How do we solve our midfield problem?

Roboc7 said:
We need two new players, Mcfred aren’t good enough and never will be and Ole doesn’t want to play anyone else there.
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Well maybe Ole needs replacing
 
Get rid of McFred and buy two quality CDMS, we simply dont control games with the current choice cdms
 
Sell Fred,DVB . And go get Declan Rice , Bissouma, or even F Djong, from Barca ? There's the upgrade needed.
 
Regardless of signing a new CM in January or the summer, we should recall Garner. I'd rather he got some game time ahead of McTominay. At least he knows how to play the position.
 
We don’t need two holding midfielders centrally. VDB with one of Matic or either of McFred until we can buy in windows
 
Play a 4-3-3 because we've tried almost every combination of a two and they've all looked shit. Matic can sit while VDB and one of McFred play ahead of him. Bruno can play the Pogba role on the left of a front three and float around wherever he wants. Pogba can sit on the bench.
 
"how do we solve our midfield problem?"

To start with, bring a manager who can solve the problem.
 
kps88 said:
Play a 4-3-3 because we've tried almost every combination of a two and they've all looked shit. Matic can sit while VDB and one of McFred play ahead of him. Bruno can play the Pogba role on the left of a front three and float around wherever he wants. Pogba can sit on the bench.
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And then only play two from Pogba, Sancho, Rashford, Ronaldo, Cavani, Martial, Lingard and Greenwood?

This squad has been built around playing 2 CMs but the only proper options are McTominay, Fred and Matic. Madness really.
 
Leftback99 said:
And then only play two from Pogba, Sancho, Rashford, Ronaldo, Cavani, Martial, Lingard and Greenwood?
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Sadly, yes. The team shouldn't suffer just because our squad is so ridiculously stacked in forward positions. We've tried fitting all the big names in and the balance looks horrible. It's time to make hard decisions.
 
kps88 said:
Sadly, yes. The team shouldn't suffer just because our squad is so ridiculously stacked in forward positions. We've tried fitting all the big names in and the balance looks horrible. It's time to make hard decisions.
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I pretty much agree but it also renders the idea that we've got a title challenging squad completely wrong when we'd be leaving all the quality on the bench to play 3 of Fred, Matic, McTominay and VdB instead. Same if we moved to 3-5-2 and played Lindelof every game.
 
kps88 said:
Sadly, yes. The team shouldn't suffer just because our squad is so ridiculously stacked in forward positions. We've tried fitting all the big names in and the balance looks horrible. It's time to make hard decisions.
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It’s quite baffling really that after the central midfield problems of last season, Ole thought it’d be good to buy two more attackers. We’re a hopelessly imbalanced team and without the genius of SAF we’re going to struggle. Keeping all those egos happy could also prove a major problem if performances continue to be poor
 
Ideally, any two from de Jong, Varretti and Rice should do us nicely. Just need to ride the rapids until January, then break the bank. Should see us through for the next goodness knows how many years once Haaland joins in the summer.
If only...
 
Michael T said:
Ideally, any two from de Jong, Varretti and Rice should do us nicely. Just need to ride the rapids until January, then break the bank. Should see us through for the next goodness knows how many years once Haaland joins in the summer.
If only...
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Agree I like De Jong or Rice, I wonder if we could off load VDB for De Jong with a few quid in Jan or Fred. I'd take that deal if it could be done
 
Today was an opportunity for ole to change it up a bit, at home before a tough run of games.

Sadly we can see that he is too stubborn or blind to change the mcfred double pivot.

If he truly believes their form will click and they will start dominating midfield and setting the tempo for our forward line, then I'm afraid he's delusional.

He's now on borrowed time.
 
Hughie77 said:
Agree I like De Jong or Rice, I wonder if we could off load VDB for De Jong with a few quid in Jan or Fred. I'd take that deal if it could be done
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Offloading VDB for De Jong would be a bad call. VDB and De Jong work very well together. If we manager to get in De Jong we should keep VDB
 
It's hard to believe our midfield plays the way it does given the midfielders Ole played with and that Carrick is the midfield coach. I never rated Carrick that highly, always thought he was quite a passive midfielder when he wasn't paired with Scholesey. Whatever is being coached to the midfielders, or whatever their instructions are, they are not working.
Fred today made another huge mistake, muscled off the ball again. McTominay would rather not receive the ball if he had the choice. A couple of times he could have picked it up and he just let it run and it ended up in the oppositions possession.

We need a midfielder who wants the the ball and isn't afraid to have it at their feet when being closed down.

On the face of it, Bruno and Pogba should be able to do the jobs of Fred and McT. Given what Fred and McT bring, which is mostly running, I see no reason why they couldn't be deployed there.

It might also solve the 'breaking the opposition down' issues we have too because we'd be starting our attacks from deeper, instead of bringing the ball into the oppositions third and passing it around their box. In fact I think when Pogba receives the ball around the centre circle is when his passing is at its most effective.
 
Matic has to play. Fed up of this nonsense that he's "past it" or that his "legs are gone", I've certainly not seen that to be the case. He's the best option we have right now. Surely he can play 90mins once a week or 60/70 mins in the majority of our league?

