Man City. I know they have Foden who is an incredible talent, but Grealish really reminds me D.Silva so I can see him occupying the same role now that Silva's leaving. With Sané gone now as well, I think there would be more than enough game time for both of them.
Jack Grealish / signs new 5 year contract
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Need to get him instead of Van Der Beek,have wavered a little bit but tonight confirmed it for me
Yep. We can't sub Pogba or Fernandes today because no other midfielder creates. If we have him next year, and they play as poor as this, having him on the bench would be a huge boost.
Only option to replace their creativity is Mata at the moment, who lacks in many other areas.
We need to sign 4 players this season, and he is one of them.
Today was further proof he’s needed. We don’t have the depth, and we could of really done with his ability to receive the ball and dribble.
Came in to this thread to post that. Our depth is terrible, we need quality players like Grealish in the squad.
On top of that, look at his performance last night to get his team out of the shit, the season has been on his shoulders and he got them that result. Compare it to any of our lads tonight, we don't have the heart that this kid does, that's what we are missing from the great teams of the last 20 years, because we have the talent but not the grit.
Hope Sherwood was right saying it’s a done deal I reckon he will be a top player in a top 4 side
I like both players and if we sign one then great, good addition to the team. There's no way we couldn't prioritise better though.
Pogba/ Fernandes.
With Fernandes unavailable:
Fred could come in in Pogba's position with Pogba becoming the most advanced midfielder. Tweak the shape as required.
McTominay could come in in Pogba's position with Pogba becoming the most advanced midfielder. Tweak the shape as required.
Ighalo could come in in Martial's position with Martial playing off him. Tweak the shape as required.
James could come in in Rashford's position with Rashford either playing off of, or ahead of, or alongside, Martial. Tweak the shape as required.
James could come in in Greenwood's position with Greenwood either playing off of, or ahead of, or alongside, Martial. Tweak the shape as required.
With Pogba unavailable:
Fred could take his spot.
McTominay could take his spot.
Fernandes could move back to his position with any of the options above not involving Pogba.
This is without Sancho (or alternative) coming in, which would provide other possibilities.
How much weaker are these changes than straight swaps in the other attacking positions? Are they particularly weaker than having Fred or McTominay coming into the side for Matic? Williams coming in at full back? Or, err, Fosu-Mensah? Bailly and Jones at centre half? I'm not sure why having a stronger alternative to Pogba and/ or Fernandes is of greater necessity than backup for other positions in the team really.
Depth! That's the answer. Just need to get in some better rotation options and we're good to go. Hopefully we're not tempted into wasting money on players who improve the first eleven.
Presume that you mean 4 different positions (CB,DM,AM,RW) rather than 2 for the same position.
Who would you prioritise after signing Sancho then
Remember during 2007-2012 when things just weren't happening against some West Ham type team and Rooney or Nani or Park or someone just said feck-it and dribbled near and/or in the box just to win a free kick or penalty and then we score and win 1-0 or 2-1 and the post-match interview was just a posterboard with 'we certainly made it hard on ourselves but three points is three points'?
It's easy to talk about rotation but does the manager will rotate though? He will rotate if the players offer similar or same quality, otherwise I don't see it happening.
Ole didn't even want to rotate Pogba & Bruno with Fred, when clearly Fred is actually a good midfielder and has been one of our best player prior restart. Just like Fred, Grealish is not comparable to Pogba & Bruno. Sancho on the other hand different level, the guy is not just good player but top player.
The manager probably wanted to play 3 at the back against Chelsea. If he wants to play 4231, he could play Ighalo and we could actually go with something like this:
Defense
Fred Matic
James Bruno Rashford
Ighalo
Fred Matic
James Bruno Rashford
Ighalo
End of the day, it's not very often you see manager will make massive rotation in his team in League, CL & even semi final of FA Cup games if manager is interested to win it. Lampard only made 3 changes from the Norwich game while he made zero change in the Liverpool game today. Very rarely you see manager makes more than 4 rotations in between of league & CL games. Everyone wants to strengthen the squad with Grealish. 40m or less makes sense, however, I doubt we will pay above 50m for someone who will not start over Bruno, Rashford, Pogba & very likely Sancho.
