You can’t compete for title with a Mcfred in a double pivot let alone no depth. It’s negligent and incompetent not to have bought at least one midfielder.
Which midfielder do you prefer?
- Thread starter bond19821982
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Nik (@Rood) and Imran (@Annihilate Now!) discuss United's fantastic win away against Athletic Club in the semi-final of the Europa League.
They also pick out the positives of United's 4-3 loss away at Brentford, and Nik reviews a day out at Old Trafford watching Manchester United Women qualify for the Champions League.
Fred, McTominay and Matic aren't good enough to win the league with.
Centre back, right wing and holding midfield all needed to be improved for us to win the league and we got 2 out of 3.
Matic is not even mid table quality, he's done.
Matic past it, VDB not trusted, Fred and McTominay average footballers at very best, Pogba potentially on his way out and not playing in midfield anyway. Our midfield needs an overhaul.
The plus side of which is that given we'll ultimately need more than one midfielder, it doesn't really matter which type we bring in first. DM, box-to-box, whatever. Just bring in someone who is good enough to start for us week in and week out this season.
The plus side of which is that given we'll ultimately need more than one midfielder, it doesn't really matter which type we bring in first. DM, box-to-box, whatever. Just bring in someone who is good enough to start for us week in and week out this season.
At this point, I'll take anyone who won't lose the ball when passing more than 5 yards.
Why the feck did we decide to ruin Donny VDB's life?
One that can control & pass a football preferably.
Anyone who can actually PASS it half decent will do
Is it even about preference. There are easily a good twenty or so possible purchases we could make would be upgrades to huge improvements on the current options.
I understand we may need to sell first and we have players on big contracts but come on, there are so many players still here we could sell or should have who wont get huge amount of minutes or shouldt anyway.......
Henderson, Tuanzabe, Jones, Telles, Dalot, Bailly, VDB, Pereira, Lingard, Martial, Mata, James.....
Surely from that lot we can make some sales that are enough to purchase a quality central midfielder....the vast majority would be under £40m
I understand we may need to sell first and we have players on big contracts but come on, there are so many players still here we could sell or should have who wont get huge amount of minutes or shouldt anyway.......
Henderson, Tuanzabe, Jones, Telles, Dalot, Bailly, VDB, Pereira, Lingard, Martial, Mata, James.....
Surely from that lot we can make some sales that are enough to purchase a quality central midfielder....the vast majority would be under £40m
Do we really have any options so late ? Are we even planning to bring in a midfielder with James money ? Think that money will just cover Ronaldo transfer fees which was never in our plans.
I go for Rice
Yeah much like we saw when Maguire came in from the Lukaku fee
Could do worse than Ward-Prowse. He's a very good all round midfielder with good energy. Reckon you could play him a midfield pair and he'd recycle the ball to the attackers quickly.
Bellingham next summer.
My top choice would be Verratti but no way do PSG ever let him leave in a million years, so think our DM targets are
1 Rice
2 ?
3 ?
4 ?
1 Rice
2 ?
3 ?
4 ?
Im scouting and have close eyes on Tchouameni and Tielemans this season.
Joshua Kimmich is a dream and i have gave up. Bayern Munich will not sell. Even he dont want to leave...for a new challenge. Joshua Kimmich as nr.8 would. Combine with Bruno as nr.10 and United youngster. The ideal and perfect line up.
Then you have the italian dont end up at premier league. Like Nicola Barella and Locatelli will end up in premier league. Because they are Italians. They just want to eat pasta everyday.
But we have seen the unique and icon Di Canio for West Ham. Zola for Chelsea. Same as Gianluca Vialli. So some italians did actually end up in premier league. So i think we can throw the sentence italian will never or not prefer premier league in the carbage and trash bag for good.
So my top 3 right now. On my scouting notebook:
Tchouameni
Tielemans
Barella from Inter
or try to test Bayern Munich willingness to sell Joshua Kimmich. 200 £ mill on the table for Kimmich and end his career at Old Trafford.
A Joshua Kimmich as United nr.8 and allround nr.6/CM player. Will definitely bring ch.league or premier league title to United. From his 27 next year to the end of his career. A garantue of biggest trophies. A dream and ideal signing. Realistic is another question.
Joshua Kimmich is a dream and i have gave up. Bayern Munich will not sell. Even he dont want to leave...for a new challenge. Joshua Kimmich as nr.8 would. Combine with Bruno as nr.10 and United youngster. The ideal and perfect line up.
