That's not how football works. A manager comes in, he drills the team to a certain style of football up until the manager's game becomes theirs. Those who fit the system will get better while those who do not will have their morale hit so much that ultimately all they would want to do is leave. That's why when a new manager comes in you usually see a huge change in personnel irrespective if the guy is a genius (ex SAF) or, well, Ole.
ETH can't simply walk in with a smile on his face and tell guys to simply take their vitamins, bring cookies to SAF and to allow themselves to enjoy the game with no bother about tactics. Thus what 'worked' under Ole (0 trophies after over 420m spent) won't necessarily work under ETH.
I know that boat has sailed, but Enzo Fernandez straight from River plate for about the same we could have sold Mctominay for would have been in my opinion a good move. He could have done a few positions in midfield in this now apparent hectic period of fixtures coming up. Wish there was a similar standard of player available now that floats Ten hag boat.
The strength of the second team is an indicator how good/bad is a club being managed really
I'm not saying that our second team is good enough to win trophies or that all the players would fit into ETH's system. It's obvious he changed quite a bit in terms of personal and for the sake of our future he will continue to improve us.
What I wanted to say is that our second team is decent to a point in which can be used in easier fixtures or cup competitions and some of the best performers can even get into the first team from time to time.
If we're considering them as starters, I think Heaton must be considered replacement level - not good enough to be first choice even for a relegation-level PL club.
Correct, that's where i have him too, Ericksen place, however Crespo whilst manager of defensa y justicia deployed him a a loan defensive midfielder and his displays on loan there, in that position, was the reason Gallardo recalled him early so looks like he would have been a great asset , had we been in for him last summer.Would have been great, but I'd think of him more as an alternative to Eriksen?
For a Casemiro backup, I tend to think of Boubacar Kamara, and what a pity it is that we weren't interested in signing him on a free.
That's not my point. Players have a set of skills which makes them better/worse according on whether the manager in question know how to use them effectively. A team built around the catenaccio system would struggle with Kevin Keegan as manager but would prosper with Helenio Herrera even though that would be the same team. Now our second team are players that were mostly assembled by the Mou/Ole administration. That means that they are suited for a deep line defence meant to soak pressure and then hit the opponents with counter attacking football. ETH doesn't believe in that system and quite frankly might not even be able to use it effectively. There's also the human factor to be taken in account. It mustn't be easy for Maguire for example to switch from being the most valued CB in the world to a 4th choice CB at Manchester United. That effects his morale and performance. Thus strictly speaking Ole's Maguire might be a different beast to ETH's Maguire even though they are the same exact player.
If we are to refer to the team posted by the OP, which would be our second team, other than Maguire, MCT and maybe Lindelof all the others are capable or it's too soon to tell if they can fit ETH's philosophy.
Maybe players like AWB or Fred could adapt to ETH's tactics, they played too little to reach a conclusion.
Literally no one thinks we would field them at the same time. No one. It's just a theoretical exercise for determining the strength of our second team.I'm just sitting here laughing that anyone would think we'd actually field anywhere near all eleven of them at one time...
Seriously, though, as mentioned by a few, three of the backfield were nailed-on starters in Ole's 2nd place team, as were McFred. Garnacho is pure class, Sancho was highly rated coming in and still may come true.
Honestly, that team would hold their own mid-table and we'll never use more than three or four of them in one go.
Yeah, that’s a good post.I agree with this B list. Putting Weghorst aside as we don't know his performance, I would categorise them into 3 groups, based on performance this season so far
A) Useful and not too expensive or troublesome as backup
Lindelof, Malacia, Fred, McTom, Garnacho
B) Too expensive as backup, either make it to 1st choice or else
Wan B, Sancho
C) Too expensive as backup, very unlikely to make it so better deal with them in summer
Maguire, VDB
Hence not too bad, just 3-4 decision, on top of Weghorst (to a certain extent Martial's long term position)
Every player in that list is Premier League quality. Tsk.Half of those is League One tier
Yeah, that’s a good post.
I think AWB is only worth about £10m on the balance sheet and wouldn’t fetch much more than that so even though he cost a lot I don’t see that as a barrier to him staying in the squad and continuing to challenge for his place. That’s not to say we shouldn’t get a better RB if we can (I don’t think Dalot is real top class either).
The problem with our squad is that we have three players who are vital - Casemiro, Eriksen and Rashford. If all three of those guys are out we are a shadow of ourselves. Shaw is also very important but Malacia is decent cover there.
A new top RB would be nice and without going over the top, we need one more top CM and a top striker and then the squad is good to compete for the league. Beyond that, even if we had a ton more money, I’m not sure where we’d spend it.
Yeah but it’s really only a few key positions where the drop off is unmanageable - cover (or rotation options) for Casemiro and Eriksen (or to put it another way - one more top level CM - you know who I’m talking about!) and another forward with the penetration and productivity of Rashford (to play with him most of the time but enabling us to rest one or other without losing 99% of our goal threat).Will need to improve our second XI if we ever want to challenge on multiple fronts
