Fred | Fenerbahçe player

Selling him was the correct decision in theory and we shouldn't be missing him. But obviously our recruitment is so poor we're consistently unable to replace players with better ones, so we end up wishing we hadn't sold them
Only scenario in which we don't miss Fred is if Mount plays 100% of the time. Eriksen is done and we knew this before the season started. Hannibal was never going to make it here, I don't think he was ever seriously considered by ETH and I don't disagree with this. McTominay is more of an attacker these days anyway.

It was certain thing we will miss Fred, just nobody thought Mount will be out for majority of the season (so far).
 
Always loved Fred despite his Jekyll & Hyde tendencies. Though we were right to move him on.

Glad to see he's doing so well.
 
Should still be in a top 5 league, but being the best player at a football mad club like Fenerbache is probably quite cool.
 
Selling him was the correct decision in theory and we shouldn't be missing him. But obviously our recruitment is so poor we're consistently unable to replace players with better ones, so we end up wishing we hadn't sold them
I hear this a lot but if we didn't replace him properly, and would have been better off keeping him, then how was it the correct decision. Never mind that he still had a few years left, compared to others (Herrera, Pogba)
 
I hear this a lot but if we didn't replace him properly, and would have been better off keeping him, then how was it the correct decision. Never mind that he still had a few years left, compared to others (Herrera, Pogba)

He had a year left. But whatever we got back in fee for him, we spent on Ambrabat's loan fee for the year :lol:

We got 9.5m euros for Fred, and we spent 10m euros on Ambrabat's loan fee.

Plus of course the 20m euro option to buy which we hopefully won't exercise based on his performances so far
 
We can agree to disagree about his quality. But i do agree with you that his best role should never have been as a DM. Box to box is how/where he was seemingly always used best. Shows you the utter incompetency of our transfers post SAF.
That’s fair. The whole McFred thing was a terrible plan to begin with given neither of them are DM’s and it’s laughable we persisted with it as long as we did. It’s a shame Matic dropped off the way he did too, he was perfect as the pivot!
 
That’s fair. The whole McFred thing was a terrible plan to begin with given neither of them are DM’s and it’s laughable we persisted with it as long as we did. It’s a shame Matic dropped off the way he did too, he was perfect as the pivot!
Absolutely. And they didn’t compliment each others skill sets one bit - actually they probably brought out the worst of each other.

:lol: i have to laugh when I think about it, or I might just end up crying!
 
can we not fall into the trap of constantly pining after people who we know just werent good enough for what we are trying to be, just because their replacements havent been up to par? We know fred has good moments, we also know he has just as many, if not more, moments where he barely looks like a professional footballer with the ball. Just because who we have brought in havent worked out doesnt negate that fact. Same thing with DDG and Onana early on. We should be constantly looking to improve, just sometimes (or a lot in our case ha) the new guy struggles too.

I can’t understand you guys claiming he had moments where he barely looked as a footballer. Name me 1 game. He definitely had more games good than bad. Case Fred partnership was the best we had. Selling him was the last of our issues and was a big mistake. As we can see now. 20/20 games won. Can’t believe it
 
I can’t understand you guys claiming he had moments where he barely looked as a footballer. Name me 1 game. He definitely had more games good than bad. Case Fred partnership was the best we had. Selling him was the last of our issues and was a big mistake. As we can see now. 20/20 games won. Can’t believe it
i mean there were plenty of times throughout games where he would take an absolute hilarious of a touch/pass that a rec league player would damn near have. I dont give a feck what he is doing over in turkey with the one dominant team pretty much there. He is just not the quality of midfielder we need. To be a top level player you cant have the level of inconsistency he has shown in the premier league. Im glad his team is doing well over in turkey but still doesnt change how he was over here for us
 
Such a weird player.

- You'd say his main attribute was his engine but he was a bit of a headless chicken
- Would do some outrageous skill / trick but usually wasn't very creative
- Looked ok on the ball but could be incredibly sloppy with it too

Just a weird player. Glad it sounds like he's doing well but also glad we moved him on.
 
Such a weird player.

