Absolutely horrible midfield

RedWat said:
Most of the Liverpool midfielders irrespective of their skill set posses the same fundamental commodity...A winner's mindset I see that in Fabinho,Wijnaldum, Henderson, & especially Milner (jury still out on Keita), I believe Klopp doesn't just buy and use players because how good they are or if they can fit a role but if they have the right mentality for the club which the above has, that is the reason why they have won the champions league (after being in two finals) nearly accumulated 100 points in the league last season and are unbeaten this season. Even though they are not playing that well at the moment they find a way to get a result. Talent can only get you so far, perseverance and the right mentality gets you the rest of the way, as I mentioned in a previous post only McT in the current united midfield has that mentality(not including players like Mata or Matic who "had it" but are now "past it"), and that is the problem he is a kid and he cannot do it on his own.
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McTominay is young and hasn't been around long, but it looks to me he has a winner mindset.

Pogba has won everything except a CL title. He is a winner despite what many of you say.

Even if Andreas and Fred had a winning mentality, I don't think they have the quality to put it to use.
 
gerdm07 said:
McTominay is young and hasn't been around long, but it looks to me he has a winner mindset.

Pogba has won everything except a CL title. He is a winner despite what many of you say.

Even if Andreas and Fred had a winning mentality, I don't think they have the quality to put it to use.
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Won broadly a 1 horse league in Italy and the played very well for about 4 games of the last World Cup where he happened to play for the favourites to win the tournament.

Pogba is a winner on paper but there's more times he's gone into hiding in his performances than those where he's dragged us to victory. For every 3-2 vs City performance, there's a 4-0 versus Everton or a performance where a relegated Huddersfield would run round him.

I don't see that in McTominay. McTominay may have half the talent of Pogba, or less, but he's never hiding in a football match.
 
Velvet Revolver said:
Pogba as attacking midfielder is a no brainer and could work but Ole is more likely to play him as a midfield 2.
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I agree but fear that Pogba will come back and Fred or McT will be injured and Pogba will slot in as one of the 2 DMs. And then we are stuck with Andreas/Mata/Lingard as AM. I really hope we buy an AM or DM in January that can contribute from day one.
 
VP89 said:
Won broadly a 1 horse league in Italy and the played very well for about 4 games of the last World Cup where he happened to play for the favourites to win the tournament.
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You can only beat the opponents you have. A WC winner is still a WC winner no matter how many asterisks you want to add. More importantly, Pogba was not a virus in the clubhouse for Juventus and France. In fact, most reports say his teammates really liked him....and they won. I also think he was a goal from being picked player of the WC. I think if he scored that last late chance in the final he might have been chosen as player of the tournament. Certainly, he was in top 4 for consideration.
 
gerdm07 said:
You can only beat the opponents you have. A WC winner is still a WC winner no matter how many asterisks you want to add. More importantly, Pogba was not a virus in the clubhouse for Juventus and France. In fact, most reports say his teammates really liked him....and they won. I also think he was a goal from being picked player of the WC. I think if he scored that last late chance in the final he might have been chosen as player of the tournament. Certainly, he was in top 4 for consideration.
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Of course, I don't think he was a virus for any of those teams. The view of "he's a winner" is watered down when you put it into context is all. One is for France, where players have a different mindset and it's broadly based on form rather than consistency over 38 games like it is for a club. The other was in a stage of his career where Serie A was just an all round shite league, and Juventus had an open goal at the title year after year. They won it by double digits pretty much every year if I'm not mistaken. One season by 17 points!

Being a winner for me is down to mentality more than what your club/team has done. I see McTominay as a winner and he's won feck all. I know its weird logic but when we say "oh look at x, he's such a winner" we normally refer to mentality. Otherwise we'd be out here claiming Anderson > Gerrard when we all know that's not true.

You mention Fred and if you look at his body language and energy to get about the pitch, continually try to move the ball about even when he's criticized for giving it away, I agree with you that he has signs of the right mentality too. His time will come for us because the guy just keeps plugging away, even when he was not giving good performances he's always showing for the ball, trying to make a difference and generally putting himself about all the time. I have a lot of respect for him in that sense. The Brighton performance he had was brilliant and about time!
 
VP89 said:
Of course, I don't think he was a virus for any of those teams. The view of "he's a winner" is watered down when you put it into context is all. One is for France, where players have a different mindset and it's broadly based on form rather than consistency over 38 games like it is for a club. The other was in a stage of his career where Serie A was just an all round shite league, and Juventus had an open goal at the title year after year. They won it by double digits pretty much every year if I'm not mistaken. One season by 17 points!

