Van De Beek is not a Centre Midfielder

Bebestation

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In the season before United bought him, Ajax played like this:

Onana
Mazraoui/Dest Veltman Blind Tagliafico
VDB Martinez
Ziyech
Neres Tadic Promes
How did you play when Frenkie De Jong was there during your best season?

I remember reading a post saying that VDB started deep but the manager put Frenkie in midfield and pushed VDB up and it clicked better than ever for VDB further up the pitch than deeper.
 

FatTails

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you just wanna say he is shit and Ole isn't playing him because he is shit, so just say it in his player performance thread.. no need to create a thread and say he is a radiator or whatever
:lol:

The whole thing is a moot point anyway. Ole doesn’t think he’s a footballer, let alone a midfielder :lol:
 

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In the season before United bought him, Ajax played like this:

Onana
Mazraoui/Dest Veltman Blind Tagliafico
VDB Martinez
Ziyech
Neres Tadic Promes
Wasn't he developed as a CM but played as what I would call an advanced #8 more than an actual 10?
 

FootballHQ

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TBF to OP the structure in that Ajax CL run was Schone as DM then De Jong as tempo midfielder and the nVan De beek as AM unless I wasn't watching the structure closely enough v likes of Real Madrid and Spurs.

So he can probably play CM but he's much more effective with two behind him breaking up and creating the play.

If you hadn't signed Bruno Fernandes he'd have been an interesting signing but Fernandes never rested apart from league cup ties so he basically can't break into the team.
 

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Wasn't he developed as a CM but played as what I would call an advanced #8 more than an actual 10?
When he debuted at Ajax under Peter Bosz (in the year we reached the EL final), he always came in/played as a 6 or 8 in the place of Schone or Klaassen. Ziyech was also our #10 that year..

He was raised at Ajax as an 8, as Abdelhak Nouri was always the #10 in his age group.
 

JPRouve

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TBF to OP the structure in that Ajax CL run was Schone as DM then De Jong as tempo midfielder and the nVan De beek as AM unless I wasn't watching the structure closely enough v likes of Real Madrid and Spurs.

So he can probably play CM but he's much more effective with two behind him breaking up and creating the play.

If you hadn't signed Bruno Fernandes he'd have been an interesting signing but Fernandes never rested apart from league cup ties so he basically can't break into the team.
It was mainly Ziyech in midfield and he was the most attacking midfielder.
 

Bebestation

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Wasn't he developed as a CM but played as what I would call an advanced #8 more than an actual 10?
If I remember, he played deep then Frenkie de Jong came and started playing deeper better than him.

Then he got pushed further up the pitch - a player that gets in to space from a 8 role in a 433 for Ajax if I remember right.

He isn't good enough in a double pivot though.
 

RedSky

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No this was the season after our glorious semi final season season, where we got 10 points in a CL group with Valencia, Chelsea, Lille
Right, he's listed as playing CM in 18 of those matches, AM in 19. Clearly rotated a bit during that year. You'd agree that he was played more as an AM at Ajax though? I don't know his playing position in International football, is he played further up the pitch or in midfield?
 

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How did you play when Frenkie De Jong was there during your best season?

I remember reading a post saying that VDB started deep but the manager put Frenkie in midfield and pushed VDB up and it clicked better than ever for VDB further up the pitch than deeper.
In that season he did play as a #10 behind Tadic with Ziyech from the right and Neres from the left, with Schone and Frenkie as double pivot..

The year after he very ofter played as an 8, for example also in the CL game where we dominated Chelsea and were 1-4 up in Stanford Bridge before we got 2 reds in 5 seconds after about an hour..
 

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When he debuted at Ajax under Peter Bosz (in the year we reached the EL final), he always came in/played as a 6 or 8 in the place of Schone or Klaassen. Ziyech was also our #10 that year..

He was raised at Ajax as an 8, as Abdelhak Nouri was always the #10 in his age group.
That's what I remember. I was actually surprised the first time someone mentioned him as an attacking midfielder, it definitely happened but it's not the player that I remembered for years.
 

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He isn't on as much money as Pogba so there's no fuss if he doesn't play. It's ludicrous at this stage with how terrible our midfield is that he hasn't been given a run of games to try and stake a claim to a first team place, instead he gets the odd game here and there and is thrown under the bus when he doesn't perform. Meanwhile Pogba jogs about with no positional discipline and goes missing for long periods of most games and keeps getting picked because Solksjaer is blinded by reputations.
 

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you just wanna say he is shit and Ole isn't playing him because he is shit, so just say it in his player performance thread.. no need to create a thread and say he is a radiator or whatever
:lol:

Well I mean, radiators are useful.
 

Adam-Utd

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His best performances for us have all come as a central midfielder.