- You'd say his main attribute was his engine but he was a bit of a headless chicken
- Would do some outrageous skill / trick but usually wasn't very creative
- Looked ok on the ball but could be incredibly sloppy with it too

Just a weird player. Glad it sounds like he's doing well but also glad we moved him on.
exactly. It is like people have either completely forgotten what he was like here during his time or think that by saying he isnt good enough that we are saying he is just some absolute dog shit piece of player. Most tend to forget even the worst premier league player would look like messi in his prime against the usual sunday league team. The standards in the premier league are just that high that it isnt wrong to think that perfectly adequate players can just be not good enough at this level and still be a professional player somewhere else
 
I can’t understand you guys claiming he had moments where he barely looked as a footballer. Name me 1 game. He definitely had more games good than bad. Case Fred partnership was the best we had. Selling him was the last of our issues and was a big mistake. As we can see now. 20/20 games won. Can’t believe it

That would be like selling McT to Celtic and claiming he shouldn't have been sold because they won 20 games with him in the team.
 
i mean there were plenty of times throughout games where he would take an absolute hilarious of a touch/pass that a rec league player would damn near have. I dont give a feck what he is doing over in turkey with the one dominant team pretty much there. He is just not the quality of midfielder we need. To be a top level player you cant have the level of inconsistency he has shown in the premier league. Im glad his team is doing well over in turkey but still doesnt change how he was over here for us
Agreed, I remember one match where he passed it directly into touch from about 10 yards, under no pressure and with no player in the vicinity. His energy and tenacity was good in some matches but that was it. Technically he was poor and often targeted by the oppo. The fact that he's ended up in Turkey says it all
 
That would be like selling McT to Celtic and claiming he shouldn't have been sold because they won 20 games with him in the team.

fair enough point. On the other hand, we’ve had plenty of players leaving the club, how many of those actually was a success at their new club?? Can name one? Fred is an asset!
Only issue I have with this is he was still performing. Covering ground, intercepting and doing what a midfielder supposed to do. And what we actually need. So we sold something we had use for. And bought Mason mount.
 
fair enough point. On the other hand, we’ve had plenty of players leaving the club, how many of those actually was a success at their new club?? Can name one? Fred is an asset!
Only issue I have with this is he was still performing. Covering ground, intercepting and doing what a midfielder supposed to do. And what we actually need. So we sold something we had use for. And bought Mason mount.

He was never good enough. Shouldn't have lasted more than 2 seasons at the club.
 
i mean there were plenty of times throughout games where he would take an absolute hilarious of a touch/pass that a rec league player would damn near have. I dont give a feck what he is doing over in turkey with the one dominant team pretty much there. He is just not the quality of midfielder we need. To be a top level player you cant have the level of inconsistency he has shown in the premier league. Im glad his team is doing well over in turkey but still doesnt change how he was over here for us
I mean all players do some bad stuff.. Bruno is our captain and maybe our most important player. You can say the same about him? from time to time he does some shit that makes one wonder how he is a pro footballer right? Doesn’t mean he isn’t quality. If we sum up Fred last season he did more good than bad. I can name at least 6 players we should have sold before Fred.
 
fair enough point. On the other hand, we’ve had plenty of players leaving the club, how many of those actually was a success at their new club?? Can name one? Fred is an asset!
Only issue I have with this is he was still performing. Covering ground, intercepting and doing what a midfielder supposed to do. And what we actually need. So we sold something we had use for. And bought Mason mount.
A lot of those players went to lesser clubs, in a different context. Their post-Utd success doesn't necessarily warrant a retroactive rewriting of their time here. Fred simply wasn't good enough for us (Good Fred was, but he was way too inconsistent), and it was normal to move him on.

Now there is a genuine question in the other way which is to understand why good players come to Utd and don't perform to the best of their talent, but I think this has been done over and over again and the deep rooted issues are well know to everyone by now.
 
That would be like selling McT to Celtic and claiming he shouldn't have been sold because they won 20 games with him in the team.

Yeah if only we were better than some Turkish team eh? But we’ll never know unless we meet a team in champions.. oh wait
 
Part of why Fred never worked out all that well at United, although a bit of a character, was the he was played out of position and never really had a prolonged period in his favoured position. That came with Casemiro, but then he wasn't trusted by ETH.

