Pep also signed Bravo, Nolito, Danilo and Mahrez for City. He also had a hard on for Jorginho, Fred and Sanchez. Just because Pep wants him (allegedly) doesn't mean diddly squat
Harry Maguire | Signed
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Pep also signed Bravo, Nolito, Danilo and Mahrez for City. He also had a hard on for Jorginho, Fred and Sanchez. Just because Pep wants him (allegedly) doesn't mean diddly squat
65 million is what they say that Shitty offered. We can have him for 80 million.
How did Real sign Eder Militao for 50m euros and Leicester want 80m for Maguire?
The transfer fees English clubs want are insane.
The transfer fees English clubs want are insane.
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Portuguese clubs survive by selling players, we don't need to nor do we want to sell Maguire, its really not that complicated
Plus, Militao probably only wanted to go to one club which helped avoid a bidding war.
So much better than what we have currently. Given the situation of our defense I say sell somebody and go for him.
That's an incredible piece that. Lists all the things Maguire is very good at, then says "he's not quick" and he's "not sure" about other stuff.
So not being quick but being very good at everything else is enough for him to say "I would avoid Harry Maguire at all costs" because he's "not sure" about the rest. What an absolute moron, at least be fecking sure as to what else you're saying he's not good at, just adding "I'm not sure" shows the incredible bias he has here.
Hilarious stuff
The website is wrong, as @Jimmy Skitz says Maguire has always played LCB for us even alongside Evans, if you don't believe me watch some of the highlights.
The point in comparing Maguire to Terry/Pique/Chiellini/De Ligt was that it is still possible to be a top centre back, even within an attacking pressing side, when pace and agility have been identified by pundits as "weaknesses". If you want to talk about the aforementioned defenders' overall ability in relation to Maguire's that's a different discussion, although I would suggest he'd have been exposed as a £15m player long ago, even within systems such as Leicester's and England's, if he didn't share similar strengths.
I'm not even sure I agree with you about the vast difference in protection offered by his immediate Leicester teammates versus his would-be Manchester United teammates; Shaw is probably only slightly behind Chilwell in terms of ability and pace, Lindelof is superior to Evans in both, and I'm not sure McTominay/Matic/Fred, plus other players (Tielemans/Longstaff?) Solskjaer is looking to sign for the youthful and high-energy midfield he's looking for create, offer less protection than Ndidi/Tielemans(/occasionally Choudhury) either?
Steve Bruce also springs to mind.
If he goes to City it will be interesting to see who they replace him with. No doubt Rodgers and their scouting team will come up with a gem of a player - that we’ve completely missed.
We signed his replacements last summer, Benkovic & Soyuncu
I think it'll be someone unsexy and Premier League proven to come straight in alongside Evans, and be pushed out by Soyuncu/Benkovic at a later point.
In my opinion the key issue is weakness at the back. If your midfield aren’t confident in the back 4 it’ll show. Likewise with the goalkeeper.
It's our defence that puts pressure on the whole team.
A solid backline is the key to success in the PL. Title winning sides almost always concede few goals. That’s just his it is.
Liverpool became a title challenging side (with record points for a runner up) wit two key signings, a keeper and a centre back. With Henderson, Winajdum and Milner all regular contributors in midfield.
A midfield plays well if it has confidence in its back 4. You might succeed despite that if you have a truly world class midfield and forward line (Barca - with Mascherano at CB springs to mind) but without it the team had no stability. I can’t see is having a midfield of that quality.
Jones, Smalling, Rojo weren’t good enough before, so they won’t be now. Any midfielder in the squad or any coming in knows it. Lindelof has it to prove and Bailly can’t stay fit. Not good enough for me.
Top sides have a solid, stingy defence. We don’t. Unless it’s addressed we’ll go nowhere in my view.
Honestly I am undecided about this transfer. Harry has some good qualities but I worry about how slow he reacts to danger atimes but then who else can we get?
Koulibaly who would have been my number one choice because of ability and experience seems content at Napoli and the club seem uninterested in sanctioning a transfer; De Ligt seems unlikely too.
What do you think?
I think our scouts and recruitment department should do their job.
This. Blows me away that people could think a Matic, Pogba, Herrera midfield is the issue when you’ve got Smalling, Jones and Young all regulars in our back four.
I’d be all over Maguire if Koulibaly & de Ligt are out of reach, would add so much to our defence and the entire way we play football.
We as fans should give zeros fecks if it costs 80m, we’re rich and should use our money for strengthening our side, not lining bankers or owners pockets.
He’s signed as many players who’ve been a huge success so I’m not sure what point you’re tying to make. He’s got a much better strike rate on successful signings than any United manager since Sir Alex. And he’s built the most dominant side in PL history.
Maguire has been a consistent 8/10 for Leicester for the last few seasons. He’s one of the top centre half’s in the PL and in my view a step up from what we have by a country mile. At a time when the club should be looking at solid, minimum risk signings to improve the side to me, he’s a great option over and above foreign players from leagues with a totally different intensity and style.
