Adrien Rabiot | signs 1 year deal at Juventus. See you all next year

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They cant stand him can they? every post is about praying to get rid of him, hoping we buy him. He’s the Mct of Juventus.

Yeh reading his comments I can't think of when United fans hated someone that much in the end. Maybe Sanchez or Lingard.
 
The fact Juventus can't wait to get rid of this guy and have apparently accepted our bid days ago and he's still not even in the country just shows what a truly shocking job Murtough is doing.

Be hilarious if he turns us down.
 
I think we’ll be pleasantly surprised by this signing. I said it before but he was very good next to Verratti when playing for PSG. I know that was a while back (and that Verratti is a top tier talent), but he still looked very very good.
 
The fact Juventus can't wait to get rid of this guy and have apparently accepted our bid days ago and he's still not even in the country just shows what a truly shocking job Murtough is doing.

Be hilarious if he turns us down.

Sometimes players find the most unlikeliest of homes and could happen with him
 
If we can actually get him along with De Jong i'll be happy with midfield options.
 
Fred and Mctominay are ok as squad options. Eriksen and Bruno for the most advanced.

Struggling to see a place for VDB in the squad.
If we sign 2, Eriksen would also be present as depth for the deeper role.
 
If we sign 2, Eriksen would also be present as depth for the deeper role.
yeah agreed, i have a feeling ETH will end up Dropping Bruno and he'll play as the most advanced though
 
yeah agreed, i have a feeling ETH will end up Dropping Bruno and he'll play as the most advanced though

I don't see it. Think Bruno's form will pick up. He offers a goal and creative threat, which is lacking across other areas of the team. This season so far, he hasn't had a chance to be as impactful as we expect because our issues in building up and defence have been overbearing for the rest of the team. He's still one of the best chance creators in football, presses and actually takes risks.

I think we will actually see a shift on formation. We will go shift to a 4231 and Bruno will definately be the attacking midfielder in that set up. Eriksen will start, but I actually think we will see him in a multitude of positions.
 
Noted the below in an article in The Athletic talking about Martinez and how Ajax dealt with it when he was facing extreme aerial threats.

One of those ways is to be organised as a team. For example, when Martinez’s former side Ajax came up against Borussia Dortmund in last season’s Champions League, the defender was assisted by a midfielder who would drop whenever a long ball was played in towards 6ft 4in (193.04cm) Erling Haaland, disrupting the striker and allowing Martinez more time and space in the air.

And thinking about the below from a piece describing how Ajax functioned under ETH:

When pressed from goal-kicks, Ajax utilised vertical decoy runs from their centrebacks to open passing lanes directly from the keeper. Ajax could play out – or at least play to areas of lower risk despite sticking to their principles. The degree of tactical complexity that the centrebacks must be aware of is rare – centrebacks do not usually move ahead of play in this regard, as they’re typically the most important constituents of rest defence. Even from a throw in, we can see how aggressive Martinez is at occupying vacated space, making himself an option. This occurred despite causing him and Timber (the centreback pair) to stagger to quite a severe degree. It *appears* high risk. Furthermore, in settled build-up, Martinez was often found vacating his post in centreback entirely. It may be a stretch to call him a centreback in this regard, because of how much conviction he’d stagger the lines with. Alvarez, one of the deep midfielders actually dis-marked to receive deep in this scenario. Martinez is still seen staggering the lines. This is a vertical rotation as such: the CB advancing and the CM dropping in. Blind (out of shot) has dropped narrow to aid rest defence.

Now wondering if the Rabiot signing makes more sense if you consider it through the lense of that dynamic between CB and midfield.

At 6ft 2 and having been in the 95th and 93rd percentile for success in aerial duels in the last two seasons, he would certainly seem capable of offering the sort of additional aerial protection mentioned in the first quote when dropping deep. And while he has been criticised for being overly safe in possession, the fact that we may see the very progressive Martinez taking up the very aggressive positions mentioned in the second quote may ameliorate that issue somewhat.
 
