other midfielder in the squad.
 
Yeah, we have issues with having no striker and no decent goalkeeper but honestly, we need at least two midfielders. None of our midfielders are good enough and this is evidenced by the fact that they're regularly walked all over by rubbish midfield combinations. Bruno will have to play in midfield and it doesn't suit him, I've no idea what suits Mainoo at all, and Ugarte is just odd. Really weird player who can look decent at times but mostly just looks confused. Casemiro is finished too. He's far too slow to be effective. So we don't really have a midfield.
 
Big Ron’s Coat said:
Could happen even sooner than I thought. His composure is also a level above any other midfielder in the squad.
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The problem is each players extremely limited skillset will be useful in various matches, so each match you could say could have done with x player's limited skillset of all the midfielders. Their drawbacks are all serious drawbacks for the composition of midfield. I am pretty relaxed about the GK and striker positions because I think both will be strengthened, but midfield is where I think this season is mid table or good. I know you cannot do everything at once, but I think you're better off getting the team playing good football as soon as possible to uproot the malaise and just grow with confidence.

I hope they are desperate to address this. Not least when you hear Berrada saying "I hope we're going to have a great season."
 
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I desperately want to be optimistic going into the new season....

But to play a 2 man midfield in the prem you need two elite, athletic midfielders who are good at most things... Covering ground, calm in possession, good positional sense, pass selection, tempo setters, interceptions/tackles, press resistance, line splitting passes, etc..

We don't have any single midfielder who is good at more than a couple of those things, and most are genuinely pretty weak at least half of the key attributes.

I just think we are going to get absolutely monstered in there, and the only to compensate for the personnel is to change the shape, which the manager is never going to do.

Hope they prove me wrong, but that's all it is.... Just hope.
 
Who is that player that won't cost the earth and can at least get us through to the summer. We definitely won't sign two that's an absolute certainty
 
Rozay said:
As do I, but I’m still a little puzzled about what the midfield is there for. How does it fit into Ruben’s picture? Because I’m trying to work out what profile we might even target. For example, there’s been a lot of fan talk of Wharton, but I do wonder if he’s even the type of midfielder Amorim would like. Would a Palinha be more preferred to a Carrick? Would he want one of each? Does he want a Gavi and Pedri or is it a different profile? The game play just doesn’t seem to focus enough on midfield for me to understand its purpose.
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There are strong clues from some Amorim quotes from his time at Sporting. Especially because he managed Palhinha and Ugarte there, and brought in Hjulmand to replace Ugarte when he left for PSG, with Hjulmand being a key figure in them going on to win their next league title:

“They are completely different characteristics. Morten doesn’t have Ugarte’s ability to find players from all sides of the pitch with incredible speed. Morten has, and Ugarte didn’t have, the ability to read the game, anticipate moves and be well positioned….The big difference is that we have improved in our organised attack. We had the principles of the first year, when defensively we were very good, but we didn’t spend much time in organised attack. We spent a lot of time creating offensive nuances and then we discovered what kind of players we need……I love Palhinha and Ugarte, but I would say that Hjulmand is the most complete player in his position.”

So my best guess is that he’s more likely to prioritise a Carrick type over a Palhinha/Ugarte type, preferring at least one CM who is more tactically aware, composed in possession and positionally disciplined, versus a pure destroyer. However, I don’t think it will be lost on him that the PL is a different beast in terms of pace and physicality, given his recent comments about the lack of pace in our midfield. I’m not sure if Hjulmand himself would fit the bill in that regard.
 
Bastian said:
I hope they are desperate to address this. Not least when you hear Berrada saying "I hope we're going to have a great season."
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We're not that club. We're not that club, pal.


United are never desperate to fix the midfield. Haven't felt that way in a decade or so. Strange for a club to have had Scholes and Keane to not value the midfield like other clubs, but that's where we are at as a club.
 
By the sound of it, most would be unhappy even if we have FDJ in midfield. Everyone will be going on about how he is slow and has no pace.
 
It's laughable that the midfield problem which has been glaring for the past two seasons has been ignored by the recruiting team until now.

For me that was the biggest criticism of our squad last season the lack of pace and lack of well numerous other skills that cost us points last season.
 
I'd still maintain that whilst we need to eventually bring in players to strengthen the midfield, the problems are down to the formation and the tactics. We could have the best two midfielders in the world in there and they'd still struggle.
 
KStandBarmyArmy1993 said:
I'd still maintain that whilst we need to eventually bring in players to strengthen the midfield, the problems are down to the formation and the tactics. We could have the best two midfielders in the world in there and they'd still struggle.
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That is true but it only increases the need for high quality mobile ans technical players. I can't believe they didn't see the need for one over a second 10, it makes it hard to have any faith in the manager or wilcox.

Switching to a 3 man midfield might negate this to an extent but then you likely need to drop one or two of our attacking players
 
sdb4884 said:
It's laughable that the midfield problem which has been glaring for the past two seasons has been ignored by the recruiting team until now.

For me that was the biggest criticism of our squad last season the lack of pace and lack of well numerous other skills that cost us points last season.
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It's been almost 2 decades. In midfield it's not really been physicality that had caused the biggest problems, it's the lack of technical ability to keep hold of the ball and dictate the flow of the game.

Carrick was probably last player that actually addressed the need for technical quality in midfield.
 
The ability to control a game of football should be an inherent characteristic of the tactical plan, not a "convenience" that depends on the personnel. You give Mourinho that Barca 2008 side (which was very close to happening) and they'd still win things, but they would have been a transition juggernaut more than anything else. Because Mourinho doesn't care about using possession to control games. Likewise, you can get your dream midfielder but if the plan (when we can't play quickly through the middle) is to kick it long and then chase after the second balls, he'll only get you that far. Right now, we seem to be following the Solskjaer/ETH example: We see the problem, but we want to bypass it instead of dealing with it.
 
After seeing yesterday's match (and already adding two goal scorers), I hope we save the Sesko money and go all in for a midfielder. Can't at all rely on Ugarte or Casemiro for the entire season. One is hot and cold while the latter is aged.

I am pretty sure we are going to score more with the shiny new additions but to make them tick, we definitely need a new engine!
 
sdb4884 said:
It's laughable that the midfield problem which has been glaring for the past two seasons has been ignored by the recruiting team until now.

For me that was the biggest criticism of our squad last season the lack of pace and lack of well numerous other skills that cost us points last season.
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I think the club made a conscious decision to prioritize the forward line, even though the midfield is lacking, which I can understand, me personally I think it is key to prioritize the attack this summer, because we needed players that can score goals, hence Cunha, Mbeumo & potentially Sesko.
 
Although the main issue is that we have no ideal midfielders and we effectively need a Viera and Keane, there are other issues that is affecting the midfielders.
1) We have no true wing backs apart from Dorgue. Amad is class and works hard but causes problems defensively and Dalot etc and no where near, especially playing LWB. Once a team gets past our wingbacks or double up on them, this causes the midfielders to try and cover massive spaces and separates the two midfielders, exposing even more space in the midfield.
2) The defense, even though lauded as one of our best attributes, is lacking. It lacks true pace, which means they don't push up enough and it lacks a CB that can push into midfield. This is where the third man in midfield should come from but I don't see it happening. This affects our build up as well.
 
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