Is he the best CB in the world? Of course not. Does he improve us and steady up the defence from day one? In my opinion he might do that.
Yes yes yes!
They need to do a lot better I agree but I also think we need to make some bankable/little risk signings to steady the ship for starters. We can have a healthy mix of potential too but we have to as a matter of priority target bankable players. Harry will improve our defense but I'm not sure he'll do so to a title contending degree, maybe if he has the right players around him.
My honest opinion is if we can find a way to get that guy from Napoli, let's do all it takes to get him even if we get rinsed in the process.
Yeah we may have to just bite the bullet and overpay. That's what we get though for the poor planning the last 5 years.
How is it the defences fault the midfield cannot keep the ball and cannot close down?
How is it the defences fault the midfield cannot keep the ball and cannot close down? I would understand if they didn't push forward because of the defence, but pogba clearly doesn't have that problem.
Maybe because they do nothing to help?
Nah, its the midfield who puts it under pressure, our defense is exposed too much with little resistance in the midfield from pogba and matic. Defensive pairing ofJones smalling and young thus were confused who to track and kept getting exposed.
They both impact on each other.
The midfield can't keep hold of the ball (the defenders play some part in this as well, but no more than our wingers and strikers) and the opposition constantly just push straight through our midfield far too easily and get straight at our defence. It basically means that our defenders are having to do more defensive work than any other top team, and they are having to do it all by themselves unlike any of the teams below us (or above us for that matter) who tend to defend together as a team. Herrera was basically the only one who gave them some help (although even he struggled massively after he came back from injury late in the season). Occasionally Fred as well.
Matic in particular was a huge problem. Playing in that position he needs to have either great positioning (like Carrick did) or great ball-winning ability, but instead he just constantly watched the opposition cut straight through us while he jogged back half-arsed.
If you think its as simple as pressing then fair enough. I disagree.
If you're not confident in the players behind you to do their job then I can understand why midfielders would be reticent about pushing forward in a high press. The same goes for goalkeepers. Much easier to do your job if you're happy with what's in front of you. A solid back 5 breeds confidence in the team.
Its no coincidence that the best sides - both in PL history and around Europe are usually built on top class defences. That's been the difference for Liverpool the last year or so and they don't have a great midfield.
Is he as good as all that? I don't watch Italian football all that much so I have no idea but any defender from Italy concerns me. The games I do watch it looks a technical but one paced league. The PL is, in my view more intense.
Napoli also seem to have a lot of highly rated players who don't actually appear to be as good as they're supposed to be.
Milenkovic is the one we should go for.
Somewhere in this thread someone made the comparison with Rio, after the WC when he moved here. To me, that's incredibly generous. Maguire is a good footballer, will likely do well at a big club but he's being overrated, by the media at least, by England's WC performance which, let's be honest, wasn't really that amazing when you consider the teams they played and the comparative resources. Maguire looks to be a much better footballer than he is a centre half and there looks to be a few ways in which he can be gotten at, pace being a big one, which Rio just didn't have. Rio could have played for any side in the world. I don't think the likes of Madrid would even give Maguire a second look. But being English is a huge advantage at the moment with the homegrown rules and the potential impact of Brexit.
I suppose the tl;dr version is that he'd improve us, but I won't be gutted if he goes elsewhere.
I suppose the tl;dr version is that he'd improve us, but I won't be gutted if he goes elsewhere.
They also usually have top class midfielders too who shield the defense very efficiently. Much have been made of the impact of VVD signing which solidified their defense, but Fabinho's impact has totally been neglected which is their second line of defense, without midfield solidity Liverpool won't have been so efficient defensively.
Our problem is not a high press though, we can't keep the ball.
Well they make themselves available when we have the ball, they don't lose it often, it's the midfielders who lose it.
We wouldn't be able to sign Militao from Real Madrid for €50m either.
Think about that for a second.
It's because it's ALWAYS more expensive to buy from a rich club.
Wait what. How many times have you seen Matic slowly labour being a midfield runner. How many times in our dreadful last 9-10 league games did you see our midfielders fail when pressed. They either passed the ball back to the opposition tried running with the ball and got dispossessed or took 5 extra touches before passing back to the cb's. They are just as bad. Now that Herrera is gone I can confidently say our defense is stronger than our midfield. Not saying our defenders are anything special but our midfield is average in defense as it is in attack. Our attackers are expected to create for themselves and our defenders are expected do defend on their own.
Except when we're the rich club!
I think we should just pay up and sing him, he is easily one of the top 5 cb in the epl. Lei want 80m, offer 60m + 20m addons and seal the deal!
The issue with the impact of a shit defense isn't even necessarily the midfield, but also the attacking play. When Shaw and Young always move in more centrally to help the CBs it then becomes the Dury of the wingers (wide players in our case) to fill in as auxiliary FBs / WBs. This means we end up starting our possession with 2/3s of our attack playing 40-50yds further back than they should be, stifling our attacking play to overcome our defensive weaknesses.
Agree, Midfield is the heartbeat of all great teams, and we certainly need to address this area.
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