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2023-24 Performances


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6.1 Season Average Rating
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RyRy11

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Not sure he's done anything this preseason yet to warrant heavy praise. Looks to be a tidy player for his age but I'm not seeing what everyone else is seeing so far.
 

MDFC Manager

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Couple of times players ran off him, in the EPL that would be punished. But other than that very very calm on the ball.
Yes there's still loads to improve on that front, especially if we plan to play him as a DM.
 

Marwood

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Not sure he's done anything this preseason yet to warrant heavy praise. Looks to be a tidy player for his age but I'm not seeing what everyone else is seeing so far.
Well lilke you say he's tidy. Most CM's his age aren't.
 

sillwuka

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He has the aura of decent player but how often do players break through from the academy and become mainstays in the team?

Let's be patient with him in and around the squad and he may not even need a loan.
 

jeepers

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He has the aura of decent player but how often do players break through from the academy and become mainstays in the team?

Let's be patient with him in and around the squad and he may not even need a loan.
Funny because our record speaks for itself. Recently we've had Rashford, McT (admittedly not played in the right position or good enough) and MG(retard).

I agree though, patience is needed. You can tell Mainoo has certain qualities about him although he's still young. He plays fearlessly and is very composed. EtH could be planning for him to understudy Casemiro. One of Mainoo and Mejbri will stay around the squad and the other will go out on loan. If Mejbri goes out on loan again, I hope we find a club at a higher level than the championship.
 

Sylar

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I reckon he gets a chance with the first team. He looks mostly calm with the ball, and isnt afraid of having it and letting it go either, short or long. Think he will get minutes and cameos to warrant staying rather than going out on loan. Interested to see how he does with more senior players around him too.

Edit: well, yeah, what the post above says, hopefully thats true.
 

groovyalbert

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Really glad to hear he'll be around the first team. If the moves of Fred/McT and Ambrabat all materialize, we'll have a great pool of options. He'll be able to learn so much from the senior players, and such a wide range of skillsets.
 

LawCharltonBest

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I’m glad for him and excited to see what he can do with his competitive minutes. Unfortunately it hasn’t quite worked out for Mount here, so I think he’ll get his opportunities
 

The Red Thinker

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Kobbie has the rare ability to slow things down. At his age and in his position, you can already see that it’s abnormal. Recently turned 18 and he’s physically ready too. Add to that press-resistance and crisp passing and we have ourselves an incredible young talent.
 

ArbeitervonWien

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I’m glad for him and excited to see what he can do with his competitive minutes. Unfortunately it hasn’t quite worked out for Mount here, so I think he’ll get his opportunities
That's a fair assessment. Mount had his chances but couldn't deliver. I had high hopes for him, but it's time to move on now. I hope at least Onana can turn it around. But I am sceptical as he still didn't turn up.
 

Teja

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I’m glad for him and excited to see what he can do with his competitive minutes. Unfortunately it hasn’t quite worked out for Mount here, so I think he’ll get his opportunities
That's a fair assessment. Mount had his chances but couldn't deliver. I had high hopes for him, but it's time to move on now. I hope at least Onana can turn it around. But I am sceptical as he still didn't turn up.
I don't detect any sarcasm here :nervous:
 

r0663664

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I can see him playing cup game and coming on as a sub when we are 2 or 3 goals to the good. ETH will probably start bedding him as a sub. At his age, I think he can be developed to be a really good player maybe someone like Carrick.
 

ArbeitervonWien

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I don't detect any sarcasm here :nervous:
Of course I'm not sarcastic. Onana really didn't impress me with his performance on flight EI045. At first he had a very slow start to the flight, then he was watching Shrek The Third though everyone knows that's where the Shrek-Saga went downhill. I, for one, am running out of patience!
 