I don't see it. Think Bruno's form will pick up. He offers a goal and creative threat, which is lacking across other areas of the team. This season so far, he hasn't had a chance to be as impactful as we expect because our issues in building up and defence have been overbearing for the rest of the team. He's still one of the best chance creators in football, presses and actually takes risks.

I think we will actually see a shift on formation. We will go shift to a 4231 and Bruno will definately be the attacking midfielder in that set up. Eriksen will start, but I actually think we will see him in a multitude of positions.

we've been waiting a long time for his form to pick up, he's been pretty poor for about 6 months. I hope he can because he's very good when on form.

Either way a midfield or Rabiot, De Jong and Eriksen/Bruno is the best in paper we've had in about a decade
 
Noted the below in an article in The Athletic talking about Martinez and how Ajax dealt with it when he was facing extreme aerial threats.



And thinking about the below from a piece describing how Ajax functioned under ETH:



Now wondering if the Rabiot signing makes more sense if you consider it through the lense of that dynamic between CB and midfield.

At 6ft 2 and having been in the 95th and 93rd percentile for success in aerial duels in the last two seasons, he would certainly seem capable of offering the sort of additional aerial protection mentioned in the first quote when dropping deep. And while he has been criticised for being overly safe in possession, the fact that we may see the very progressive Martinez taking up the very aggressive positions mentioned in the second quote may ameliorate that issue somewhat.
Why cant McT play this if its just a case of mopping up the long balls?
 
Noted the below in an article in The Athletic talking about Martinez and how Ajax dealt with it when he was facing extreme aerial threats.



And thinking about the below from a piece describing how Ajax functioned under ETH:



Now wondering if the Rabiot signing makes more sense if you consider it through the lense of that dynamic between CB and midfield.

At 6ft 2 and having been in the 95th and 93rd percentile for success in aerial duels in the last two seasons, he would certainly seem capable of offering the sort of additional aerial protection mentioned in the first quote when dropping deep. And while he has been criticised for being overly safe in possession, the fact that we may see the very progressive Martinez taking up the very aggressive positions mentioned in the second quote may ameliorate that issue somewhat.

We have been doing this but still winning no second balls. Against Brighton we had Fred dropping in front of Welbeck, with Martinez behind him. But Welbeck was plucking the ball out of the air and we weren't winning anything.
 
Why cant McT play this if its just a case of mopping up the long balls?

McTominay is a ball watcher, he is fine when he has to hunt and not so much when he has to cover.
 
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What is the first tweet supposed to mean? We've walked away or another meeting not necessary? I'd say I'm surprised we're even struggling with this one but nothing surprises me these days.
It's called negotiations, we don't simply pay whatever they want and get it done with. Neither the player nor Juventus.
 
McTominay isn't smart enough to play that role. He doesn't have any sort of tactical nous. He's pretty useless, really.
 
It's called negotiations, we don't simply pay whatever they want and get it done with. Neither the player nor Juventus.

Always cracks me up picturing these 'negotiations'.

Rabiot: 'I want £160k'

Murtough: 'We can only offer £100k'

.....silence.....

Murtough: 'I think this meeting is over'.

I mean, why wouldn't they just hash it out within a couple of days? Do they really intend to play a game of 'who blinks first', at the risk of nothing happening. We're already seemingly in that boat with de Jong, what makes us so confident that Rabiot will yield?
 
That's nowhere near as much as I thought he'd want. Considering the wages some of our useless players are on, that is reasonable.

This might be a net figure, the gross is 237K, which is indeed very high, and yes you are right, many of our useless players get 200K or more, like Martial, Rashford, Bruno & Sancho, while DDG is the 3rd highest paid player in the PL after Ronaldo & KdB.
 
They apparently accepted our bid a week ago now. It's tragic how we can't even get average journey men like Rabiot over the line. Hahaha
 
Always cracks me up picturing these 'negotiations'.

