Jarrad Branthwaite

The thing with Brantwaithe is he plays very much like Leny Yoro.

Both have this ability to play long cross field balls to the opposite end as their main passing output, they are both built like absolute tanks who are physically tall but the most similar thing to each other is how they slide tackle the opposition by almost diving in to stop the final bit of the attack.

They are absolutely amazing at making last ditch tackles & also great at heading.

I think having Yoro, De Ligt, Brantwaithe & Martinez gives us the best bunch of CB's in the league & i would personally keep Maguire for back up aswell & even possibly the world & this would cover that aspect of titles are not won by attacking its won by defending.

I think
Onana
Yoro - Martinez - Brantwaithe

Or

Onana
De Ligt - Maguire - Martinez
​
Etc, gives us alot of variety & targeting Brantwaithe is because we want to find the perfect partner for Yoro, the perfect partner for Martinez was bought this summer with De ligt.
 
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De Light, Maguire, Yoro, Licha, Lindelof.
vs
Hojlund, Zirkzee.

Let's sign Gyokeres instead. As signing either of them would mean breaking the bank.
 
tenpoless said:
De Light, Maguire, Yoro, Licha, Lindelof.
vs
Hojlund, Zirkzee.

Let's sign Gyokeres instead. As signing either of them would mean breaking the bank.
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Don't see us moving for Gyokares and I'm alright with that.

He's 27 and only proven in Portugal. Nunez is a good example of how one can struggle from a big jump. Also, he was essentially nothing before Amorim maximised his skill sets. I see no reason to rule out Hojlund who broadly has similar strengths.

Would much rather see how he works with what we have. One clear issue for me is creators. We need players capable of a cutback or quick cross for the striker.

Four four two had a really good video on how Amorim plays and focused on shot distances and also shots overall. Sporting had comfortably more goals than anyone else, despite fewer shots. Their shot distance was very small and that's because they had very good ball carriers into the final third giving good cutbacks.

Of course that's not the only offensive pattern they had but still an interesting observation. Hojlund for me needs to work on some positioning (eg when to make near post runs vs far post ones), but he's a strong finisher and capable of being the funnel for most chances.
 
Weird one this as I like Branthwaite and think he has great potential. I can also just see us signing him, for some reason it just feels right and like it will happen.

The negative is that we are just so desperate for attacking players and even another CM. If we have deep pockets and signing Branthwaite doesn't impact other positions then I'm all for it but unfortunately I don't think that's the case.
 
Hughes35 said:
Weird one this as I like Branthwaite and think he has great potential. I can also just see us signing him, for some reason it just feels right and like it will happen.

The negative is that we are just so desperate for attacking players and even another CM. If we have deep pockets and signing Branthwaite doesn't impact other positions then I'm all for it but unfortunately I don't think that's the case.
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We're not that desperate for attacking players though, it depends how you look at it. We have Yoro De Ligt Martinez as our CB's but we need to get more as we dont really have another LCB. Evans and Lindelof contract expiring end of the season, so going into next season with 4 CB's is not ideal

In attack, we have alot of numbers. We have Antony, Bruno, Mount, Hojlund, Amad, Zirkzee, Rashford, Garnacho
 
romufc said:
We're not that desperate for attacking players though, it depends how you look at it. We have Yoro De Ligt Martinez as our CB's but we need to get more as we dont really have another LCB. Evans and Lindelof contract expiring end of the season, so going into next season with 4 CB's is not ideal

In attack, we have alot of numbers. We have Antony, Bruno, Mount, Hojlund, Amad, Zirkzee, Rashford, Garnacho
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I'd imagine Dalot would also be good as a right sided CB in a 3, we have Maguire and still have Shaw on the books too.

We have some numbers in attack but not the quality. Several of those mentioned need moving on.

For me, if we have limited funds then the attack is priority but in an ideal world we do need both.
 
Hughes35 said:
I'd imagine Dalot would also be good as a right sided CB in a 3, we have Maguire and still have Shaw on the books too.

We have some numbers in attack but not the quality. Several of those mentioned need moving on.

For me, if we have limited funds then the attack is priority but in an ideal world we do need both.
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Its difficult right because it shows the mismanagement of funds for all this time that we go into every window for the past how many years requiring players for the same position.

