As much as I don’t think we should stick on him being one of our long term CMs I can’t really argue with anything you’ve written here.
agreed warriors like him are needed in the squad
Fred is one of the most underrated players in England
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agreed warriors like him are needed in the squad
I like Fred but I would like him a lot more if he realized his limitations. Stop trying to make long passes and stop shooting. If he can keep it simple he would be so much better...
Ive been big critic of Fred but always tried to look for how I see he could improve.
Positives:
His stamina has really impressed in last months and seems to sustain throught 90mins
Playing deep he is a steady outlet so either feeds back or turns and looks for square pass.
Negatives: ( I say negative but not sure why coaches cannot guide)
Always watching the ball and rarely looks around so as to be aware.
Tracks his man back to 18yd line then seems to stop assuming defenders will pick up.
Doesn’t scan the play when open to recieve a pass hence he has to control ball the look for options.
I am frustrated that the ‘clever’ part of his game isn’t there , but seems to me he has the potential .
Positives:
His stamina has really impressed in last months and seems to sustain throught 90mins
Playing deep he is a steady outlet so either feeds back or turns and looks for square pass.
Negatives: ( I say negative but not sure why coaches cannot guide)
Always watching the ball and rarely looks around so as to be aware.
Tracks his man back to 18yd line then seems to stop assuming defenders will pick up.
Doesn’t scan the play when open to recieve a pass hence he has to control ball the look for options.
I am frustrated that the ‘clever’ part of his game isn’t there , but seems to me he has the potential .
Basically, yeah. Like all of our midfielders, he’s good but not quite there. I think he’s got a bit of a cult following down to his earnest play and insane stamina levels. Showing a bit of grittiness goes a long way.
I know people argue he isn't a DM, but he does predominantly remain in areas identical to these players when you look at heatmaps. You can call a player what you want, but if they have a heatmap which is far closer to a player in another position at a different team, you have to compare them instead.
Fred's heatmaps follow DM heatmaps quite closely at the top teams, though a slight swaying to the left. You can't really compare him to the likes of Gundogan etc., who play far more in the opposition's half of the pitch (he pretty much plays as an attacking midfielder). It is not surprising a player who plays further up the pitch can create more chances.
I have taken the stats from one of the players' best seasons underneath, by the way.
Defence Comparison (tackles and interception per 90 minutes)
Kante (16/17) - 6.0
Fred - 5.4 (This season only Kante matches him in this aspect)
Fabinho (19/20) - 4.2
Fernandinho (17/18) - 3.7
Rodri - 3.1
Attempted Tackles per 90 minutes (Succesful)
Kante - 4.9 (3.6) - 73%
Rodri - 3.1 (2.1) - 68%
Fabinho - 4.5 (2.7) - 60%
Fernandinho - 3.2 (1.9) - 59%
Fred - 5.7 (3.2) - 56% (Engages in the most tackles - likely comes from his pressing)
Dribbled Past per 90 minutes
Rodri - 1
Fernandinho - 1.3
Kante - 1.3
Fabinho - 1.8
Fred - 2.5
I think you have to take into account how dominant a team is here. I mean the fewer attacks you face, the less chance of being dribbled. And it is probably impacted by his pressing. We haven't had the most organised press, which will impact success levels. I think we may have started to improve in this in the last three games or so.
Dribbles per 90 (Successful) and Success Rate
Fred - 1.2 (1.1) - 91.7%
Fernandinho - 0.8 (0.7) - 87.5%
Rodri - 1 (0.8) - 80%
Fabinho - 0.5 (0.4) - 80%
Kante - 1.4 (1) - 71.4%
Whilst people say he is not very good on the ball. Fred is actually a very good dribbler. When he attempts a dribble, he tends to succeed in beating his man. Despite attempting more, he still manages to exceed the others in success rate. This is definitely a strength of his that a lot of people do not consider.
Creativity Comparison - xA and(xA per minute)
Fred - 1.71 (0.00129)
Fernandinho (17/18) - 2.84 (0.00098)
Fabinho (19/20) - 1.68 (0.00081)
Rodri - 1.31 (0.00076)
Kante (16/17) - 1.88 ( 0.00060) - When Chelsea won the PL
People ask for creation, but how much do you expect from our midfielders when they play in the same areas as these DMs? (McTominay is 0.00128, by the way). They mostly play from deep. The chance of them actually creating loads of chances is very low, and I think people do have too high expectations on this side. Pogba has the lowest xA per minute of our three, by the way. The deep position is going to affect them.
