So I feel like we're at a bit of an impasse. I'll respond here but let you have the last word. This has been a really fun conversation. You know your stuff.
Not necessarily while dribbling mate no, yes quote a lot in the air. But just in general when i watch him if we're on the counter or building an attack whenever the ball is played to Lingard he quite often gets beaten to it by the fullback and/or just gets tackled and loses possession as soon he does receive it.
This ties into my opinion that he's not really suited to playing on the wing.
Ahh, I misunderstood your argument! I thought you were saying he looses possession after he has it. If I read this correct, you are positing that he struggles to gain possession. I agree here. I think a big problem we had on the counterattack (only three goals scored this season when counterattacking) was that our wings could not maintain possession after receiving the through ball. Lingard was
definitely guilty of this, especially because he also could not track the ball in the air. It's one reason why I'd love to add a natural wing who is good at the counterattack.
At a club like Manchester United basically yes, Lingard has good attributes that are useful to any team. His infamous off the ball movement, his workrate tracking back etc. But those are things that should be the default bare minimum expected of a winger at United.
Agreed, and unfortunately, none of the other wings have shown this. It is a big problem. If Martial would play with 75% of the effort that Lingard does then he would be the starter, no questions asked.
But on top of that they have to be chipping in with goals themselves or creating goals for others at a decent rate. I just don't see how a team that has problems scoring goals and wants to be challenging for league titles can afford to have a player in a prominent attacking position who rarely scores or assists. 8 goals and assists combined just isn't enough to warrant starting around half of our games as he did last season.
I do not necessarily buy this on a Mourinho team. Ideally, Lingard would be a squad player. That is where he should be, as an off the bench energy guy who shores up your defense. I just have not seen Martial display what United should want as a winger. He is great at link-up play, but hesitates way too much with the ball, and for some reason has lost his skill at dribbling. Perhaps it would pay to start Martial and bring Lingard off the bench? I have no issue with that. I just believe that Lingard
does have a role on this club. And Mourinho playing him is not as insane as some are making it out to be.
It's a simple difference of opinion mate. Stats are stats sometimes they are useful, sometimes they are not. For instance if a player like Lingard is not able to take possession of a ball that is played to him theres really no stat for that. Lots of stats are useless, others are misinterpreted or taken out of context.
Thats why i always form my opinion of players on what i actually see. If we sign a new player like Depay his stats were great but i reserved judgement on him until i had seen him play over a season.
Right, and as I noted, I primarily base my opinion off what I watch. Then I use stats to verify or falsify my initial opinion, unless they seem incredibly off.
For example, Eric Dier, to me, has always demonstrated excellence as a holding midfielder. He does not let opponents advance. This is verified by his Patch Score, which is a regression that literally measures how much a player's marked to advances down the pitch. But, what I didn't notice, was how limited Dier was on offense. In a lot of ways, because of that, he is not significantly better than Schneiderlin. So that is how I use stats.
I've now watched Lingard over a number of years first in the reserves and now in the first team over the last 2-3 years and what i see is a player who is not a winger and certainly not on the right. In the youth and reserve teams Lingard always looked better playing in the centre or from the left. Thats was where he played the majority of his games, before Van Gaal's 2nd season Lingard had only ever player 5-10 games on the right.
As I've noted, I 100% agree that Lingard is not a winger in a 433. He has nowhere near the required playmaking and scoring ability. I do think, as a squad player under a tactician like Mourinho, he does have value as a wing in a 4231, 433, and 352. The closer he plays to the opponent's goal, however, the more problematic his limited offensive game is.
Great conversation, though! I enjoyed it!
