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2020-21 Performances

View full 2020-21 profile

5.9 Season Average Rating
Appearances
48
Goals
1
Assists
2
Yellow cards
10
Red cards
1
Status
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Pogue Mahone said:
It’s so fecking strange how often this team has been garbage for 45 minutes then immense in the second half, with Fred the embodiment of this schizophrenia on the pitch. What the feck is going on?!
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He seems to be sensitive player and needs that positive environment. He can really be good when things go well for the team but so poor once there is negativity
 
Always seems to take his time until he fully gets going. Very strange. Loved him in the second half.
 
I get the same mental thing in my head when I see him about to shoot as I did with Anderson back in the day.

Honestly he dragged a shot wide last night and I just thought enough!!
 
tjb said:
Whenever we do decently, people always say he's good when in reality I think both he and Mctominay are the reason we aren't good more often. They don't do enough to get us to play well as a team, being the engine room, this is one of their main duties. Compare them to the champions league midfielders and the difference becomes more evident; out of the 4 teams that played. Those teams had midfields that were able to keep the ball and progress the ball quickly when needed. They didn't have midfielders so scared of the failed pass due to their lack of ability, that they constantly played it back to the defence. All the goals we scored today came from the work of Pogba, Bruno or even Cavani dropping deep to connect the play forwards. The aggressive way in which we attacked Roma tonight is proof of how good our attack actually is if the ball gets to them quickly and often enough, not simply a good game. My personal feeling is that if Fred and Mctominay were more positively impactful in our build up, the attack would look like this more often.
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Whenever I see someone mention Fred and McTominay mentioned in one sentence I stop reading because it's load of bullshit mostly. If you watch closely Fred in the last game you can see some very quick purposeful passing like he always does, with some 2 or 3 neat flicks which will go unnoticed because people just ignore them but he overall moves the ball at much higher tempo while covering so much ground, starting press and winning the ball at crucial positions on the pitch. McT lacks that intensity with the ball but when on song he can provide at least his strength and legs although he's just a tad too slow in his first 4,5 meters to be an effective in defence, with quetionable urgency/positioning at times which for me makes it easy to identify which of the two players bring more to the table. And really you can't blame Fred for not being expansive passer, his job is to win the ball back move the ball quick as possible, make us play on the front foot with his never stop running attitude and anticipation of the ball movement. When you have so much atacking talent in the front you need exactly that and as a result when our attacking players didn't underperform for once, we won 6:2. I mean it's awfully tiring to remind people that there are 11 players on the pitch and everyone has a different role and when we fail to create in the final third it's not always our double pivot who should be blamed rather our fantastic front 4/5 on paper and their shocking decision making or inaccuracy.

And Solskjaer knows it. When you put Pogba, Fernandes, Rashford, Cavani, Greenwood out there, you know they will create chances so you provide stability behind them and that can be provided by McFred. If we managee t find a player who would cover so much ground and win the ball back like Fred and play quick football and on top of that be as good passer as Pogba/Scholes or Carrick to provide extra quality from deeper midfield we will certainly improve that position but that player pretty much doesn't exist and would cost over 100 million easily. There's a hope Jimmy Garner can one day step up and provide that and profile wise he'd be closest to what we are looking for butuntil that we have the right balance with 2 defensive players around some very good passers all of the pitch. You know it's not only those front 4 players but Luke Shaw is a fantastic passer with great vision, Maguire is a fantastic CB with unique ball playing skillset and Lindelof is not too bad either on his day but there is another whole, even yesterday it showed how poor defender he is not able to close down space quickly and defend so poassively that we certainly need two piece of steel in front of them.
 
Offers absolutely nothing going forward and is a liability defensively. Needs upgrading on as quickly as possible.
 
Poborsky's hair said:
When you put Pogba, Fernandes, Rashford, Cavani, Greenwood out there, you know they will create chances so you provide stability behind them and that can be provided by McFred.
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The problem is that we can’t have those five players and play McTominay and Fred. One of our two central midfielders needs to be doing more than they do.
 
criticalanalysis said:
Not sure why people think Fred can't take a good free kick?

I swear he's got previous at Shaktar and from the way he passes the ball, with his flat feet, you can just tell he will have decent technique with his instep.

Let's not forget Hargreaves over certain distances/positions on the pitch was our best free kicker taker (even if he didn't take many).