Who's to say he can only play 1 position anway? plenty of players move and change throughout their careers.

Was Lahm a right back or a centre midfielder? It seems a very strange thread to make to be honest.
 

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Right, he's listed as playing CM in 18 of those matches, AM in 19. Clearly rotated a bit during that year. You'd agree that he was played more as an AM at Ajax though? I don't know his playing position in International football, is he played further up the pitch or in midfield?
Overall he played more as a CM but he has played a substantial amount of games as an AM but not in a traditional role, from memory it was more box to boxy.
 

Bebestation

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His best performances for us have all come as a central midfielder.

Who's to say he can only play 1 position anway? plenty of players move and change throughout their careers.

Was Lahm a right back or a centre midfielder? It seems a very strange thread to make to be honest.
It's just kind of obvious though mate - when he is playing deep he is constantly trying to get forward.

He kind of does it so much and gets in to spaces behind the opposition like a raumdeuter that the midfielder he plays with can hardly pick him out and he kind of plays that midfield a bit by himself.

VDB plays these one two passes and goes on a run which is very hard to play in a double pivot.

He literally makes runs that cheats and gets behinds the opposition and wants his partner to pick him out. It doesn't really happen.
 

RepardReece

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And again, just because he played CM doesn't mean he is good at it - he can have a better role somewhere else making his best position somewhere else.

I saw something at Ajax where it said that he played deeper and he was not that good.

It was because Frenkie De Jong came that he got pushed further up the pitch and that is what made him get the hype.

I know he can play CM - I said so in the post, that doesn't make it his best position.
Pogba plays CM for us in a double pivot yet is useless in the defensive aspect of his role. How can Donny be much worse than the current state of our central midfield?

And wow, listening to a few comments, I mean, have you seen half the ones on the RedCafe itself? One guy probably said that here when we signed him and you believed him.

Like it or not, he played deeper at Ajax at times and still played a role in the team.

His best performances for us have all come as a central midfielder.
But, bebe, I thought he was not good in CM?

This thread just seems like you want attention and its actually worked
 

BrilliantOrange

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Right, he's listed as playing CM in 18 of those matches, AM in 19. Clearly rotated a bit during that year. You'd agree that he was played more as an AM at Ajax though? I don't know his playing position in International football, is he played further up the pitch or in midfield?
He can do both, but it depends on the rest of your team.

He is not a creative brain, so so playing him as a 10 it makes sense when you have a lot of creativity behind the ball, which Ajax had when he played there with Frenkie at 6, Blind at 4 and Ziyech often dropping from the right wing to get the ball..

When he plays as an 8, you need another creative midfielder, which at Ajax always was Ziyech when he played at Ajax as an 8 in a double pivot.


This discussion as a whole is so pointless actually. 8 or 10... Its all about the alignment in midfield and the click with his teammembers. He can be a bloody good midfielder at both 8 and 10.
 

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Surely we'd have to have actually been able to watch him play a sizeable amount of football over the last 15 months to arrive at such a decision?!
 

JPRouve

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If I remember, he played deep then Frenkie de Jong came and started playing deeper better than him.

Then he got pushed further up the pitch - a player that gets in to space from a 8 role in a 433 for Ajax if I remember right.

He isn't good enough in a double pivot though.
He replaced Klaassen while De Jong replaced Schöne. His initial role was as an 8 who can also play as a DM or as an AM but not really as an actual 10. And all of that mainly in a 433 setup which applies to all our midfielders, they are all better in that setup but someone doesn't want to use it.
 

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In answer to the OP. He is a CM but I don't think he a DM but could probably do a job there.

I think he's a natural 8 who is also pretty handy as a 10 his competition is pogba and bruno who haven't been very good of late so hopefully he will get his chance and show us all what we have been missing.
 

Bebestation

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Pogba plays CM for us in a double pivot yet is useless in the defensive aspect of his role. How can Donny be much worse than the current state of our central midfield?

And wow, listening to a few comments, I mean, have you seen half the ones on the RedCafe itself? One guy probably said that here when we signed him and you believed him.

Like it or not, he played deeper at Ajax at times and still played a role in the team.


But, bebe, I thought he was not good in CM?

This thread just seems like you want attention and its actually worked
Okay again if you look at my original post - I said he can play CM. Nothing new there.

However, do you think he can play deeper better or further forward better?

Ie does he have the same problems with Pogba?

This started because people said we bought VDB but VDB is not a player for a double pivot for United is he? Do you think he is?
 

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Starts thread by saying it's not an excuse for Ole, goes on to give excuses for why Ole doesn't play him.
 

tomaldinho1

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Okay again if you look at my original post - I said he can play CM. Nothing new there.

