Tuanzebe is a leader
Centre Back... Who do we go for?
- Thread starter Macern
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Whoever we sign need to be comfortable on the left. Lindelof is quality on the right. Sell Jones and Rojo. Keep smalling, Bailly (jury still out on him) and tuanzebe as backup, sign a LCB, i suggest Romagnoli at Ac milan.
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Which is code for he’s available but he will cost a lot!
We need a new top class CB, that is for sure. On the other hand, we need to get rid of the deadwood we have
It's obvious that we need a top quality CB (Mourinho was right) Koulibaly has been my preferred option for some time but if he's not available this window we have to look elsewhere, as much as I celebrated beating Spurs yesterday it made me wince watching our defending (Jones in particular).
Maguire has consistently lead the defenses he has been part of to abysmal defensive records, and it not as if England looked secure with him in a key role either.
His leadership and defensive abilities are very much unproven. Looks good on the ball and is an aerial force in both boxes, those we can guarantee, everything else is hopeful projection at the top level.
For a number of years people talked about Alderweireld and Vertonghen being the best CB partnership in the league, who of those 2 is the leader?
His leadership and defensive abilities are very much unproven. Looks good on the ball and is an aerial force in both boxes, those we can guarantee, everything else is hopeful projection at the top level.
For a number of years people talked about Alderweireld and Vertonghen being the best CB partnership in the league, who of those 2 is the leader?
De Ligt or Skriniar, no substitutes
Yeah you can only wish for it!
Get rid of Jones, Smalling and Rojo. Sign Koulibaly and keep Tuanzebe. Koulibaly, Lindelof, Bailly and Tuanzebe are decent options at CB. If Koulibaly doesn't happen we should be looking at Skriniar. Third option Manolas. Alderweireld should be a back up after the 3 options. He is better than what we have but he wont be here to form a long term partnership, just a final paycheck.
Everytime the ball went into the box yesterday , spurs looked like scoring. I've said it many times, we need someone who is dominant in the air. It breeds confidence in the whole team. No point taking risks with someone who hasn't played in the premier league as It will take time to settle.
Maguire is so obvious. Lindeloff or Bailey will become better players playing along side him too.
Maguire is so obvious. Lindeloff or Bailey will become better players playing along side him too.
Maguire is so obvious? Is he really 60-70m better than Jones and Smalling? I don't think he is. He's basically at the start of the curve they were on when we bought them (slightly more experienced ok). I think we need to get this signing so spot on its obvious Maguire isn't the one!
Now, that will be a overkill at CB. You don't buy 2 first team starting CB for crazy money with Lindeloff performing well at 21 and Smalling, Bailly, Jones and Rojo in the team. I think the best thing to do (in the summer) is keep Lindeloff, Bailly and Smalling. Buy a great/future great CB (not Maguire please!). Sell Rojo and Jones, then buy some quality RB & give Dalot time to grow up, a new LB (keep Shaw) , maybe a DM/DLP and a RW/playmaker on the right ala Silva...Fekir). That's 5 players...really too much. I hope OGS will give a chance to almost all United players till the end of the season then we'll see the priority.
Notice i said "or" not "and"
. Just one of them is fine, depending on what one we can get our hands onOh my! I have to go sleep!Notice i said "or" not "and"
We need at least 1 top quality CB. But it is also important to finally get rid of the deadwood
Sector indicates the passing direction, up being forwards, down backward, left left and right right.
Sector indicates the passing direction, up being forwards, down backward, left left and right right.
I'm on the spiced rum but what the hell does this mean ? and where's Phil Jones on this chart
It looks like De Ligt has the most passes forward as he has fewer white areas. Also shows that defenders who are on the right, tend to do better passing towards the left and vice versa. You can see that Umtiti and Koulibaly pass better when passing to the right which is consistent with that observation. This makes sense as there it's easier for the ball to go out when passing from the right side to the right side, and from the left side to the left side.
It shows passing range for various centerbacks. Each bar chart measures the passing range of each player. All the passes are divided by 6 directions (top-forward, bottom-backward, right-right, left-left) and 3 distances (closest to center-shortest pass, farthest from the center-longest passes). Color represents pass' success rate (standardized by z-score) of a group of passes.