Then you have the italian dont end up at premier league. Like Nicola Barella and Locatelli will end up in premier league. Because they are Italians. They just want to eat pasta everyday.
But we have seen the unique and icon Di Canio for West Ham. Zola for Chelsea. Same as Gianluca Vialli. So some italians did actually end up in premier league. So i think we can throw the sentence italian will never or not prefer premier league in the carbage and trash bag for good.
So my top 3 right now. On my scouting notebook:
Tchouameni
Tielemans
Barella from Inter
or try to test Bayern Munich willingness to sell Joshua Kimmich. 200 £ mill on the table for Kimmich and end his career at Old Trafford.
A Joshua Kimmich as United nr.8 and allround nr.6/CM player. Will definitely bring ch.league or premier league title to United. From his 27 next year to the end of his career. A garantue of biggest trophies. A dream and ideal signing. Realistic is another question.
Here's a scenario....
Pogba leaves on a Freebie.
Donny leaves
Mata & Matic both retire
Fred continues to be shite
McT isnt much better
How many MFs do we go into the market for..???
Pogba leaves on a Freebie.
Donny leaves
Mata & Matic both retire
Fred continues to be shite
McT isnt much better
How many MFs do we go into the market for..???
It'll be Frank Kessie on a free, Trippier on the cheap and Haaland.
Or have you forgotten it has taken us over a decade to buy a right winger.
In an ideal world, we need 3 MF. A backup for Bruno, and starting midfielders for the double pivot with Fred and McT being backups. If we want to be a little crazy, we can groom Mejbri to be the backup for Bruno. Then we just need to buy a Bissouma as destroyer and Neves as DLP. Both premier league proven and could be bought for €70-80m in aggregate. I presume we will make some money from selling DVB in the above scenario.
While these two are probably not WC but they are Low risk signings (not expensive like Rice and premier league proven). We hopefully have better balance and are rid of chronic issues like how to fit in Pog and when exactly will DVB play. Gives our front four freedom and some
Service to do their thing. Neves has the range of passing to keep feeding the forwards.
He's being linked to Liverpool in the media right now as we are to Rice but I think Dortmund will want to hold on to him. I think he'll be there for another couple of seasons at least if they have their way, like Sancho leaving at 21
This year pretty much showed that most "in the knows" know very very little. We all knew Sancho was joining. Nobody predicted Varane a year ago... and as for Ronaldo he was apparently going to the Emptihad right up until the day before he joined us according to those experts...
Does he really solve the problem we have? If Pogba leaves he's a great replacement, but we would still need an actual defensive midfielder. Bellingham isn't that; he plays alongside Wistel for Dortmund and Rice for England.
Tyler Adams
edit: rest of my post got cut off apparently so I’ll do it again.
For what United needs I think Adams is the perfect fit. Superb athleticism and work rate and he reads the game so well for someone so young (21). He’s a good dribbler and can turn and run with the ball if space is available. His passing is improving and is miles ahead of where it was before he got to Germany. Most importantly though he is tenacious and a real leader and director on the pitch. Amazing player.
edit: rest of my post got cut off apparently so I’ll do it again.
For what United needs I think Adams is the perfect fit. Superb athleticism and work rate and he reads the game so well for someone so young (21). He’s a good dribbler and can turn and run with the ball if space is available. His passing is improving and is miles ahead of where it was before he got to Germany. Most importantly though he is tenacious and a real leader and director on the pitch. Amazing player.
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I really like Caqueret. He is only small but he has a really good passing range and is very tenacious with the ball. He would be excellent for our side.
Dm and Rb in next window please.
Have we been linked with João Palhinha? Wouldn't be shabby for Portugal having more of their players playing together at club level both at United and City.
If Pogba leaves and Matic is moved on then we need two midfielders so I’d go for Rice and Bellingham which alongside McTominay, Fred and Garner is a great balance and five players for two spots so great depth.
I don’t think we’ll be in for Haaland now we have Ronaldo for at least two years so Rice and Bellingham then an alternative right back to AWB would be a great transfer window, Greenwood as Ronaldo’s back up as Cavani will go next summer and then Diallo coming in as Sancho’s back up.
I don’t think we’ll be in for Haaland now we have Ronaldo for at least two years so Rice and Bellingham then an alternative right back to AWB would be a great transfer window, Greenwood as Ronaldo’s back up as Cavani will go next summer and then Diallo coming in as Sancho’s back up.
For anyone that's interested in reading a detailed twitter thread on Maxence Caqueret, click below.
