Smalling is useless on the ball, jones is always injured, rojo has picked up a lot of big injuries and only recently showed good form, tuanzebe is a kid who has a way to go, blind is good on the ball but slow and weak and not tall so wont ever be Mourinhos first choice. A center back was necessary, especially a ball playing one to hopefully form a good partnership with the rest.
2
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 29
- Clean sheets
- 13
- Goals
- 0
- Assists
- 0
- Yellow cards
- 1
- Status
Koulibally is the only one of those players Utd may of had a chance of buying.. Silva/Bonucci no chance, Pepe unless it's on a free / bit part player wouldn't be worth the risk due to being on the decline.
I'm a terrible man.So you are a regular watcher of Benfica then?
Thiago Silva has been bad in the last year.
I say give a new player a successful manager wanted a chance as he has only played 45 minutes. FORTY FIVE MINUTES. and you say I have a poor argument. Enough said!
Im not sure where you are getting at. You said you wouldnt take someone like Bonucci or Pepe over Bailly, which I compared.
? Have I said he's bad? I have watched him before and dont think he's world class, it has nothing to do with the 45 mins I didnt watch.
Yes I wouldn't trade a 35 year old pepe for a 23 year old top defender. That makes too much sense right.
It was his debut in his first friendly ffs
Well disagree with that a lot myself, I was quite impressed with our defence last season. Things like Blind is weak and slow are barely arguments as he has often shown that that arent really hindrances for him to compete.
He is 22 why would he be world class?
Pepe is still one of the best defenders in the world, I'd say we need a few players who are of elite level right now. The gap to other teams like Spurs, Liverpool, Arsenal is getting smaller by the week.
The mind boggles
You dont seem to disagree with me then? I'd say a world class defender would lift our defence to another level, other than that I was quite content with our defence line yes. Everyone keeps bashing our defenders but they have done their job for the past 3 years.
I dont think anyone is judging him on those 45 min, but surely you can believe that so it fits your narrative.
If he was one of the best,he wouldnt be playing in a Turkish league. He is Injury prone and past his peak. Don't want another bastian type guy who think united as some of a retirement home.
You wont find that post cause everyone (including mou) saw bailly as too young to immediately win a first team place. It turned out that bailly was decent and the rest were not.
However you can find many posts in january who were happy with lindelof deal not going through and/or asking if we need another cb
Did you watch the Euro's? Real wanted to keep him but he wanted a two-year contract min, whilst other european top clubs offeren him a one-year deal. (His age).
You are making no sense. Nobody buys a 22 year old defender thinking he is the finished article. There are very few elite CB's right now and even fewer available to buy. Lindelof was bought for his percieved potential.
Thats why I think he was unnecessary, as I dont think that'll really improve us at the moment. If we strengthened the defence, I'd want it to be an elite defender. Not another talent.
And who exactly is this worldclass who is available? VVD at 60m ? No thanks - he still got lot to prove!
Probably would have preferred Rudiger but then he is not a finished article either. Bottomline - all the realistic options available this year were pretty much young defenders who is ready to make to the next level. Moreover, In case of defenders, I trust Jose. Do you really think we wouldnt have moved for VVD or Rudiger if we thought they are better options?
I have said this before, our scouts are pretty much spot on when identifying potential in terms of defenders.
Probably would have preferred Rudiger but then he is not a finished article either. Bottomline - all the realistic options available this year were pretty much young defenders who is ready to make to the next level. Moreover, In case of defenders, I trust Jose. Do you really think we wouldnt have moved for VVD or Rudiger if we thought they are better options?
I have said this before, our scouts are pretty much spot on when identifying potential in terms of defenders.
We have a good defence as it is, but it's very reliant on Bailly. Rojo had a very good half season... but then tore his acl so there's no way to know if he'll come back in good form or not. Considering most of his career he's been a bit shit defensively... I wouldn't hold my breath. Blind is a good player all around but it's obvious that Mourinho doesn't see him as a first choice center back. Mourinho wants to form a clear first choice defence, and we don't have that yet and didn't have one last season. Not a chance in hell that Mourinho would go into the season with one of Smalling/Jones as starters.
That was because the price quoted was around 60m Euros at that time and not this. It wasn't about his quality.
The stuff he did well, he did very well. But there were a lot of issues. People can comment on the issues. But I'd guess Jose knows how to spot a defender and will iron out those issues over time.
What you're implying is some United fans have an immediate distaste for foreign Lindelof because of some non communicated, secret agenda for English Jones/Smalling. Which is baffling because they're constantly criticised on here along with another english player in Rooney.
What you've actually done is gone and made a snide comment on Little-Englander syndrome, as you seem to be partial to do, over and over, except this time you messed up because nobody but nobody.. wants to go into next season relying on either Jones/Smalling as first choice.
But how will a 35 year old defender solve our defensive issue. Maybe for one season, then what. We have to again go and buy a defender. And it is not easy to buy a world-class defender. No major team will like to sell their world class defender.
Lindelof was very much required considering rojo is injured and Jones cannot be trusted any more.