Banana Republic

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While accepting that our exceptional academy talents, don’t always make it to a regular first team career, Mainoo is showing all the signs of becoming a relatively rare success story.
Against Lyon wasn’t his best game though.
While the confidence and composure is there, he was easily brushed off the ball a couple of times and wasn’t showing the press resistance we saw in the game against Leeds last week.
He’s still only 18 and has limited experience of playing against senior and physically stronger players.
He needs time and shouldn’t be rushed, but I’d rather he gradually exposed to first team football and given useful minutes this season, rather than being loaned out.
This is easier said than done and a more risky process with a CM player than for a young attacking talent.
Patience is needed and will hopefully pay off big time,
 

Valencia Shin Crosses

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"Martial...He's isolated Skrtel here..."
McTominay and Eriksen actually did quite well last season. Which is my point. They aren't the starting pair, they are the backup pairing and it's not a big deal if we go into the season with them as the backup pairing in case of injuries in our midfield. Our record without him wasn't even that bad. First 2 games were obviously just a different scenario all together, but since then, in games where he didn't start we had:
  • 7 wins, 1 draw, 3 losses in the league
  • 2 wins in the FA cup
  • 1 win in Europa League
  • 2 wins in the league cup
So we are looking at 12 wins, 1 draw and 3 losses since he was signed in the games he didn't play in all comps. Very clearly, it's not as big a deal as people think. He's of course our most important player, I'm not disputing that, but the point is that we have "decent" cover already, and you are unlikely to get anything amazing cover for a player who will play whenever fit and not suspended with little chance of benching him. It's like buying Van de Beek to be cover for Bruno. It's pointless. Yes performance levels drop... that is inevitable when a key player is out. But he won't be on the bench often, and a McTominay and Eriksen pairing is pretty decent, decent enough to cover.

Ten Hag has also shown that he's extremely adaptable to what he has or doesn't have in a particular moment. He won't use the same system with Casemiro as he would if Casemiro is out. Just like he used one system with Frenkie at Ajax and another when he was sold. Just like we actually did pretty OK and adapted to even Rashford being out whenever he didn't play last season.

Ideally, yeah we'd sell McTominay and replace him. But that's a hard sell to a good player to bring him in on the basis of being a Casemiro backup/rotation with Mount (along with change of system) as their other position. And good players aren't cheap. And if we are signing someone young like Lavia... well we have Mainoo who is 1 year younger. I'd love to sign Lavia. But it's pretty far down the priority list and not a big deal if we don't address that this season.
Looking at it strictly from a "we got X amount of wins" point of view is weirdly close minded if I'm honest. By every discernable metric we were far worse when Casemiro was out, but for some reason you seem to hold this view that it's fine to have a poor DM that doesn't fit our style as our backup to the 31 year old that we all agree is of supreme importance. The entire point of building depth is that you don't have to change the entire system when backups take the place of starters. Sure the overall quality might go down, but the roles of each player don't change. And we have been repeatedly linked to a player that is already keen to join us in Amrabat, so your point on it being a hard sell doesn't make much sense either.
 

surf

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I can see him playing cup game and coming on as a sub when we are 2 or 3 goals to the good. ETH will probably start bedding him as a sub. At his age, I think he can be developed to be a really good player maybe someone like Carrick.
So hardly ever then given our lack of goals.
 

bosnian_red

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Looking at it strictly from a "we got X amount of wins" point of view is weirdly close minded if I'm honest. By every discernable metric we were far worse when Casemiro was out, but for some reason you seem to hold this view that it's fine to have a poor DM that doesn't fit our style as our backup to the 31 year old that we all agree is of supreme importance. The entire point of building depth is that you don't have to change the entire system when backups take the place of starters. Sure the overall quality might go down, but the roles of each player don't change. And we have been repeatedly linked to a player that is already keen to join us in Amrabat, so your point on it being a hard sell doesn't make much sense either.
It is inevitable to drop down a level when a player like casemiro is out. I'm just saying it's not that big of a priority nor is it entirely likely that we sign a player like Amrabat. Yeah we're linked with him, I just seriously doubt we get him.

In an ideal world, yes, we replace McTominay with a proper DM. What I'm staying is it's not a big deal if we don't address it this summer and we'll be ok next season with our current midfield depth. Some people making it out like it'll be all dramatic and a horrible idea, when we'll be fine as is, and you can't fix every single issue in 1 summer.
 

