Maguire and Lindelof Partnership

[POF]

80 million and it is worthless unless we have a good quick player beside him to cover for him .

Absolute waste of money

If I was an opposition manager, I would tell the team to play down the channels behind United's full backs. The worst you'll get is a throw in deep in United territory. The lack of pace and mobility of both United centre backs is frightening.

 

[POF]

The worst match together for all four at the back. No cooperation what so ever.

The positioning for the goal was really bizarre. Maguire ended up at right back with Lindelof and Wan Bissaka both one in.

I have no idea how they ended up like that in general play. From that point, the decision making from Wan Bissaka and Lindelof was incredibly bad.

 

[manichester]

2 quick aggressive forwards against them today caused them lots of problems.

 

[Bastian]

2 quick aggressive forwards against them today caused them lots of problems.

Yeah, they did. We are sorely lacking the pace of Tuanzebe as an option whether for 2 or 3 at the back.

 

[A-man]

The positioning for the goal was really bizarre. Maguire ended up at right back with Lindelof and Wan Bissaka both one in.

I have no idea how they ended up like that in general play. From that point, the decision making from Wan Bissaka and Lindelof was incredibly bad.

The positioning for the goal was really bizarre. Maguire ended up at right back with Lindelof and Wan Bissaka both one in.

I have no idea how they ended up like that in general play. From that point, the decision making from Wan Bissaka and Lindelof was incredibly bad.

About two minutes earlier Maguire went forward to attack the ball and someone ran in behind him and Lindelof had to cover. So they switched positions and never changed back. The the winger ran in to the centre and AWB followed him while Maguire continued to mark his man. So ABW ended up in a Maguire’s position and vice versa.

 

[arthurka]

In second half they never stepped up to win the clearances from Bournemouth, Wilson just ran infront and started the counter. This duo won't come good. The dynamic is all wrong. We need an aggressor with Maguire not Lindelöf who looks less and less like a PL centerback with every game.

 

[noodlehair]

All comes down to our terrible movement.

Now that we're showing some urgency and players are moving, asking for the ball, Maguire's playing like prime Carrick.

See he wasn't playing like Carrick though was he?

He plays the odd good ball a game but it's in between the countless times he takes 5+ touches to do nothing, plays a team mate into trouble or, and this genuinely infuriates me, literally just stops and STANDS on the ball! What is the purpose of doing this?

Plus on top of that a lot of his actual defending, which is what he is in the team to do, is very poor. Four games in a row he's been left for dead by a forward simply changing direction. He's often a good 5-10 yards further off a player than he should be. He seems to daydream a lot and he doesn't really take responsibility for organising our back line.

I'm not really sure what it is he does well. My suspicion is our defence is no better this season than last season under Ole.

11 conceded in 11 this season. Fits in with the average since Ole took over. We're still conceding frankly pathetic goals.

For £80m you're entitled to expect a player who does better than make next to feck all difference.

 

[Roboc7]

Too slow to play a high line which was an obvious problem before we signed Maguire which seemed to be ignored.

 

[Yagami]

See he wasn't playing like Carrick though was he?

He was when we showed some urgency. Some of his passes sent me back to 12/13!

He plays the odd good ball a game but it's in between the countless times he takes 5+ touches to do nothing, plays a team mate into trouble or, and this genuinely infuriates me, literally just stops and STANDS on the ball! What is the purpose of doing this?

This, again, comes down to our horrible movement off the ball. He can't pass when there's no options.

It was the same for Blind who, for Ajax, plays the ball as quickly and effective as you want, but here dilly-dallied like Maguire because our movement off the ball is terrible.

Plus on top of that a lot of his actual defending, which is what he is in the team to do, is very poor. Four games in a row he's been left for dead by a forward simply changing direction. He's often a good 5-10 yards further off a player than he should be. He seems to daydream a lot and he doesn't really take responsibility for organising our back line.

I'm not really sure what it is he does well. My suspicion is our defence is no better this season than last season under Ole.

11 conceded in 11 this season. Fits in with the average since Ole took over. We're still conceding frankly pathetic goals.

For £80m you're entitled to expect a player who does better than make next to feck all difference.

I think he's improved us massively.