Being a winner for me is down to mentality more than what your club/team has done. I see McTominay as a winner and he's won feck all. I know its weird logic but when we say "oh look at x, he's such a winner" we normally refer to mentality. Otherwise we'd be out here claiming Anderson > Gerrard when we all know that's not true.

You mention Fred and if you look at his body language and energy to get about the pitch, continually try to move the ball about even when he's criticized for giving it away, I agree with you that he has signs of the right mentality too. His time will come for us because the guy just keeps plugging away, even when he was not giving good performances he's always showing for the ball, trying to make a difference and generally putting himself about all the time. I have a lot of respect for him in that sense. The Brighton performance he had was brilliant and about time!
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There is a chance Fred could work out and the Brighton performance was great. I'm just not convinced he has that exquisite first touch that all really good midfielders need to have.

On the other hand, I have seen enough of Andreas to know he will never be that good even with the right mentality. This is sad because I was a fan a couple of years ago and I had real hopes for him.
 
gerdm07 said:
I agree but fear that Pogba will come back and Fred or McT will be injured and Pogba will slot in as one of the 2 DMs. And then we are stuck with Andreas/Mata/Lingard as AM. I really hope we buy an AM or DM in January that can contribute from day one.
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Mct is injured now so yeah it's bound to happen. Matic or pogba at CM!
 
Never mind premier league midtable this lot wouldnt look out of place in the championship
 
The decision to let go Herrera and extended Pereira’s contract and not backing Ole to sign midfield is really what cost us losing lot of points this season. The board really needs to back the manager to sign midfield in January even if it’s only a loan move it’s better to have a decent midfielder than playing Matic & Pereira.
 
VP89 said:
Of course, I don't think he was a virus for any of those teams. The view of "he's a winner" is watered down when you put it into context is all. One is for France, where players have a different mindset and it's broadly based on form rather than consistency over 38 games like it is for a club. The other was in a stage of his career where Serie A was just an all round shite league, and Juventus had an open goal at the title year after year. They won it by double digits pretty much every year if I'm not mistaken. One season by 17 points!

Being a winner for me is down to mentality more than what your club/team has done. I see McTominay as a winner and he's won feck all. I know its weird logic but when we say "oh look at x, he's such a winner" we normally refer to mentality. Otherwise we'd be out here claiming Anderson > Gerrard when we all know that's not true.

You mention Fred and if you look at his body language and energy to get about the pitch, continually try to move the ball about even when he's criticized for giving it away, I agree with you that he has signs of the right mentality too. His time will come for us because the guy just keeps plugging away, even when he was not giving good performances he's always showing for the ball, trying to make a difference and generally putting himself about all the time. I have a lot of respect for him in that sense. The Brighton performance he had was brilliant and about time!
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Juventus made CL final while Pogba was there. That was a good side regardless of the strength of the league.
 
Suvvernmanc said:
I feel the sarcasm. Why let Herrera go then? That was partly my point. The midfield is terrible and Ole and woody are absolutely at fault for letting it happen. You have all summer to get the targets and get the deal done. Sean Longstaff was unattainable, that much was obvious. £50m? Na! And Cristian Eriksen were just rumours were they not?
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His contract ran out, there wasn't a choice.
 
Take De Bruyne and Silva out from City and they are in the same situation
 
pmgeorge said:
Take De Bruyne and Silva out from City and they are in the same situation
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I'm pretty fecking sure a midfield of Gundogan-Rodri-Bernardo Silva or even Gundogan or Bernardo Silva or Foden as a 10 in front of a double pivot of Rodri-Fernandinho would look a whole lot more competent than even our first choice midfield, especially with the space Guardiola creates for that midfield with his tactics. Also Zinchenko has looked like a very good midfielder for Ukraine the few times I've seen him and he's got good mobility and technique so chuck him in as a possibility too. Any of those above 6 names would walk into our midfield with Pogba and McTominay, even with Fred improving this last little while.
 
MackRobinson said:
Juventus made CL final while Pogba was there. That was a good side regardless of the strength of the league.
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It was. I'm not sure what relevance that has to anything. That Pogba is a winner? That he was part of a very good side? What exactly?

It's not hard to win when you're part an amazing team in a one horse league.
 
Salus Populi Suprema Lex said:
Fred and Pereira is a Championship central midfield; just horrific. Both should moved on asap and replaced by two quality players.
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It certainly has a shout out to be our worst centre mid combo since the day we fielded O Shea and Rafael (was it?) that day we punished Rooney and Gibson by leaving them out...only to then lose at home to Blackburn.
 
Sandikan said:
It certainly has a shout out to be our worst centre mid combo since the day we fielded O Shea and Rafael (was it?) that day we punished Rooney and Gibson by leaving them out...only to then lose at home to Blackburn.
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Same match Pogba made his decision to leave on a free.
 
