Declan Rice

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VinzentFTW said:
You can get Bissouma for half the price. He would walk into our midtfield and is PL proven.
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He’s not the same type as Rice though, so it depends on what we are looking for. If you want someone who will sit and keep the shape, no one better than Rice. If you want someone to imitate a terrier chasing cars then the chap from Brighton is your man
 
golden_blunder said:
He’s not the same type as Rice though, so it depends on what we are looking for. If you want someone who will sit and keep the shape, no one better than Rice. If you want someone to imitate a terrier chasing cars then the chap from Brighton is your man
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I'm sure there's a player out there just as good if not better.
 
FrankDrebin said:
I'm sure there's a player out there just as good if not better.
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At keeping his concentration, shape etc? Maybe, but unlikely to be a PL captain at a young age.

anyway my point is he’s a completely different player up the Brighton lad, it’s dependent on what we’re looking for, or even if we are.
 
Highfather_24 said:
Surprised at the lack of comparison to Matic. Very similar in style of play. Matic is probably a bit better on the ball.
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Really? I'm not seeing that at all.

Rice seems much more physically capable than even a peak Matic. A better tackler, more defensively solid. I guess there's a reason it was debated whether Rice would become a CB, he would probably be fairly natural in some systems with his stature and discipline.

Matic is more of a passer of the ball, that happens to be tall but doesn't really use his physicality all that much. He could shield the ball and get up and down when he had legs but I think his capabilities were largely his technical play in the typical style of players from that region. I don't really see this in Rice, at least not yet. Competent yes, but a good few levels off Matic in the buildup.

They seem quite different to me. I'd still rather have a peak Matic given the choice, because I am not entirely convinced Rice's blend of skills are the answer yet. It only seems to answer one side of the equation and then we are pretty much praying it somehow unlocks something in Pogba. I don't see who's helping us with our passing and consistency of passing from deep.
 
RedRonaldo said:
English players in PL are often overrated and overpriced. I am sure 50m can get us a lot of good DM elsewhere, and some of them could even be better than Rice.

One example is, Dias cost City 60m and he is now best defender in the league/Europe. Bruno cost us around the same he is now arguably best AM in the league/Europe too.

We don’t really have to force our hands to pay up 80-90m for Rice, just because he is a good player and is English. He isn’t worth that much.
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I don’t think we will pay that much but I also doubt he will be available for less.

English players are overrated by some people, I’m sure, possibly underrated by others, who knows?
Taking Rice as an example, it’s all about how good we think he is. Plenty people don’t rate him but if our recruitment team do rate him, then it’s simply a matter of whether we value him higher than everyone else (including West Ham) does because that’s the only way we’ll end up buying him.
 
Highfather_24 said:
Agree to disagree. Either you believe the inflated market prices for English players, or you think Rice is better than I think he is.

Anyway, I think Camavinga will become the better player in near future, and has far more potential, and will be cheaper. So yeah, he should be thought of as an alternative. I'm sure there are other options too. Leicester consistently get great players on the cheap who we try to buy with inflated fees later. So spare me the lecture on "no value in the market".
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That’s one way to look at it. I don’t see it panning out that way but we’ll soon find out.
 
People need to get over Bellingham choosing the right decision, if you think for a second we'd have given him the game time Dortmund have you're blinkered. We pulled out all the stops, put in a big effort, but where it counted wages and actually playing football, we couldn't compete.
 
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Judas said:
People need to get over Bellingham choosing the right decision, if you think for a second we'd have given him the game time Dortmund have your blinkered. We pulled out all the stops, put in a big effort, but where it counted wages and actually playing football, we couldn't compete.
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He was well advised and smart enough to take the advice.

Still possible we get him in a couple of years.
 
OrcaFat said:
He was well advised and smart enough to take the advice.

Still possible we get him in a couple of years.
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Jude will be a Manchester United player within the next 4 years and he will cost a bomb.

We should get his younger brother Jobe here now, laying the groundwork for Jude.
 
Floyd said:
Jude will be a Manchester United player within the next 4 years and he will cost a bomb.

We should get his younger brother Jobe here now, laying the groundwork for Jude.
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Doubt we'll spend a bomb on a CM anytime soon given we'll eventually have to spend a bomb on a CF.
 
Highfather_24 said:
Surprised at the lack of comparison to Matic. Very similar in style of play. Matic is probably a bit better on the ball.
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Much.

Matic actually has a lot of quality on the ball but I'd he doesn't express it enough. Still, he's always shown a far higher level technical level than anything I've seen from Rice, who looks really averse to being on the ball or doing anything productive when on it.
 
