We didn’t miss out on him as we were never interested in him.
Why the reluctance to sign a defensive midfielder?
- Thread starter padzilla
- Start date
I agree. Especially at games at home with teams outside the top four. The "dm" would be sacrificed for bruno/vdb/erikson in order to unlock a defence. We are going to dominate possession against most teams other than the top four. So is a specialist expensive DM really a necessity?
Chelsea dont play with a DM. Jorginho sits infront of the back four and builds play from the back. Kante goes hunting and pressing the ball when it comes to his area of the field. We have fred and mctominay to do that job, for now. Maybe ETH will upgrade that "box to box" tenacious midfielder role next summer. After all he has to work to a budget.
Besides as long as ETH and his staff teach the team how to tactically foul ala City midfield we should be fine.
They play with a back 5 so they can afford having 2 midfielders. Every other top team tha lt plays 4 at the back plays with a specialised DM.
Busqutes at Barcelona isnt a dm. Carrick wasnt a dm in the tradional sense. Both are deep lying play makers infront of a back four.
Besides it depends on whether ETH positions someone alongside frenkie or infront of him. We wont really know until we get into the season proper.
Surely with Ornstein & Whitwell tweet suggesting Utd see Martinez as CB we are still going to be in the market for one
I remember so many were against signing a pure destroyer DM because they were seen as limited players than players that are fecking good at their job.
A few years later we have our own destroyers as in breaking up our own attacks by misplacing passes. We need a destroyer. We need that monster DM and I hope we dont sign Frenkie to play as DM.
A few years later we have our own destroyers as in breaking up our own attacks by misplacing passes. We need a destroyer. We need that monster DM and I hope we dont sign Frenkie to play as DM.
He's called Frenkie de Jong. He will be your deepest midfielder and will be partnered with someone else but thisnis not likely to be a Kante type of DM at all. You won't have one. You'll most likely play 4-2-3-1. The 2 'DM's' will be FdJ and someone who's good in possession and positioning, someone who is a good passer and that can hold the position when FdJ is gone. This might very well be Fred or McTominay. My bet would be on the latter.
I feel someone like Herrera would have been perfect to partner Frenkie if he was 25 right now.
Will that work in the big games though?
Depends how imposing we are in possession. I'm hoping we move away from the mentality of approaching every big game like an underdog.
Yes, with the right instructions. If we get FdJ, he‘ll be the deepest midfielder because that‘s his best position.
We didnt approach a big game as an underdog, its actually because our midfield is unbalanced as compared to the opponent's superior midfield. We were playing a AM and a CM as 2 DMs which was bound to have problems against better midfields. Our play was also quite direct, where we focused more on getting the ball quick to the forwards rather than keeping possession.
Agreed.
Lisandro Martinez is going to be our 2nd CDM of the squad - so I think we are going for one
Depends how good you'll be in possession. On the other hand, a typical physical DM is also no guarantee for success at all.
I personally find Herrera one of the most overrated players I’ve ever seen.
Falling all over the floor and losing possession.
DM do not have to be physical, a destroyer, they need energy, great positioning and the instinct where, when and how he has to press.
Herrera was brilliant for us.
He really wasn’t. He had a few good games where his instructions were to man mark a single target but beyond that he was a very average player who had a couple of purple patches. Describing him as “brilliant” is a testament to how standards have fallen.
FDJ would be our deep lying playmaker in DM, Martinez would be like our 2nd DM, Fred would be our box to box pressing machine.
And that was a mistake. Ridiculous of us to ignore a quality midfielder who would have improved us drastically.
This is how I saw it too. His games vs Hazard were great. Nothing much above that.
Is it me or were Matic, Herrera, Pogba a balanced midfield 3 for the early days of Solskjaer’s reign. They seemed to have the spectrum of skills needed to control the midfield. I might be senile and misremembering it.
Agree. He would have been a brilliant signing, and what did they pay for him , 25m?
Think what people are suggesting is that we need a Fernandinho type player? Someone who can provide defensive cover and break up counterattacks. With De Jong, I think Fred can potentially play that role.
The fact that he signed for spurs over United says it all.
Let me be more clear. Herrera was not brilliant for us in the way, say, Keane and Carrick were. Herrera is no legend, not even a great. If there is a word between brilliant and very good then such a word should be applied to Herrera during a time when United were mismanaged and Herrera was one of the few players who could be always counted on to perform at a high level with passion.
