Like every true CafiteDeclan Rice
- Thread starter roonster09
- Start date
- Status
Like every true CafiteThis will simply not happen. Ole will not move away from his 4-2-3-1 and besides, we dont have this "extra attacker" anyway.
I get what you're saying. You want a 4-3-3 with Rice as a DM and two creative #8s. But we just dont have the personel for that setup. Bruno is best as a #10/second striker(struggles in a 4-3-3 for Portugal), and Pogba has found his niche from the left(needs two more defensive midfielders in a 4-3-3). It would be stupid to move them from their favoured positions. Our CM options are McT, Fred, Matic and VdB. If we get Rice, he would partner one of them. Probably McT/Fred.
We need a Jorginho/Veratti/Thiago type. Not Declan Rice. He is a good player though.
What else can we do mate..
We have much more basic issues than that imo. We don't have nothing consistent in that double pivot. Not a consistent and reliable short passer, never mind progressive and long passes. We don't have a reliable tackler nor someone to do a defensive screening in front of the defensive line. Rice would at least solve half of those issues imo, then the other half we figure it out with whoever partners him from the trio of McT, Pogba or DvB.
Yep. People go on about us needing a more progressive passer, it would be great don't get me wrong, but they fail to realise seemingly how much more cohesive we could potentially be if we had some of the more basic issues fixed. Rice does that easily.
I mean we do, we could play for VDB and Pogba as our midfield partnership and Bruno in his favoured support striker position.
The thing is - Matic is the only player that had Pogba playing deeper in a 4231. If we even want that then we are going to need Rice and not Neves next to him. However, you are right and that's not how I would set the team up, the 433 is better in my eyes.
I agree, you're spot on IMO.
True, I’ll have to delete them all if Varane is no better than LindelofWhat else can we do mate..
And this is it - to use these types of players in midfield; you don't play them next to progressive passers - you play them with CDM that can shield their defence.
Spot on. Kinda why I referred to Keane needing scholes alongside him.
But it boils down to what is our formation going to be
I think that's a soap opera that's still to play out in the respective player performance threads.
Neither Pogba nor VdB are CMs imo and should not be played there. Rice and McT would be a horrid midfield.
In most midfield 2s, you have a ball winner(screen or box to box type) and a passer(deep lying or creative type). We have ball winners and energy in our midfield in either Fred or McT. In other words, we have a Fletcher/Kante type, we need a Scholes/Jorginho type.
The problem with Rice is that he is another ball winner. We need a different profile, we dont need a ball winner, we need a passer. In an ideal world we would have upgrades on both, and in future seasons I wouldnt mind upgrading Fred/McT with Rice.
Yep. Premier league football is all about winning a platform to play your game.
Fred's intensity of tackling is all well and good and he has a good nose for picking up the loose balls but he loses almost as many challenges as he wins in a lot of games.
This is what I said before - we need both a ball winning midfielder and a deep lying playmaker.
We go get Neves and we continue playing Fred as our main defensive asset in midfield.
Or we go with Rice and use players like Pogba and VDB as our main creative asset.
For me, I'd be happy if we got Neves but he himself would need a player like Rice to succeed just as much as Rice needs a neves type player to succeed.
It's why I'm more leaning to Pogba and VDB able to be our Neves rather than Fred or Mctominay being our defence shielding version of Rice.
I dont trust Pogba or VdB in a midfield 2. Pogba, certainly not, he is not a CM. VdB in his very very limited appearances, doesnt seem like a CM either. Not that it matters, because he hardly plays.
For me its the opposite. I'd rather have Fred/McT as a ball winner next to a DLP, than have Pogba/VdB in CM next to Ndidi/Rice. I believe Fred/McT have had better performances in our midfield 2 than them(atleast VdB and Pogba simply because he is better elsewhere).
He's top class and would significantly improve us. Rice and McTominay would be really solid in midfield, with Fernandes and Pogba usually in the starting 11 too. Fred definitely works a lot every game but he's too unreliable, although we could still do with him as a squad option. Matic however is way past it and needs to go next summer (I assume we can't sell him now).
conceded more than Arsenal too WTF
They scored 85 to our 66 too which suggests they actually played attacking too. A good defence allows teams to attack and feel confident that they can keep goals out and not just set up to be pragmatic in order to protect our weak defence. We seem to be able to do one of those at a time well
You still miss the point, his presence make the defence line play a yard behind and consistently make us play with two defensive minded midfielders in most games.
I'm not saying he is not a good defender or trying to doubt his quality, but we will continue to adapt the team to his lack of pace.
Here's a question.
Is Rice really that much of an 'upgrade' on McT. Is he basically the same player?
Put it this way, if McTominay was playing for West Ham, would his price tag be north of £80M?
Is Rice really that much of an 'upgrade' on McT. Is he basically the same player?