We hardly give up chances anymore and he's a huge factor as to why. This, with us selling our best defensive midfielder and not replacing him either. Our expected goals against stat thingamajig is very good, and he's the main reason why, imo.

 

[Alabaster Codify7]

In second half they never stepped up to win the clearances from Bournemouth, Wilson just ran infront and started the counter. This duo won't come good. The dynamic is all wrong. We need an aggressor with Maguire not Lindelöf who looks less and less like a PL centerback with every game.

I've been saying this forever. Maguire needs to be beauty, we need a beast to partner him. Imagine a much better version of Bailly. Something like that.

 

[RonaldoVII]

There's a good centre back playing for Roma who would be better.

 

[noodlehair]

I think he's improved us massively.

We hardly give up chances anymore and he's a huge factor as to why. This, with us selling our best defensive midfielder and not replacing him either. Our expected goals against stat thingamajig is very good, and he's the main reason why, imo.

How has he improved us though, in any tangable way?

Our results are if anything worse, we are conceding pretty much the exact same amount of goals. The goals we concede are still just as soft...look at the the ones in the past week alone. All three were embarassing from a defensive point of view. Expected stats are nonsense when the results repeatedly don't back them up.

The thing that alarms me most is that he makes a lot of glaring mistakes in games, or gets beaten very easily by players. Even today, he was being drawn out of position time and time again. He was having to coer for Young who was awful, so you give him some slack for that, but he wasn't really actually covering, he was just being drawn out of position but then not actually dealing with the problem, so just putting hismelf in no man's land time and again.

He's very good when he concentrates properly and the game plays into his hands, but that's been two or three games this season at best. Then there's other games like Southampton, Newcastle, etc. where he has actually cost us, and where if it was Smalling or Jones we would just be citing it as more examples of why our defence isn't good enough. The Chelsea goal in the week...what on earth is he doing there? That isn't defending you see from an actual £80m centreback

Stepping up to a big club means you need to step up your performances so they are the same standard every week, and I don't see it from him at all. He seems too caught up in this idea of being a ball playing defender, and not focused enough on actually defending. It's actually debatable who's defence has been improved more by us signing him. Ours or Leicester's

 

[Classical Mechanic]

we are conceding pretty much the exact same amount of goals.

That isn’t true. We’re on course to concede 38 goals this season, last season we conceded 54.

 

[noodlehair]

That isn’t true. We’re on course to concede 38 goals this season, last season we conceded 54.

Since Ole took over we've averaged around 1 goal conceded a game. This season we're conceding one goal a game. So no real difference. If you look at it in detail we have a very slightly better record on average this season (25 in 21 last season)...but we've also had easier games on paper this season.

The first part of last season where the players had given up on Mourinho and Mourinho was almost on an active mission to make our defence look shite, is a bit of a red herring. Season before we conceded 28 so actually had a better record. 29 conceded the season before.

Again, we paid £80m for Maguire. You pay 80m for a defender to make your team BETTER at defending. Not just to stop it getting worse.

 

[Sterling Archer]

That isn’t true. We’re on course to concede 38 goals this season, last season we conceded 54.

That same defense the two seasons prior was second best in the league. Anyone simply thinking a couple new defenders would make us a better team is quite wrong. Indeed that's what Ole is.

 

[Classical Mechanic]

Since Ole took over we've averaged around 1 goal conceded a game. This season we're conceding one goal a game. So no real difference. If you look at it in detail we have a very slightly better record on average this season (25 in 21 last season)...but we've also had easier games on paper this season.

The first part of last season where the players had given up on Mourinho and Mourinho was almost on an active mission to make our defence look shite, is a bit of a red herring. Season before we conceded 28 so actually had a better record. 29 conceded the season before.

Again, we paid £80m for Maguire. You pay 80m for a defender to make your team BETTER at defending. Not just to stop it getting worse.

Your first point is a fair one but then your point becomes confused because Mourinho wanted to upgrade the centre back position because he didn’t think the CBs were good enough without playing ultra defensive stuff. I think the error here has not been upgrading the attacking positions after losing Lukaku and placing too much faith in Jesse as the 10. The hope being that once we improve the attack

That same defense the two seasons prior was second best in the league. Anyone simply thinking a couple new defenders would make us a better team is quite wrong. Indeed that's what Ole is.

