I've never been annoyed with Shaw's offensive abilities, mostly his defensive displays, so I find it hard to believe anyone would rate AY or Blind above him as a wingback.
His offensive abilities aren't too much of an issue at LB. Especially when there's a winger in front of him.
i found this in a MEN comments section. Any thoughts ? Fabinho - Bailly - Kolasinac Valencia - Herrera - Pogba - Sigurdsson Mkhi - Rashford - Sanchez
The front line is excellent. Other than that, no thanks. The midfield doesn't help Pogba at all and Sigi at LWB/LM? In what world is he able to play that position? He's a CAM and not an overly mobile one at that. Plus the back line is only one real CB and one that's not that great of a passer as the middle CB? Trash lineup.
If the defenders can make a go of three at the back, would also like us to consider 3-5-2 to get some support around Ibra given he likes to drop back. Plus think we need a pacy striker to create space for Ibra, Pogs, Mata/Mikhi. Something like; -------------Rash - Ibra Shaw - Pogba - Mata - Valencia ---------------Herrera Put Mata there as he is a leftie, but Mikhi probs more productive. Mou would probably go Young rather than Shaw and could be Carrick rather than Herrera depending on rotation. Martial could rotate with Rashford - might get him out of his funk about having to play wider than he likes.
That lineup would work for the most part, except against quality teams with a good midfield and attack, because Herrera on his own in a single pivot would not be able to handle that job. Carrick (or Blind if he were ever considered for the position) would be the better fit there. Exactly why we're probably going to target a physical CM this summer.
Depends on the oppo / situation, as I said would consider it if we want to have two strikers. 3-4-3 isnt the only system starting with a 3, a double pivot isnt mandatory with a back 3 ... http://theinsidechannel.com/introducing-3-5-2/
I cannot believe we are using now and discussing the futute use of three at the back given our shitty options and problems with width in the squad.
At the same time, we have several players who are best used in a free role "from" the wing rather than on it. Then it is a matter of adding good WBs which are easier had than elite WNGs.
juve had success with a 3-5-2 but that was mostly to offer maximum protection for pirlo. the biggest advantage of this current 5-2-3 for united is that all of our wingers tend to drift inside and that formation allows for that without compromising our shape since the full backs are solely responsible for providing width. pogba can also go up and down on the left inside channel with the 5 defenders providing a security blanket. i'm not partial to any system per se but i i think that this 5-2-3 can work with the players that we have at the moment.
If we persist we 3-4-3 then I think we can switch to a two striker 3-5-2 in-game by bring Rash in for a wing-forward and having him push up with Ibra. Can certainly forsee situations where we could be chasing a game and need two strikers having started 3-4-3.
Speaking of Pirlo, here's an interesting tidbit. I'm not sure how accurate this is, but anyways. I was listening to the game podcast this week and according to gab marcotti. The year Juve reached the CL final, Pirlo covered more ground stat wise in cl games out of him, Vidal and marchisio. Interesting eh? He was ranting about the shitness of ground covered stats when taken out of context.
I don't doubt for one moment that Pirlo's stats in terms of miles he ran was pretty high. His workrate always seemed to be a very underestimated part of his game. And I can believe his stats in that dept might have been higher than Vidal's (since he was deployed more as a 10 that season). Still interesting (and surprising) to find out that he covered more ground than Marchesio though.
The bit about Pirlo covering the most ground is crazy if true. I would've never guessed that since everytime I watched them he stayed pretty central and made the ball do the work with his passing range.
My thoughts too. He was also using Lukaku as an example. He was giving Shearer shit (think it was him) for a time he slated lukaku as being lazy due to his distance covered stats in relation to his opposition counterpart that game (forget who). Gab made the point it was BS because Everton barely got out of their half that game so he didn't have the opportunity to cover any ground. An example of interpretation of stats. That's all.
That's a perfect example of someone using a stat to further boost their narrative even if it's misleading. Saying Lukaku is lazy and backing it up with a "ground covered" stat is nonsense. Even if they were pinned in that particular game, covering a lot of ground isn't Lukaku's game. Nobody expects him to be running channels and chasing players down on defense. He's a target striker that's expect to hold the ball up and be active around the box. Calling him lazy is showing a poor understanding of his game.
The Pirlo thing is probably similar to Carrick - have no stats whatsoever to back this up, but Carrick (like Rio) was often branded as laid back / lazy. Truth is that by the time the camera panned to them they had already moved and were in position to intercept. Similarly Carrick constantly moves to find space and give an angle when we have the ball, he just doesn't need to bust a gut to get there so is mislabelled as low-energy. Suspect the same is true of Pirlo.
Yes, and the contrast of perception is even extreme when you're paired with "all action" perception mf like Vidal and Marchisio. It's like argument vida was as good a defender as Rio due to the perception he created with his last ditch tackles.