Team B, as it has the better Keeper, Midfielder and Left winger
A team without Rashford, De Gea and Bruno
- Thread starter UpWithRivers
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It’s circa £500m of talent added - the Napoli pair will be £300m if you wanted them both, Bellingham will be £125m or so and Costa maybe £50m. It’s basically adding the most in demand GK, CM, LW and CF in the world and then asking if our team might be a bit better with them included.
As I pointed out above, for probably less outlay we could get Saka (£200m), Hakimi (£100m), De Jong (£70m) and Kane (£75m) if we are in this sort of fantasy dreamworld and upgrade all our weakest areas of the pitch.
Well the entire premise of this thread is of course massively hypothetical, and the likelihood of it becoming a reality is near impossible. I think we all, OP included, would likely agree on that. So Bruno ‘not wanting to leave’ is of course never the point here. I think it’s also a fair assumption that Rashford and De Gea don’t want to leave either.
I’m also not sure that De Gea just ‘isn’t very good’ either. He 'isn’t very good’ at passing, but he’s excellent at saving attempts at his goal, and has shown this countless times this season alone. I appreciate he also has a weakness in commanding his box, but ultimately, if goalkeepers were not also now expected to be number 10s - he’s objectively a fabulous keeper. And the requirement to be a playmaker is not even the job, it is a preference based on style - which is what this thread really comes down to.
I think for me it matters in the "transfer strategy" point of view, even in the hypothetical of we could just replace them. For me, Bruno is the arguable part of this thread, Rashford is a clear "we should keep regardless" and de Gea for me is a clear "we need to replace regardless" (for me, without turning it into a shit on Ddg thread). So with regards to transfer strategy, we should be looking at what would make our team better and how to best use the funds... Assuming goalkeeper and striker is fixed, depth is fixed and we only look at starting 11, then we compare each. Do we replace Bruno and keep the rest as is (Dalot/Wan Bissaka right back, Eriksen next to casemiro), or do we address one or both of those positions while keeping Bruno as 10? What makes us stronger? For me it is addressing CM and RB without a doubt. And it circles back to continually fixing the weakest positions. If you can get funds where you can replace the player and fix the others for the same price and get better overall, that's different. That's what happened with Coutinho.
With Rashford, we sell for 100m, we'd need 100m to replace him adequately and hope they provide a similar level, where we'd have essentially between Leao and Kvaratshkelia to go for. All 3 are class, but at that point you are just asking is Rashford the very best player in the world in his position vs those who could one day be attainable ignoring price tags. Bruno is the one where the system without him could be very different, and you weigh up how different players would bring different qualities. Also depends on who we sign up top though.
Looking at our resent history of buying attacking players I wouldn't dare even consider selling those 2. Antony jury is out but not looking good, Sancho looking like a flop. Lukaku gone after 2 years. Sanchez a season and a half.
Fair, but I don’t think that is so much the premise of this thread. From what it looks like, it’s more a conversation about whether we should change style or not, and the OPs opinion of the players required to change our approach from one way to another. He then of course removed all the sensibilities of budget constraints.
Like, Bruno is a better player than Dalot, however, in the hypothetical scenario that we wished to change from reactive/instinctive to proactive/controlling - Dalot is not as big an issue as Bruno. As it stands, due to the fact that Bruno is better than Dalot, then for sure, getting s right back will of course make our team better. It’s upgrading one of our players in order from worst to best. If that was the objective, then it’s a sensible one. IF, of course, that the feeling was that we simply don’t play in the ‘right’ way and we need to start playing a different way instead - then Dalot potentially becomes less of an issue than Bruno.
Personally, and I’ve made no secret of this, I think that they hypothetical best way of our traditional style of play will not win us the trophies we want, not unless certain things tip the scale hugely like, for example, the better teams inexplicably falling off a cliff or us executing our style by having Haaland, Mbappe and Bellingham (or a combination of the two things). I think our style of football requires us to have significantly better footballers than our rivals in order for it to work, which is unlikely to happen without any financial advantage.
Because we are not going to get rid of Rashford and Bruno and they are central to our plans going forward. Also no one is buying DDG for £50m.
That's fair. Though I still don't think Rashford belongs in this thread. But it's a fair question in terms of how can we implement the best system to be the top team, not just a top team. I'm sure it's something that Ten Hag is thinking about constantly, and that is a ways away. Like by the time we address the other gaping issues which will take 2 summers anyway, then by the 3rd summer we'll perhaps be logically looking to transition from Bruno. I think we can be a top team and competitive with Bruno, but not THE top team. I don't think Rashford would hold us back from that level, but i do think Bruno potentially might, as he lacks the dynamism on the ball in terms of being able to receive under pressure and move with it. That's the difference with someone like Odegaard and De Bruyne compared to Bruno. Both of those are much better at moving with the ball, and that dynamism is key at both #8 and #10 to reach the top. Press resistant, receive under pressure, move with the ball while being able to still create through passing.
Goalkeeper needs to be able to play put from the back and dominate aerially, those are musts, and it's not peak de Gea shot stopping anymore where he was other worldly. Rashford though, I think every team needs a wide forward like him, either right wing or left wing. You need more than 1 source of that threat in behind, keeps you unpredictable and especially if they're versatile, they can switch between creative roles and scoring roles. It's a thing I always felt city needed even, until they signed Haaland.
We're back to trying to get of Rashford again??? Good lord, this place is a trip.
I agree with every word of this. Basically echoes my sentiments across a number if threads and a number of topics on here for a while. No further questions your honour.
Team B is better, but a combined best 11 still features Fernandes over Eriksen, and Rashford over Kvaratskhelia.
If he could take part in our build-up like Ederson, Allison and Ramsdale do (or even how Onana did for ETH's Ajax), we wouldn't concede most of those chances where he had to make a great save this season due to us having almost complete control over the opponents.
It might be worthy of a discussion if he weren't a homegrown player. Though even then I think he's good enough in his own right, regardless of tactical direction.
But a homegrown player who helps fulfilling the quota and can also contribute 20+ goals? It would be sheer insanity to even contemplate selling him.
That’s a complete stretch and forgive me, but borderline nonsense. What do you think the other teams we play against every week are trying to do? This is the Premier League.
Maybe because it's not a balanced team?
You've literally added Napoli's two best players, who have insane chemistry, and are proven to work well together, and you're wondering why no one is picking team A?
Because the answer I think is that Rashford is not a playmaking type of winger that works well with a striker like Osimhen who expects good service from the wings.
Furthermore, in team A, you would hope that the right winger could compensate for that but Antony is not a playmaking type of winger either.
You've listed two inverted wingers who like to shoot a lot.
If you put in someone Iike Kane in team A then perhaps some people would vote differently, as Son is a similar kind of player to Rashford, and so I think he would work well with him.
I get what you're trying to do though, with the idea of getting rid of players that work better in a counter-attacking side and might not work in an ideal set-up for a Ten Hag
team.