As mentioned in my other reply, Mourinho wanted to upgrade the centre backs. I’d imagine he would have kept Rom and signed a 10 to upgrade on Lingard. Of course he wanted to launch Pogba and Martial too.

 

[Yagami]

How has he improved us though, in any tangable way?

Well, we concede less chances, and he's a big reason why. In fact, he's our biggest reason why. Last season, whenever a team entered our half, you expected them to at least get a decent chance off. Now, it rarely happens.

Our defence is still not good enough, yes, but one player isn't going to change it alone. We still need a midfielder who can screen the defence, a LB, a partner for Maguire, maybe a GK, and some actual coaching.

Our results are if anything worse, we are conceding pretty much the exact same amount of goals. The goals we concede are still just as soft...look at the the ones in the past week alone. All three were embarassing from a defensive point of view. Expected stats are nonsense when the results repeatedly don't back them up.

Our results are worse, yes, but that's down to the attack. We've added Maguire and improved defensively without question, but sold Alexis and Lukaku without replacing them and that's what's costing us right now.

The thing that alarms me most is that he makes a lot of glaring mistakes in games, or gets beaten very easily by players. Even today, he was being drawn out of position time and time again. He was having to coer for Young who was awful, so you give him some slack for that, but he wasn't really actually covering, he was just being drawn out of position but then not actually dealing with the problem, so just putting hismelf in no man's land time and again.

That's fair enough. He's far from perfect, but it doesn't help that teams literally walk through our midfield unless we're sitting deep in a 3 at the back formation in the bigger games.

He's very good when he concentrates properly and the game plays into his hands, but that's been two or three games this season at best. Then there's other games like Southampton, Newcastle, etc. where he has actually cost us, and where if it was Smalling or Jones we would just be citing it as more examples of why our defence isn't good enough. The Chelsea goal in the week...what on earth is he doing there? That isn't defending you see from an actual £80m centreback

I have to disagree with him only playing well for two or three games. He's been very consistent, imo. Only really had 1 standout bad performance.

I know that even in his good games he's made errors and whatnot, but I'm lenient because, whether you're a 80 million pound defender or not, it's a team game and we're a poorly coached one. The fact that we're so poorly coached hinders our players.

I liked Smalling, and wanted him to partner Maguire, but it's interesting to see him at Roma. There, he's seemingly considered one of the best CBs in the league already, but it was only a few months ago he was a key player in a woeful defence for us. One of the worst many of us United fans have seen. It shows you how big a difference a good coach/manager makes.

Stepping up to a big club means you need to step up your performances so they are the same standard every week, and I don't see it from him at all. He seems too caught up in this idea of being a ball playing defender, and not focused enough on actually defending. It's actually debatable who's defence has been improved more by us signing him. Ours or Leicester's

I think that's more to do with Leicester actually being a well coached side than it down to being individuals. Not that I want Rodgers, but if we swapped managers with Leicester I think the teams general play would swap, too. Both with the ball and without.

 

[Ludens the Red]

Can’t say I’m a fan of it, like people said, they’re both slow and don’t really complement each other.
Lindelof by virtue of not being terrible last season built up a reputation amongst our fan base but actually he’s not very good. We ditched Smalling who is better defensively than Lindelof and he’s quicker than Maguire.
Supposedly Lindelof is great on the ball but when does Lindelof ever make chances or play good balls to anyone?
Maguire has been ok, his ability aerially has been a plus but he’s added nothing in terms of adding to our attacking play or build up from the back. Him and Lindelof do the same thing on the ball, which @noodlehair has touched on already.
Again you’ve got to go back to the manager who has made this decision. He made so many big and bad decisions on certain players in the summer and I’m afraid this is another one. Though hopefully when Tuanzebe returns he’ll slot in with Maguire and we can all stop pretending Lindelof is good.

 

[noodlehair]

Your first point is a fair one but then your point becomes confused because Mourinho wanted to upgrade the centre back position because he didn’t think the CBs were good enough without playing ultra defensive stuff. I think the error here has not been upgrading the attacking positions after losing Lukaku and placing too much faith in Jesse as the 10. The hope being that once we improve the attack

The point is that the defence over the last three years has generally performed either better or no worse than it is currently performing. The only exception being the last few months under Jose, when the performance of the team in general was appalling, and when Jose was constantly shitting on his own defenders and was playing people like Herrera and McTominay at centreback just to try and make whatever point he wanted to.

