Dont get me started
He’s not good going forward, but he’s not poor either. He gets into good positions and his crossing has improved. It’s such a boring rhetoric it’s as if people have stopped watching games and can’t form their own opinions.
inside forwards only work if you have quality at full back going forward, Maybe Laird will provide that when he is back, Greenwood needs to play ST
I’d poo my pants if I woke up to the headline that we’d signed both
I agree with you. This is why I said it's going to take a while. If we manage to accomplish this in the next 2-3 years, this will be trully Our Rebuild.
Begs the question how well could a winger do with Wan-Bissaka as their support?
You have to be incredibly careful getting rid of players like Pogba and Martial, we don't have a good history of replacing our outgoings with better players, need to make sure we 100% get it right if we choose to let them go. I'd be staggered if Martial was let go in the near future though.
I think if United sign a CB who can defend the channel comfortably 1v1 , it would allow not just the fullback but the right sided CM to become additional passing options for Sancho and open up space for him high up the pitch. That should in theory help Wan Bissaka too, as long as he attacks the space which is something he seems to be getting better at.
Absolutely. Evra is a very good example. In this era of obsession with G/A, he'd come across as an average fullback but he was anything but. Absolutely bossed the left flank both defensively and going forward. The attacking outlet and comfort on the ball he gave us on the left was brilliant. Created all sort of opportunities in attack.
I agree with you that its risky losing pogba though I hand might be forced if they aren't able to agree a new contract. That would leave us with no one able to pass / carry the ball forward from one of the double pivot roles. However he has been injured quite regularly and still highly inconsistent. I don't really see much of a risk that losing martial would damage the team at this stage (even aside from the fact we would struggle to get rid of him), he has been so awful this season and for much of his united career that its hard to see a replacement being worse
Yeah, theoretically Martial should be quite easy to replace. Pogba's going to be a big miss, very few players have his skill set.
Pogba will be tough to replace from a "peak" perspective, but he's been constantly injured or had big injuries in every season since he's joined apart from 18/19, and inconsistent when not injured generally. We don't need a player as good as him, we need someone in the massive gap that exists between Fred/Mctominay and Pogba from a creative and technical point of view but who will stay fit and be a fixture in the team like Bruno is always there ready and available. It's why Maguire is a lot more important than any other CB we have... he's actually consistently available.
In the context of our current team and how we've been this season I think he'll be a big miss, you can see how much we're struggling to exert control in games without him and his added creativtiy is invaluable against teams who sit 11 men behind the ball. Maybe it's because we don't have any similar replacements in the team but his absence is noticeable, in my opinion.
Sancho, while not playing in his position, would help cover a lot of it up. There's a lot of different ways to play football, Liverpool have most of their creativity and progression up the pitch come from right back for example. Sancho on the right wing/swapping wings with Rashford would mean we have one of the best creative players in the world who is absolutely brilliant during build up and playing the final ball, to mix in with Bruno for the creative/ball progression side of things. He helps a lot in possession with his intelligence, ability on the ball and passing ability so the loss of Pogba for our in possession build up, ball progression and creativity would basically be replaced by Sancho going on the right (though also with a view of upgrading Fred/McTominay to be a higher level partnership).
Pogba picks up bad injuries every season and is very up and down with his performance level anyway.
I agree with the posters general point - that we are pretty hopeless at transfers and therefore liable to cock things up. We could get rid of pogba and fail to sign a replacement or sign someone hopelessly unsuited to the role we want them to play
It would definitely be a step forward. Look at Bruno and the impact he's had. He's not as talented as Pogba, but he's a far more purposeful player, is always fit, has a brilliant mentality that means he'll always come up with the goods even on the off days. Obviously he's very talented himself, but in general there isn't a question over who is a better player overall, it's easily Bruno as he's shown it consistently over a year. Pogba might be capable of a higher level, but its not consistent, and he's injured half the time. That's not a good mix. People pretty much ignore him when planning out what we need/what our team lacks because of how often he isn't available, and its been like this for years. Always needed a midfielder with creativity despite Pogba being there, just because we assume he won't be here.
He's hardly at his best, so we'll have no trouble replacing him.
On this board no one thinks he is worth a 100 million, which is the view shared by every major club in the world other than Dortmund.
We might need to bring newbie restrictions back...