More important then a DM for me. After Bruno and Pogba we have nothing. We need depth if we are to compete for trophies.
He and his calves would take Rashford's spot and act as a backup for Bruno when needed.
If villa stay up they are going to be u reasonable with the fee. Anything above £50m is a rip off.
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Wasting money on players who improve the first XI? How is it wasting money if they are better than our best?
Surely that solves both the issue of quality and depth as a good alternative is demoted to the bench.
We need him, it's as simple as that. The more ballers we have in the team the better, him and sancho would go a long way in offering a different dimension to the team and the way we attack, opposing defenders would not only have to worry about intricate passing through the middle when facing our attacks but also the ability of our players to drive at them through dribbling and forcing the situation even when it's not our day.
It's the one issue I have with all five of our attackers, none of them take a match by the scruff of the neck and just run at opposing defenders while we are attacking, it's the one thing I noticed while watching Liverpool and Chelsea yesterday, you see several of their players just taking the game to the full backs and defenders, dribling and creating space for themselves, constantly asking questions of the defence, you see it in pullisic, mane and salah. Only martial does this and he plays in the middle now so has less space.
The faster we get both himself and sancho, the better we would be, if not for anything but their ability to dribble and commit defenders.
It's the one issue I have with all five of our attackers, none of them take a match by the scruff of the neck and just run at opposing defenders while we are attacking, it's the one thing I noticed while watching Liverpool and Chelsea yesterday, you see several of their players just taking the game to the full backs and defenders, dribling and creating space for themselves, constantly asking questions of the defence, you see it in pullisic, mane and salah. Only martial does this and he plays in the middle now so has less space.
The faster we get both himself and sancho, the better we would be, if not for anything but their ability to dribble and commit defenders.
80 quoted in the papers today.
So around 100 for Sancho
80 for Grealish
? for a CB or DM
Not a lot of change from £300m then.
How much will we get for Smalling,Jones,Lingard and TFM?
No way should we pay anything close to 80 mill for him. He is a 30-40 mill player at max.
Preferably a centre half to partner Maguire. Then a holding player to replace Matic. Then a right back. Then a left back. After that we just about start getting to the stronger half of the first team, though that isn't considering goalkeeper (where I think the decision should be taken to replace De Gea now) or potentially needing to replace Pogba (either next window or next year depending on the opportunities available in terms of who we could sell to and who we could get in, if he isn't going to extend his contract).
I would rather we go for Havertz as opposed to bringing in an expensive backup player too. He doesn't particularly fit our current needs, but he's a top player who is going to be a top player for the next decade. An unmissable young world-beater - if we can get him in, we probably should. Just like Sancho. Sancho himself isn't really a perfect fit but is a brilliant player and we do have a position we can sensibly slot him straight into.
Deliberate rotation options should only be signed cheap. And by cheap I mean out of contract, or on loan and not for a big fee, or for less than Daniel James money. And on reasonable wages.
I think Grealish is a quality player. The appeal in signing him, for me, was as a replacement for Pogba though. Van de Beek provides similar energy and understanding of space to Fernandes and other than him we are lacking in that sense so there's some appeal there but it would be better if we could get those strengths in a right-sided attacker.
Sarcasm. Thought it was obvious.
I don't even see Grealish as just cover for Pogba & Bruno on last few games showings. I think he is capable of starting games where we want to mix things up a bit.
Bernardo Silva, Gundogan, Foden...ever heard of them?
Grealish is better than Foden and Gundogan and Bernardo were never brought in to just play rotation. Bernardo was bought as a young player expected to get into the starting 11 in the future. City bought Gundogan to be a starter. People want us to spend 40m + on Grealish, a player in his prime or entering it to come and be rotation. I'm not against it really because I want Grealish and it isn't my money but i don't think it's realistic in this current market
He also carries the ball better than any midfielder in the squad. Fernandes is a lovely passer and mover, Pogba a great passer, but they don’t go by people with the ball.
Highly debatable Grealish being better than Foden and Gundogan.
I agree with you, first I must say I dont expect us to buy Grealish at all because of his price tagg would be surely over 50M and I dont think he's worth it. But if we do, it wont be to be a rotation player, you dont buy anyone for that price to just rotation, he would have to fight for the starting spot. He would most likely loss, but having that kind of competition would be nice.
