Football Fans.
I agree though, I like Blind but I'd like his passing to be a bit more positive from time to time.
17
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 29
- Clean sheets
- 9
- Goals
- 2
- Assists
- 3
- Yellow cards
- 4
Football Fans.
I agree though, I like Blind but I'd like his passing to be a bit more positive from time to time.
He's a defensive midfielder, its his job to keep it ticking and safe.
It's like him moaning why Makelele or De Jong never made 40 yard defense splitting passes.
Gary really has a stick up his ass with us recently, I don't quite understand why.
Gary really has a stick up his ass with us recently, I don't quite understand why.
Neville has proven himself to be quite the idiot over the past 12 months.
But Neville played with Carrick....
That's all Carrick has done for years!
Neville and Scholes came out and defended Carrick for this kind of stuff....
Believe me, I'm starting to question somethings with this team and it's management but, Neville can do one here!
He criticized him yesterday for not bending a 35 yard pass, past three defenders, on to the foot of RVP....Moronic unless you are David Beckham or Pirlo!
How quickly that goal and that pass in the WC is forgotten
And before the derby, when Noel Gallagher said he'd have De Gea straight in the City team, Neville started defending and bigging up Joe Hart.
Incredible scenes. Cringe!!
That's all Carrick has done for years!
Neville and Scholes came out and defended Carrick for this kind of stuff....
Believe me, I'm starting to question somethings with this team and it's management but, Neville can do one here!
He criticized him yesterday for not bending a 35 yard pass, past three defenders, on to the foot of RVP....Moronic unless you are David Beckham or Pirlo!
How quickly that goal and that pass in the WC is forgotten
And before the derby, when Noel Gallagher said he'd have De Gea straight in the City team, Neville started defending and bigging up Joe Hart.
Incredible scenes. Cringe!!
I think Gary was just looking for something to praise RVP for before he criticized him and Blind just got caught in the cross-fire. The first example where Blind 'failed' to make the pass was laughable - it was never on.
Neville comes across so unbiased you would think he is Scouse.
Criticism of Blind is ridiculous, Scholes hasn't been feeding balls through to RvP for nearly 2 years and even when he was I can't remember him creating chance after chance in his final season.
I do wish he was a little more pro United, probably a little bitter his bro was sacked for not understanding that cones aren't part of LvG's philosophy.
Yeah, agreed. He can't win. If he hadn't looked for those examples of Van Persie's runs not being picked out the headlines would be all about "Neville slams Van Persie!"
He's being paid to give opinions about football. I'd far rather he occasionally criticise some of our players than stick with the bland old boys club crap you get on MOTD, where criticising fellow professionals seems to be out of the question. Really unfair the way people on here get so irate about him for daring to have an opinion.
I do think he's wrong on this one. Not only because it's a little harsh on Blind but because if he can only come up with three examples Van Persie making a decent run over 90 minutes of football (two of them tenuous, at best) than it's obvious the main issue isn't the lack of vision in central midfield.
There are games where you need mobility and not physicality. Those games without mobilty you will have rings run round you.
In fairness, I don't think anyone knows what this "philosophy" is
The Philosophy is very simple, possess the ball, attack with speed (stab the opposition) and never trust your talent, think about you are doing.
I certainly remember something Van Gaal said about the philosophy being to stop playing instinctively and start playing intelligently. Something about training players' brains so they make better decisions about what to do with the ball. But what those decisions might be Im not quite sure. I would love someone to definitively answer this question but I suspect only someone who has actually played football under him could do it. And they all seem so vague about it Im starting to think all his players have to sign non-disclosure agreements before they are allowed on the training pitch.
Usually in the PL you need a mix of both attributes in most games to play box to box midfield.
His use of English is so fecking obtuse at press conferences I do wonder how he gets his message across at training. I come away utterly confused about this philosophy based on what he's saying in interviews to the press, so feck knows what intellectual heavyweights like Smalling, Jones and Rooney are taking home from his briefings. I really hope he's speaking in Dutch and using someone who is fluent in both languages to translate.