Fred was never a 6 - no more than Bruno or Eriksen. He should never have played there. When he had more freedom to attack and played box-to-box, he was much much better. He was ultimately not good enough, but that could equally be about him not consistently being played to his strengths as it was about him.
 
That’s fair. The whole McFred thing was a terrible plan to begin with given neither of them are DM’s and it’s laughable we persisted with it as long as we did. It’s a shame Matic dropped off the way he did too, he was perfect as the pivot!
The unfortunate thing is that Matic and Fred never combined well in the early days. In theory Fred should have just come in and taken Herrera's spot so we could keep on with the Matic-Pogba-Herrera (Fred) combo that did so well in 18/19, but that combo just didn't work. I think it was likely because all three of Matic, Pogba and Fred tended to drift to the left, so it ended up with a badly balanced midfield both in and out of possession.

It wasn't really until a few seasons later that Matic and Fred seemed to start getting on the same page, but by that stage Matic was on his last legs and couldn't put any kind of run of games together.
 
Such a weird player.

- You'd say his main attribute was his engine but he was a bit of a headless chicken
- Would do some outrageous skill / trick but usually wasn't very creative
- Looked ok on the ball but could be incredibly sloppy with it too

Just a weird player. Glad it sounds like he's doing well but also glad we moved him on.

What's weird about it? A player might have a great engine but there's more to football to that. Gattuso was probably one of the most limited CM's in modern times but his ability to read the game, stick to a player like glue and disrupt them at the right moment made him one of the most difficult players to play against. Same can be said (to a slightly kinder way) to Park who absolutely annihilated Pirlo in his prime. Fred lacks those mental attributes. He can run all day, his skill with the ball isn't that bad (when compared to players of that kind like Gattuso or Savage) but he simply lack the elite judgement an elite player in that position have. The technical aspect is a nice add on in that position. It can transform a Gattuso into a Keane or a Rijkaard. However its a position were brains often beats technique everytime.
 
Fred was one of the best reserve midfielders in the league. Not quite starting level for United but certainly excellent as a squad player, who could be trusted to start games when needed. Used as a high pressing 8, I liked him a lot. Would much rather have kept him over McTominay.
 
Fred was one of the best reserve midfielders in the league. Not quite starting level for United but certainly excellent as a squad player, who could be trusted to start games when needed. Used as a high pressing 8, I liked him a lot. Would much rather have kept him over McTominay.
If we had not sold him for 8M, we wouldn’t have had to pay 9M or so for Amrabat but that’s how Murtough does his business. Penny wise, pound foolish.
 
Fred was one of the best reserve midfielders in the league. Not quite starting level for United but certainly excellent as a squad player, who could be trusted to start games when needed. Used as a high pressing 8, I liked him a lot. Would much rather have kept him over McTominay.

We could have sold McT for 3 times the money we got for Fred. Kept Fred for one more year and let him go on a free this summer. Mount would also have been free this summer and we wouldn’t have to look at McT galloping around doing nothing anymore. No Amrabat. We are up 80/90 million there in that scenario. Crazy

We love our huge blunders. Sancho, Greenwood situation, bringing Ronaldo back, Antony, not getting Haaland for 5 million off Molde and Caciedo and so on. We snatch defeat from the jaws of victory every time
 
We could have sold McT for 3 times the money we got for Fred. Kept Fred for one more year and let him go on a free this summer. Mount would also have been free this summer and we wouldn’t have to look at McT galloping around doing nothing anymore. No Amrabat. We are up 80/90 million there in that scenario. Crazy

We love our huge blunders. Sancho, Greenwood situation, bringing Ronaldo back, Antony, not getting Haaland for 5 million off Molde and Caciedo and so on. We snatch defeat from the jaws of victory every time

Yup.
 
