Van Gaal, who will he Schweinsteiger?

Globule

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We should start the match with Van Persie in goal, a back 3 of Di Maria, Mata and Falcao, a midfield of Rooney, Carrick, Fellaini and up top we have Jones, Smalling and Rojo behind De Gea.

And here's the genius part: in the second half, we do it in complete reverse. That way players will be fully acclimatised to specific areas of the pitch. Total Schweinball.
 

Invictus

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Wouldn't that require the ability to control the football? ;)
Yup that comment looks very misguided in hindsight. Never imagined Jonny would regress so much.. :(
 

Balu

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What's really weird about van Gaal's choice of players to schweinsteiger is that he's doing it with players that already excelled in a certain position and everyone knows what their best position is. That was never the case with Schweinsteiger, who - while being a good player on the wing - was never world class. He lacked pace and dribbling ability on the wing, always looked more like a CM pushed out wide because he lacked the maturity to play in the middle. Yeah, he made it work on a good enough level to start for us (many fans actually were frustrated and wanted him gone), but that's about it.

With Rooney and di Maria it looks like he's doing it for the sake of it, not because it's the way to get the best out of the player.
 

Revan

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This is making the 'Jones in midfield' scandal seem like the most innocent and meek of football experiments.

Van Gaal is trying things that only work on FIFA, where Ashley Young is my holding midfielder.
They work in PES too. True story: I had Rio Ferdinand and Wes Brown as my strikers in PES 2006. And it worked fairly well.
 

Yorkeontop

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I'm not a fan of Wayne in midfield for long periods but what could we get out of him if a conscious effort was made to convert him? He's always played there as a temporary solution and this surely counts against his development as a CM.
 

matherto

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They work in PES too. True story: I had Rio Ferdinand and Wes Brown as my strikers in PES 2006. And it worked fairly well.
I once scored a 40 yarder after dribbling past three with Petr Cech up front in PES6 on the 360.

That first 360 title was truly terrible though.
 

Raptori

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I'm not a fan of Wayne in midfield for long periods but what could we get out of him if a conscious effort was made to convert him? He's always played there as a temporary solution and this surely counts against his development as a CM.
He has a lot of the attributes that make up a good deep lying playmaker imo. The problem is that he's still not comfortable there, and seems to rush his decision making. I do think it could work long-term though, and that he's been better there than a lot of people seem to think.
 

Bubz27

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Does anyone else feel that Rooney as a CM will be similar to Gerrard as a CM. I don't mean this as a sleight on Stevie but Rooney seems to look for the killer ball often, invariably meaning he will hit it occasionally, giving the impression he's better than what he truly is. However more often than not it will be off target. I don't know if Rooney has the ability to control games week in, week out in that deep CM role.