I'd like to see Fred take more personally.
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We couldn’t be doing much worse off free kicks anyway this season
 
The biggest issue I have with him is that he is trying to do a dummy on free kicks. He should occasionally take some free kicks now. He is not too bad a taker.
 
acnumber9 said:
The problem is that we can’t have those five players and play McTominay and Fred. One of our two central midfielders needs to be doing more than they do.
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Thing is we can manage with at least one of them, but both together limits our performances. We play them there because they are our only options, but that doesn't mean they both don't need improving on. Personally if I had a choice, I would bench both and look for upgrades, but transfer markets don't work like that. I'd rather start Fred, his pressing element could be effective if we had someone else helping in the build up like Kessie or Paredes. Long term, I'd bring back Garner to compete with him and see what Hannibal looks like in the team.
 
Garethw said:
Offers absolutely nothing going forward and is a liability defensively. Needs upgrading on as quickly as possible.
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Why does Ole keep picking him then? Is it because he's our best DM by a mile? I'd say so.
 
Annihilate Now! said:
Has he really only got one assist this season? That feels remarkably low.
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The attackers have missed some absolute sitters that he's created for them. I know a couple of months ago when I was looking at the stats he had higher key passes and expected assists than the vast majority of players in the league who play in his position, but Rashford in particular has wasted a lot of those opportunities.

Sometimes I wish I could be bothered doing the 'Fred vs Roma' type of youtube videos, because it always amazes me how many people like to say he doesn't provide anything going forward and talk about 'Fred and McTominay' as if they are equally at fault for our lack of ball-playing quality in midfield. Fred's obviously not amazing but it's equally obvious that he provides far more than Scott.
 
Bruno and Fed are our most undroppable players...closely followed by Maguire. Fred's biggest asset is how quickly he covers ground with his lateral movements. McTominay is the one that needs replacing.
 
Annihilate Now! said:
Has he really only got one assist this season? That feels remarkably low.
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Im not a fan of stats to analyse players. Sometimes it's about what you see out there.

Fred gets a lot for stick from sections of fans, and I don't know maybe the price tag is the issue?

However if anyone was to watch Fred play he isn't the person who puts that final pass into a forward to go on and score bug he is almost always involved in the move.

Some of our goals on the break have been started by a roll out by Fred. Even one of the goals against Roma was a ball out to Pogba by Fred. It was like a scissor kick to get the ball moving. By the time the goal was scored there were probably about 3 passes after Fred. So to Pogba to Cavani to Greenwood (iirc).

I'm not saying Fred is the best out there, just don't believe stats give the whole picture
 
I find it weird that simply because we have missing links in midfield that people see the need to talk down Fred's performances for us.

We obviously need a ball winning midfielder and a deep lying playmaker and yet Fred is the one who is arguably doing both for us.

He may not be the perfected specialist (spreading the ball like carrick or defending like Hargreaves) - but he is doing a fantastic all rounders display in deeper areas of the pitch for us.
 
Whatever people say about him....he’s just not very good at his job. He’s not a good defensive midfielder. He doesnt offer good defensive cover to the team. When teams attack us, he doesn’t do a great job of shielding the back four. Players run off him. Teams cut through the middle of our side like a knife through butter. It’s not all his fault because the other one is no better either. I’m not saying they are poor footballers, at times they look brilliant....but then you notice the huge gap they kept leaving when teams attacked us through being out of position so consistently.
 
Jeppers7 said:
Whatever people say about him....he’s just not very good at his job. He’s not a good defensive midfielder. He doesnt offer good defensive cover to the team. When teams attack us, he doesn’t do a great job of shielding the back four. Players run off him. Teams cut through the middle of our side like a knife through butter. It’s not all his fault because the other one is no better either. I’m not saying they are poor footballers, at times they look brilliant....but then you notice the huge gap they kept leaving when teams attacked us through being out of position so consistently.
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He’s more of a no 8 than defensive mid to shield back four. His job is to provide energy on the field, rather than sit and relies on his positioning as he likes to roam instead, win the ball back in the opposition half before it gets into near our penalty box. His ball recovery is relatively high. He is pressing machine midfielder and he is kinda important in our set up since we love our counter attack.

On the ball, he is not playmaker like Modric, Carrick, Alonso or Scholes but he can pass with both feet and not afraid to pass the ball forward. He is very fluid too when on the ball, likes to pass and move and play one two.

His weakness as no 8 is that his first touch, shooting, and has no composure on the ball.

He’s not top player but can still effective and if we play him with good holding midfielder who can at least decent in passing and has composure, we will look much better even with him on the field. I don’t see him as long term plan but he’s good enough to buy us time until Garner is ready to step up into our regular midfield.
 