You know what, it occurred to me he is playing up his difficulties with English as a way of deflecting. Just because he has notoriously bad relations with the media, maybe he is hiding behind this language barrier thing. Im probably completely wrong, but I have never in my life met a Dutch person with such faltering English.
Well, he said on Friday that he didn't want anyone to be sent off.....Smalling was clearly confused by that
I think the truth of the matter is he is just that rare thing: a Dutchman who isnt naturally gifted with languages. Apparently at Bayern his German was a source of much ridicule and mirth as well.
...maybe even his Dutch is confusing...
didn't Steve McClaren win a league with Dutchenglish?
There is no shame in not being able to master English as completely as Steve McClaren mastered Dutch.
It's not a bad theory. I remember last season people saying Pochetinno was fluent in English but chose to use a translator, as a barrier between himself and the press.
Dunno if you saw any of Trappatoni's interviews in "English" when he was close to being sacked from the Irish job but they were absolute gibberish. Always suspected it might have been intentional.
I agree with Neville, Blind plays in a way that is way too safe for us, we should be taking riskes and expecting more verticality from our midfielders.
If its verticality youre after, Fellaini has that in abundance.
I'm looking for the verticality Paul Scholes and Michael Carrick used to offer, there's no point on having a midfielder if he's not going to pass through the rival lines. Playing it safe and being steady is not good enough for a Manchester United midfielder.
You are right, but I would say there are some teams who put more emphasis on the physicality. Maybe we will bulk them up a bit or they will realise they have to fight for every ball. Any player coming from a different league will be shocked that someone wants to disconnect them from the knees down.
He controlled almost every game he was in even during his final season, at least in the Premier League, he imposed himself against other midfielders "out-passing" them, he understood exactly where to put the ball in order to make space for other players and make the team advance. This is something we have been lacking for a long time and only a few special midfielders can produce that, don't know if Blind is the one for that job.
Verticality means playing the ball forwards. Blind passes the ball forwards. A lot. Completed more forward passes then either Matic or Fabregas attempted when we played Chelsea, for example.
Oh right. I was thinking about verticality in the sense of being a lanky streak of piss.
While true, the point is that Scholes wasn't putting Van Persie in with key passes game after game. He was trying the occasional long direct one that Van Persie could bring down and try to make a chance out of and they tended to connect well. Less often than Song was putting Van Persie in for Arsenal and not a consistant thing. As you say Scholes was more about controlling the midfield and being influencial on the ball. He wasnt playing all the passes that Neville was pointing out should have been played in behind the defence for Van Persie by the likes of Blind on his wrong foot.
Not enough passes forward they said, passes as much forward passes as Matic they never said, avg pass length higher than Matic they never said, more keypasses than Matic they never said, more chances created than Matic they never said, the midfielder everybody gets their tit out about, is statistically worse than Blind. Blind will always get this, he has had this criticism for a while now, fact is, that its just bullocks.
He may pass the ball forward but those passes don't necessarily beat the opponent's line which doesn't help us gain the space we need to bring the best out of our forwards. I think he's a good, safe midfielder, kind of a Hargreaves type, but criticism that he's not a Keane-like midfielder or a midfielder that can impose himself in games in the way we need a United midfielder to do is right, maybe we should not be asking that for him also.
Exactly, why did we bought Herrera/di Maria then? To require this from a CVM would be a bit ridiculous, he shields our defence and distributes the ball to the players in front of him Herrera/di Maria/
This, it's like people don't get the concept of division of labour, everyone of your midfielders can not be playmakers this is why we had Rooney and Fellaini in cm. Well they didn't quite manage this but it should not fall on Blind, even when Scholes was doing his satellite navigator stuff there was always a Carrick or Keane( he was more complete than the latter) to establish possessional superiority by playing these unimaginative square balls. If he wants an uninterrupted thirty five yard hollywood ball show he can watch one of England's old matches with Gerrard in his pomp. What we missed o Sunday was players like Di Maria and Herrera i central areas playing those types of passes. Blind was fine imo, what we need is drive, tenacity and creativity flanking him not him throwing away possession at every given chance. Imagine the carnage that would have occured if Blind had Di Maria's 63 fecking % pass completion!
