that's my issue with the modern style zealots. they tunnel vision on finding the absolute perfect player for the system and any player that isn't becomes bad or inferior. for whatever reason the non ideal players are assumed to be unable to adapt even under the guidance of the brilliant coaches that come up with these systems. started seeing this late 2000s when a lot of teams tunnel visioned on tiki taka or bust even when they had none of the personnel to do it. there's more than one way to skin a cat and it is important for football that there are different types of styles that can succeed
As long as they pay his wages I am good with that. He might prove his worth on loan and get his playing time he needs. That way his value shoots up. Right now his value is almost unknown.
Quote was on the basis of where we are with who EtH is picking. Fact is that EtH has had McT as a starter in all his first team line-ups, apart from one game when he was injured (and last game where he gave entire first team a rest). Also Fred as a #6 has many of the same issues - see ball, chase ball …
Yes, read the link. Also read the "shows why we dont need to profile of player some of you guys are looking for." comment that went with it Hence the reply. The decline of ball winners has been commented on as far back as when we switched from Keane to Carrick, so not particularly new. The most interesting aspect for me on that subject in present day relating to us, is that as I suggested in the post, when not destroying, the emphasis out-of-possession for a DM becomes either pressing or inteligent positioning to intercept or block passing. Fred / McT as I will continue to maintain are "see ball, chase ball" ie just pressing. They are both horrible at inteligent defending such as scanning, positioning and tracking. Something that you really need in at least one of the pivots. For example interesting to see FdJ be used as a CB (even though mainly to mess with him). As have said before, Carrick, Fernandinho, Mascherano, Fabinho, Rodri have all at times been asked to play CB in some games. Reason being that the whole not going to ground on tackling thing happened even further back. So a CB job is all about scanning, positioning, tracking, interceptions etc. Hence why many top defensive mids can play there if required at a push too. Can you picture "see ball, chase ball" McT or Fred having the awareness / defensive smarts to do this ... Just using this mostly as a thought experiment to show how weak there games are in that area. Is also a varied game - we will play some top teams this season with great attacking mids where we may need more solidity in front of our back four. Our last few years of not winning any cups for example is because we have often lost midfield in those games at semi or final against decent oppo. To go the distance in a cup or to play well against top 6 teams, EtH needs a midfield toolbox he can pick from, but the one he has now is lacking imo. Neither Fred or McT are capable of playing as a proper defensive mid against decent oppo. Apologies for wall of text
^ We don't mind the wall of text so long as it makes sense and it sure did. Excuse me while I make a halfwit of myself. Maybe all of this talk won't matter. Frenkie may very well sign. Hopefully he does and we get back into the UCL next season. *me crooning as Bing Crosby* I'm... dreaming... of us back... in the UCL semis... losing to Spurs in injury time...
Fred has played as the deepest mid in every match he's played in. Scott has always played as one of the 2 8s ahead of Fred and his best moments have linking with Sancho or Dalot on the right in overload situations. I think Scott is a bang average player, who is not smart enough on the pitch to play more than a bit part role BUT Scott as a wind up toy 8 who basically gets to press 80% of the time run forward when we have the ball is the best Scott there is. There's zero basis for thinking that Bruno and Eriksen will be played ahead of Scott in a midfield 3 when Fred is healthy. In fact, we've only seen Bruno and Eriksen on the pitch at the same time when Bruno played LW. To keep this somewhat on topic, I think we'll use the first couple matches as continued preseason for EtH to scout the players we have before letting some go on loan. I think the reason we haven't made a decision on Garner one way or the other is because his value is high and Forest will basically take him at any point and I'm sure other teams in the division would be interested. I think our depth at 6 is woeful (we all know this) but I'm not totally sure who our next guy is after Fred. Scott hasn't played there at all (thank god) and all of the other minutes when Fred wasn't at 6 went to Savage/Iqbal. I use them as a pair because we frequently played 2 deeper mids in the 2nd halves of matches. Nobody knows if we get FDJ, but if we do, I think we'll play 2 deep mids. FDJ +1 and that will depend on the opposition. My guess is Fred as he can sit for Frenkie when he roams but we might also see Scott as he'd have like zero responsibility in build up.