That's exactly what we desperately need.
If signing Declan Rice allows us to set up as we did against Newcastle without being completely open in midfield just pay the fee, sit back and smile. This assuming Pogba stays of course.
He's a player that is comfortable playing the #6 and #8 roles next to a more defensive midfielder (Rice - Tchouameni). He can drop deep and dictate play and also get forward and link defense with attack. He's basically a metronome similar to Verratti in some ways, with a surprisingly high work rate. And that work rate was for all to see when he made his UCL debut against Juventus when he covered a distance of 14km which is quite impressive for such a elegant player. And I believe we need these types of players who offer both art and industry if Solskjaer wants to successfully implement a expansive way of playing the game which I believe he's trying to achieve.
And in such a setup I believe you need your most defensive minded midfielder to have the ability to defend large spaces. So signing a DM like Rice or Tchouameni would be better for us compared to even signing Michael Carrick, who was better on the ball in comparison but wasn't the most mobile of players so wouldn't be best suited to defending large spaces high up the pitch.
I think a midfield of either Rice - Tchouameni along with any two of Caqueret, Bellingham or Hannibal Mejbri would provide the craft and guile along with the industry, which is required in the game today to thwart counters, counter press and control games both on the ball and off the ball IMO.
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While I agree, I feel like we need a whole central midfield, which means many ways of doing it. A sitting DM with a controlling CM partner (like Leicester) or a DLP/passer with a dynamic tackler (like Chelsea)
Many options for these roles, from Chouameni to Tielemans to Phillips etc
Agreed. I think we need 2 CMs and not just one. One of them has to be a passer whether it's the 8 or 6.
Agreed with all except the last paragraph. In that set up there is no place for Bruno.
So I'd take Chouameni/Rice /Phillips with a controller like Tielemans or Caqueret (if you say so). Personally feel that can work with Mejbri but who knows.
I want us to work with Mejbri too. He's actually a very talented player that we should be able to give minutes to.
Fire up Phil Jones! Let him be the midfield destroyer he was born to be and the greatest of all time that Fergie predicted. After his time injured, it's only fair on Phil that we go full Commander Shepard lazararus project with this lad, a couple of cybernetic implants and some glowing red eyes to scare the sh!t out of any would-be attackers.
Anybody seen much of Bruno Guimarães from Lyon? It would be interesting to know because his statistical profile is up there with the best in most areas, particularly passing, but also pressures and tackles. Maybe an under the radar option.
I remember when he was man marking Bale back when he was the top dog in the prem, it was 10v10 game, Fergie's masterclass
With the transfer window closed. And if i was United manager i would more go for 2 CF upfront and drop Bruno as the offensive, creative and complete nr.8
Before Rashford fully fit back and on top form:
Sancho - McTom - Bruno - Pobga + Greenwood - Ronaldo. Over a long run and season. Against parking and tight defend. It will be more benefit for United to have a young CF who stretch the defend up and have a more deep Bruno from the cm to dictate and see and deliver trough and assist passes. Plus ability to score as a nr.8 and offensive cm player.
After Rashford fully fit back. I think United best midfield and attack is this. Play them and let them gel together. Know and understand each others over a long run. Then this is a really good and strong 6 combination and line up:
Sancho - McTom - Bruno - Rashford + Greenwod - Ronaldo. For me this is United best 6 combination and line up. I will and tell McTom to sit back more. To shield the back 4 and break down opponents attack. Helping to keep the cleen sheet. And let Bruno doing the creative cm job. A balance cm duo. Pacey and skillful wingers and wide players in Sancho and Rashford. Then a smart and really good CF in Ronaldo plus a young and sharp CF in Greenwood.
Sum up and conclusion. Internal solution. Like before. If i was United manager. I would drop Bruno down as nr.8. And i can see Bruno as a nr.8. If not this season. Later in his career like Scholes and Bastian Schweinsteiger will drop down deeper as cm player. Still the creative mind and brain of the team.
A peak Bastian Schweinsteiger would make United to win the league. Even playing beside a peak Morgan Schneiderlin. Like this:
Sancho - Schneiderlin - Schweinsteiger - Rashford + Bruno + Greenwood/Ronaldo. This comb 6 will and good enough to win the premier league. BUT. United didnt got a peak Schweinsteiger. Over his period Schweinsteiger was max 90 % of the Schweinsteiger. Plus. Joining a sinking ship United. After Sir Alex retired. No more Scholes, old Giggs. Only had Rooney, Rashford and Martial upfront as attacking options. But still good enough to win FA cup. They were winners.
