News: One Swede for Another - The Victor Lindelöf Thread

He is repeatedly beaten. He can't head the ball under zero pressure. He is inferior to Axel in every imaginable way.

 

And he's 22.

 

Still.

 

It's hard to be sure what the problem is Lindelof.

• Is he simply not much of a footballer, who somehow bamboozled United's scouts? Perhaps.
• Is he just overwhelmed by the adjustment to English football? Perhaps.
• Is something going in his personal life that's distracting him from his professional responsibilities? Perhaps.

Whatever is the root of the problem, Eric needs help ASAP. Help either in the form of going out on loan to a club where he can adapt, without risk, to English football or help in the form of counseling by whomever the English football version of John F. Murray might be.

And if he's found out to be the central defender version of Memphis -- where's Teso been lately? -- then we cut our losses this summer and send him to the French or Turkish league or back to Portugal.

 

Great gesture from Rashford towards Lindelof.

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/man-utd-fans-rashford-lindelof-13810170

That's what he needs right now (and keep working hard in training obviously).

 

Bebe-esque so far.

 

Nah. Bebe was big and fast and appeared to be dangerous.

Importantly, Bebe cost what he should have or only a little more. Bebe for 10M is the equivalent of Lindelof for 20M maybe. Lindelof cost I'm ready money and all he's ready for is the reserves.

 

He knew. 😳 pic.twitter.com/aalkd0Au7T

— B/R Football (@brfootball) November 18, 2017

 

I’m still struggling to see what Lindelof’s strengths are. He’s been horrific so far, which sometimes happens with new players, but there’s nothing about his game which promises eventual greatness.

 

Sucks for him because it's obvious that with United at this moment, he's playing with fear, and as a defender especially, that's one of the worst things that can happen, since it makes the likelyhood for mistakes that much higher.
And to make matters worst, he didn't even make a direct mistake yesterday. but he slipped at the worst time. That will do nothing to restore his confidence that must be in the dumps right now.
Jose should take him out of the line of fire for a bit and let him try to work out of this funk in training and give him another shot further down the line. Hopefully also, the return of Zlatan, his compatriot (who has talked him up a great deal last season, I might add), will be of help to him as well. If anyone can do so,it would be him I imagine.

 

That’s two high cost, high profile slips in his last few games now. That seems like such a trivial thing for a professional athlete to be screwing up in a position of such importance. Is it footwear or footwork? I know he’s meant to be very grounded, but we didn’t mean it like that.

 

More than that, I really believe that it's mental thing, more than anything else. Watched him closely in both legs of Sweden's matchup vs Italy and you can clearly see the difference. He was not walking on eggshells or griped by fear (of the inevitable mistake), he was just playing.
And matched up against the likes of Immobile, Belotti and Gabbiadini, he more than held his own: he was solid and confident.Honestly don't know what the solution is at this point, but it's certainly far too early to even think about ditching him (not that Jose will do so anyway). As mentioned though, he's not needed right now with the depth available to us at CB and 23, time is still very much on his side...

 

Prem is much tougher nut to crack than the Portuguese league - Lindelof

www.espn.in/football/manchester-united/story/3287785/man-united-defender-victor-lindelof-prem-much-tougher-than-portugal

 

Victor Lindelof for the Players Tribune.

www.theplayerstribune.com/en-us/articles/victor-lindelof-sweden-what-mothers-are-for

 

Another game with Sweden and another clean sheet, with a sound defensive performance from Lindelof. Amazing how different a player he looks when he's with Sweden, compared to United. With the national team, he's calm, confident, firm and self assured, as opposed to his deer like disposition with us.
I'd bet just about anything that he, along with so many players on the current squad, would improve seriously under a new manager, one where he'd just out and play, instead of being tentative because they're scared of making mistakes.

Pity that Grandvist is not 5-6yrs younger, I'd totally take a flier on him. He obviously has a presence about him, which we saw already at the WC. 33yrs old is way too old to even consider him though...

 

United actually contacted his agent for availability. There is genuine a quote from Granqvist if united came up with offer club will not stand in his way.

 

I'm aware of the Grandvist links, hence why I brought it up. I'd easily have him over Cahill for instance, but at the same time he can not realistically be an option for us and we need to shoot higher.
The over arching point however regarding our CBs is that while we could use a top shelf, commanding one, between Lindelof, Smalling and Bailly we have a trio we can work with until then. Either by rotating them in a 2 man partnership or even at times in a back 3 (that's what I would go with, with some of the tough games coming up btw).
In the end, it's just pretty clear that Mourinho completely mishandled the likes of Bailly and Lindelof (just as he has with most players in the squad) because the quality is obviously there.

 

The pressure to play for Sweden is nothing compared to playing for us. Don't want to beat a half dead horse but I will beat it until it's dead and continue to beat it but playing for Mourihno could be the root of the problem.

Lindelof knows that any mistake made will be heavily criticized by the manager and to me that makes him nervous while on the pitch. Sometimes it's like he's saying to himself don't mess up, don't mess...

 

Lindelof has really looked the part recently, particularly in the past couple of games. Finally showing some of the composure he's exhibited for Sweden on a regular basis.
Really hoping that this is not a false dawn and he can keep this up. Next step will be to reintegrate Bailly into the starting XI and see if they can become the solid pairing we hoped they could be.
Smalling has been ok, but as shown today, he does have his limitations and is prone to making boneheaded mistakes.

 

I think Lindelof and Smalling make an ok to good pairing. Lindelof can't work well with Bailly though because Lindelof needs someone to hold his hand. He's best when he can play proactive, but that's where Bailly is at his best as well. We are too exposed when they play together. Smalling is legit the only CB we have who is better at covering than he is at playing the proactive role.

That's bad. We need another.

 

I am not sure that Smalling does a lot of hand holding. The only reason reason that Smalling starts over Bailly is because he is a bit more controlled with his defending that's about it.

Bailly can play that role but not from the bench, and right now we are a bit in a ditch.

However, if Smalling keeps collecting yellows and giving away PK's, we'll see Bailly hopefully. He is still a young guy for a defender.

EDIT: just to be clear, when you say hand holding, you are giving a bit too much credit to Smalling when in reality Lindelof has been the better of two lately. Maybe Lindelof is holding Smalling's hand.

 

Given our DM is Matic, I think we would be better off ditching him and going with a back 3 of Smalling / Bailly / Lindelof.

Wouldn't call it hand-holding, but we need Smalling as he is our most consistent performer of late. Lindelof despite his issues looks our least-bad choice to play on the left-hand side (whether in a pair or a three) and Bailly has shown he has a high-ceiling but will not overcome his recent issues unless he gets playing time.

If we do it by ditching Matic I don't see much downside.

 

Our most consistent shit performer.

 

Well that's a very poorly timed post.