Highfather_24 said:
Surprised at the lack of comparison to Matic. Very similar in style of play. Matic is probably a bit better on the ball.
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Nah dont see it myslf.

Matic carries the ball forward (ball hogs) alot more frequently than Rice does.

Rice is a specialist sitter and looks to play the ball a bit quicker.
 
I do wonder if Ole watched the game yesterday and decides to give up on Sancho since we can't find an agreement with Dortmund and chooses to play diamond like France yesterday to fit in Pogba, Bruno & VDB in one team. We need a CDM to allow us to play diamond like France yesterday.

Rice
Pogba Fred/VDB
Bruno​
 
Highfather_24 said:
What? Even at this age Matic is an absolute beast. Sorry, gonna have to disagree there.
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A beast at what? Matic has taken to standing between our CBs because he can hardly get about the pitch. He's also not trusted by the manager precisely because he is not the player he was physically. Logically speaking, the manager would have far more use for Matic if he was up to it physically because you don't forget how to pass a ball.

No idea what player you've been watching in truth, Matic is still a very good footballer but he's regressed through an inability to cover ground and get close to the ball, meaning he's basically a third centre back with good distribution.
 
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UNITED ACADEMY said:
I do wonder if Ole watched the game yesterday and decides to give up on Sancho since we can't find an agreement with Dortmund and chooses to play diamond like France yesterday to fit in Pogba, Bruno & VDB in one team. We need a CDM to allow us to play diamond like France yesterday.

Rice
Pogba Fred/VDB
Bruno​
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If Ole decides his future plans based on one France game, well erm… I don’t know what to day about that.
 
UNITED ACADEMY said:
I do wonder if Ole watched the game yesterday and decides to give up on Sancho since we can't find an agreement with Dortmund and chooses to play diamond like France yesterday to fit in Pogba, Bruno & VDB in one team. We need a CDM to allow us to play diamond like France yesterday.

Rice
Pogba Fred/VDB
Bruno​
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We've rarely looked convincing with these setups. That looks like a team that would create hardly anything. A couple of water carriers and then Bruno and Pogba trying to force things to our forwards, who also all give the ball away a lot. If we think we give the ball away a lot now it would only be worse in such a narrow system.

Relying completely on our full backs for an ability to stretch play, one of which isn't great going forward and on the other side we are completely relying on Shaw as Telles is not a dynamic runner.

Also, if France are a template, they didn't create loads either despite having three class forwards and relied on the defenders, how much emphasis do we really want to put on our defenders?

It's just not a good idea. This team needs to play with width and quick forward play.
 
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UNITED ACADEMY said:
You need plan B if you can't get your plan A. Sancho was the plan A and obviously that plan A has nothing to do with France's game.
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433 worked relatively well for Solskjaer when he started with United as interim manager but he adopted 4231 from the beginning as he became United's permanent manager and has more or less stuck with it , he is not gonna suddenly abandoned everything and start from scratch . 4231 is his favoured formation and it would likely remain so .
 
UNITED ACADEMY said:
You need plan B if you can't get your plan A. Sancho was the plan A and obviously that plan A has nothing to do with France's game.
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A Plan B would surely be an alternative player in the same position, not a complete change of formation to accommodate a player in another position.
 
Woodzy said:
A Plan B would surely be an alternative player in the same position, not a complete change of formation to accommodate a player in another position.
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If there is no alternative player in the same position that suits then how can you forced yourself to sign the player?
 
Abraxas said:
We've rarely looked convincing with these setups. That looks like a team that would create hardly anything. A couple of water carriers and then Bruno and Pogba trying to force things to our forwards, who also all give the ball away a lot. If we think we give the ball away a lot now it would only be worse in such a narrow system.

Relying completely on our full backs for an ability to stretch play, one of which isn't great going forward and on the other side we are completely relying on Shaw as Telles is not a dynamic runner.

Also, if France are a template, they didn't create loads either despite having three class forwards and relied on the defenders, how much emphasis do we really want to put on our defenders?

It's just not a good idea. This team needs to play with width and quick forward play.
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gajender said:
433 worked relatively well for Solskjaer when he started with United as interim manager but he adopted 4231 from the beginning as he became United's permanent manager and has more or less stuck with it , he is not gonna suddenly abandoned everything and start from scratch . 4231 is his favoured formation and it would likely remain so .
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But we have seen in the past that Ole can play diamond formation when Matic was on the pitch (His caretaker manager period when he beats Arsenal, Chelsea, and Spurs, vs RB Leipzig 5-0 last season, and Southampton last season). It didn't work when he doesn't have a DM.
 