However, do you think he can play deeper better or further forward better?

Ie does he have the same problems with Pogba?

This started because people said we bought VDB but VDB is not a player for a double pivot for United is he? Do you think he is?
Why did you start a thread on this when everyone unanimously told you you were wrong? You even have Ajax fans on here telling you this.
 

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Okay again if you look at my original post - I said he can play CM. Nothing new there.

However, do you think he can play deeper better or further forward better?

Ie does he have the same problems with Pogba?

This started because people said we bought VDB but VDB is not a player for a double pivot for United is he? Do you think he is?

The answer is very easy...

He can play CM (#8) when you have a certain type of #10 and a certain #6. He cannot play CM when you have another type of #10 and another type of #6.
He can play AM (#10) when you have a certain type of #8 and a certain #6. He cannot play CM when you have another type of #8 and another type of #6.

Stop blindfolding yourself with such a narrow look on which exact position he can or cannot play.. Look at how the qualities of different midifeld players complement each other and align and then set how he can fit in one way or another..
 

Bebestation

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He replaced Klaassen while De Jong replaced Schöne. His initial role was as an 8 who can also play as a DM or as an AM but not really as an actual 10. And all of that mainly in a 433 setup which applies to all our midfielders, they are all better in that setup but someone doesn't want to use it.
I think again though this is primarily due to our lack of CDM. We only have Matic who can do a proper CDM work.

If we had one who is young and fit then VDB could be used as a CM with even Pogba.

I just don't see VDB being this trick to getting this squad work - like how people say we should use him now and we haven't used him in a double pivot or something.

I do not think he is good enough that deep especially when his partner is not good enough also.
 

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This is not some excuse for Ole because the time for that is finished but when something is wrong - something is wrong and too many of our fans seem to now know what kind of player Van De Beek is.

VDB is not a bloody midfielder :nono:he is a raumdeuter (however you spell that). He tries to get in to the half spaces in attackers positions where defenders dont analyse his movement.

He is an attacking midfielder who is a goalscorer like Thomas Muller. Just because he can play as a CM doesn't mean he is good at it or it is his best position. Muller has also played in midfield but he plays better further up the pitch.


Ole has bought two attacking midfielders. All the deeper midfielders are Mourinho players. When VDB plays deeper in midfielder he ends up with the same weakness as pogba but with less of the creativity. He is regarded to weak to play with only one of Fred or Mctominay and he is not creative enough to play over Pogba with Matic. His numbers are not as good as Bruno's for his usual higher up role.

He is supposed to play to get further up the pitch, not deep in a double pivot.




Ps. I don't think threads should be cut like this because currently threads are just being made all over the place even for when you gave up on the manager - when that's no different to the manager out thread.
This is obvious. I've posted it a multitude of times, others have, we all saw him for Ajax, yet people both online and even in the stadium itself (I've heard lots of fans asking for this at games) are continually desperate to see him play as a CM.

Some are even asking him to partner Pogba ffs.

He's a Mata-levels-of-slow-number-10. Nothing else. Pretty good one in fairness, good at arriving into the box and nicking a goal, tidy passer but has been far far too negative in his passing since his arrival. That last point could, in fairness, be due to us playing very differently to the Ajax side he left.

He might be able to play there to a half decent level if we ever finally purchase an actual DM.
 

Bebestation

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The answer is very easy...

He can play CM (#8) when you have a certain type of #10 and a certain #6. He cannot play CM when you have another type of #10 and another type of #6.
He can play AM (#10) when you have a certain type of #8 and a certain #6. He cannot play CM when you have another type of #8 and another type of #6.


Stop blindfolding yourself with such a narrow look on which exact position he can or cannot play.. Look at how the qualities of different midifeld players complement each other and align..
So what do we have right now?
What role do you think he can play with the midfielders we have that gives us a balance?
 

Bebestation

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Why did you start a thread on this when everyone unanimously told you you were wrong? You even have Ajax fans on here telling you this.
It's just the thread title. I said he can play CM in the first post -however that I think he is better further up the pitch.
 

JPRouve

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I think again though this is primarily due to our lack of CDM. We only have Matic who can do a proper CDM work.

If we had one who is young and fit then VDB could be used as a CM with even Pogba.

I just don't see VDB being this trick to getting this squad work - like how people say we should use him now and we haven't used him in a double pivot or something.

I do not think he is good enough that deep especially when his partner is not good enough also.
As long as we agree on the fact that Van De Beek is a CM, that he has been developed as a CM and has mainly played as a CM, I don't really care about the excuses that we are going to give to the coaching staff. And Fred-Mctominay are defensively shoddy, so I wouldn't even try to make an argument about why VDB isn't playing more or why the staff hasn't tried to adapt to the players they actually have.
 