Central midfield was truly awful. It gives our defence absolutely no protection and creates nothing for our strikers. As much as we need a new striker, a quality central midfielder has to be a priority, and that's even the case when Mc T and Pogba are back fit
 
Sandikan said:
It certainly has a shout out to be our worst centre mid combo since the day we fielded O Shea and Rafael (was it?) that day we punished Rooney and Gibson by leaving them out...only to then lose at home to Blackburn.
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Yeah, there's a terrible memory :D . Fifty million for Fred? Someone is having a laugh, and it certainly isn't us. He is garbage.
 
Salus Populi Suprema Lex said:
Yeah, there's a terrible memory :D . Fifty million for Fred? Someone is having a laugh, and it certainly isn't us. He is garbage.
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Whoever was behind that one should have been booted out.
Seems like the club tried to be clever and do an early 2000s Chelsea of basically using another club's target list and swooping in to gazump them late doors.

Unfortunately we didn't quite do it on players as successful as Robben, Duff et al
 
Our midfield is a shambles, and I believe on of the reasons is that there simply isn't a competition for places. The absolute dross we have are content with being dross because there are no nailed on starters bar Pogba, who is a poor example for the other midfielders in my opinion.

I'm ready for the hate, but if we sold Pogba and used that money to buy 3 new CMs, we'd finally be able to say we have healthy competition for those spots and use it as a platform to grow.

I'm reminded of something I heard years ago regarding the class of 92 - that the reason they were all able to turn into superstars is the healthy competition amongst them. They were all a similar level, which pushed each other to the limit and allowed for plateaus to be broken through. Now, I could be misrepresenting the thought, or completely fabricating it (my mind isn't what it used to be) but I do believe the midfield is the one area in which lack of competitive talent is killing our chances to excel. The absurd money we would get for Pogba could really help change the midfield dynamics.
 
VP89 said:
It was. I'm not sure what relevance that has to anything. That Pogba is a winner? That he was part of a very good side? What exactly?

It's not hard to win when you're part an amazing team in a one horse league.
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He was a key part of that Juve team and he scored big goals in big moments. That's why it is relevant. To downplay his accomplishments because of the quality of the league is a pretty ridiculous when that same team made a CL final.
 
MackRobinson said:
He was a key part of that Juve team and he scored big goals in big moments. That's why it is relevant. To downplay his accomplishments because of the quality of the league is a pretty ridiculous when that same team made a CL final.
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He wasn't outstanding in the CL against many big teams. He himself had a poor performance in the final if I remember correctly.

Besides that, playing well against bottom fodder teams in Serie A isn't a barometer of much.
 
We need at least two centre midfielders, we really need to get one in January if at all possible.
 
As good as Pogba can be on his day, he doesn't produce the goods enough. Think it would be better for him to go as it seems he doesn't want to be here. Think we should sell him soon as his value is still high and I would like the whole fee to be reinvested in other areas of the team. We should spend it on players who want to give their last drop of sweat for the team.
 
We still haven’t replaced Scholes and Keane really, carrick was solid, and got better with age but not really. It looked like it might be the case for half a season with Matic and pogba playing well but considering how inconsistent pogba is and how Matic was finished towards the end of his first season for us...
 
VP89 said:
He wasn't outstanding in the CL against many big teams. He himself had a poor performance in the final if I remember correctly.

Besides that, playing well against bottom fodder teams in Serie A isn't a barometer of much.
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He played well away to Bayern en route to the final (and the previous season IIRC). Let's not pretend Pogba was just a passenger on those Juve teams.
 
The Irish Connection said:
We still haven’t replaced Scholes and Keane really, carrick was solid, and got better with age but not really. It looked like it might be the case for half a season with Matic and pogba playing well but considering how inconsistent pogba is and how Matic was finished towards the end of his first season for us...
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I thought when are we going to replace Keane for years. I really wanted Essien and the Kante came along and Chelsea the lucky so and so's got them. I've virtually given up on finding Keane replacement, then same thing happened with Scholes. They players are so unique virtually impossible to replace. I've realised we have to move on and hope we find players in mould but they were so great it is hard to find players near that level with mentality as well.
 
Before the season I said we'd come top 4 if Pogba and McTominay stay fit all year but we could finish 10th if one or both are missing for a long period.

That's how bad our crop of midfielders are. We have 2 competent midfielders. We start every game with 3 midfielders on the pitch. Crazy stuff.
 
pmgeorge said:
Take De Bruyne and Silva out from City and they are in the same situation
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Jesus. What about Fernadinho, Rodri, Gundogan, Foden, the other Silva?

