Finally gone. How many times did we concede because he is so weak
2
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 25
- Clean sheets
- 6
- Goals
- 0
- Assists
- 0
- Yellow cards
- 0
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In the latest edition of the United Hour Podcast, we interview Duncan Drasdo of MUST - covering ticket prices, new stadium, INEOS and what fans should be demanding from our club.
Also, due to technical issues we couldn't put a notice up for the previous episode which was about the game against Bournemouth and other stuff. If you'd like to listen to it, click here.
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The only CB I've seen at the club who looked like he didnt want to defend
Not the best defender admittedly, weak in the challenge and that thing he did sticking his hands behind his back all the time became a bit stupid, but he gave me years of ammunition for winding @golden_blunder up and for that I'm really thankful. Loads of respect for Victor really. Hope he lands on his feet.
He never left the ground
At least not if he is trying to head the ball. The only CB I can remember who mastered the turtle approach to heading. Who would have thought that pulling your head into your back wasn't a great technique for winning headers?
All these comments are built from ignorance. During his time at United, we conceded more goals per match when he didn’t play compared to when he played. That’s stats from around 300 PL matches.
Hilariously it was only a couple of seasons back that he had better heading stats than Maguire which completely blew my mind.
Context is probably important here. I would estimate that he was often deployed in games we were expected to be comfortable, as he's terrible.
Sarcasm..?
It’s the perfect demonstration of how throwing out selective stats proves absolutely nothing.
That's definitely true for his more recent seasons, but after Smalling left in 2019, the only other competition (excluding Maguire) for centre-back was Bailly, Jones, Rojo, Fosu-Mensah and Tuanzebe.
We had two seasons where Lindelof not playing almost certainly meant playing a makeshift defense.
He even started more games than Varane in his first season, and started almost as many as him and Maguire in 23/24, starting more than Martinez.
Can you imagine the scene if the signs for us and first competitive game bags the winner against Arsenal on the first day of the season 
Mind bringing them up? I'll be interested in understanding what 'better' means here e.g having a higher win rate might not mean much if he contests much less/per 90 etc and if it was in a season where he was paired with Maguire, we all know the more aerially dominant player is always covered by the latter.
Also anybody remember the 'low' 'dribbled past' or 'mistakes leading to goals' that were used to paint him as some great containment defender? His fanboys were really something else.
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That’s because he only goes for headers he can win, whereas Maguire goes for it and tries to disrupt the opponent’s momentum even if he can’t win it.
Lindelof’s stats will look better, but anyone who watches the game will know whose heading was more effective in actually helping the team defend.
What are you gonna do now that your boy has gone? Stay, or follow him?
Stockholm syndrome.
Stockholm syndrome is deluding yourself into feeling sympathy and pity for the Swede who held us hostage with his poor performances.
Stockholm syndrome is deluding yourself into feeling sympathy and pity for the Swede who held us hostage with his poor performances.
He doesn’t perform for us anymore, lock it up. Please throw away the key. Never want to relive the days he played here.
I don’t see any pattern like that. If you see one, let me know.
Selective? I think conceded goals are relevant stats in a discussion where some people claim we conceded more goals when he played. You may not like him but facts are we conceded less when he played. And again, the stats come from a large number of minutes. Probably one of the reasons why so many coaches picked him as they are more result driven and not so concerned about if someone is “back peddling” as long as it is efficient.
A more relevant question is whom you will pick on now. I’m sure you’ll find someone.
Quite interesting he still doesnt have a club. But I guess Hasan Çetinkaya, who is also the CEO of HCM Sports Management, who is also the agent of Viktor Gyökeres, working around the clock finding a club for him at the moment. In the meantime Victor is taking care of his new born
This is a bit like when Keith in Finance leaves. He's been at the company for ages, he's always around the place - whenever you see him in the kitchen or wherever you give him a nod and say hi - but in the 10 years you've worked together you've never actually had one meaningful conversation with him. Now his leaving card/collection has come across your desk, and you don't really feel like you should throw any money in there... but you find a quid in your pocket and chuck it in the envelope, and you write on the card... "All the best" .
I don’t think he ever won more aerials than Maguire. His official PL stats are 2.2 won aerials /90 minutes as an average of all his seasons. I think that is pretty average for a centre back It could be compared with this season:
Maguire 3.1
De Ligt 2.4
Lindelof 2.0
Yoro 1.1
Martinez 0.8
Every time year end comes around, Keith's off with a mysterious gastro bug that disappears when the new FY begins.
Well as long as I think that they are at the right level I won’t moan (so much). From day one I never thought Lindelof was the right CB for us and I was right
Although he seems like a good guy he gets a lot of criticism in Sweden (with the national team) for being so soft. He always says absolutely nothing in interviews and rarely shows any kind of emotion or winning mentality. He's the worst player (to play that many matches) we've ever had at the club. He's completely ruined having a fellow swede at United. How he survived this long is beyond me. I hope he quits the national team as well, he's by far the worst captain I've seen for Sweden as well. The fact that he makes a living as an athlete is astounding.
Sure but don't you guys eat Surstromming? I don't know if we can trust you
He had the odd solid performance, but overall he was usually all over the place.
In fairness to him, in the current environment of players whining and kicking off when they are not in the team, Victor has held himself with respect in that regard. Been a professional throughout and put his head down when asked to play (even if not so well) . Good luck to him wherever is next
In fairness to him, in the current environment of players whining and kicking off when they are not in the team, Victor has held himself with respect in that regard. Been a professional throughout and put his head down when asked to play (even if not so well) . Good luck to him wherever is next
At the 2018 World Cup, a Swedish journalist revealed that one particular player in the Swedish team was so nervous ahead of kick-off that he threw up in the dressing room.