Goals
Fernandinho - 5 (This was his best season - a lot of the time it has been 2 or 1 goals per season in the PL)
Fabinho - 2
Kante - 1
Fred - 0
Rodri - 0
Shots per 90
Fernandinho - 1.5
Fred - 1
Rodri - 1
Kante - 0.8
Fabinho - 0.5
Goals are nice to have, but goalscoring is not a massive concern to those that cover DM areas. In truth, they rarely score. Busquets has scored 15 in his whole career. Makelele scored 30 in over 700 games. Carrick scored 20, I think, in his career. Unless they are the major freekick/penalty taker they won't score all that many. In terms of shooting, his stats are identical to Rodri's stats. None of these players takes many shots.
Overall, I think the stats and the heatmaps really make him a DM of this type. He performs well in most areas. If he could increase his tackle success on top of the level of attempts he manages to get in position for, he would be monstrous. He already recovers the ball more times than anyone in the PL this season, aside from Kante (who matches him).
Creatively he is above all of them and betters them in terms of dribbling. If he could get a goal or two over the course of the season, he would be a great DM.
Fred's heatmaps follow DM heatmaps quite closely at the top teams, though a slight swaying to the left. You can't really compare him to the likes of Gundogan etc., who play far more in the opposition's half of the pitch (he pretty much plays as an attacking midfielder). It is not surprising a player who plays further up the pitch can create more chances.
I have taken the stats from one of the players' best seasons underneath, by the way.
Defence Comparison (tackles and interception per 90 minutes)
Kante (16/17) - 6.0
Fred - 5.4 (This season only Kante matches him in this aspect)
Fabinho (19/20) - 4.2
Fernandinho (17/18) - 3.7
Rodri - 3.1
Attempted Tackles per 90 minutes (Succesful)
Kante - 4.9 (3.6) - 73%
Rodri - 3.1 (2.1) - 68%
Fabinho - 4.5 (2.7) - 60%
Fernandinho - 3.2 (1.9) - 59%
Fred - 5.7 (3.2) - 56% (Engages in the most tackles - likely comes from his pressing)
Dribbled Past per 90 minutes
Rodri - 1
Fernandinho - 1.3
Kante - 1.3
Fabinho - 1.8
Fred - 2.5
I think you have to take into account how dominant a team is here. I mean the fewer attacks you face, the less chance of being dribbled. And it is probably impacted by his pressing. We haven't had the most organised press, which will impact success levels. I think we may have started to improve in this in the last three games or so.
Dribbles per 90 (Successful) and Success Rate
Fred - 1.2 (1.1) - 91.7%
Fernandinho - 0.8 (0.7) - 87.5%
Rodri - 1 (0.8) - 80%
Fabinho - 0.5 (0.4) - 80%
Kante - 1.4 (1) - 71.4%
Whilst people say he is not very good on the ball. Fred is actually a very good dribbler. When he attempts a dribble, he tends to succeed in beating his man. Despite attempting more, he still manages to exceed the others in success rate. This is definitely a strength of his that a lot of people do not consider.
Creativity Comparison - xA and(xA per minute)
Fred - 1.71 (0.00129)
Fernandinho (17/18) - 2.84 (0.00098)
Fabinho (19/20) - 1.68 (0.00081)
Rodri - 1.31 (0.00076)
Kante (16/17) - 1.88 ( 0.00060) - When Chelsea won the PL
People ask for creation, but how much do you expect from our midfielders when they play in the same areas as these DMs? (McTominay is 0.00128, by the way). They mostly play from deep. The chance of them actually creating loads of chances is very low, and I think people do have too high expectations on this side. Pogba has the lowest xA per minute of our three, by the way. The deep position is going to affect them.
Goals
Fernandinho - 5 (This was his best season - a lot of the time it has been 2 or 1 goals per season in the PL)
Fabinho - 2
Kante - 1
Fred - 0
Rodri - 0
Shots per 90
Fernandinho - 1.5
Fred - 1
Rodri - 1
Kante - 0.8
Fabinho - 0.5
Goals are nice to have, but goalscoring is not a massive concern to those that cover DM areas. In truth, they rarely score. Busquets has scored 15 in his whole career. Makelele scored 30 in over 700 games. Carrick scored 20, I think, in his career. Unless they are the major freekick/penalty taker they won't score all that many. In terms of shooting, his stats are identical to Rodri's stats. None of these players takes many shots.
Overall, I think the stats and the heatmaps really make him a DM of this type. He performs well in most areas. If he could increase his tackle success on top of the level of attempts he manages to get in position for, he would be monstrous. He already recovers the ball more times than anyone in the PL this season, aside from Kante (who matches him).
