Feel free to come down off the high horse and re join the discussion. I wonder if the reserves are enough for him - he needs consistent week in and out play for a year to see if he's got the skills. Peterborough maybe?
Send him back to Portugal for a year. If he doesn't show anything of worth, sell him to a League 1 side. Maybe he'll be a decent squad player there.
God dammit DS I lost a long ass post because of you! To sum up what I was going to say I think Bebe's main problem is getting snuffed out on the flanks. Defenders, even at Reserve level push up on him tightly and this seems to cause him to hang onto the ball for too long (and eventually lose it). He needs to learn to roll defenders, pass it backwards or sideways first time and then spin away or dribble with the ball into the middle of the field like Ronaldo used to do. Anything but hanging onto the ball on the touchline and letting himself get surrounded by defenders.
We probably should have just left him there instead of bringing him over. At this point it's clear we just needed to get Mendes some money - a player at this level was nowhere near worth 9 mill, even if it was only for his physicality or build.
I don't see why people are questioning his skills? He's already demonstrated that. It's everything else he's missing, which is a given seeing as he's joined us so late, and so behind in development. What he's lacking is confidence and comfort with his surroundings, tactical nous, consistency and decision making. He's clearly been keeping it very simple in senior games thus far. Much more than he does even for the reserves.
The last thing we should do is send him packing to Portugal. He's needs to learn to live and adjust to English surroundings. It's more than just football. It's also about learning to live in a different country. These players aren't machines completely immune to their surroundings.
Does he speak any English? Does he speak any Portuguese? Was there anyone on the field yesterday that he could communicate with? It seems like he just puts his head down and runs up and down the field. No communication with any of his teammates. Until he gets that, I don't see how he can be in any way effective. But I wish people would stop with the "payoff to Mendes" comments. It's not like Utd has never blown a whole bunch of money on a player that didn't work out before. It remains to be seen whether this player will be a dud or not, but there's another agenda at work here....
Nope. United have never paid 20x the asking value of a player before. I second this. A loan next season should do him a lot of good.
He's speaks little English, and started lessons as soon as he arrived. He's been living with Anderson. He could communicate with Ando, Fabio and Rafa on the field yesterday. Hardly experienced leaders for us.
I dunno James - I think it would be better if he had stayed over there to build his consistency and skills, then had come over here more ready. We really shouldn't expect anything from him for at least a full season, if not longer. If we could find him a lower league side that would use him weekly, it would be great for him.
He's got another year to make a go of it. Obertan has been here longer, and he's a waste of space. But he needs lots of football, so he really needs a loan move. I do think there is talent there. But the odd reserve game is not what he needs at this stage.
Aha, if not actively slaugtering the player, it's a high horse to point out how retarded it is to do so? So... you're a med student, right? If you were asked to perform immediate key surgery right now, could you do it? If not, why not? This is a lad with no formal footballing education to fall back on. I'd wager I've performed in front of bigger crowds than he had before getting to OT; I'm not sure what I'd ever have been like playing in front of 75k or thereabouts... do you think this may impact on the lad? It shouldn't, he's a pro player, but it may well do. We may be putting him out there for a myriad of reasons, one of which could just be to see how he's getting on in this regard. He looks a totally different player at reserve level, and the leap up was in no way great enough to cause such a dip in performance. It wouldn't hurt fans to give someone like Bebe the 2-3yrs it'd be logical to give such a unique case. Collectively bashing him serves what purpose except to attach one to a hive exactly?
The rules for this new Reserve league setup could possibly help out with his progression. Isn't the rule next year that we actually present a squad, and that fixtures will be much more dependable and regular? Bebe may be able to take advantage of that.
You do understand that most of our posts were made in the heat of and the immediate aftermath of a 1-0 win to a Blue Square League team? It's easy to come here the day after with the benefit of some time to cool off and some hindsight, and tells us we're bad fans for criticizing a player. However, if you actually read, you'll see that most people have toned it down since the aftermath of that shit match. The fact is, he has shown only flashes of any sort of skill, and yesterday very little was on display. He has inherent mindset changes that are necessary, and he isn't going to gain that playing 5 times a year with the first team. He needs to go somewhere else and show he can play regularly. edit: sorry, not loss.
Come off it man. We didn't lose the match. I've been crowing that for damn near a day now! I don't think anyone here is sending Bebe hate mail, but the toned down has really be people resigned to the "fact" that he's shit, was shit and will forever be shit. That's disgusting. He plays for United.
Yeah, that was just a mistake. But being outplayed for 45 minutes by a team 6 divisions or more below doesn't feel to hot, even if it is a W.
In any case, the general sentiment has been what charley said which is hardly an over-reaction or a Bebe slaughter.
If people are happy with a dodgy 1-0 at home win against a ********ing Conference side then we must have fallen really far as a world footballing power.
That's because he didn't really try very much of anything, especially in the first half. He was keeping it about as simple as one can. Some of us were crying out in the first half for him to try and take on a few players. Johno and myself were.
If what Charley said was the general reaction, I wouldn't have been making fun of the people on here over-reacting and slaughtering Bebe which is exactly what was going on. EDIT: screw it. I apologize if I was being condescending, I'm glad that people haven't written off Bebe yet.