Lindelöf was probably delighted every time he was left out of the United XI so he could hide on the bench and collect free money.
Never heard that
. Some people just not cut out for the pressure then!For a big lad, he def was a bit of a soft touch alright
My roots are from the balkans, I would never touch that.
A good servant to the club over the years, never moaned or caused any controversy, was always professional and played wherever he was asked. I feel if he was playing in a better United side he would have been spared some of the criticism he is receiving but alas that was not the case. A decent centre back but not top level, farewell Victor!
A nothing player.
Would have to be one of the worst CBs in our history.
Would have to be one of the worst CBs in our history.
This just made me look at the list of players with over 250 appearances for us...
And yeah, you're probably right (in terms of players I'd have knowledge of) - other then him you're looking at the likes of Ashley Young, Smalling or Silvestre - and put all of those above Victor.
It's incredibly selective and has zero context.
Moving games in which he came on late and we didn't concede into the "didn't play" column, because you're just manipulating the "per game" criteria by counting a two minute cameo as a game played without conceding:
2017/18 - 1 goal per game conceded when he was playing (15 games), 0.57 goals per game conceded when he wasn't (23 games)
2018/19 - 1.33 goals per game conceded when he was playing (30 games), 1.4 goals per game conceded when he wasn't (10 games)
2019/20 - 0.91 goals per game conceded when he was playing (35 games), 1 goal per game conceded when he wasn't (4 games)
2020/21 - 1.03 goals per game conceded when he was playing (29 games), 1.4 goals per game conceded when wasn't (10 games)*
2021/22 - 1.74 goals per game conceded when he was playing (27 games), 0.91 goals per game conceded when he wasn't (11 games)
2022/23 - 1.12 goals per game conceded when he was playing (17 games), 1.09 goals per game conceded when he wasn't (22 games)**
2023/24 - 0.89 goals per game conceded when he was playing (18 games), 1.68 goals per game conceded when he wasn't (24 games)
2024/25 - 0.27 goals per game conceded when he was playing (11 games), 1.7 goals per game conceded when he wasn't (30 games)
Through his entire career at the club, we average 1.11 goals per game conceded when he is playing and 1.27 goals per game conceded when he isn't. Up to the end of 2022/23, the average was 1.2 goals per game conceded while he was playing and 0.99 goals per game when he wasn't.
If you go from 2018/19 to the end of 2021/22, which is basically his stint as a regular starter, it was 1.23 goals per game conceded while he was playing, and 1.2 goals per game conceded when he wasn't.
Literally the only way to make out that Victor Lindelof had any sort of positive impact on our defensive contributions is if you, bizarrely, believe he'd have been a difference maker these past two seasons. Up until that point, we were conceding more goals per game with him in the team, even while he was at his supposed "peak".
* 14 goals conceded - 4 came after we went down to 10-men in that freak 6-1 loss against Spurs - it was 1 goal per game conceded while he didn't play, while we still had 11 men on the pitch
** 24 goals conceded - 11 came in the two freak results against Brentford and Liverpool (4-0 and 7-0) - it was 0.65 goals per game conceded while he didn't play across the other 20 matches
Without a shadow of doubt. Our manager not having the ability to field him, will naturally improve us.
Yes, and they were english which was beneficial for squad registration purposes as well.
A crap CB who somehow convinced people on here that it's acceptable to be that bad at defending. I wish him all the best for the future.
Can't believe there are people arguing against him being an awful CB... he was physically weak and a coward, not quick, don't think I ever saw him slide tackle, think he lost about 9/10 headers(most likely wrong with this stat, but sure felt like watching him all these years here).
Only positive thing I could say about him is, he was calm on the ball and had a decent long ball(which he rarely used).
Only positive thing I could say about him is, he was calm on the ball and had a decent long ball(which he rarely used).
I think he was decent on the ball at times. But he was physically bullied too often, and did not have any real outstanding qualities as a defender. For some periods I did not mind him as a 4th choice style CB, but the partnership with Maguire was bad.
Best of luck to him, but it's good that we are not renewing.
Best of luck to him, but it's good that we are not renewing.
Such a stupid post. You would believe there are loads of players being nervous ahead of games.
That is not how stats work.
In reality this argyment is about as convincing as saying you’ve got a lucky £2 coin because it landed heads six times out of ten.
Here’s why. Two averages on their own don’t tell you whether the gap is real or just random wobble. Proper stats work starts with a hypothesis test: you assume there’s no difference (that’s the null hypothesis) and you ask, “How unlikely is it to get a gap this big purely by chance?” If the answer is “not very unlikely at all”, the numbers are noise and you move on. You also wrap each average in a confidence interval – a range that says, “The true value is probably somewhere in here.” If those ranges overlap heavily, the gap you’re bragging about isn’t worth a penny.
Think of it like trying to work out if a die is loaded when you’ve only rolled each version a dozen times. Die A averages 3.8, die B averages 3.4. Does that mean die A is special? Maybe. But roll counts that small swing wildly: one extra six or a couple of twos and the averages flip. Until you roll hundreds of times – or at least run the proper significance tests – anyone claiming Die A is better is just guessing.
Same with Lindelöf. We’re not checking the opposition quality, the minutes he actually plays, who his partners are, what the match situation is, or whether he’s jogging around for the last three minutes while we park the bus. Without that context and without significance checks, “fewer goals with Vic” is just another pub-talk superstition. Sadly, the broader truth is simpler: Lindelöf has been exactly what United have been for most of the last decade – middling, occasionally decent, often fragile – and that standard is nowhere near good enough for a club with Man Utds ambitions.
He will leave and likely not play for a club anywhere near Man Utds level again. Not to say Man Utds desired level.
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