He is overrated by fans anyway because he was so good at Madrid. Never been as good as United as he was at Madrid, and that's if he is fit. Send him off to Saudi with Casemiro and stop buying Madrid's hasbeens.
Varane to Saudi league?
- Thread starter Sassy Colin
- Start date
Maguire is never injured so couldn’t be further from Phil Jones
He was never that great at Madrid truth be told. Physically he’s imposing but fitness issues were always there and Ramos was always twice the footballer.
Ferdinand for example was a better footballer than Varane ever has been.
Rio had the physical aspect but glided across the pitch. Rio is proven to be a better defender given our simply outrageous defensive record in a tougher league only a few years prior to madrids success. Same with Vidic.
Varane is good but he was never either of those. Ramos at Madrid was a beast though a brilliant player attacking wise which more than made up for what he lacked defensively.
Granted United arguably had a better defence than Madrid have ever had in the late 00’s we were ridiculous at keeping clean sheets. So calm.
One of footballs mysteries is Madrid as the first team to win back to back CL titles and three in a row... It was like pinball watching some of their games.
They never had complete control like Barcelona did in 2009-2011 or the defensive solidarity of United 2008-2009
I think United should have won the trophy in 2007. It was a bit of an embarrassment losing to that Milan side.
Convenient of you to exclude his international career.
if Varane wasn’t a good defender then who was.
1x World Cup + 1 final
1x Euros Final
5 x Champions Leagues
3x La Liga
But yeah he was over rated.
P.S. Still our best defender by some distance
Why is ETH picking fights with all the players
Varane shone mostly with France. You can name his 4 champions leagues but end of the day he wasn’t the reason for any of those.
Rio and Vidic were the reason we won one and got to 3 finals in 4 years. That’s a difference. That was the best part of our team. He was arguably the weak link at Madrid.
It's the Dutch way of coaching.
Treats the ball like a hot potato, just like the rest of our defensive options aside from Martinez. He wouldn't be missed even in the dire straits we're in IMO.
Without wanting to derail this thread, I couldn't let this comment slide
it was an embarrassment losing to a Milan side containing Seedorf, Pirlo and Kaka (who went on to win the Ballon d'Or a few months later) when we had Brown and Hienze filling in at CB for the injured Rio and Vidic?United were easily the best side on the planet that season. Full fit side we should have gone past Milan comfortably.Without wanting to derail this thread, I couldn't let this comment slide
100% this.
The season is done tbh, I think so let them go. Input of £100m plus of funds to set up another go at transfer roulette.
If we could get £35m for each it could kick start another rebuild without their huge wages crippling us. That would be a good start, they are great but ultimately replaceable players.
I don't agree with that. If you had a conversation last season about the best CB pairing in the CL, Martinez/Varane would be in that conversation.
If he's miles better than Maguire then surely the solution is to keep him around, sell Maguire and replace Maguire with someone we can develop into a top CB through playing him when Varane is out.
Still bollocks. He's still great when he's healthy.
You people are telling yourself fairytales with this line of reasoning. As if you could ditch Casemiro and Varane for good money and get in someone who can effectively replace them at a much lower cost and with a lot more future ahead of them.
Firstly, the clear likelihood is any replacements good enough to be the regular starting RCB and defensive midfield anchor is going to cost a good deal more than we get for them, and also to earn not very dissimilar wages. The ones who won't are also unlikely to be similar quality. That's why they're cheaper. People imagine you can pick up great young players for 25m and have them go in and do the job of your high-paid veterans, but how often do you really see that happen at a top club?
Secondly, if what you want is to upgrade from behind (ie, get in younger players who aren't starting quality yet, but who will be), the way to do that is not to sell your best players and then rely on a combination of second-stringers who aren't up to scratch as starters and youngsters who aren't there yet. The way to do that is to keep your best veterans around while easing in the youngbloods, and ditch your secondstringers. IE, sell off players like Maguire, McTominay, Eriksen if you want to make room for youth.
For a period they were up there, but not over the course of the entire season. Both of them fluctuated in form a bit too much, and of course both had their injury issues. They ended up only starting 16 PL games together.
I think that would be the ideal scenario, but it's obvious from the summer he's not going to leave this season. It will be easier to shift him in the summer, especially if he ends up playing most of the season and doing alright - which to his credit, he is at the moment.