That literally is the only reasonable option. None of our other midfielders can defend, none are comfortable in possession, and none drive the team forward. Matic does just about all of that and has looked very good recently.

If we don't play Matic then it means two box to box type midfeilders with energy, none of whom are very good. It means Pogba has to be benched or play on the left.

It's that simple really, we play Matic as our DM or we do something crazy like (and I hate to say it) try Lindelof there until we can bring in somebody new.
 
YouknowNani said:
Matic has to play. Fed up of this nonsense that he's "past it" or that his "legs are gone", I've certainly not seen that to be the case. He's the best option we have right now. Surely he can play 90mins once a week or 60/70 mins in the majority of our league?

That literally is the only reasonable option. None of our other midfielders can defend, none are comfortable in possession, and none drive the team forward. Matic does just about all of that and has looked very good recently.

If we don't play Matic then it means two box to box type midfeilders with energy, none of whom are very good. It means Pogba has to be benched or play on the left.

It's that simple really, we play Matic as our DM or we do something crazy like (and I hate to say it) try Lindelof there until we can bring in somebody new.
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Matic’s form has been quite good this season as well tbf. His passing through the lines plus his positional sense is still very good. Just needs someone with legs alongside him.
 
Assign one of the data analysts to fire up FM and swap out McFred for various other midfield combos and sim the season six thousand times.
 
Honestly think the only option could be switching to a back 3 so we can play Pogba + 1.
 
Terranova said:
Offloading VDB for De Jong would be a bad call. VDB and De Jong work very well together. If we manager to get in De Jong we should keep VDB
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Great, then pogba or Bruno doesn't start, here his the issue , or a different formation is to be used, the squad is full of attacking players. The other option is to play 442 . And don't let the full backs bomb on to much. Or 433 . But he's sticking with 2 CM double pivot etc, not working with any of the cm we got.
 
Bruno is an attacker with a free role, and the wide players are more forwards than wingers. This means that unless Pogba plays on the left, we usually end up in something like a 4-2-4 shape.

The obvious solution is give Bruno more midfield responsibility. His free role isn't single-handedly winning us games, so we have nothing to lose by trying it. Theoretically that should help us in gaining more control as we wouldn't have to pick the other 2 DM's purely on their ability to break up play. We could use more bodies to get away with playing a more offensive midfield lineup.

The other thing is better organization, especially in transition. If a midfield of KDB, Silva, and Fernandinho can concede the fewest goals in the league, then we know we don't need to pack the midfield with defensive players in order to cope. I understand that Ole likes very direct football and thus would cater his midfield more in the Klopp 'running' mould, but that's not what he has available to him, and that's not what he's built towards. He's had 3 years to build a midfield, now his job is to get the best out of some of the very good midfield options he has.
 
I think united can try awb and Fred combo in midfield.Both hard workers and awb best in 1vs1 in situation. Will screen most from becoming dangerous with the pair in my opinion.

In front pogba to link up attack with range of passing. But for this pogba need to constantly move around along with Bruno.
 
RDCR07 said:
You do know he was sometimes the highest player up the pitch on Wednesday in the first half? He was playing in a midfield 2 and he was the furthest player forward pressing the keeper. Does that scream positional discipline to you?
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I've seen him play in a 2 dozens of times and he's never played like he did vs Villareal - it was clearly an instruction to win headers/run in behind. Can be confirmed with heatmap:

Mostly behind the half-line vs Wolves.

Consistently in the other half vs Villareal.
 
Rajiztar said:
I think united can try awb and Fred combo in midfield.Both hard workers and awb best in 1vs1 in situation. Will screen most from becoming dangerous with the pair in my opinion.

In front pogba to link up attack with range of passing. But for this pogba need to constantly move around along with Bruno.
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AWB's passing would be exposed if he plays in midfield.

Nobody's going to leave him wide open in midfield like they do to him at right back.
 
We should focus on defensive side of the game first. The number of chances we concede every game is feckin ridiculous.

Honestly we've accumulated enormous number of midfielders in our squad who can't defend. Matic is the only one who can do it, but needs support, so the possible solution is to tell fullbacks to stay back a bit more. This would mean whoever plays next to Matic has less work to do because doesn't need to cover for fullbacks and can stay centrally.

In terms of build up play, if we can be more consolidated defensively we should be able to move the ball quicker to front 4, what will benefit them as well. Our current problem is the ball moves too slow in transition because we're too stretched and there's a huge gap between defence and attack.
Transition can also be improved by having better passers from the deep, so that eliminates Fred from the equation.

It all means totally changing our game, I doubt this is possible under current manager.
 
Midfield need a complete overhaul except for Bruno. We need to start with bringing in a top holding midfielder in January, but for now we need to try VdB instead of Fred.
Fred makes too many mistakes and will cost us games. McTominay has some good points but his passing needs to improve.
Matic is the only true holding midfielder we have, but is getting on now and is too slow to cover the back 4.
 
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Depends if ole is stuck on playing the 2 man pivot. Buy ndidi so we have an actual DM and play donny in the box to box role he used to play would be better than mcfred.
 
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