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Okay again if you look at my original post - I said he can play CM. Nothing new there.

However, do you think he can play deeper better or further forward better?

Ie does he have the same problems with Pogba?

This started because people said we bought VDB but VDB is not a player for a double pivot for United is he? Do you think he is?
To be fair you've amended your original post since you started this thread and left this gem in anyway.
VDB is not a bloody midfielder :nono:
Just kinda sounds like your agenda is changing now that people are proving otherwise, thread title and that comment imply he's not a CM at all.

Ie does he have the same problems with Pogba?
We can't even answer that, he's had like 5 starts since he joined?


He played the double pivot role against West Ham earlier this season and was probably one of his best games for us so...
 

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So what do we have right now?
What role do you think he can play with the midfielders we have that gives us a balance?
Its very very hard. You dont really have creatieve midfielders from behind (Pogba plays too far forwards, even when he plays at 8). Donny as #10 in front of 2 of Matic/Fred/McTom is not a good idea because you need more creativity in build up.

If he were to fit at United now it would be as an 8, Bruno is a fixed creative #10, so he could be a great solution at 8 with a defensive 6 who naturally stays behind the ball. Preferably you would also need a ball playing #4 behind this..

The DVB deal hasnt been thought through at United.. It was a status buy to keep fans happy, there was no idea behind it..
 

Bebestation

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As long as we agree on the fact that Van De Beek is a CM, that he has been developed as a CM and has mainly played as a CM, I don't really care about the excuses that we are going to give to the coaching staff. And Fred-Mctominay are defensively shoddy, so I wouldn't even try to make an argument about why VDB isn't playing more or why the staff hasn't tried to adapt to the players they actually have.
Again I think VDB is better player that gets forward than sits deep in a double pivot.

we have only seen him used here in a double pivot and that is what I was trying to address.

I got the thread name wrong as I knew he played CM as I said on the original post - but that he is a player that gets forward on to spaces - hence he can't play on a double pivot.
 

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It's just kind of obvious though mate - when he is playing deep he is constantly trying to get forward.

He kind of does it so much and gets in to spaces behind the opposition like a raumdeuter that the midfielder he plays with can hardly pick him out and he kind of plays that midfield a bit by himself.

VDB plays these one two passes and goes on a run which is very hard to play in a double pivot.

He literally makes runs that cheats and gets behinds the opposition and wants his partner to pick him out. It doesn't really happen.
There's a big jump from saying that to deciding he is basically a forward who likes to roam about finding space. So far he's had one season as an attacking midfielder in an 8 year career. Whatever he might be, he most certainly isn't a player like Thomas Muller.

The original cause of this thread was a poster saying Ole bought him as a CM. If he is not here as a centre mid, why did Ole buy him? To join the attacking mid line behind Bruno, Pogba, Lingard and about 5 others? That looks even worse on Ole than just not knowing what position to play him in.
 

Enigma_87

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Okay again if you look at my original post - I said he can play CM. Nothing new there.

However, do you think he can play deeper better or further forward better?

Ie does he have the same problems with Pogba?

This started because people said we bought VDB but VDB is not a player for a double pivot for United is he? Do you think he is?
FFS, he's CM (#8), which applies to what central midfielder is about - able to provide in attack and defence and playing predominantly in central zone. B2B or whatever you want to call it, he's CM as you get. He grew up as a CM, started to play as a CM and has most played as a CM throughout his career.

Of course he's versatile - he can play AM or DM, but his natural position is CM. Think everyone in the thread that have watched him in his Ajax days are telling you the same.
 

Bebestation

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To be fair you've amended your original post since you started this thread and left this gem in anyway.


Just kinda sounds like your agenda is changing now that people are proving otherwise, thread title and that comment imply he's not a CM at all.

Ie does he have the same problems with Pogba?
We can't even answer that, he's had like 5 starts since he joined?


He played the double pivot role against West Ham earlier this season and was probably one of his best games for us so...
I amended my post to remove my laughing smilie!
 

JPRouve

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Again I think VDB is better player that gets forward than sits deep in a double pivot.

we have only seen him used here in a double pivot and that is what I was trying to address.

I got the thread name wrong as I knew he played CM as I said on the original post - but that he is a player that gets forward on to spaces - hence he can't play on a double pivot.
But the vast majority of people don't give a damn about a double pivot, is there a rule stipulating that it's the only way to organize a midfield?
 

Enigma_87

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But the vast majority of people don't give a damn about a double pivot, is there a rule stipulating that it's the only way to organize a midfield?
Even if you include double pivot and starting in 4-2-3-1, he has played his best games for United in that position(forget about Ajax).. Very odd thread this.