Did Carrick do that? It's all about roles and the players who were fielded to do that were just laying it wide and running into the box. Do fans think we have signed Superman who can shield the ridiculously porous defence, originate moves and at the same time be the major creative outlet?
That's my thoughts regarding it too.
Against West Brom I actually thought he tried to Hollywood ball into Van Persie a bit too much and felt he should have been cycling possession more.
Neville was only able to pinpoint 2 moments and perhaps the ball was on (one of them it wasn't particularly). But when you're playing with 10 men and have little opportunity to get forward, is the hollywood ball and going for the killer seriously the best option. You want to make your forward play count and play the percentages.
Neville was only able to pinpoint 2 moments and perhaps the ball was on (one of them it wasn't particularly). But when you're playing with 10 men and have little opportunity to get forward, is the hollywood ball and going for the killer seriously the best option. You want to make your forward play count and play the percentages.
Phil Neville had a little punditry stint for the Be In Sports channel this past PL week end. It made me laugh to see him there.I don't think he's really overrated if I'm honest. People just really appreciate his contribution having been used to really inept midfield displays over the years.He's a good player don't get me wrong but bloody heck, he's so overrated on here its actually hilarious, people are comparing him to Busquets, Lahm now
The thing that annoys me is the fact that people were bashing Cleverley for doing the exact same things Blind does, I mean wdf? Sideways passing, tidy simple passing, keeping the play ticking these are things Cleverley was getting destroyed for doing yet Blind gets praised for it, have I missed something? Cleverley and our other midfielders got a lot of slack for not doing any hollywood passes or throughballs or even tackling, I haven't yet seen Blind do that either and from the matches I've watched he's hardly shown anything worth drooling over.
I'm not for 1 second suggesting Blind isn't good enough, I think he's a good player who can cover a variety of roles, I also think he's a fine addition to the squad, I just don't get all this premature hype.
I think the Lahm comparison is as straightforward as they come by the way. A full back turned into a deep lying playmaker. Is not too hard to see that similarity, surely? The difference is that one is one of the best players around the last couple of years and the other isn't. The job they're expected to carry out is very alike though. Which makes the comparison valid in my opinion. Comparing players should be in terms of jobs they are tasked with as opposed to ability, if you ask me.
Could the reason he doesn't play his "proper" position for Holland be that the next best left back isn't all that whereas the midfielders in contention for a spot are pretty good? Just asking, I don't really know who the next left back in line is, Martins Indi?
EDIT (Just to give my two cents on Blind): In the beginning I was a little wary of jumping aboard the bandwagon, what with the opposition he had faced, but after his displays against Chelsea and City I'm convinced he's good enough for us in the role he plays.
I don't think anyone has said he's at that level, he's just a similar type of player.He's a good player don't get me wrong but bloody heck, he's so overrated on here its actually hilarious, people are comparing him to Busquets, Lahm now
The thing that annoys me is the fact that people were bashing Cleverley for doing the exact same things Blind does, I mean wdf? Sideways passing, tidy simple passing, keeping the play ticking these are things Cleverley was getting destroyed for doing yet Blind gets praised for it, have I missed something? Cleverley and our other midfielders got a lot of slack for not doing any hollywood passes or throughballs or even tackling, I haven't yet seen Blind do that either and from the matches I've watched he's hardly shown anything worth drooling over.
I'm not for 1 second suggesting Blind isn't good enough, I think he's a good player who can cover a variety of roles, I also think he's a fine addition to the squad, I just don't get all this premature hype.
And there's a big difference with what he, busquets or players like him do. They sit in front of the back four and pick the ball up off them and pass the ball around everywhere. It's about having the intelligence to play the right pass and he's definitely shown that. Not to mention he has good positioning so picks up loose balls a lot and gets tackles in too. What cleverley did, and what he got bashed for, was always just playing pointless passes. He just wasn't good enough all around and he never had any intent in his passing. He wasn't playing the role that blind is, he was always a more attacking role that required more creativity in his passing, he just never had it.