I think you've gotta play the hand your dealt, rather than go for the ideal scenario. In an ideal world he'd stay fit all season and would be the first name on the team sheet.
Rio and Vida were difference but Varane (with Ramos) wasn't? I fail to understand this logic. He was labelled as one of the best defenders in the world. Even Rio (who would now that stuff) said that. And all of sudden, Varane is a fraud and finished? With being only 30y old?
So Ronaldo scoring 42 goals thats season had nothing to do with it?
He is a quality defender no doubt, do think was always slightly over rated though in that Madrid pairing and Ramos always under rated.
But he was average in his first season here and so far this season. Thought he was very good last season though and it looked a proper partnership with Martinez.
But the facts are he is in his 30s, on £250k a week and has injury issues, realistically we are paying £500k a game for him here and will go up and up over his remaining years.
Sadly the game is about money much more now and personally one of or big problems ransfer wise has been moving on players de to the big salaries....yet consistently handing out big new contracts to so called star players after they play well for for months in a season like Rashford and Fernandes.
Personally should be movign on all the players on hge contracts here as none of them are worth it, bt thats another story.
I still rate Varane highly....but like Casemeiro, Eriksen, Matic, Ibrahimovic and a few others....barely any have worked out anything but short term as in a season and Varane is similar, I thought his quiet leadership and mentality wold be big in the dressing room, bt that doest seem to be the case.
If we can get a decent fee for him, plently of reason to move him on, but bar Martinez, Shaw and Bissaka.....would happily see all of or defenders moved on and even with the wage and injry issues, most of them over Varane. Not signing a quality centre back in the summer was or biggest error in a poor transfer window and it shows now, no surprise to me at all
But he was average in his first season here and so far this season. Thought he was very good last season though and it looked a proper partnership with Martinez.
But the facts are he is in his 30s, on £250k a week and has injury issues, realistically we are paying £500k a game for him here and will go up and up over his remaining years.
Sadly the game is about money much more now and personally one of or big problems ransfer wise has been moving on players de to the big salaries....yet consistently handing out big new contracts to so called star players after they play well for for months in a season like Rashford and Fernandes.
Personally should be movign on all the players on hge contracts here as none of them are worth it, bt thats another story.
I still rate Varane highly....but like Casemeiro, Eriksen, Matic, Ibrahimovic and a few others....barely any have worked out anything but short term as in a season and Varane is similar, I thought his quiet leadership and mentality wold be big in the dressing room, bt that doest seem to be the case.
If we can get a decent fee for him, plently of reason to move him on, but bar Martinez, Shaw and Bissaka.....would happily see all of or defenders moved on and even with the wage and injry issues, most of them over Varane. Not signing a quality centre back in the summer was or biggest error in a poor transfer window and it shows now, no surprise to me at all
He costs a lot and doesn't play an awful lot due to always being injured. It's not a great combination. Just like we can't rely on Martial because he's always injured, it's the same for this guy.
We need to stop signing players on the way down.
We need to stop signing players on the way down.
He was 28 when he signed, is 28 the new 32?
We need him and Casemiro straight out.
Their winning mentality is not what the rest of the squad are about!
The 'way down' doesn't just have to refer to age. It refers to fitness, accumulation of injuries, and lots of other factors. The guy has already won everything at Madrid - he's not hungry for success because he's already had tons of it. It's not the same with a player on the opposite end of the scale who has everything to prove and everything to be gained.
I'd be very happy to see Varane and Martial go in January, just as long as we get either a defender or striker in return.
They just can't be trusted to be there when you need them.
I'd rather keep Casemiro for now though.
They just can't be trusted to be there when you need them.
I'd rather keep Casemiro for now though.
And they are both old. Too old. I mean, Varane is 30. Casemiro even worse; 31!
Finished players. I don't know how they still play football.
Yes, they are younger or same age than Lewa, Salah, Van Dijk, Kroos, De Bruyne, Benzema, Kane.....but lets just ignore that.
In United there is one rule; when you hit 30, you are dead basically.
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I keep reading this and it makes no sense to me. Depending how things go against Everton we'll be somewhere between 6 and 9 points off the top of the league in late November while having had to deal with an unbelievable number of injuries. Teams have come back from more than that in Feb/Mar let alone November. We also have the FA cup and either the Europa League or Champions league to play for also. If you just quit on a season when you go through a period of adversity of course you're going to lose every year.