They had phenomenal depth. We have Pereira and Fred. How is that the same?????
 
SteveW said:
Before the season I said we'd come top 4 if Pogba and McTominay stay fit all year but we could finish 10th if one or both are missing for a long period.

That's how bad our crop of midfielders are. We have 2 competent midfielders. We start every game with 3 midfielders on the pitch. Crazy stuff.
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Crazy how the people running the club could let this happen. It seemed obvious to most people besides them that if we had injuries to Pogba or McTominay that we needed another midfielder or we would be in the sh!te.
 
MackRobinson said:
He played well away to Bayern en route to the final (and the previous season IIRC). Let's not pretend Pogba was just a passenger on those Juve teams.
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I'm not saying he was a passenger, but your argument of him being a winner has been reduced to naming one or two games where he played well against decent oppositions.

This is what I mean, the claim that he's a winner is massively watered down when you consider his club silverware is just Italian cups when Serie A was a one horse league. You have to look outside in competitions he was more inconsistent in to find singular games he did decent in. In those same competitions you'd also find games he was poor in.
 
Eric's Seagull said:
Crazy how the people running the club could let this happen. It seemed obvious to most people besides them that if we had injuries to Pogba or McTominay that we needed another midfielder or we would be in the sh!te.
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I get the impression Ed overruled Ole on Longstaff over the price. Could be wrong. It was a crazy risk.
 
VP89 said:
I'm not saying he was a passenger, but your argument of him being a winner has been reduced to naming one or two games where he played well against decent oppositions.

This is what I mean, the claim that he's a winner is massively watered down when you consider his club silverware is just Italian cups when Serie A was a one horse league. You have to look outside in competitions he was more inconsistent in to find singular games he did decent in. In those same competitions you'd also find games he was poor in.
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Did you watch the World Cup final
 
SteveW said:
I get the impression Ed overruled Ole on Longstaff over the price. Could be wrong. It was a crazy risk.
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Although I don't like Woodward I could see why me might not want to sign a player who I think had played 9 games at the time, I might be wrong. Don't know much about Longstaff myself but I think it was negligent to not bring in another midfielder.

With all the scouts we have out there, I would think they could come up with an alternative to Longstaff, considering all the midfielders out there and from what I've read, he was the only one we seriously linked too. Crazy.
 
I think our forward options of Martial, Rashford, Greenwood n James (our best player this season) are fine.

Imagine how good they would look with KDB and one of the Silva's playing behind them.

The midfield is 1st, 2nd and 3rd priority. We need a complete overhaul. If Pogba wants out then sell him. As talented as he is if his heart isn't in it then he's no use to us. Sell him and buy 2/3 really good midfield players.
 
SteveW said:
That's how bad our crop of midfielders are. We have 2 competent midfielders. We start every game with 3 midfielders on the pitch. Crazy stuff.
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We basically do only have 2, and even then Pogba is the most infuriatingly inconsistent player I think I've ever seen at the club, and also I'm not convinced that he will ever pull on the shirt again.

Kante, Barkley, Loftus-Cheek, Kovacic, Mount, Jorginho
Fabinho, Wijnaldum, Milner, Keita, Henderson, Oxlade, Lallana
Gundogan, Zinchenko, Rodrigo, De Bruyne, Bernardo, Silva, Fernandinho, Foden
Winks, Wanyama, Dier, Sissoko, Dele Alli, Eriksen, Ndombele
Pogba, Mata, Lingard, Pereira, Fred, Matic, McTominay

Compare our pool of Central Midfielders to the teams that we expect to be competing with, it's woeful, we need 3 or 4 new players in there...!!
 
Ikon said:
We basically do only have 2, and even then Pogba is the most infuriatingly inconsistent player I think I've ever seen at the club, and also I'm not convinced that he will ever pull on the shirt again.

Kante, Barkley, Loftus-Cheek, Kovacic, Mount, Jorginho
Fabinho, Wijnaldum, Milner, Keita, Henderson, Oxlade, Lallana
Gundogan, Zinchenko, Rodrigo, De Bruyne, Bernardo, Silva, Fernandinho, Foden
Winks, Wanyama, Dier, Sissoko, Dele Alli, Eriksen, Ndombele
Pogba, Mata, Lingard, Pereira, Fred, Matic, McTominay

Compare our pool of Central Midfielders to the teams that we expect to be competing with, it's woeful, we need 3 or 4 new players in there...!!
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I think that the quality of midfielders we have compared to the ones you mentioned is embarrassing. This issue needs addressing as soon as possible and we need to bring in some quality but the way we are at the moment, I think this is going to take a long time to sort out.
 
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