We could have sold McT for 3 times the money we got for Fred. Kept Fred for one more year and let him go on a free this summer. Mount would also have been free this summer and we wouldn’t have to look at McT galloping around doing nothing anymore. No Amrabat. We are up 80/90 million there in that scenario. Crazy

We love our huge blunders. Sancho, Greenwood situation, bringing Ronaldo back, Antony, not getting Haaland for 5 million off Molde and Caciedo and so on. We snatch defeat from the jaws of victory every time
There’s no guarantee Mount ends up here if everyone is in the mix to sign him on a free. Letting Fred go was the right decision, unfortunately all the other decisions surrounding it, such as keeping McTominay and buying Amrabat, were wrong. As always.
 
That would be like selling McT to Celtic and claiming he shouldn't have been sold because they won 20 games with him in the team.

In this case, we shouldn't have sold him because we then spent even more money than his fee to get amrabat on loan to replace him, who is a worse player.
 
In this case, we shouldn't have sold him because we then spent even more money than his fee to get amrabat on loan to replace him, who is a worse player.
We didn't sell him because he's worse than McTominay or Amrabat, we sold him because ETH doesn't value #8s, you are either a #6 or a #10.
Amrabat is worse than Fred in general but he CAN play the lone #6. He isn't good enough and too slow, but suits the profile for Ten Hag.
 
There’s no guarantee Mount ends up here if everyone is in the mix to sign him on a free. Letting Fred go was the right decision, unfortunately all the other decisions surrounding it, such as keeping McTominay and buying Amrabat, were wrong. As always.

So even more positives.
 
In this case, we shouldn't have sold him because we then spent even more money than his fee to get amrabat on loan to replace him, who is a worse player.

He was sold for 2 reasons.

1. He wasn't good enough. (Never was).
2. His contract was up in a year.
 
So why did we get amarabat, who is clearly worse?
Amrabat has had no time to spin up and adjust to the pace and intensity of the PL. He is a loanee from a lower league being asked to be a £100m player and being asked to control the midfield by himself. That he isn’t suddenly a world class player should not have been a surprise to anyone. I haven’t given up on Amrabat being part of a functioning midfield. At least he is a 6 being played as a 6. Fred would be even worse in that role. I hope they make Fred mayor of the city, but I was so relieved when he finally left.
 
Passing technique was really poor, always used his instead so when playing passes to the LW, he'd always put too much curve on it so it faded towards the opposing fullback, causing a turnover.

He also lost the ball in bad areas though lack of awareness and general poor touch.

Besides all that, I liked him, honest player and worked hard. Can't ask for me outside of "be better"
 
If we had not sold him for 8M, we wouldn’t have had to pay 9M or so for Amrabat but that’s how Murtough does his business. Penny wise, pound foolish.
We could have sold McT for 3 times the money we got for Fred. Kept Fred for one more year and let him go on a free this summer. Mount would also have been free this summer and we wouldn’t have to look at McT galloping around doing nothing anymore. No Amrabat. We are up 80/90 million there in that scenario. Crazy

We love our huge blunders. Sancho, Greenwood situation, bringing Ronaldo back, Antony, not getting Haaland for 5 million off Molde and Caciedo and so on. We snatch defeat from the jaws of victory every time

These replies sum it up perfectly. The squad management was/is atrocious. Personally, injuries aside, I still don’t mind the Mount transfer long term. Think he’s a very good player and we need a big squad. I also don’t think he’d have gone for free this summer, they’d have sold him elsewhere if not for us moving so early.

But McTominay out and Mount is for a small net spend of 15-20M plus no Amrabat - who is terrible - would’ve meant a net spend of 20M and midfield options of Casemiro, Mainoo, Fred, Eriksen, Bruno and Mount. Which is much better. Two 6’s, two 8’s, two 10’s. Much better than the 55m net spend we had on midfield for Casemiro, Mainoo, Amrabat, McTominay, Eriksen, Mount and Bruno. We also have Hannibal in reserve.

There are so many good players who have gone for reasonable or cheap fees in the last 5 years that would’ve had us spend a fraction of the money for a much better squad. Our recruitment is a disgrace. No other word for it.
 
Scored twice today.. the first was a great strike too.

Had a look at the Turkish Super Lig table.
After 30 games,
Galatasaray are top with 81 points
Fenerbahce have 79
Trabzonspor , 3rd, have 49 points ..
 
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