Jeppers7 said:
Whatever people say about him....he’s just not very good at his job. He’s not a good defensive midfielder. He doesnt offer good defensive cover to the team. When teams attack us, he doesn’t do a great job of shielding the back four. Players run off him. Teams cut through the middle of our side like a knife through butter. It’s not all his fault because the other one is no better either. I’m not saying they are poor footballers, at times they look brilliant....but then you notice the huge gap they kept leaving when teams attacked us through being out of position so consistently.
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He isn't a defensive midfielder though. If you're judging him against that criteria then it's small wonder this is your conclusion.
 
UNITED ACADEMY said:
He’s more of a no 8 than defensive mid to shield back four. His job is to provide energy on the field, rather than sit and relies on his positioning as he likes to roam instead, win the ball back in the opposition half before it gets into near our penalty box. His ball recovery is relatively high. He is pressing machine midfielder and he is kinda important in our set up since we love our counter attack.

On the ball, he is not playmaker like Modric, Carrick, Alonso or Scholes but he can pass with both feet and not afraid to pass the ball forward. He is very fluid too when on the ball, likes to pass and move and play one two.

His weakness as no 8 is that his first touch, shooting, and has no composure on the ball.

He’s not top player but can still effective and if we play him with good holding midfielder who can at least decent in passing and has composure, we will look much better even with him on the field. I don’t see him as long term plan but he’s good enough to buy us time until Garner is ready to step up into our regular midfield.
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Exactly why it doesn’t work.
 
ivaldo said:
He isn't a defensive midfielder though. If you're judging him against that criteria then it's small wonder this is your conclusion.
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He’s in the team to balance out the rest of the team. Him and Scott are supposed to give balance and protection to the back four? Unless I’m missing something else that they are doing well, like controlling the game or creating chances and breaking teams down.
 
Jeppers7 said:
He’s in the team to balance out the rest of the team. Him and Scott are supposed to give balance and protection to the back four? Unless I’m missing something else that they are doing well, like controlling the game or creating chances and breaking teams down.
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He's a ball winner. We've scored bucket loads of goals that's started with him winning the ball back in promising positions. He's a key component to us being so successful on the counter. Players tasked with sitting in front of the defense don't find themselves playing return passes in and around the opposition box like Fred does. Just look at how Matic plays compared to Fred, for example, or even Declan Rice. Rice covers less ground and makes considerably less tackles, yet his interceptions are a fair bit higher. You couldn't possibly think he and Fred were playing the same position.That said, defensively, we still stack up very well.
 
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Jeppers7 said:
He’s in the team to balance out the rest of the team. Him and Scott are supposed to give balance and protection to the back four? Unless I’m missing something else that they are doing well, like controlling the game or creating chances and breaking teams down.
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Well you’re obviously missing something because only City and Chelsea have conceded fewer goals than us. So it looks as though our back four is actually getting protected much more than you think.

Not to mention that we conceded 10 out of our 39 goals conceded in our first 3 games. None of which featured McT and Fred anchoring midfield.

In all but two of the games they’ve started this season we’ve either kept a clean sheet (13 clean sheets so far) or conceded a single goal. Extrapolate those states across the whole season and we’d have conceded fewer goals than any other team in the league.
 
Roma 3:2 Man Utd
Overall better at releasing the ball into the front players and being involved as we move forward which is an encouraging improvement. But 1 crazy choice to try and do some skills on the edge of his own box also caused a goal to be conceded
 
Mixed bag Fred. Lots of very good, some pretty bad.

He could have had 3 assists tonight. Hit a great pass to Cavani which should have notched him an assist, overhit a fairly simple pass to Rashford that should have got him another.
 
Did we really need to play him as a lone centre midfielder when we have 4 games in the next week and a bit?

Messed up for one of the goals but should not have been put in that situation by Maguire.
 
Probably his best all round performance for United. Yes, that one blip which gave their player a chance to shoot, and he took it well.
 
red woppit said:
Probably his best all round performance for United. Yes, that one blip which gave their player a chance to shoot, and he took it well.
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If his best all round performance for United involves him losing the ball like a idiot attempting skill at the edge of his own box then I’d be seriously worried about the rest of his performances
 
11101 said:
Did we really need to play him as a lone centre midfielder when we have 4 games in the next week and a bit?

Messed up for one of the goals but should not have been put in that situation by Maguire.
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He should be able to handle being put in that situation if he's going to be a first choice midfielder for Manchester United, lets get real here.

That's as bad as people blaming Maguire for the Leicester goal.
 
acnumber9 said:
Way to protect that back four.
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He keeps confirming this for me, he's not a good defensive player, which is why we have to use two rather one of him and Mctominay/Matic. It has nothing to do with how this or that the defence is. I don't like Lindelof, but our back 4 is not our problem, Fred and Mctominay are just not good enough individually to have solid starting positions at a club this big.
 
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