Phil Jones wasn't included (due to cut-off by # of passes), I didn't produce the chart.
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Maguire is good in the air and good passing range, but I'm not sure he has the focus or intelligence to really be great for us. Seems more like we'd want him as our #3 backing up both Lindelof and his partner, and that's not worth the money. Agreed that Lindelof's partner should be commanding in the air.
Sell Jones and Rojo, sign an LCB, bring back Tuanzebe. I'd keep Smalling for another year because I feel reasonably safe defensively with him out there, he seems happy enough to play part-time and Bailly and Tuanzebe as #3 and #4 with no real #5 is asking for trouble over a long season.
Sell Jones and Rojo, sign an LCB, bring back Tuanzebe. I'd keep Smalling for another year because I feel reasonably safe defensively with him out there, he seems happy enough to play part-time and Bailly and Tuanzebe as #3 and #4 with no real #5 is asking for trouble over a long season.
Sector indicates the passing direction, up being forwards, down backward, left left and right right.
If I am reading this correctly, the reputation of Harry Maguires's passing needs to be quickly reevaluated. Looking comfortable when on the ball does not necessarily mean the player is a good passer. Team style of play needs to be taken into account to be fair, in a counter attacking side who sit deep the passing options will be lesser than in one that looks to dominate play.
Yeah I am not a huge fan of Maguire but, he was one of the few on there not playing for a possession based side.
Thanks for the explanation, it still takes a bit of understanding though and not sure it means a lot unless you know the opposition, the competion and possibly the style and formation played etc, for example if De Ligt was playing against a relegation threatened Dutch team in their domestic league and they won by 4 or 5 goals you expect that he was'nt under any pressure and passed the ball around a lot, and possibly made more forward pass's, however if it was a CL match against Bayern ? Then I would'nt expect him to have as much possession and not so many forward pass's, it's interesting all the same but I still like to judge a player by watching them play rather than their stats.
By the way the Phil Jones comment was a wind up ! we all know he can't pass a ball for toffee !
Declan Rice looks pretty decent plus he's the right age too to develop with us. We need to stop looking at established stars who have already peaked and look to hungry young players on the way up.
He's not a CB though.
Think his physical size is the issue, he's listed at only 180cm, which tbh is not so good for our team if we aim to stick with Lindelof.
Skriniar is already one of the best in the world.
I watch a lot of serie A and for me is better than Koulibaly.
Milenkovic looks very good also and is excellent in the air.
I watch a lot of serie A and for me is better than Koulibaly.
Milenkovic looks very good also and is excellent in the air.
I read that Chelsea want to re-sign him and they have a buy-back clause. 40m pound apparently.
New center back should be dominant in the air, competent with the ball at his feet, fairly fast, but not rash.
Zouma looks very impressive, bearing in mind he plays for Marco Silva and alongside Keane who is absolute clown of defender.
Zouma looks very impressive, bearing in mind he plays for Marco Silva and alongside Keane who is absolute clown of defender.
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I've read somewhere he was a CB not long ago. He's said to be comfortable at CB and DM..
Doesn't Milenkovic play more as a right back? I thought I'd read that but looking at the reports he's really tall. Maybe if he can cover both positions and we can get Alderweireld at 25m I'd be happy with that and throw more funds (this summer) at other positions like getting another midfielder in and a right winger.
I'd be up for Lewis Dunc joining us. He's the right age, English, and would be a hell of a lot cheaper than some of the names being bandied about. His height would have been appreciated against Spurs.
Isn't that what we've been doing? lindelof and Bailly were hardly established and experienced when we bought them.
Did not know that, interesting in that case.
Think it might be inaccurate. He looks like he’s had a growth spurt.
Dunno tbh, I usually go by transfermarkt, they're more reliable when it comes to height than other sites.
Dunc and Duffy have looked excellent this year for Brighton. When was the last time we bought a quality centre half from another side in the PL?
Our success was built on buying the best up and coming players who were already established in the PL.