Red Comet

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and you can't fix every single issue in 1 summer.
Not with that attitude. /s

Seriously speaking if we are better at selling players (and getting good money for it rather than 1 million + % of future sales) then we would be in a way better position to address the issues. Assuming we sell McGuire, Martial, Fred, Brandon Williams, Elanga, Henderson, Bailly then we should be able to afford a decent backup player for Casemiro no?
 

bosnian_red

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Not with that attitude. /s

Seriously speaking if we are better at selling players (and getting good money for it rather than 1 million + % of future sales) then we would be in a way better position to address the issues. Assuming we sell McGuire, Martial, Fred, Brandon Williams, Elanga, Henderson, Bailly then we should be able to afford a decent backup player for Casemiro no?
This summer our budget is pretty much 100m net. We are already there with Onana and Mount. Our realistic sales this summer will get us Hojlund. In order to get a mid, we'd need to sell McTominay for like 40m or whatever a new DM would cost. In order to get a CB, we need to sell Maguire for whatever we buy the new CB for basically. This is why I'm pessimistic about anything else.
 

DWelbz19

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And if we are signing someone young like Lavia... well we have Mainoo who is 1 year younger. I'd love to sign Lavia.
I don’t normally like massively overhyping up our youth players — but is there anything Latvia does that Mainoo can’t? He’s just more fortunate in his career to have a proper senior season of football under his belt. From the [admittedly super limited] viewing I’ve seen of Mainoo and the comments I’ve heard about him, he seems a similar level quality.
 

horsechoker

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I hope he can pick up 10 or 20 minutes here and there and a few cup starts.

He's only 18 so need to rush him, players in his position don't tend to reach their peak until their late 20s.
 

Jeppers7

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Kobbie has the rare ability to slow things down. At his age and in his position, you can already see that it’s abnormal. Recently turned 18 and he’s physically ready too. Add to that press-resistance and crisp passing and we have ourselves an incredible young talent.
Agreed. To play the game at your own pace at that age is rare.
 

bund

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I don’t normally like massively overhyping up our youth players — but is there anything Latvia does that Mainoo can’t? He’s just more fortunate in his career to have a proper senior season of football under his belt. From the [admittedly super limited] viewing I’ve seen of Mainoo and the comments I’ve heard about him, he seems a similar level quality.
Well yeah, Latvia can be a country, which Mainoo cant.
 

MDFC Manager

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I don’t normally like massively overhyping up our youth players — but is there anything Latvia does that Mainoo can’t? He’s just more fortunate in his career to have a proper senior season of football under his belt. From the [admittedly super limited] viewing I’ve seen of Mainoo and the comments I’ve heard about him, he seems a similar level quality.
That's the thing though, in this position, that extra bit of experience is crucial. Hopefully we can afford it to Mainoo because he's definitely got a lot of what's needed to succeed.
 

DickDastardly

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I don’t normally like massively overhyping up our youth players — but is there anything Latvia does that Mainoo can’t? He’s just more fortunate in his career to have a proper senior season of football under his belt. From the [admittedly super limited] viewing I’ve seen of Mainoo and the comments I’ve heard about him, he seems a similar level quality.
Apparently, they have the world's tallest women.
 

led_scholes

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I think ETH values him. So since I have seen only a few minutes from him and can't judge, I ll stand with ETH. Even last year he preferred him over other young cms, so I believe he does something in training that we are obviously not able to see. I don't expect him to play alot this year, but fingers crossed he can continue impressing in training and ETH plays him in league cup and fa cup more.
 

top1whoisman

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"We have to see in pre-season," said the boss, when asked about where he sees the youngster fitting this term. ''He gets his chance because he deserves it. Because he showed it in the Under-21s and in our training.

"He showed a high level and now he has to show it in games. So pre-season is perfect to test him.

"He is an option to get into the game squad and to get playtime. We will see but I am confident he can do it and we have to wait we have test if it is going to happen."
 

roseguy64

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He's a very interesting player, I actually do see the sightly less skillful pogba comparison with him. Guess the question is whether he'll adapt to having the confidence and consistency to show his talent at CM in a proper competitive league game for example and build up the trust to be a proper rotation option. So far the signs are positive though.
These are my thoughts too. But I don't want to ruin it for him because midfield at Prem level is unforgiving. It's much easier as a forward player. A loan might be best and then first-team spot next season. But maybe he'll genuinely challenge for a regular bench spot.