We need a ST CM CB, this has been the case for a while now. CM we needed since Carrick left, we have never got one good enough, we keep buying CB's and forwards.
 
romufc said:
Its difficult right because it shows the mismanagement of funds for all this time that we go into every window for the past how many years requiring players for the same position.

We need a ST CM CB, this has been the case for a while now. CM we needed since Carrick left, we have never got one good enough, we keep buying CB's and forwards.
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Yea, agree with this. The squad management has been atrocious and we've just been on a never ending cycle.

I do genuinely think we are pretty much there defensively though. We have good quality and players at good ages. As for the rest, the never ending story goes on.
 
Hughes35 said:
Yea, agree with this. The squad management has been atrocious and we've just been on a never ending cycle.

I do genuinely think we are pretty much there defensively though. We have good quality and players at good ages. As for the rest, the never ending story goes on.
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Ordinarily I would agree that we are good defensively but just the fact that Amorim wants to play 3 and the LCB and RCB need a bit of pace, our defence lacks that. Now unless, we use Dalot, Shaw there then we should be fine, no need to spend £60m on Branthwaite.
 
While Branthwaite has potential, we've just spent a lot of money on two CBs, one of whom hasn't played a game for us yet. I'd like to see how the options we have can fit into a back 3 before throwing 60 million at a player when we clearly need better midfield and attacking options. If we get to next summer and we're likely to lose Lindelof, Maguire and Evans (assuming all 3 leave) then, yes, let's take a look. But in January, if we are going to bring someone in, it has to be someone further up the pitch.
 
andersj said:
Would prefer Man Utd to replace Maguire with Diomande and wait with Branthwaite.

A) Need to see him stay fit. I also think it would do him good to play more football before signing for Man Utd.
B) We still have Luke Shaw on a contract til 2027. It is cheaper to get rid if we can make use of him one more year.
C) Branthwaite contracts too expire in 2027. Signing him summer of 2026 give us a bit more leverage.
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Agree on this. Shaw can cover LCB and we will be targeting a LWB anyway who will likely start over or compete with Shaw. Yoro will have no backup given Evans and Lindelof are likely leaving and question marks over Maguire. Diomande can cover the middle CB position and RCB.
 
If Everton get relegated or hammered with PSR then it’s an option worth looking into.

Part of me thinks it’s just a story that writes itself to fill a few webpages.
 
RDCR07 said:
Would much rather Inacio for that LB spot since he will know the system and more importantly will be considerably cheaper than £70m.
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Shame he has the muscle strength of Victor Lindelof but atleast he’s not English.

Which I suppose is your underlying problem?
 
Uncle Mainoo said:
Shame he has the muscle strength of Victor Lindelof but atleast he’s not English.

Which I suppose is your underlying problem?
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Where did I say I have a problem with him being English? In case you couldn’t read what I wrote - I have a problem with the transfer fee not nationality.
 
RDCR07 said:
Where did I say I have a problem with him being English? In case you couldn’t read what I wrote - I have a problem with the transfer fee not nationality.
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I read it, but considering Inacio will cost north of £50m I didn’t understand the difference in cost, so I had to assume it was due to nationality.
 
romufc said:
We're not that desperate for attacking players though, it depends how you look at it. We have Yoro De Ligt Martinez as our CB's but we need to get more as we dont really have another LCB. Evans and Lindelof contract expiring end of the season, so going into next season with 4 CB's is not ideal

In attack, we have alot of numbers. We have Antony, Bruno, Mount, Hojlund, Amad, Zirkzee, Rashford, Garnacho
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Think we are 100% needing better quality in attack. Not numbers.
 
Don’t quite see the fuss with Branthwaite. If he wasn’t English I genuinely don’t think the interest would be so high.

Murillo or Ousmane Diomande over him if we’re spending big on a CB. Would also put Scalvini in there too if he recovers from his ACL injury end of last season okay.
 
romufc said:
We're not that desperate for attacking players though, it depends how you look at it. We have Yoro De Ligt Martinez as our CB's but we need to get more as we dont really have another LCB. Evans and Lindelof contract expiring end of the season, so going into next season with 4 CB's is not ideal

In attack, we have alot of numbers. We have Antony, Bruno, Mount, Hojlund, Amad, Zirkzee, Rashford, Garnacho
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Every team will end up with rosters with roughly similar numbers of players at each position though. Southampton has 5-6 attacking players too. What matters is quality, not quantity.