Creatively he is above all of them and betters them in terms of dribbling. If he could get a goal or two over the course of the season, he would be a great DM.
Totally agree.
A very in depth post and respect for the effort and time take.
I am interested to know your source for the stats.
I would however, question the approach of x capability /90minutes. Fred 1.2 dribbles per game for example. This figure is so low as to be statistically error prone. Actual success 1.1 so 91.66666% is not really comparable.
Good research though.
If he could shoot he’d be up there with the best of them..
This is the only one we all know he isn’t capable.
The post-injury Cleverley, yes. I think pre-injury Cleverley was miles better than Fred.
The point I was making was that City have world class players on their bench every week that compete for one position and you’d never consider the individuals as squad players.
Have you noticed that Tom Cleverley has fell of a cliff since he left united? He was shocking for us. Couldn’t shoot, head score or pass. A lot like Fred haha. Cleverley now plays in the championship where he belongs. Fred could do a job for a mid table team but we as united should have top quality mid fielders like Bruno we shouldn’t expect him to carry all the weight every week. I just don’t think Fred will be good enough in the long run. We won’t challenge with him and ultimately that’s what we should be doing as united. Winning trophies.
Why do people keep trying to use passing stats when they are completely useless?
It's been proven so many times a mis hit pass still counts as successful even when the intended player had to go out of position to get the ball out even if it ends up at another player instead of the one intended
This is not maths it's football you watch the game and judge on that not pointless meaningless stats
It's been proven so many times a mis hit pass still counts as successful even when the intended player had to go out of position to get the ball out even if it ends up at another player instead of the one intended
This is not maths it's football you watch the game and judge on that not pointless meaningless stats
This.
The attempts to overanalyse the game/make sense of the senseless is so tedious. xG is another one which is utterly annoying.
I blame American Football/a sport which can be broken down like this far more easily.
Just curious given your username, do you think Martial is good enough to help us challenge? he’s having an absolute nightmare of a season and I reckon he’s the first on the chopping block if the owners back the manager this summer or next. Cavani is just a sign of things to come. Fred has put martial through on plenty of occasions this season but martial messed up the chances. Fred would have a few assists beside his name if our forwards were more clinical.
Tom Cleverly? A one season wonder and a player who cost us nothing. Fred was running games in the champions league against City Juve and Real when he was with Shaktar and us and city (who you seem to love) duked it out for his signature. He’s found his level with us and TC23 found his level with Watford. They are literally miles apart. Strange post.
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I believe he is underrated, because a lot of people think it'd be easy to replace him and it'd take us a level up. I'm not so sure about that really.
His biggest weakness is passing (long range) and shooting (in general). But do people think we would be much better team if we had Fred type of player but with better passing? We really have big issues in defense and attack, so I don't see how replacing Fred would improve us significantly.
However, as a lot of people will disagree with my opinion, I'd like to see who would they replace Fred with (single player - remember we play midfield two!).
His biggest weakness is passing (long range) and shooting (in general). But do people think we would be much better team if we had Fred type of player but with better passing? We really have big issues in defense and attack, so I don't see how replacing Fred would improve us significantly.
However, as a lot of people will disagree with my opinion, I'd like to see who would they replace Fred with (single player - remember we play midfield two!).
I totally agree. we literally have a classier player in Pogba who we can’t fit into the team but supposedly can do all these creative things we lack and that’s what would take us up a gear. Wonderful passer when given a lot of space. Nice shot on him. I wonder why that isn’t working out in practice then?
He stinks the place out when he’s given any defensive responsibilities and we already have too many other players trying to attack. It’s about balance and not just fitting in names.
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That's the point, and I prefer having conservative midfielders and attacking with fullbacks rather than having all midfielders pushing high and leaving a big gap behind.
Pogba is the right player to play that midfielder role against about 5 teams in this league. He can do the job against maybe 10 teams, but I'd never play him there against top 5 teams. With Fred I really have no problem, he simply fits our needs and does the job, and you don't need to play him into form for half a season.
Can Fred be upgraded upon? Sure. Is he a major issue that needs to be solved quickly? I don't think so.
if we had more ambitious owners then yeah go and get someone else but the position is pretty close to bottom of the list seeing as we already have Donny Pogba and McT. We already badly need a right winger, a striker to build the attack around long term, a fast central defender to cover the high line and a deep lying playmaker (which might actually cover for pogbas defensive shortcomings but I still think he slows us down too much)
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Not arguing with you. I just saw Pogba doesn’t even make the list... Players from worse teams with much less of the ball topping it. Seems legit.