What's our squad depth at 6/8? Is it literally just James Garner and Hannibal to rely on if there's injuries to Fred and McTominay? Because they will definitely need to step up if so. There's signs Garner can do it in the premier League he's carried a championship side now, but it's a huge step up. It's sort of exciting in a way but at the same time we can't have huge expectations both for them and our season overall if that's the case, because the spine of our team just looks so inexperienced (or average) right now
Exactly what is needed, however still think we should sign one rather than trying to mould Fred into something he's never gonna be
Honestly see him playing LCB and only played at CDM when necessary, yes I know that's a concern due to his serious lack of height
Fred and McTominay actually need to step up. Fred must be a lot more focused and McTominay will need to up his technical and passing level quite considerably. And neither is anywhere close to sufficient in protecting the back four if Frenkie joins and goes on his dribbling runs with full backs bombing forward.
We clearly need a defensive midfielder. I guess we've been surprised over and over again that it's been ignored by the club and staff, but this time around I'd be even more surprised given the attacking focus of ETH.
Some point out that we don't need one because we'll dominate possession, but that will likely take time to develop and it also requires some key positions to be filled.
I am assuming Frenkie will be brought in. If he stays at Barcelona, paying 100m for Rice wouldn't be too expensive in the grand scheme of things. He will enable us to push up Fred and McTominay, so we can keep using them and play them in positions that will suit them better. 100m to transform our midfield will be good.
Who the feck is replacing Matic? Someone that should’ve been replaced 2 years ago? Even if the plan is to play a DLP as the deepest midfielder the squad still needs one, otherwise one of McFred is going to have to fill that role. Genuinely baffled at the lack of attention this position seems to be getting.
Ten Hag tactics really haven't used that profile player - Frenkie would be the deepest ball carrier and someone like Fred or Rabiot would be the partner who could allow him the freedom.
You can only “step up” if you’re good enough to do so. Fred and McTominay clearly aren’t good enough to assume the role and won’t ever be. It’s not a dig at them, I’m sure they give their all, but the ability to play that position isn’t in them.
Position has been neglected for years, arguably since Carrick retired, and it looks like being neglected again.
Alvarez and Schone fit the profile no? There’s no way we should be relying on Fred (or McTominay) as that type of player.
Should've been the first transfer we brought in so Fred or McTominay didn't have to play there, what the actual feck is going on? This club is a common sense vacuum.
And again last night....I'll say it again...it's one thing to play CM for a team like Brighton, another altogether to go to a team with aspirations to be top four
Casemiro showed everybody what a world-class DM/CM looks like last night and Bissouma showed what happens when you take a player like him, Ndidi, McGinn or Neves out of mid-table and ask them to step-up and have more of the ball
If we don't want people to over-emphasize a bad performance to diminish a player, we shouldn't use a good one to do the opposite. Casemiro has been decent to good for us, yesterday he was really good, lets hope it continues. But your conclusion to downplay certain players is weak in my eyes. Midfield is about composition, put Bissouma next to a capable midfield partnership and he will be fine. Same for Ndidi. Put them in a badly balanced midfield and their weaknesses will look even worse. Lets hope that Casemiro isn't going to have the same trajectory that Matic had. We payed a lot of money for him even though he was already replaced by Real Madrid.
I am happy he is here but nobody can tell if a Bissouma could have played a good role for us as well, until lately it has been Eriksen, who really upped the teams level. And yesterday was a fantastic team effort, lets hope we can hold that level and this isn't another flash in the pan.
Yeah but my point is/was that the club were lambasted at the time for not signing Bissouma when he went to Spurs. There are also pages and pages on this forum of fans screaming for Neves and Ndidi. Yet I never see any of those people pop-up and apologise/acknowledge when they get it wrong - which is frequently!
My point is also, and I have said this all along, that Bissouma is not good enough. I don't need to watch him play 50 times to see the 'red flags'. The game we played against Brighton last season was enough for me, he looked clumsy and awkward on the ball several times to the point where it's not a 'bad game' it's that his fundamentals are not sound enough to be a world-class player.
And therein lies the point...when I say 'not good enough'...the full sentence is 'Bissouma is a very good player...but he's not good enough for the level we should aspire too'.
That's the key point, and neither are Ndidi, McGinn or Neves, which means it is actually quite hard for a club like United to find the right quality in the centre of the pitch. It's not as easy as some think