Other than Bruno, do we have a single attacker who is actually good? Not really. Some promise, youth, etc but not consistent quality. Rashford, Hojlund, Garnacho, and Amad wouldn't start for any of our rivals.

In theory, we may have 3-4 "good" defenders already between Martinez, De Ligt, Dalot, Ugarte, and eventually Yoro. I think certainly from a personnel standpoint I'd focus the transfer budget on midfield and winger/striker this off-season. Add another defender to replace the expiring contracts, sure, but it doesn't need to be a £60M guy.
 
bb8 said:
Every team will end up with rosters with roughly similar numbers of players at each position though. Southampton has 5-6 attacking players too. What matters is quality, not quantity.

Other than Bruno, do we have a single attacker who is actually good? Not really. Some promise, youth, etc but not consistent quality. Rashford, Hojlund, Garnacho, and Amad wouldn't start for any of our rivals.

In theory, we may have 3-4 "good" defenders already between Martinez, De Ligt, Dalot, Ugarte, and eventually Yoro. I think certainly from a personnel standpoint I'd focus the transfer budget on midfield and winger/striker this off-season. Add another defender to replace the expiring contracts, sure, but it doesn't need to be a £60M guy.
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That is also because of team performance. Before the start of the season no one would have taken Gravernberch... now more would.

If we have a system that creates chances, you will see alot of goals with the same players we have now.
 
romufc said:
That is also because of team performance. Before the start of the season no one would have taken Gravernberch... now more would.

If we have a system that creates chances, you will see alot of goals with the same players we have now.
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But we created a lot of chances under the old manager.....it was purely a case of bad finishing and we still have the same players so what is your logic?
 
Bondi77 said:
But we created a lot of chances under the old manager.....it was purely a case of bad finishing and we still have the same players so what is your logic?
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Thats fine.. go by the stats, we created chances but if you watched Manutd and think we create loads of chances, then so be it. Nothing to be discussed.
 
We're decent at the back now - we have some good players and cover for CB, even playing three CBs - Shaw, when fit, can fill in; Maguire is arguably better suited to a 3, De Ligt, Martinez, Evans and Yoro, and then Lindelof - good numbers. Where we truly struggle is to score goals, so we need a proper goal scorer in the team. It could've been Rashford, but it seems that isn't going to happen anytime soon at United.
 
Kingslayer18 said:
Agree on this. Shaw can cover LCB and we will be targeting a LWB anyway who will likely start over or compete with Shaw. Yoro will have no backup given Evans and Lindelof are likely leaving and question marks over Maguire. Diomande can cover the middle CB position and RCB.
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Why people still think Shaw would be covered and competed LCB / LWB, he has ability but never be available.
20k per week can be used in more better way.

SeasonDaysInjuriesGames missed
24/25169 days236
23/24236 days350
22/2313 days13
21/2285 days418
20/2189 days218
19/2091 days323
18/1953 days411
17/18190 days132
16/17176 days230
15/16288 days164
14/15121 days431
12/1317 days19
 
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romufc said:
Thats fine.. go by the stats, we created chances but if you watched Manutd and think we create loads of chances, then so be it. Nothing to be discussed.
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Did you watch the game against West Ham?
 
Bondi77 said:
Did you watch the game against West Ham?
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Oooo yeah 1 game out of 100's where we created nothing.

yeah you are right, we created loads of chances under Ten Hag, just our players couldn't finish.

We dont have players that can score goals.. forget Bruno and Rashford have scored loads for us in previous seasons.
 
romufc said:
Oooo yeah 1 game out of 100's where we created nothing.

yeah you are right, we created loads of chances under Ten Hag, just our players couldn't finish.

We dont have players that can score goals.. forget Bruno and Rashford have scored loads for us in previous seasons.
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And under what manager did Rashford have his best season under?
Bruno's finishing under Erik was dire compared to what he did when he first came to the club and Stevie Wonder can see that.
The team have to be clinical when the opportunity presents and if we can do that we will win games but we have not done that consistently for a while now so hopefully Ruben will address that issue.
 
romufc said:
Oooo yeah 1 game out of 100's where we created nothing.

yeah you are right, we created loads of chances under Ten Hag, just our players couldn't finish.