The time after Sir Alex retiremend. I m calling, rate and category it was a sinking ship period. The United ship was unsteady. Even a world class players alone would struggle to handle that sinking ship. Keep sacking managers. It was hard for new players to made really good impact. Di Maria, Falcao, Henrikt. Many really good players came and struggled. The main reason was. United ship was unsteady as a team. If your goal was top 4 each season. Not 5-10 th places. That were the expecations of the new players. Why we claimed they were struggling. It had relations to United as a team and the managers role.
But the first saviour and angel that lift the red devils up. It was Bruno. The first player that came and could handle the sinking and unsteady United ship. Captain Bruno. And to be really really honest right now. And true fact. Ole would be sacked, IF he and United didnt got and bought Bruno. I am 100 % without Bruno. United ship will still sinking and still be unsteady. It was after the Burnley game. United start to be more consistent and steady in ship world.
Now. If i was United manager. I would ask captain material Bruno for another job and task. Do the nr.8 job as best as you can. And i am 100 % convince Bruno can do a really good job as the offensive and creative nr.8 job too. 100 %. Because i know what that role first demand, playing for the best and top team and if the player have what that role demand. Which Bruno definitely has.
Start to use Bruno as nr.8. And Sancho as RW and Greenwood on top with Ronaldo
Before Rashford fully fit back and on top form:
Sancho - McTom - Bruno - Pobga + Greenwood - Ronaldo. Over a long run and season. Against parking and tight defend. It will be more benefit for United to have a young CF who stretch the defend up and have a more deep Bruno from the cm to dictate and see and deliver trough and assist passes. Plus ability to score as a nr.8 and offensive cm player.
After Rashford fully fit back. I think United best midfield and attack is this. Play them and let them gel together. Know and understand each others over a long run. Then this is a really good and strong 6 combination and line up:
Sancho - McTom - Bruno - Rashford + Greenwod - Ronaldo. For me this is United best 6 combination and line up. I will and tell McTom to sit back more. To shield the back 4 and break down opponents attack. Helping to keep the cleen sheet. And let Bruno doing the creative cm job. A balance cm duo. Pacey and skillful wingers and wide players in Sancho and Rashford. Then a smart and really good CF in Ronaldo plus a young and sharp CF in Greenwood.
Sum up and conclusion. Internal solution. Like before. If i was United manager. I would drop Bruno down as nr.8. And i can see Bruno as a nr.8. If not this season. Later in his career like Scholes and Bastian Schweinsteiger will drop down deeper as cm player. Still the creative mind and brain of the team.
A peak Bastian Schweinsteiger would make United to win the league. Even playing beside a peak Morgan Schneiderlin. Like this:
Sancho - Schneiderlin - Schweinsteiger - Rashford + Bruno + Greenwood/Ronaldo. This comb 6 will and good enough to win the premier league. BUT. United didnt got a peak Schweinsteiger. Over his period Schweinsteiger was max 90 % of the Schweinsteiger. Plus. Joining a sinking ship United. After Sir Alex retired. No more Scholes, old Giggs. Only had Rooney, Rashford and Martial upfront as attacking options. But still good enough to win FA cup. They were winners.
The time after Sir Alex retiremend. I m calling, rate and category it was a sinking ship period. The United ship was unsteady. Even a world class players alone would struggle to handle that sinking ship. Keep sacking managers. It was hard for new players to made really good impact. Di Maria, Falcao, Henrikt. Many really good players came and struggled. The main reason was. United ship was unsteady as a team. If your goal was top 4 each season. Not 5-10 th places. That were the expecations of the new players. Why we claimed they were struggling. It had relations to United as a team and the managers role.
But the first saviour and angel that lift the red devils up. It was Bruno. The first player that came and could handle the sinking and unsteady United ship. Captain Bruno. And to be really really honest right now. And true fact. Ole would be sacked, IF he and United didnt got and bought Bruno. I am 100 % without Bruno. United ship will still sinking and still be unsteady. It was after the Burnley game. United start to be more consistent and steady in ship world.
Now. If i was United manager. I would ask captain material Bruno for another job and task. Do the nr.8 job as best as you can. And i am 100 % convince Bruno can do a really good job as the offensive and creative nr.8 job too. 100 %. Because i know what that role first demand, playing for the best and top team and if the player have what that role demand. Which Bruno definitely has.
Start to use Bruno as nr.8. And Sancho as RW and Greenwood on top with Ronaldo