Who is the smartest player in our team?

[Andersonson]

If this is about football intelligence, I dont know what the People who says Pogba and Martial are on about. Its their main weakness. Pogba can do Things a few other can, but during 90min he does alot of errors. He can't dictate a game for instance. Martial can have bad positioning and his backtracking is a proof of that.

I would say maybe Young or Matic are the players we got that are very football intelligent. In the Prem I would say David Silva is the number one, followed by Glenn Murray

 

[Mcking]

For me no... that penalty against Richarlison sums him up. He was beating him for pace and power (not to mention the player was about to shoot on his weak foot) and he goes in and does that. Moronic.

That was an anomaly tbh. I was suprised when he jumped in like that. He rarely ever does that.

 

[Negan]

Mata and Herrera... ironic cause I don’t even think Herrera is United quality.

 

[broccoli]

Phil Jones would have a doctorate if he wasn't a footballer

 

[JohnnyKills]

In terms of overall intelligence? Mata, Pogba or Lukaku probably

 

[Sayros]

Pogba and Mata, in that order. Anyone who is clowning on Pogba being an intelligent player is dead to me.

Put him in a team with some movement in front of him and less defensive responsibilities and watch them eat their words.

 

[Thepinhead]

I think I heard that Matic got a pretty high education at oxford university. Any who can confirm that? On the pitch he does seem like the smartest person as well. He reads the game well.

 

[manutd7]

De Gea. Hes staying to make the most POY awards unreachable and go down as United greatest player ever

 

[cheeky_backheel]

Though I am not his biggest fan, clear choice is Mata. It simply shows in his level of quality despite being quite lacking in physique and athleticism.

 

[Amar__]

Phil Jones, the way he managed to stay here and collect his money for so long without having any influence on the team season after season is nobel prize worthy. He should probably write a book.

 

[EasyE]

That was an anomaly tbh. I was suprised when he jumped in like that. He rarely ever does that.

He does it many times, and gets away with it. The 2nd yellow against City in the derby really comes to mind for a thick play by diving in.

 

[Mcking]

He does it many times, and gets away with it. The 2nd yellow against City in the derby really comes to mind for a thick play by diving in.

That was four years ago. How many penalties has he conceded since that, and how many reds? How many times has he dived in and it'd cost us?

 

[Freak]

Mata, Herrera, Lindelof and De Gea. The rest don’t strike me as intelligent to be honest.

 

[Mcking]

Mata, Herrera, Lindelof and De Gea. The rest don’t strike me as intelligent to be honest.

I don't think you can have Lindelof over Matic, Smalling, Lingard - in fact, most of our players. Why do you have Lindelof and De gea there?

 

[Bilbo]

Ashley Young. It shouldn't be underestimated what he has achieved in the last couple of seasons.

 

[Freak]

I don't think you can have Lindelof over Matic, Smalling, Lingard - in fact, most of our players. Why do you have Lindelof and De Gea there?

Lindelöf and De Gea look and play intelligently to me. It’s just that Lindelof hasn’t looked physically capable but he relies more on his reading of the game which is intelligent to me. De Gea just looks like one of those intelligent blokes.

Smalling has stupid mistakes in him all the time and and Matic would be moving play around much faster if he was an intelligent player.

I forgot about Lingard. Yes he is another who uses his intelligent movement and play despite not being one of the better players.

 

[Robbo's Shoulder]

Pah, none of the current lot come anywhere near Steve Coppell.
He had a degree in economic history you know.

 

[devilish]

Not jones

 

[amolbhatia50k]

Pogba... by far.

No chance. He has loads of ability but I wouldn't says he's the most impressive in terms of intelligence. In fact his lack of cost/bad decision making/stupidity every now and then is what holds him back from being one of the best.

I'll go with De Gea and Mata. De Gea has to have supreme footballing/decision making intelligence to be able to be as absurdly good as he is. Mata is a little risk averse, partly due to the system I imagine, but his footballing intelligence, decision making etc are all of a very high level. Just wish he had the legs to go with it.