I dont think Grealish has the credentials to demand a starting spot on any top team to be honest, he's 24, its his first premier league season and while he's on a really poor team he hasnt exactly set the league on fire.
Whilst you are right about no depth behind those two.....I don't think we've even got 1 top DM. Matic is average as hell so I don't know how you can think a back up AM is more important than a DM.
Truth is we will probably sign Sancho if we finish top 4 (who is fantastic) and then probably neglect everything else.
Yeah that could quite easily happen knowing this club, I find it ridiculous that Utd don't seem to see any issue whatsoever with the DM position and certainly should never have given Matic a 3 year deal at his age because he is so prone to dips in form. This feels very much like when Ole was given the job permanently after those 3 months as interim manager and of course the result in Paris.
Problem with this club is the mere sight of an up turn in form and suddenly said player becomes "world class" or "the answer".
No problem with Matic staying on and helping out here or there. If he's our main choice DM over next 2 years though we're not getting close to the top 2.
I'm sure you've seen how Ole has played Matic in every game since restart. The same Matic that gets easily fatigued and burnt out. Even the few times Mctominay or Fred started, Matic still ended up replacing them. Our creative options are only Bruno and Pogba and maybe Sancho if he comes, our DM options is only Matic who gets tired easily and is on the decline. I think DM and back up AM are equally important
Reminds me of the time we signed Berbatov when we had Rooney, Ronaldo and Tevez. Or when we signed Veron when we have Scholes, Keane and Butt.
Arsene Wenger once said you need 15 first team quality players to have a side capable of winning the league.
Yeah I keep telling myself that over next season Utd are going to show some forward thinking and actually go and scout some DM options to find the right one who best fits what we are trying to do, however I fear that we will just continue to muddle through with Matic for the next two years.
I was one of the people who said we need a player who can play as a 10/8, but what if Ole was to use Bruno as a 10/8? This would of course allow Grealish to play as a 10 if/when Pogba is rested. The following combinations could be:
Bruno
DM - Pogba
Grealish
DM - Bruno
Grealish
DM - Pogba
Bruno has more than a good enough engine to play deep and Ole did experiment with this against Wolves, where he did a pretty decent job.
I just think it'd be an absolute sin to let such a talented player go to another club.
Bruno
DM - Pogba
Grealish
DM - Bruno
Grealish
DM - Pogba
Bruno has more than a good enough engine to play deep and Ole did experiment with this against Wolves, where he did a pretty decent job.
I just think it'd be an absolute sin to let such a talented player go to another club.
Yeah we shouldn't let him go to a rival but might have no choice if we get priced out for him as looks likely to happen
How much you rate his talent anyway? Is it really that high which we can't let him go to another club? Is it even higher than Havertz?
What makes you think if Ole will play Grealish and bench Pogba & Bruno who are on form right now in important games? I can see he does this in mid season for CL & cup games but not during the last 5-6 league games when every single one of those games are important. It's pretty much what is happening to Fred right now.
Personally I rate his talent very highly and think it's hard to judge how good he could be until he is a playing in a team with much better players around him, there isn't anyone in our squad who is capable of just gliding past players with the ball at their feet with such ease. I will admit that Pogba can sometimes produce these marauding runs at times during games but certainly not to the extent that Jack is able to do it.
I think he has already demonstrated leadership on the pitch by the fact he has captained Villa, he strikes me as someone who demands a lot from himself but also from his team mates as well. I think him & Bruno will get on well together because they are both so hungry to succeed and can help drive this team on.
That is why I think we should go for him provided that the price isn't any more than around £50m plus addons however could see us getting priced out of a move for him. The only way that wouldn't happen is if it had an agreement in place that he could leave Villa for a price whether they stay up or not.
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I can't see us spending big on him unless if we decide to sell Daniel James this summer. He's still not good enough to bench on form Pogba, Bruno or even Sancho/Rashford in important games like our remaining games since the restart this season.
I wonder whether it would be beneficial for Dan James to go out on loan somewhere next season
We paid £53 mill for Fred. Grealish is a much better, consistant player. Unless Villa go down they will want £70 mill and probably £50 mill if they do go down.
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