He's played half a pre season game!! lol
So is he supposed to be good on the ball? Because apparently Stones is also good on the ball as his opposition can testify.
What i am amplying is that some people are more patient with british/homegrown talent then foreign ones. Case in point is shaw who had been a big a waste of space for us but he still have many fans in here
People are fickle. They will defend these players because of this imaginary british backbone only to turn against them the moment the manager says a thing or two against them. I was one of the few who thought that hodor is not good for first team and was again in the minority defending him against those who wanted him out.
Last edited:
Surely 1/2 a pre-season match with 2 days training is more than enough to justify some writing him off already no???
Its more than that. Many felt that we didnt need another cb cause the smalling/jones are good enough. Others wanted a bonucci to do the thinking for them.
I think thats a fair observement yes. I think Blind/Jones could do well enough to serve as temporary stand-ins myself. Lindelof himself will probably be trying to get used to the PL for the time Rojo is injured.
As someone who was watched Tuanzebe for quite some time since he was in the u18's. He's a talent, when you play him, he"ll become our own Lindelof. Young defensive talent who's very good on the ball and composed. Fwiw I think he has more potential than any other CB in the 1st team. But I can understand why Mou would want another defender if he were not to trust Blind and Jones.
We dont have a defensive issue imo, he'd make our defence even better for as long as he can. But thats just a name. If it isnt Pepe, then Koulibaly, Bonucci, Marquinhos or something.
I myself quite like the cover we have, not many other teams have Jones, Blind as cover. Even Smalling can still prove his worth, although he was very dissapointing. If you feel that Lindelof is a certainly far better option than those, than I can understand your sentiment towards it, yes. I myself dont think we'd be any worse if we didnt sign him. But as he's here, we all want him to succeed.
And nobody's writing him off on 45-min ffs(not pointed towards you).
Looked quite flat footed, some dodgy decision making but I don't think anyone's genuinely writing him off after 45 minutes against LA Galaxy ffs.
He made some misteps. meh.
I'm not worried about the defence.
Mourinho experimented with 3 at the back is all.
I'm not worried about the defence.
Mourinho experimented with 3 at the back is all.
Not for me. With Axel we now have 7 CBs.
So Axel who has played how many minutes of senior football is ready but an international CB isnt?
Rojo is out till Xmas isn't he? so that's 6 & he's honestly the only one that I'd want partnering Bailly as first choice.
Bailly is the only one good enough to be starting game after game.
So who will partner Bailly? Smalling, dreadful positoning & defending set pieces, one of the worst players I've seen on the ball. Although he's probably one of the best in the league in 1 on 1s / marking players out of the game. Also, guranteed to get injured at some point.
Jones, poor positionally, wreckless at times better than Smalling in some regards especially on the ball but also guranteed injuries at some point.
Blind, decent at the back but easily caught out with pace / poor on set pieces due to his height. Great on the ball / good positioning, the perfect back up player but not good enough for 1 st choice.
Tuanzebe, Could be a great player one day, 'could' he's not yet there.
It might seem like defensively last season we were solid but that's partly due to rarely committing anyone bar attackers forward.
This season at some point Utd will park the bus, very likely towards the end of the season similar to this season, are you comfortable with Bailly / one of the above options holding onto a 1-0 lead? I'm not. Considering just how many points Utd lost while parking the bus last season.
If you have followed United the last couple of seasons you should know that defensive issues is more then defend goals. Without patronizing try to see the bigger picture.
Last season we had serious problems in our build up. Carrick/Herrera had to pick up the ball in line with our centre backs, that itself made us slow, took away our counter attacking options and helped our opponents to have ten players behind the ball. Only Bailly and Rojo had the quality to occasionally start our built up fast enough to give us a numerous advantage. That's was one of our main problem we had last season.
Lindelöf isnt bought so we can win more games against top six, short term his main purpose is to help our defense to speed up our ball control in defense and let our midfielders collecting the ball higher up in the pitch. With a new defensive mid as a hub our new set up will give more players license to push up and more freedom to participate in our attack. That's why getting Matic/Dier/Fabinho is so important.
Secondly with more ball controlling quality players many of our opponents have to adapt to our game instead of vice verse. With two strikers/forwards with different skills our offense line will occupy more defenders then Zlatan did alone last season. Lukaku brings power and brutal force to the table, Rashford speed, Martial dribbling skills and Mata creativity. Alla of them have quality enough to score plenty of goals in one on one or two on two situations. Last season our offensive was often relying on Zlatan or Marcus to produce moments of brilliance.
As we saw against Galaxy we tried to play on the counter. Most of our chances started when we broke up an attack and with speed and quick passes we created good chances.
Lindelöf main quality is his smartness and vision to bring others in to play. That's where he will be an upgrade from last couple of seasons. Defensive wise he's not better, probabaly worse in the air, but solid enough to be part of a three man defense. If Mourinho find his defensive quality on par with Smalling/Jones he will also probably be part of a two man centre back duo. But with 55+ games in front of us all of our defenders will contribute at one point or another. We need them all.
- Status