 

[amolbhatia50k]

Dumb in what sense? Did you see his performance against City in the 2-3 comeback last season and against Newcastle this season? In both those games when up against it he intelligently ran the midfield, almost all by himself, especially the Newcastle game. Perhaps you can say he's a bit inconsistent, but dumb? GTFO

Okay then Martial is the smartest player in the league because he has the intelligence to get every shot on target with more than half ending up in the back of the net. But that's a silly way to judge this.

Pogba is extremely gifted but he has a tendancy to do some extremely daft things on a football pitch. So I can't see how he's our most intelligent player. The fact that so many people are picking says something A) about people unable to differentiate between natural gifted and intelligence and B) about our team's collective IQ when someone like this gets the nod

 

[Fosu-Mens]

1. Mata. Runs, passes, positioning. If we could have given him Rashfords body that would have been some player.
2. Lindelof. As mentioned by some, he is let down by his physique.

I think in general that players that have sub-par physique and still playing at the top level is an example of them having a very high understanding of the game. On the other hand, the players that always had godlike physical abilities(Rashford, Lukaku, Bailly etc) never needed to develope this part of their game.

Sidenote: If i'm not mistaken the Bayern Munich youth academy prefers having youth players with a good understanding of the game etc instead of physical monsters.

 

[evil_geko]

Nemanja Matic.

 

[finneh]

Mata is head and shoulders above everyone else in our squad.

In truth we have a very stupid squad overall which unfortunately costs us semi-regularly.

 

[GailSpaceWynand]

Herrera. There's a difference between calm and technically brilliant and a nice guy.

 

[Born2Lose]

That Phil Jones has been here so long without ever being transferred makes him the smartest for me.

 

[OL29]

1. Mata. Runs, passes, positioning. If we could have given him Rashfords body that would have been some player.
2. Lindelof. As mentioned by some, he is let down by his physique.

I think in general that players that have sub-par physique and still playing at the top level is an example of them having a very high understanding of the game. On the other hand, the players that always had godlike physical abilities(Rashford, Lukaku, Bailly etc) never needed to develope this part of their game.

Sidenote: If i'm not mistaken the Bayern Munich youth academy prefers having youth players with a good understanding of the game etc instead of physical monsters.

In all honesty, and please don't think I'm attacking you here, I think this sums up a big part of the problem with the thinking of fans, coaches, pundits etc. Whilst a lot of black players are physically gifted, imo they're often unfairly categorised as being unintelligent. To me, that's a lazy categorisation. Players like Yaya Toure and Pogba are particular victims of this viewpoint. Kante is another player blessed with physical gifts who has a supreme football brain. I often see Pogba accused of lacking football intelligence, even from united fans and it makes me laugh. He does some stuff on the pitch that could be avoided but there's no way you can accuse someone with his vision of being thick. He demonstrates his intelligence in almost every game he plays for us and i'm 100% certain if it wasn't for his build and skin colour, we'd hear a lot less of these accusations.

 

[Maticmaker]

Pogba keeps losing he ball in the same dangerous areas game after game, so obviously not him.

Juan Mata i guess... Pereira is quite smart too.

Matic is smart too, but his body just reacts with 5 seconds delay to his brain.

Spot on!

 

[simplyared]

None of the players we have at present give the impression of being exceptionally smart out on the field. Not exactly answering the op, but Rooney had a fantastic footballing brain. Off the field maybe thats a different question.

 

[Fosu-Mens]

In all honesty, and please don't think I'm attacking you here, I think this sums up a big part of the problem with the thinking of fans, coaches, pundits etc. Whilst a lot of black players are physically gifted, imo they're often unfairly categorised as being unintelligent. To me, that's a lazy categorisation. Players like Yaya Toure and Pogba are particular victims of this viewpoint. Kante is another player blessed with physical gifts who has a supreme football brain. I often see Pogba accused of lacking football intelligence, even from united fans and it makes me laugh. He does some stuff on the pitch that could be avoided but there's no way you can accuse someone with his vision of being thick. He demonstrates his intelligence in almost every game he plays for us and i'm 100% certain if it wasn't for his build and skin colour, we'd hear a lot less of these accusations.

