Matic was tired
Pogba was never a deep lying midfielder
Herrera was OK
that midfield really didn’t have everything
Ander Herrera Interview
- Thread starter Raoul
- Start date
Matic was tired
Pogba was never a deep lying midfielder
Herrera was OK
that midfield really didn’t have everything
Not really. I don't know what you mean by "tired" but Matic was quite good when he joined but it didn't last longer . I never said anything about Pogba being a deep playmaker either.
Matic as DM, Herrera as box to box and Pogba as an attacking midfielder literally has everything what you need from a midfield. Sadly, that's not how football works and we didn't get the best out of it.
It makes me sad and furious at the same time we were so badly managed by the club, letting a player like Herrera go and extending the contract for Jones and bringing in Fred. No need to relive the crimes committed by club over the last decades, but letting Herrera go was a poor decision.
2 years ago he was not far off being PSGs best man in the CL final they lost.
Lacked players around him here that would play fast. Too often forced to play with Fellaini who had a whole different game.
Lacked players around him here that would play fast. Too often forced to play with Fellaini who had a whole different game.
He became a crock by the time he left, and immediately did his hamstring after joining PSG. Signing Fred was poor but keeping him over Herrera was understandable.
I’m telling you the things that that midfield lacked. Not contesting things you’ve said.
Matic’s legs were gone and I don’t know why people try to pretend otherwise because he put in the odd good performance. By large, the Matic at United was finished
Pogba was not a deep lying midfielder but often times we asked him to play there when his attributes were all attack focused. No surprised his best stretches of form came when he played further forward from the left.
Herrera was just OK - I liked him but he wasn’t particularly adept at anything
^Exactly. Someone speaking sense.
Ran down his contract, held United ransom then fecked off to psg for a ridiculous pay day… his opinion isn’t worth the time of day
That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Why wouldn't he want the most money after his best season? He also has to be willing to sign a contract at a price the club can afford (which wasn't the case a couple of years later).
Again have a 30+ year old Herrera in the side wasn't going to the move the needle. It was the correct decision not to re-sign him.
What clarity that brought.
@clarkydaz thanks for that write up and quotes.
Yeah. Not how I recall but again, I’m not sure what happened. @clarkydaz had some good quotes
Never forgave him for allowing Mark Noble to carry him on the pitch. Made us look like a bunch of soft cnuts, which we were tbf. At least now we have Casemiro and Licha to twat someone if they attempted that to any of our players.
He and Bruno are very similar in ways. Shithousing any slight bit of contact and rolling around. Herrera was a good player but I always felt he needed to have two midfielders better than him in the trio. Does a little bit of everything but wasn't a specialist in anything.
He and Bruno are very similar in ways. Shithousing any slight bit of contact and rolling around. Herrera was a good player but I always felt he needed to have two midfielders better than him in the trio. Does a little bit of everything but wasn't a specialist in anything.
Lololololololol. Well, we must have been watching different games
I always felt he was one of the players (Blind also) from after Ferguson who could have been an option/starter in some title-winning sides (Herrera alongside Carrick in 2011/2013, instead of Anderson/Cleverley).
Jose more or less started with the 4-2-3-1. I assumed when Pogba came in, he would be the 10, but Mkhitaryan was the 10 with Pogba and Fellaini/Herrera deeper. Next season Matic came in and became Pogba's partner. After Mkhi left, it was Lingard as the 10
.
Ole finally played that (very obvious) 4-3-3 with Matic-Herrera-Pogba when he first took over, but lost faith soon after despite a good run to begin with. And that was the end - instead of keeping Herrera and upgrading Matic, it's back to the 4-2-3-1. Lingard as 10 again, Pogba sitting alongside Matic/Fred/McT.
The transfers of summer 2019 were bad, and even worse in retrospect:
In: Maguire+AWB+James = 150m.
Out: Lukaku, Valencia, Smalling, Herrera = 100m.
for a team that most urgently needed a DM/CM and a left-footed attacker...
That combination had a lot of success when it was actually used. A few years ago I looked into it in detail as in theory it should have been our best midfield, and found the results backed that up. When we used that combination we drew and lost our first two matches, but after that went undefeated. And not only undefeated, but it was something like 14-17 wins (can't remember the exact figure) and 1 draw. It was also responsible for our best football we've played since SAF when Ole first took over, and overall it was easily our best performing midfield since SAF. It was also easily Pogba's best performances (for one month there he was literally up there with Messi as the best performing player on the planet), and just so happened to coincide with one of the two short periods he had in his time here where he played in a similar system as what he did at Juve.
It ended when Herrera picked up an injury towards the end of his last season, and by that stage he'd pretty much agreed to join PSG. His injury also marked the point where the wheels started falling off in Ole's first season, with us only winning 4 of the last 11 league matches.