We dont have players that can score goals.. forget Bruno and Rashford have scored loads for us in previous seasons.
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There is a massive difference between chances and good chances, the last 12 months the vast majority of chances have been one of Rashford or Garnacho cutting in and shooting or running to the goal line then cutting back in last second into a crowded 6 yard box, other than that it is shooting from the edge of the box or further out, all of this is very predictable, easy to defend and difficult to convert, Hoijlund has one of the best shot conversion rates of any striker right now.

When we start creating decent chances Rashford, Garnacho, Bruno, Amad, Hoijlund, Eriksen, Mount and a few others will start banging in the goals, they have done it before, blaming our lack of goals on players being poor finishers is short sighted, like blaming Onana for conceding goals when we are giving away 20+ shots a game, you are identifying the problem not the cause of the problem.
 
Bondi77 said:
And under what manager did Rashford have his best season under?
Bruno's finishing under Erik was dire compared to what he did when he first came to the club and Stevie Wonder can see that.
The team have to be clinical when the opportunity presents and if we can do that we will win games but we have not done that consistently for a while now so hopefully Ruben will address that issue.
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Under Ten Hag. Well it is also interesting over the years we keep scoring less and less goals.

When he has been backed with attacking players and strikers.
 
Zed 101 said:
There is a massive difference between chances and good chances, the last 12 months the vast majority of chances have been one of Rashford or Garnacho cutting in and shooting or running to the goal line then cutting back in last second into a crowded 6 yard box, other than that it is shooting from the edge of the box or further out, all of this is very predictable, easy to defend and difficult to convert, Hoijlund has one of the best shot conversion rates of any striker right now.

When we start creating decent chances Rashford, Garnacho, Bruno, Amad, Hoijlund, Eriksen, Mount and a few others will start banging in the goals, they have done it before, blaming our lack of goals on players being poor finishers is short sighted, like blaming Onana for conceding goals when we are giving away 20+ shots a game, you are identifying the problem not the cause of the problem.
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That is my point. No United fan can watch the games and say we create loads of chances and its the forwards not scoring because like you said the chances are not really good. Also, we dont get ourselves into good chance creating situations enough either, meaning when a chance does come, players snatch at it more.

If we got into chance creating positions often, then you can look at the players and say they aren't good enough.
 
MinGin said:
Why people still think Shaw would be covered and competed LCB / LWB, he has ability but never be available.
20k per week can be used in more better way.

SeasonDaysInjuriesGames missed
24/25169 days236
23/24236 days350
22/2313 days13
21/2285 days418
20/2189 days218
19/2091 days323
18/1953 days411
17/18190 days132
16/17176 days230
15/16288 days164
14/15121 days431
12/1317 days19
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That list is wrong. It was taken by adding the rows from transfermarkt for each respective season, but that website seems to double-up so one game is sometimes counted twice. For instance, we've only played 18 games this season (and England have played 6) but it's listed here as 36 games missed. Last season is wrong as well (missed 37 games for us), so wouldn't surprise me if there's mistakes all through that it.

Shaw has obviously missed a lot of games, but not as many as this list indicates.
 
How is his passing? I feel like it needs to be pretty good to play the wide CB role as you'll be needed for a lot of ball progression.
 
romufc said:
That is my point. No United fan can watch the games and say we create loads of chances and its the forwards not scoring because like you said the chances are not really good. Also, we dont get ourselves into good chance creating situations enough either, meaning when a chance does come, players snatch at it more.

If we got into chance creating positions often, then you can look at the players and say they aren't good enough.
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Our forwards are supposed to be creating chances. They have done poorly.
 
Hammondo said:
Our forwards are supposed to be creating chances. They have done poorly.
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This is very short sighted imo.

Its like saying our defenders are meant to defend but we kept conceding 20+ shots last season? I am sure you are aware that, it is a team game?

If the midfielders and attackers dont defend / track their runners, you can't point all the blame on the defenders?

Likewise with the attack. You need the defence / midfield to help in the build up, so that the attackers can create and score.
 
romufc said:
This is very short sighted imo.

Its like saying our defenders are meant to defend but we kept conceding 20+ shots last season? I am sure you are aware that, it is a team game?

If the midfielders and attackers dont defend / track their runners, you can't point all the blame on the defenders?

Likewise with the attack. You need the defence / midfield to help in the build up, so that the attackers can create and score.
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Absolutely but it's the forwards that are the worst at doing their part when attacking.
 
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