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Daley Blind Netherlands flag

2015-16 Performances

View full 2015-16 profile

5.9 Season Average Rating
Appearances
56
Clean sheets
22
Goals
2
Assists
4
Yellow cards
3
Status
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i think it might be because of his looks, but apart from his passing, he offers nothing to the back.

Weak in the air, his bad positioning always puts pressure on his team mates, not the best at timing tackles, not the stronger tackler, slow... i can keep going.

Its not easy to be a CB... so i wont blame him totally. The boss is the one playing him there... he "knows" what he is doing.

hopefully Phil Jones will be back soon and Blind can go back to cover for midfield.
 
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It will be interesting to see how Blind goes without Smalling next to him now. Hopefully he can maintain his performance level.
 
I'm not convinced by Blind. As a poster pointed out on a previous thread take out DDG, Smalling, Martial and Shaw and the rest I wouldn't care less who left. Players like Blind are ten a penny in the PL, he's no better - or worse - than any utility defender plying his trade at Norwich, Watford or Bournemouth.
 
George Owen said:
i think it might be because of his looks, but apart from his passing, he offers nothing to the back.

Weak in the air, his bad positioning always puts pressure on his team mates, not the best at timing tackles, not the stronger tackler, slow... i can keep going.

Its not easy to be a CB... so i wont blame him totally. The boss is the one playing him there... he "knows" what he is doing.

hopefully Phil Jones will be back soon and Blind can go back to cover for midfield.
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Is it why these big strong, fast players keep scoring bucket loads past him? He's weaknesses are excessively overrated and people like to pick up on isolated instances I'm an attempt to justify themselves.
 
I find it fascinating how divisive Blind is amongst fans.

Some people do seem to have decided that because he's not big, tall and 'hard' looking that he can never put in a good performance this season.

Some of the criticisms I've seen in the last few pages: bad at tackling, poor positioning, causing trouble for his team mates...

I despair - I just don't see any of that at all. His tackling is excellent, he wins most battles that the vultures here predict he will lose and 9/10 times, he is the personification of composure, both with and without the ball.

Some even have the audacity to say they can't wait for Phil Jones to return? Deary me, how low (and bizarre) supporters standards can be.

If Daley Blind isn't a Manchester United player, Phil Jones hasn't got a hope in hell of ever being one.
 
George Owen said:
i think it might be because of his looks, but apart from his passing, he offers nothing to the back.

Weak in the air, his bad positioning always puts pressure on his team mates, not the best at timing tackles, not the stronger tackler, slow... i can keep going.

Its not easy to be a CB... so i wont blame him totally. The boss is the one playing him there... he "knows" what he is doing.

hopefully Phil Jones will be back soon and Blind can go back to cover for midfield.
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Have you watched him play at all this season? He has proven week-in, week-out that is not the case, particularly in the latter two cases. Yes, aerially he is not dominant but he can and does win the ball when in the air; he did it loads first half v Wolfsburg.

I agree we can push for better players at CB but full marks to LVG for moving him there in my opinion. I think he's been brilliant and definitely our no. 2 centre back.
 
Bournemouth 2:1 Man Utd
Big fan of Blind but he has been struggling a bit at CB recently and isn't the long term answer there. I'd actually like to see him in midfield with Schneiderlin.
 
Disappointing performance, not able to organised defense.
We seriously need new CB as Paddy is not ready and we can't relay on Jones.
 
He was basically Kindergarten Cop today but contributed to the mess with a couple of really rash positional lapses.
 
Absolute disaster and if not the WW1-like injury list, shouldn't even travel to away games ATM.. Put him to the left-back for good, that's his best position.
 
limerickcitykid said:
How is he not a defender? He's played in defence a lot more throughout his career than he has in midfield.
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When people say defender, Ithink they mean CB. Left back maybe yes, hes played there. But he reminds me of Neville playing as CB.
 
Bojan11 said:
Without Smalling defending for him he gets found out.
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I don't think its 'getting found out'. His game reading and ball skill is an excellent foil for a proper defender who organises things and gets stuck in like Smalling does. Today he was marshalling 3 kids and you could tell he was expecting them to know where to be, and was getting caught out when they didn't. He's not a leader and thats not a problem, but we didn't have anyone out there today who was. Carrick shrunk.
 
11101 said:
I don't think its 'getting found out'. His game reading and ball skill is an excellent foil for a proper defender who organises things and gets stuck in like Smalling does. Today he was marshalling 3 kids and you could tell he was expecting them to know where to be, and was getting caught out when they didn't. He's not a leader and thats not a problem, but we didn't have anyone out there today who was. Carrick shrunk.
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Nail on the head. Smalling is almost the last defender on purpose.
 
I think using Blind at CB has been a success, broadly speaking. As evidenced earlier in the thread I was probably one of the most sceptical when it was clear from pre-season he was going to start there, thinking he'd be very easily targeted and exposed against pretty much any EPL striker regardless of their skill set.

It hasn't turned out that was because we boss possession and because Smalling has been so good. A few months ago I'd have said the latter point is hardly worth considering because that's kind of like saying "Rooney doesn't need to score or link the play up because Martial does that", and I still think there is some truth to that and we clearly need another CB in the summer unless Jones can stay fit and show some considerable improvement. He shouldn't be playing in games where we won't boss possession or are against teams with genuinely good forwards, or with big burly forwards really. Pelle gave him a torrid time and he was in knots against Arsenal, I think LVG learned his lesson there because he brought Jones into face Lukaku at Everton was a good move.

Against weaker teams, however, there is definitely advantages to playing him there. I expected that he'd be nice and tidy, very adept at bringing the ball forward and finding accurate passes into MF. What I didn't really foresee was his ability to find incisive through balls to our forwards from CB, which has been a real weapon and one that I think will continue to create chances against teams who sit deep.
 
ivaldo said:
He was poor today but painfully average? Hush man.
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Can't run for shit. Nor control a football. Has no idea what to do on the fullback position and is not good enough to play through the middle. An average player that is lucky that our manager is a countryman of his.
 
It's tough work playing a flank on your own. Depay's movement and positioning for passing options on the left is absolutely shocking. Blind looked dead on his feet in the last ten minutes.
 
His set-piece delivery was good but the rest of his game was off, he even got sloppy on the simple stuff on a couple of occasions, which is unlike him.
 
acnumber9 said:
It's tough work playing a flank on your own. Depay's movement and positioning for passing options on the left is absolutely shocking. Blind looked dead on his feet in the last ten minutes.
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This. Blind is a very intelligent player and passer. Personally been surprised by his development here; he's still athletically a liability but he has changed his game to minimise that i.e he will only get beaten on raw pace/power and on standing tackles/starts he's done well to shepherd the play defensively (in contract look at Phil Jones, athletically all there with a thick as sh|t brain). Is he first team material? For Utd's stature he should be borderline, for today's standard, he deserves to be there for ability.

On merit and performance there aren't many who deserve it based on LVG's time here.
 
Godfather said:
Can't run for shit. Nor control a football. Has no idea what to do on the fullback position and is not good enough to play through the middle. An average player that is lucky that our manager is a countryman of his.
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Superb passing, vision, touch and a very intelligent player, unfortunately he's playing in a malfunctioning side and is playing well below his bast, like most of ur players.
 
If we didn't have such a huge injury crisis he would be dropped by now without a doubt. He's been poor for weeks now.
 
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