Put it this way, if McTominay was playing for West Ham, would his price tag be north of £80M?
Honestly that’s absolute nonsense. His presence means we can play a high line because his positioning is good, he reads the game so well and he’s so comfortable on the ball.
The reason we play McFred isn’t because they’re “defensive minded midfielders” that are covering for Maguire’s lack of pace” (which makes no sense anyway) it’s because as a pair neither of them are particularly defensive minded and we need both of them to control the midfield and allow us to play 4 attacking players with little defensive responsibility.
Rice and McTominay aren’t alike. It’s weird that has become a thing on here.
Maguire isn’t the reason we “play with two defensive midfielders” I would even contest that we actually play with two DM’s (both burst forward an awful lot).
You're having an argument with yourself here at this point mate, i never once said our defence or team is better than Liverpools, all I said originally was Maguire has improved us which he has and you're derailing the topic more and more so let's just agree to disagree, if you don't reate Maguire so be it, i think otherwise.
Roy Keane wasn't immense in his first few seasons at United. He was very good - but he certainly wasn't anywhere near the best in the division. Keane didn't really become great until Ince left. Declan Rice is 22 years old - the same age Keane was when he joined United. So naturally he is nowhere near Keane is his prime, but Declan Rice at the age of 22 is not far behind Roy Keane aged 22.
He most certainly isn't. But his fans will insist other wise
Not just him. He and Lindleoff ensure we cant operate a high line. Even worse they are not compatible as a pair necessitating double defensive protection from midfield. Just like Otamendi and stones at City with their incompatibility. But prefer to pretend its because our defensive midfielders are defensively shit
Watching the game last night and he certainly looks to have improved. His defensive positioning was far better than I’ve seen but no doubt someone will say it was only Leicester and they were down to 10. Fact is that he was dominating their midfield prior to the red.
It’s best he stays there another season and develops further. He’s still a very young and relatively inexperienced player
Wonder if West Ham fancy Martial along with Lingard. And maybe chuck Jones and James in for good measure. And Mata if they want him. 
Ok what about last week when he drove West Ham to victory in the second half against Newcastle.
So you’re calling for what exactly? That we sell our captain and buy another centre half?
West Ham threads probably do overrate him - but I'm glad they themselves see the difference in how he plays for England vs how he does for West Ham.
It's actually that ability to play in two different ways that has me interested in him - gung ho possibly vs more restricted, passive but protective way.
It's actually that ability to play in two different ways that has me interested in him - gung ho possibly vs more restricted, passive but protective way.
Hmm… Think Rice is a difficult one. Have no problem with us paying £60m for him. In my view he isn’t proven enough to defend a price tag above £80m. It’s eventually a risky investment.
Possibly, but also to early to conclude. They are used differently in their respective clubs (roles, system).
McTominay is instinctively driving forward; wants to shoot; be involved and will abandon his defensive duties, sometimes erroneously, to do just that.
Rice has to be coaxed and encouraged to go beyond the halfway line, and even when he does break rank, it's for a surging run into an immediate action before he studiously goes straight back to the base of midfield. He doesn't even think twice about doing so; McTominay sort of remembers his duties and then goes back, but you see often enough that he would rather a play conclude than break rank from it prematurely.
This could even make for a complementary pairing, as at base ends, they're instinctively different.
An obvious caveat is that Rice is younger than McTominay and could possibly blossom into a more concerted atacker, but at the moment they don't have much crossover in how they play or approach the game. McTominay is aggressive, somewhat impatient and will even force the play over retain the ball with little happening. Rice is safety first almost all the time and values control via retention considerably more than McTominay does.
It goes hand in hand with one being a natural CM and the other, DM, too.
I'm not sure what Neville has to do with this.
It would be an absolute travesty if we went 'all out' for such a limited player. It's all well and good sitting infront of the defense In a compact team, playing the obvious pass every time you receive it. At United, he's going to have to do more than that, and so far he has shown absolutely nothing that demonstrates he is capable of it. Can you remember the absolute vitriol Herrera was faced with for 'playing it safe?' The thing is, he was far more capable of playing key passes. Bringing him someone that is essentially a CB playing in midfield would be a massive step backwards.
Great explanation.
The difference between Mctominay and Rice is quite simple to see. If Mctominay was Rice then we would have him as our replacement for Matic and we would have seen him partnered up with pogba more. Instead that only happened with Matic and to a smaller degree- Fred.
We need more leaders in our team and rice is a leader. I hope we are trying to sign him but we need to negotiate that price down. We have no one who runs the midfield and he would do a great job.
Nope, I'm just saying that the rational behind why we play deeper and or why we play with two holding midfielders is because we dont trust the recovery of our central defenders especially Maguire.
Of course we cant, the investment on him is astronomical and he is the least of our problem at the moment. But I wont be surprised that in two or three years from now, perhaps with another manager, he might not be irreplaceable
- Status