Surely there is a player out there who can offer the same positional sense as him but better on the ball for a cheaper price
 
Abraxas said:
We've rarely looked convincing with these setups. That looks like a team that would create hardly anything. A couple of water carriers and then Bruno and Pogba trying to force things to our forwards, who also all give the ball away a lot. If we think we give the ball away a lot now it would only be worse in such a narrow system.

Relying completely on our full backs for an ability to stretch play, one of which isn't great going forward and on the other side we are completely relying on Shaw as Telles is not a dynamic runner.

Also, if France are a template, they didn't create loads either despite having three class forwards and relied on the defenders, how much emphasis do we really want to put on our defenders?

It's just not a good idea. This team needs to play with width and quick forward play.
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That is how Ole wants to play and I’m glad about that. Rice can fit into that ethos but I’m not sure there’s room for Pogba and Bruno together, probably not VDB either.
 
Woodzy said:
A Plan B would surely be an alternative player in the same position, not a complete change of formation to accommodate a player in another position.
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Yes, he was playing for Italy tonight, Locatelli. Brilliant DM and playmaker, very intelligent on the ball. 40M probably half the price of Rice and Ndidi.
 
OrcaFat said:
That is how Ole wants to play and I’m glad about that. Rice can fit into that ethos but I’m not sure there’s room for Pogba and Bruno together, probably not VDB either.
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Didn't work against Villarreal because well organised teams can stop it.

Looks nice for highlights Vs a poorly organised team I guess.
 
Mylock said:
Yes, he was playing for Italy tonight, Locatelli. Brilliant DM and playmaker, very intelligent on the ball. 40M probably half the price of Rice and Ndidi.
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Yeah impressive performance but my gut feeling is that he will stay in Italy and join Juve after the euros, mind you that's better than the rumours that Pep was interested in taking him to City though
 
For Declan’s price tag, i’d rather get Locatelli and Kalvin Philipps, especially if OGS persists with a double pivot.
Offload Pogba as he can only play in a 3-man midfield, but not part of a double pivot.
 
Hammondo said:
Didn't work against Villarreal because well organised teams can stop it.

Looks nice for highlights Vs a poorly organised team I guess.
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Well organised teams can stop anything of course. On the other hand, a lot of well organised teams got beat by us last season, didn’t they?
 
UNITED ACADEMY said:
I do wonder if Ole watched the game yesterday and decides to give up on Sancho since we can't find an agreement with Dortmund and chooses to play diamond like France yesterday to fit in Pogba, Bruno & VDB in one team. We need a CDM to allow us to play diamond like France yesterday.

Rice
Pogba Fred/VDB
Bruno​
Click to expand...

If Ole watched France and thought they played a diamond, I’d be more worried about his tactical knowledge than anything else. It was very clearly a flat three in midfield, with one back when they had the ball. Without the ball they got back into a flat three, then Kante pressed forward.
 
We can talk about Locatelli all we want but its probably wasted energy I think. He'll go to Juve or stay in Italy like most top Italians do. I'd love us to sign him though.
 
Dan_F said:
If Ole watched France and thought they played a diamond, I’d be more worried about his tactical knowledge than anything else. It was very clearly a flat three in midfield, with one back when they had the ball. Without the ball they got back into a flat three, then Kante pressed forward.
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A diamond is technically can be a flat three midfield. Diamond doesn’t always be 442.
 
smi11ie said:
He always tries to play a 4231 if everyone is fit. He only changes due to injuries/suspensions.
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For me Ole rotates a lot during his first period at the club do find the best fit. He rotated the formation aNd players - ie giving a go to andreas pereira, Pogba, matic but his results weee that a midfield of Mctominay and Fred was playing the best - which is what I saw too.
 
croadyman said:
Surely there is a player out there who can offer the same positional sense as him but better on the ball for a cheaper price
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reddevilz007 said:
For Declan’s price tag, i’d rather get Locatelli and Kalvin Philipps, especially if OGS persists with a double pivot.
Offload Pogba as he can only play in a 3-man midfield, but not part of a double pivot.
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That's not how United operate. We must always target the easiest and most expensive option as value for money and getting the most out of our budget is not an option!!!
 
OrcaFat said:
Well organised teams can stop anything of course. On the other hand, a lot of well organised teams got beat by us last season, didn’t they?
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People dont really draw a line between a well organised defense and us not being good enough to beat a low block. I've seen us do the latter a good number of times ever since the restart last season
 
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