Another idea might be to try and hang in there until we get some of our key injured back (Shaw, Martinez, Casemiro, Ericksen) and get some of our underperformers performing (Rashford, Antony, Hojlund, Mount, Varane) and see if we can't go on a run. We just might end up with a trophy.
That team was mostly built on a rock solid defence. Definitely the strongest part of the side was the back line and keeper chemistry.
That United side is one of the greatest back lines in history it was just next level. There are maybe 1 or 2 that ever have bettered it.
Maybe Milan in the late 80’s did and Chelsea came close under Jose but it’s hard to name any sides in history that were as impressive in defence. 14 clean sheets in a row is god tier.
He is and was a very good player but he’s not Rio or Vidic. Vidic was a monster around 2011 time. His stats were insane.
Varane has never reached that level of dominance week in week out and for me Rio was just a better footballer than Varane all round apart from sprint speed.
United’s in 08-09 was just better at keeping out goals than any Madrid side in history. It’s legendary how good that United side were at shutting teams out.
I’ll give Madrid flowers for their trophies but they ain’t the best at everything in football history. Some fans pretend that they are but they just aren’t.
I’ve seen some more modern fans claiming they were greater than Pep’s Barcelona even which is again a crazy point of view to anyone with eyes.
The best modern era Real side was under Jose. That year when they beat peak Barcelona to the league title was a fantastic achievement.
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That's not gonna kickstart anything - on the contrary it will create two gaping holes in the lineup that is going to cost a lot more than 70m to fill.
If you think we have better players than them in their position already in the squad and that losing Casemiro and Varane isn't going to weaken the squad much, then it makes sense to support selling them.
But let's stay real here - selling them and then replacing them is NOT going to save us money. And it's not going to be simple or easy to replace what we lose. In all likelihood, it will make us a worse team.
ETH falling out with an ever increasing list of high profile players is problematic. He seem to lack in man management skills. And is failing to adapt and squeeze out what's there in his squad to his and the club's benefit.
Varane isn't one for the future, that's clear to see. But what's the point in falling out like this? Would have been better to utilise and phase out silently and classy.
We're horribly run.
Varane isn't one for the future, that's clear to see. But what's the point in falling out like this? Would have been better to utilise and phase out silently and classy.
We're horribly run.
Exactly this. Ideally I'd get rid of Maguire as well. However, right now, if I had to keep one, I'd pick Maguire. Varane is still the better pure defender of the two and is quicker but has availability problems and is poor on the ball. The Saudi league gives us an opportunity to sell both him and Casemiro for close to what we paid while getting their full wages off the book.
The club knew what they were in for when they were going in for Varane. He's a quality defender who's unfortunately injury prone. Somewhat like Matip for Liverpool. For all Matip and his injury prone nature , he's quite often been Liverpool's best defender when fit as well.
Instead of getting more defenders in so that Varane is used better , United want to let him go.
Let him go and do what , give Maguire a new contract ?
Varane is comfortably United's best defender. And now United want to let him go. Sheesh , hold on to him for another 2 years. People like him would be immense in the dressing room as well. And then phase him out.
The state of the club and the fanbase , we keep wanting to ditch someone at the earliest. Liverpool would love to have someone like Varane in and we want to get a quality defender out ?
And for people saying that he's not been integral to Real Madrid , look at how poor Madrid are defensively after Varane has left.
Casemiro can go , it was a mistake buying him when its clear that he wasn't good enough at Madrid.
Instead of getting more defenders in so that Varane is used better , United want to let him go.
Let him go and do what , give Maguire a new contract ?
Varane is comfortably United's best defender. And now United want to let him go. Sheesh , hold on to him for another 2 years. People like him would be immense in the dressing room as well. And then phase him out.
The state of the club and the fanbase , we keep wanting to ditch someone at the earliest. Liverpool would love to have someone like Varane in and we want to get a quality defender out ?
And for people saying that he's not been integral to Real Madrid , look at how poor Madrid are defensively after Varane has left.
Casemiro can go , it was a mistake buying him when its clear that he wasn't good enough at Madrid.
Varane is infinitely better than Jonny Evans and Harry Maguire. To suggest otherwise is bat shit crazy
Couldn't Maguire just say that he's been playing better and that he was dropped last season even behind Shaw because he played crap. Now the shoe is on the other foot.
He’s a disciplinarian and has plenty of background in youth coaching, you can clearly see he’s trying to convey similar coaching methods to a senior team.