Agree. It's a bit of a mess really.
Its a genuine embarrassment when you think of the money that's been spent since Sir Alex retired. Our squad has one #6 who's pretty close to the Travellers yard. A handful of #8s, of whom only Pogba would be sought after by any other top team (and I think we've established he's better in a middle three than a double pivot). Then a bunch of #10s from Bruno to Mata, the last of whom may as well be the invisible man for all the top flight games he'll get this season.
If you gave the money that was spent on just Matic, Fred and Van de Beek to a top, top sporting director you could have revamped the United midfield in a summer and got a good attacking right back to boot.
This squad is a hotchpotch of players, which is basically relying on people being so scared of what we've got up top that they won't come out and expose our flaws.
Sorry but no, i agree that our midfield is awful, which boggles my mind even more when he keeps persisting with Mctominay and Fred when they are both awful, at this point i don’t feel sorry for him when he doesn’t give a run of games to VDB in the middle, or move Pogba to the middle, or try something, he is persisting with something that just isn’t working, on a consistent basis, maybe the other options aren’t great but i refuse to believe having VDB in the middle is going to be any worse than Fred especially when he said himself that VDB can play in that role.
Not only that, but yes, i agree no top club is going to want to emulate our current midfield, however we aren’t talking about top clubs currently are we, are you honestly suggesting that we have a worse midfield/squad than Aston Villa, West Ham and dare i say it, Young Boys? Because as far as i’m concerned we have a good enough squad that we should not be playing this ‘McFred’ against the likes of AV and getting dominated.
I'll take Young Boys out of the equation because we played an hour with 10 men. However, yes I am seriously suggesting that our midfield is comparable to the other teams you mentioned.
Pogba does not want to play in a midfield pivot. No matter how much Ole tries to force him to do so. Van de Beek is a #10 masquerading as an #8. Perhaps Donny should be given more chances in the pivot. However, over the past season or so very little suggests he's up to scratch in that role.
I don't believe Moyes would swap Rice and Soucek for our options, for the system he wants to play with a double pivot. Villa would have Pogba but that's because they play 3-5-2 and Pogba likes a midfield three. We delude ourselves if we think the names in our squad mean we have a functioning array of talent for a 4-2-3-1. In fact I would question if we even have a complimentary enough set of midfielders to play a middle three. As I've said Matic's legs are dead.
Funny because he was the one signed AWB and Donny for 90m. The excuses has to stop and Ole just has to own up.
This is true. It doesn't mean that a new coach coming in won't throw his hands up at the makeup of our squad and say: 'This is a bit of a mess isn't it?'
I'm not saying Ole hasn't made some rods for his own back. Maybe he thought Wan-Bissaka would get better at attacking? He sure as s-t hasn't. Maybe he thought Donny could play in any of the midfield roles, as he did at Ajax. After 12 months though its yet to be seen.
However, if and when Ole goes that won't make our squad suddenly balanced. Wan-Bissaka isn't suddenly going to become Trent Alexander-Arnold. Pogba isn't going to suddenly like playing in the pivot. McTominay and Fred aren't going to start whipping balls about from #6 like Xabi Alonso.
If we win anything this season it'll be because of miraculous individual performances from Ronaldo. And if we change the manager that will still be the case until we fix the gaping holes in the squad.