Rabiot: 'I want £160k'

Murtough: 'We can only offer £100k'

.....silence.....

Murtough: 'I think this meeting is over'.

I mean, why wouldn't they just hash it out within a couple of days? Do they really intend to play a game of 'who blinks first', at the risk of nothing happening. We're already seemingly in that boat with de Jong, what makes us so confident that Rabiot will yield?
This has always been something I've found so ridiculous. I mean surely you sit and negotiate for an hour or so back and forth and it's done. This idea that we offer and leave it is why it always takes us so long to conclude anything. You simply don't see this type of stupidity from the likes of Liverpool, City etc. They go in and do the deal, so frustrating.
 
What is the first tweet supposed to mean? We've walked away or another meeting not necessary? I'd say I'm surprised we're even struggling with this one but nothing surprises me these days.
Reading between the lines, it's probably being held up by the De Jong deal, because they probably realise now it's going to cost them a hell of a lot more to get him here than they first thought and have budgetary restraints before signing off Rabiot, OR, they have got a get sign off from the Glazers, and with the time difference between UK/US it can take additional day or two than it should.
 
This has always been something I've found so ridiculous. I mean surely you sit and negotiate for an hour or so back and forth and it's done. This idea that we offer and leave it is why it always takes us so long to conclude anything. You simply don't see this type of stupidity from the likes of Liverpool, City etc. They go in and do the deal, so frustrating.

From what I've read negotiations have to be closed out by Joel Glazer, and due to the time difference in Florida we essentially have to wait for him to make up his mind before concluding any deal. He is the specific reason our transfer business is always slow.
 
What is the first tweet supposed to mean? We've walked away or another meeting not necessary? I'd say I'm surprised we're even struggling with this one but nothing surprises me these days.
My guess is that they have given Murtough their demands and are waiting to see if they’re met. I think after the weekends game we’ll be keen to get this over the line prior to the Liverpool game.

I believe Rabiot and FDJ are priorities now.
 
Pretty good summery of the situation. The staff that is in charge of recruitment is one of the worst in the PL, we just can't compete with people like this making decisions.

Here is just the thing that I don't get about us. Why doesn't Arnold look at teams like Brighton or even a bit higher up and sees that they have people there who really know what they are doing, true experts in their field who do quality work on a way tighter budget than our staff is doing and fecking hire them? Bayern just snagged the Head Scout from Dortmund, why weren't we interested? Like the guy said "WHAT IS GOING ON???"
You are too kind saying "one of t he worst in PL". I am struggling to remember any other team in EPL that is as bad as us. Arnold and Murtough are the cancers on the dying body of Manchester United. Sure Glazers appointed them and are the root of this evil, but our problems also have concretes face and names in Arnold and Murtough. There is no hope for this club until these individuals are in charge. We somehow got lucky to get a perfect manager, and we are still shit.
 
This has always been something I've found so ridiculous. I mean surely you sit and negotiate for an hour or so back and forth and it's done. This idea that we offer and leave it is why it always takes us so long to conclude anything. You simply don't see this type of stupidity from the likes of Liverpool, City etc. They go in and do the deal, so frustrating.
It certainly happens to other clubs to be fair, we're just the most incompetent.

My issue is, these things can be sorted within an hour. Deadline day proves this. It's the same with negotiations over transfer fees with clubs.

You can contact a player and club at 6pm and he'll be signed by 10pm deadline. But if the same contact happens in the middle of the window it takes months to conclude.

The idea you would have a meeting to thrash out a deal, fail to reach one, and schedule another meeting in 6 weeks time to try again is just absurd to me. Lock yourselves in a room until the deal is done, and if it doesn't get done, move on to a different player.
 
Fred and Mctominay are ok as squad options. Eriksen and Bruno for the most advanced.

Struggling to see a place for VDB in the squad.
Right now I’d rather VDB than Bruno whose been stinking out the place for 7 months now
 
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