I'll never understand why Mourinho never really utilised that combination, and why Ole seemed to ignore how successful it had been in his early days and never looked to use it again with a direct Herrera replacement.
Yep, I'd agree with that. Herrera was better offensively and defensively, but Fred was better in that deep-lying playmaker role that we've (stupidly) mostly used him in since he's been here. Fred's obviously not been good enough in that role, but I do think he's done better than some give him credit for.
I've always wondered how they would have gone together. It's a combination that obviously would have had it's limitations, but it's also a midfield that opposition teams would probably have hated to play against. An incredible amount of pressing and harrying ability there.
In my opinion, that was all about Matic and very little to do with Hererra (or Pogba). Because in the last several years whenever we had brief runs of good form it always featured excellent performances from Matic at the base of midfield. And this was the case long after Hererra had moved on. The problem we had was that Matic got more and more inconsistent as he aged.
I think a 26-29 y.o Herrera would work very well in Ten Hag team.
He was able to carry instructions well. He's not a bad player, we didn't have a system that get the best out of what we had.
Van Gaal's system was too rigid and Jose didn't have one.
He was able to carry instructions well. He's not a bad player, we didn't have a system that get the best out of what we had.
Van Gaal's system was too rigid and Jose didn't have one.
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It was a combination of all three of them playing the role that they were most suited. Matic is the only one properly suited to that DM role we've had since Carrick, so he certainly was a key part of it. But he was in absolutely terrible form that season (second worst in the team other than Lukaku) and looked like his legs had absolutely gone until we put Herrera next to him, and I do think the latter taking over a significant amount of the leg work is what allowed Matic to kick back into form. Add in Pogba having the extra freedom to pick his times for when to help control midfield and when to burst forward without worrying much about the defensive holes he was leaving, and it was just a good combination that bought out the best in all of them.
It's pretty much the only time we've actually had a properly balanced midfield since SAF, and unsurprisingly it worked better than any other midfield combination we've tried in the entire time. The only other time we did something similar was in 16/17 when we briefly had the same combo but with Carrick instead of Matic. Despite Carrick being on his last legs, that was also probably the best we played that season.
Casemiro-Eriksen-Bruno (if we count the latter as a midfielder) will hopefully have a similar result, being a midfield that in theory does work well together.
Agree with this. He was undoubtedly a midfielder, much like Cleverley was.
VdB is the same - plays in midfield and often seen around the centre of the pitch, which is where Cleverley spent a lot of time in his pomp.
Put them on the pitch at the same time and squint a bit and they could easily become a smaller version of Cerberus, an amalgamation of a single being, only with less snarling teeth and more bright green Nike cleats.
I'd say we have more than enough s**thousery in our team right now. Antony and Bruno has it in abundance, and the likes of Martinez, Casemiro and even Ronaldo has it in them in a more subtle way.
He's spouting nonsense especially this bit.
At the time United weren't renegotiating any players contract when they still had 2 years left to run. No idea why he expected to be treated differently.
Bullshit face saving quotes.
right, as you know better
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To be fair, unless you explicitly know how contract negotiations go, he may be right in that either 1) he expected a raise/new contract or 2) he just wanted the club to 'say, we're looking to extend, let's talk', which doesn't seem outlandish within that time period. He was going into his last 2 years with no talk or mention at all (his words), so he probably waited until the summer, which would have been 1 year left and again no mention; at that point of time, any player would be thinking 'every man for himself now'. You wouldn't wait until the season starts and the last year to start negotiating.
I don't need to know that, what I do know though is that back then United were waiting until the last 12-18 months of a players contract to open negotiations. Look at when we started talks with Pogba and DeGea about renewing. Herrera arrived in 2014 on a 4+1 deal so United not opening talks in the summer of 2017 shouldn't have been a surprise to him or his agent with two years left on his deal.
Back in 2018 Herrera also said he was upset that United didn't inform him they were triggering their unilateral 1 year option on his contract. Another event that shouldn't have surprised him.
right, as you know better
Exactly
I find it absolutely mad that there are still people annoyed enough by Herrera leaving the club that they've rewritten his time here to say he was some limited passion merchant who "couldn't pass forwards".
Literally set up the winning goal in one of the three finals we've won since Ferguson retired. Set up the goal that took us to the final of the second (also man of the match in the third, by the way). Created memorable winners in the league against Spurs, Chelsea, and Liverpool with defence-splitting through passes that you'd think people would remember.
I almost have to question which team some people in here were watching for five years.
Literally set up the winning goal in one of the three finals we've won since Ferguson retired. Set up the goal that took us to the final of the second (also man of the match in the third, by the way). Created memorable winners in the league against Spurs, Chelsea, and Liverpool with defence-splitting through passes that you'd think people would remember.
I almost have to question which team some people in here were watching for five years.