This is why Gundogan has played 6 to an elite standard in a title winning run, despite not being a "tough tackler" or conforming to other physical memes
He has basic deficiencies in technique, scanning etc As you say - probably his level is journeyman EPL midfielder
Alex Telles to Sevilla, here we go and confirmed! Full agreement completed between with Manchester United on loan dean valid until 2023. Been told there’s NO buy option clause. 🚨🇧🇷 #MUFCContracts being prepared in order to be signed this week. pic.twitter.com/YsrvqZjuIU— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) August 3, 2022
A loan is disappointing - with the way the Glazers run the club we need sales. We are as incompetent at moving players out as we are at bringing them in. With Henderson loan too we must be what 7 or 8 players down now on last season with only 3 in?? Pogba, Cavani, Matic, Mata, Lingard, Henderson, Telles, Mason AWB, Tuanzebe, Jones, Bailly, Williams reportedly transfer listed but nothing done. Just very poor and late from the club again .. Whatever your opinion of the players' ability (and mine is v.low) it is unfathomable the season is days away and Man Utd are actually *weaker* - at least in terms of 1st team numbers - than last season. The business done so far is eons away from being enough.— Alex Shaw (@AlexShawTel) August 3, 2022
yea if we aren't going to sign anyone you'd hope we would at least try to shop the deadwood around to any and everyone. we all know they are hard pieces to move on but someone might make a mistake
Or ten Hag can roll up his sleeves and coach these guys. Worse comes to worse, McTominay may end up at CB. Fred is actually a decent player, but needs someone next to him to boss him around proper. I trust ten Hag to be a far superior coach than anyone we've had in recent seasons (those guys could only manage, not coach). The only thing he's weak on is dealing with superstars. Frenkie, Cristiano... they're making Erik look like a wimp.
While the signings we’ve made have been good, this window has been a disaster. Lost something like 8 players and have only managed to bring in 3 for around 50mil. We are going to start the season with a weaker squad than last season. That’s not how you want to start things off with a new manager. Yet again, we’ve failed to support a manager in the market. Without two more meaningful signings, we’re going to be in deep shit regardless of how good of a manager ETH is. Looking around the league, in terms of squad quality and depth, it would be hard to put us higher than 6th.
We had too big of a squad and we promoted a few. I am happy with the window except we needed to sell more players.
Yes and no. I would say we had an unbalanced squad more than a bloated one. We had too many players in certain positions and not enough quality and depth in others. This problem hasn’t gone away. We lost a lot of bodies in midfield, where we were already short and certainly not bloated. Those haven’t been replaced and we’re worse off there more than ever. Our biggest bloat was at CB and that’s just gotten worse. We’ve added Martinez and sold nobody there so far. Still need to move Tuanzebe, Jones, and Bailly. We lost Mata, Lingard, and Cavani in attack and haven’t replaced them at all. We’re not embarrassingly thin up front. We’re an injury or two up front from starting guys like Elanga and Amad/Chong. That’s really really bad. I think a lot of people, myself included, hoped that our current youth guys could fill some of the depth roles. Personally, I think in preseason a lot of them showed they aren’t ready for that yet. I think Laird, Garnacho, and maybe one of Zidane/Garner could be ready for backup minutes, but the rest either need loans or just aren’t ready for this level. If you look at the squad last season vs this season, you would be kidding yourself to say we have more quality now. We’ve upgraded at defense vs last season but downgraded everywhere else. I didn’t expect us to resolve everyone in one summer, but the lack of signings before the season start and especially in pressing areas like midfield are a huge problem. Right now our midfield is extremely reliant on the health and quality of Fred…Fred. That’s a bad spot to be in.
https://www.skysports.com/football/...-over-striker-but-there-is-a-gap-in-valuation might actually be some fire to the smoke
The reports making the rounds is that United has had several conversations. But Chelsea is in the race as well as some other mystery club. Reports are also that Chelsea is set to hijack the DeJong transfer as well.