5
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 55
- Clean sheets
- 24
- Goals
- 3
- Assists
- 1
- Yellow cards
- 9
- Status
3-4 MOTM performances in a row now. He's actually started looking like a leader as well. Hopefully just needed some time to adjust and settle in.
Don't really want him kicking opposition players in the balls every game though. Unless he's borrowed that device Rojo presumably has that causes the ref to explode if he sends him off.
Don't really want him kicking opposition players in the balls every game though. Unless he's borrowed that device Rojo presumably has that causes the ref to explode if he sends him off.
He’s great and i am glad we finally have him. He gets lots of stick like having a turning radius of a tractor but he clearly compensates it with other qualities he has as a defender and leader. Found his place tonight at the club
Colossal performance. Should have been sent off for my money, but the referee probably concluded he got the balls.
That's what it looks like to me. But then again my take might have been coloured by hearing his explanation before seeing the video.
Captain performance that one. Nice to see despite the fee.
I believe him too, just by the timing of the outstretched leg.
Could it have been seen as a red, absolutely, but I don't think he meant any malice with it whatsoever. Glad the VAR agrees with my interpretation of it.
Only what John Terry used to do time and time again
He excels in a back 3.
Harry Potter
Brugge 1:1 Man Utd
He looks far better in back 3 and i am starting to change my opinion about him. But his reactions when he is in open space with attacker are still awful. He is too often beat one on one against attacker. If you are not quick then you must change approach to those situations and position yourself better
Back 3 allows him to mostly avoid those situations, being pulled wide and exposed 1 on 1. It is not just outright pace, when running that is not too bad really, it is his ability to quickly shift direction and agility on the turn. In a pair that will happen much more often.
Finding effective wingbacks is very difficult through, it is an extremely demanding role physically plus you need a high level of technical ability.
Man Utd 3:0 Watford
Not at the same standard as his past few outings.
His passing was pretty rubbish, especially in the first half
His passing was pretty rubbish, especially in the first half
He's improved recently but needs to find consistency.
Poor passing but very dominant in the air today.
Now if only we could get a consistent partner for him...
Lindelof can be solid but also prone to mistakes. Same with Bailly but I'd like to see him get a run of games with the skipper when fit
That's impressive, but I wonder how many of those were in the Europa League or against small sides in the cups.
Only 7 clean sheets in the league, but 5 of them in our last 8 games so hopefully the trend will continue.
We have afforded very few goal scoring chances to the opposition all season, so it's no surprise. We've had the rub of the grass sometimes, sometimes not. It evens out, but generally we've defended well this season. Maguire and Wan Bissaka has clearly improved us, eyesight and the memory of Young as RB and Jones/Smalling partnering Lindelöf should be enough evidence. Lindelöf and Shaw were two of the best of an inconsistent lot last season, they've not been perfect this season, but the strengthening of defence was done in an intelligent way and it pays of. Even if we've been unlucky with injuries to Dalot, Tuanzebe, Bailly and Laird, Williams and Young have both done a job this season.
Our weaknesses in player material has quite clearly been left to part 2 of the rebuild: midfield and attack. Bruno is a new step in the right direction. More are evidently needed this summer.
To be fair, even if they were against weaker teams we were still conceding very frequently against them earlier in the season, so either way it shows we're doing better defensively now. Matic and Shaw have both been playing well recently too which helps.
He's visibly grown into being our main CB and our captain. He started off a little inconsistent, but he's putting an excellent run of form together, he's scoring, he's playing a crutial part in keeping clean sheets. The whole back 4/5 look settled and a proper unit now, for the first time in years.
That old lottery of which 4 would be paired together (Shaw, Jones, Rojo, Darmian, Valencia, Young, Blind, Bailly) etc etc has long gone, with our main man helping hold it together.
A settled defense is crutial to building a sucessful team, and this literally seems like the first time since 2013 that one is being assembled.
People criticising the transfer fee, take note if we qualify for the CL and that extra £10-£15m that we paid as "United tax" pays off.
That old lottery of which 4 would be paired together (Shaw, Jones, Rojo, Darmian, Valencia, Young, Blind, Bailly) etc etc has long gone, with our main man helping hold it together.
A settled defense is crutial to building a sucessful team, and this literally seems like the first time since 2013 that one is being assembled.
People criticising the transfer fee, take note if we qualify for the CL and that extra £10-£15m that we paid as "United tax" pays off.
Agree! We were punished quite a lot from individual mistakes early in the season as well (if memory serves me right). Feels like the defense and midfield are better at covering for each other now. Maybe a positive effect of having a defense that's not constantly injured so that they can actually play together.
I think less mistakes is one major reason. Compare the match against Watford two days ago with the one two months ago. There were not many chances conceded in any of the two matches, but in the first match they conceded two goals from mistakes.
Then more minutes together, both for the four at the back, DDG, and the midfield is paying off. DDG, Maguire, Lindelof and AWB have almost played every game and been blessed with very few injuries. Fred has also a good run of games.
It´s a weakness in the squad that no one can replace Maguire. There is no one dominating the air like him, so he´s never rested. Having that in mind, Smalling has a role to play in the United squad.
I have great belief in Tuanzebe. Give him another preseason without injuries, and he may be first choice next season.
Been much much better the last month or so.
Hope he keeps it up.
Hope he keeps it up.
I think once we're more compact his pace will become less of a factor. We've had a few clean sheets BUT...we'd had teams have goals chalked off and at times we've been ropey to say the least. It's still a work in progress but hopefully something to build on.
In PL only, we've conceded 29 goals in 27 games, where in 2017/18 season: 28 goals in 38 games. Did we have Harry and AWB back then? Statistics.
I said back then our defence was rubbish. Difference was de Gea was in God mode which masked it to some.
Prior to this season with us getting Maguire and Spider-Wan, the last time I think we had a stable defence was in van Gaal's last season with the Smalling/Blind partnership.
Other than last season (which is easy to explain why, but people love to use it as barometer), our defence was always one of the best in the League. Perhaps it wasn't just due to DDG.
In my opinion, I put it mainly down to de Gea myself.
In previous years, it was so easy for opposition teams to carve out very good chances against us with relative ease. Thankfully, we had David so when you look back of doesn't seem like we were easily played through, which we were.
It's kinda the opposite now.
De Gea, to me, seems past it, and has done for like a year now, but with Maguire, Spider-Wan and a midfield that provides support defensively, we hardly ever give away easy chances now, so de Gea doesn't have to bail us out half as much as he had to in previous years.
Only 10 clubs have less clean sheets than us in the premierleague, and even that looked worse just few weeks ago.
Every stat can look good when you portray it in your favour.
For some reason people forget we opted for 3 man defence few times this season because we are still far from great at defending in big games, and we are generally a defensive side.
Every stat can look good when you portray it in your favour.
For some reason people forget we opted for 3 man defence few times this season because we are still far from great at defending in big games, and we are generally a defensive side.
Under this manager we are a counter attacking side.. That will always have a defensive setup to begin with. Having three CBs will close up shop in the middle and having Matic helping out fills up when the CBs run out of position. Maguire needs that cover due to his lack of pace in 1 v 1 situations.
Man Utd 5:0 Brugge
He proper cocked up that moment where you expect someone like him to show them who's boss.
And then was purring like a Rolls Royce after
- Status