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Tom Cleverley?
Depends on your midfielders and fullbacks, surely.
If I have Wan-Bissaka and Pogba in the same team, I'm going to want a different system than I would with Alexander-Arnold and Henderson.
Our systems is somehow constrained by Bruno though. We can't play offensive midfield duo with him doing his thing up high.
Thank you that my frustration with him keep it simple I agree with you
Seems about right, he's a poor tackler but I guess his numbers will be screwed because he attempts a lot of tackles even if there is little chance to get the ball.
And yet people still call him a defensive midfielder.
Thiago though
Not the way it's currently set up, agreed. But I think it's worth changing the shape and having him play as more of a midfielder.
This 4-2-3-1 system with Fred and McTominay is great if you can rely on the full-backs in attack, but when you can't (like early in the season before Shaw's latest renaissance) you just end up with six players doing nothing with the ball and the only plan being to find Fernandes between the lines.
I'd be all for it if the full-backs were both quality attacking options. They're not, but we do have plenty of good positive midfield options. So my solution would be to change the shape to a more traditional 4-3-3, bring in a DM (it doesn't have to be some mythical superman who can score+assist 10 a season, just someone with the discipline to sit by himself), then play Fernandes alongside another midfielder in front of him. The second one can be any of Pogba, Van de Beek, McTominay or Fred, and I think all four of them would be more useful in this role with more freedom to break forward. Get them linking up with a new winger on the right, and the massive left-right imbalance goes away too.
id like to see chances created after possession turned over. I’d imagine Fred is near the top of that list in a team that doesn’t really press together.
Seems about right, he's a poor tackler but I guess his numbers will be screwed because he attempts a lot of tackles even if there is little chance to get the ball.
And yet people still call him a defensive midfielder.
Thiago though
Yeah, huge workrate so he puts himself in plenty of situations to try and win the ball. Success rate isnt that good but at the end of the match he will have 2 or 3 tackles successfully completed and 2 or 3 where an opponent has run the ball past him
Yeah as I said, I don't think he's a good tackler but the way he plays (harrassing opponents around the pitch) I don't have any problem with it. Just don't put him in front of back 4 and it's fine.
We have the personnel to do that right now. Ole never plays 3 man midfield though.
Personally I don't see much benefit in playing that way regularly, it won't be beneficial for either attack od defense. That's why I think we should stay with 4-2-3-1 for now.
I am not sure Fred and Cleverly are similar worth to comparison. Cleverly probably should be put with VDB together. They are quite similar.
Come on...why do our fans like going to far. Fred isn't underrated. He's a poor to average tackler, poor passer, has a poor shooting technique, isn't creative and has a horrendous first touch. He has good stamina, great work rate and is good at marking, but those aren't attributes of a midfielder that should be starting for United. Decent but not great. I'm sure even he would tell you that
I don't think we do. I wouldn't trust Fred or McTominay alone at the base of midfield - neither does Solskjaer - and definitely not Pogba or DvdB. Matic was capable of doing the job a couple of years ago (when Solskjaer first got the job) but he's getting slower by the week.
fair summary.
fred was brought in to play box to box in between Matic (deepest) and Pogba (attacking) just didn’t really pan out in the end. Fred is still playing box to box though. Matic is done and Pogba is either on the way out or about to absolutely rinse the club on his next deal.
I meant Matic at the base, thought it was obvious. I don't think Matic is done, not at all, we just shouldn't be playing him in two man midfield with Pogba.
He can run fast enough for 90' if played at the base of midfield 3. But like I said, Ole never plays that way.
Fred was over 50mil and Tielemans and Fabinho to mention two are cheaper and I would rather have them.
Ole has played that way before, so not never.
I think it's worth another try, but I don't trust Matic. Especially not in a congested season like this
I've really liked him since we played Anderlecht in the EL. I thought we were stupid to let him go to Monaco and now we’d get the Maguire treatment no doubt. He’s a very interesting player though.
Spot on. To make progress we need a player with the same work rate and destroyer skills, but who can contribute more offensively: dictate tempo, better playmaker/distributer or finisher (shooting from distance).
Fred will anyway be a very valuable squad player. Under certain circumstances (matches) he could still play a critical role and possibly be the best alternative on the midfield
Like when? Literally can't remember any game like that. Even vs West Ham, it was a perfect opportunity to go for 3 man midfield with Matic at the base and Fred & van de Beek as #8s. We went for for good old 4-4-2.