After rereading my post i understand were your arguments are coming from. I was not thinking about this as a skin colour related issue, i was suggesting that players that have an extreme physical advantage at a young age might not develope other important aspects of their game, regardless of skin colour. And this is more related to the coaching/footballing environment than anything else.
To make an anology: Women that have been perceived as very pretty from a young age often have a boring/self centered/shallow personality.

Kante, Toure and Pogba were/are world class players, if they did not have a brilliant footballing brain they would not be world class.

 

[Hammondo]

Mata by far, in fact hes our only intelligent player.

 

[manunited1919]

Mata, when he is given the freedom to move anywhere in the attacking line.
Pogba, for the way he attacks. But his defensive brain is not really too good.
Ashley, he has got better at knowing when to dive.
Sanchez is way more intelligent than we have seen over the last year.
And maybe the one with the smartest footballing brain is Pereira, unfortunately sitting in the bench.

 

[manunited1919]

Now the dumbest one in our team...
Who would that be?

 

[OL29]

After rereading my post i understand were your arguments are coming from. I was not thinking about this as a skin colour related issue, i was suggesting that players that have an extreme physical advantage at a young age might not develope other important aspects of their game, regardless of skin colour. And this is more related to the coaching/footballing environment than anything else.
To make an anology: Women that have been perceived as very pretty from a young age often have a boring/self centered/shallow personality.

Kante, Toure and Pogba were/are world class players, if they did not have a brilliant footballing brain they would not be world class.

That's fair enough mate and like I said I'm not attacking you, I just think it's a common issue that needs to be spoken about more. I agree with everything you say.

 

[Seij]

Phil Jones would have a doctorate if he wasn't a footballer

Doctorate in what? How to steal a living on the physio table?

 

[TwoSheds]

Genuinely probably Ashley Young. Which is sad. Mata, Matic, Lingard and Sanchez are all occasionally not total planks I suppose.

 

[Fitchett]

Phil Jones, the way he managed to stay here and collect his money for so long without having any influence on the team season after season is nobel prize worthy. He should probably write a book.

Yes, Jones is a worthy successor to Anderson

 

[Gasolin]

Mata, Herrera, Pogba for me. Lingard a little bit.

 

[Walters_19_MuFc]

Lingard is a very inteligent player. His movement and awarness is fantastic.

 

[Snow]

The question should be who's the smartest besides Mata. People give him shit for being slow and small etc. but he's still playing top football despite starting out with a natural handicap and at one point he was one of the best players in the PL. You only get to that level with a massive football brain.

I don't know who's behind him. Basically players that you see rarely make any kind of mistake and do the simple things well are generally the same players that have a good football brain. Honestly I think that part of the problem with our squad is that it isn't very intelligent. In our golden years we had Giggs, Scholes, Keane and Beckham. All of them were smart players. Watch City and they have the Silvas, De Bruyne, Gundogan, Fernandinho, Aguero, Laporte all of whom are smart footballers and you sprinkle them with some fast paced talent and you've got yourself a team. I think we lack that intelligence.

Matic is up there, he's an intelligent player. Made a lot of mistakes this season but who hasn't? Pogba is similar. He's an intelligent footballer but there are other parts of his brain that sometimes take control. De Gea seems very intelligent. He somewhat changed part of the goalkeeping game by showing that you can do things differently. His ability to read his opponent is what makes him such a good shot stopper, also he realized that just because he can use his hands doesn't mean you can't save with your feet. He's a player that really knows his strengths and weaknesses and that's what makes him a top goalkeeper along with his ability. Many keepers aren't top keepers because they make many mistakes but they'd otherwise be great if they didn't.

However he's still a keeper and not comparable to what an outfield player has to think about. That's why I'm giving it to Matic. Honorable mention as well to Herrera and Martial.

 

[Wilt]

Now the dumbest one in our team...
Who would that be?

Oi Marcus, come over here a minute....