Maguire's defending so far is no better than Lindelof. No better than Smalling has performed for us. He cost us a world record fee for a defender so even if you say he was overpriced you expect something better than what led us to sign him in the first place.

I don't expect to see an £80m defender letting a player win a ball off him off the half way line then jog up the pitch and score, or standing there looking gormless as an opposition player very slowly flicks the ball over their own head and scores inside our six yard box. Or being left on his arse every time a player turns and runs at him, yet at the same time repeatedly giving players so much room that they are able to turn and run at him. Or leaving his smaller centreback partner or fullbacks to pick up the opposition's striker on crosses. He should be the one taking charge of the defence and his own performances. Instead he looks like he's waiting for someone else to do it. Very unimpressed so far.

We've had enough good centrebacks in the past to know what a good one looks like, and at the moment he's a very long way off it.

 

[arthurka]

We aren't worse we seem to give away fewer chances but we seem to give deadly chances when we give them

 

[NewGlory]

Maguire is not a super human, he's a top defender. He cannot play for the entire team. We certainly over-payed for him, and he's not #1 defender in the world, but we payed what we had to because we are in shite position. We are lucky to have him and let's stop pointing finger at him. Maguire is certainly not our main problem.

And no - Smalling is not even close to Maguire. That is factually incorrect. Every time Smalling played we had a hole in our defense. Maguire is 100x better.

 

[DFreshKing]

Not happy with Lindelof, why did he cover some imaginary run when the striker had the ball on the six yard line. Get between attacker and the goal, not rocket science. I know Bassaka didn't cover himself in glory either trying to pinch the ball there but with a centre half that close to him he must have expected said CB to be closing down the striker too. If he made the rational cover movement that flick would have gone right to him to put in row Z!

 

[Annihilate Now!]

Not happy with Lindelof, why did he cover some imaginary run when the striker had the ball on the six yard line. Get between attacker and the goal, not rocket science. I know Bassaka didn't cover himself in glory either trying to pinch the ball there but with a centre half that close to him he must have expected said CB to be closing down the striker too. If he made the rational cover movement that flick would have gone right to him to put in row Z!

Seriously, there the feck is he going for the goal? Like what was he trying to achieve!? His ability to smell danger rivals that of a sniffer dog covered in blow.

 

[Chabon]

Apologies if this point has already made, but we could have spent zero pounds and zero pence on CBs in the last ten years and been left with a defensive partnership of Jonny Evans (4th in PL) and Chris Smalling (3rd in Serie A), with Tuanzebe and Jones on the bench.

I think we might, arguably, have been quite badly-managed of late.

 

[Bondi77]

I think it is only a matter of time before Axel takes over from Lindelof as I just do not have much confidence in him and he still looks shaky on the ball.
I did not see too much of Maguire at Leicester but I did not think he would be this slow when he cost 80mil.

 

[Godfather]

It's not very good is it

 

[VorZakone]

I don't trust Lindelof at all. I really wanted to see Smalling next to Maguire, 2 physical CB's.

 

[jem]

Maguire is not a super human, he's a top defender. He cannot play for the entire team. We certainly over-payed for him, and he's not #1 defender in the world, but we payed what we had to because we are in shite position. We are lucky to have him and let's stop pointing finger at him. Maguire is certainly not our main problem.

And no - Smalling is not even close to Maguire. That is factually incorrect. Every time Smalling played we had a hole in our defense. Maguire is 100x better.

How can a subjective opinion be factually correct/incorrect? And how is 100x better (objectively or subjectively?)

 

[POF]

In fairness to Lindelof, he was very good on the ball at Bournemouth. He played through the lines really well on a number of occasions. But he has been poor defensively this season and was awful again yesterday.

The decision was made that United needed ball playing defenders so they sacrificed a better defender in Smalling for players who could play from the back. They are better playing out but it's not having any tangible impact on results.

In second half they never stepped up to win the clearances from Bournemouth, Wilson just ran infront and started the counter. This duo won't come good. The dynamic is all wrong. We need an aggressor with Maguire not Lindelöf who looks less and less like a PL centerback with every game.

I completely agree with this. The team can't build any momentum when they let the opposition out so easily. They are both poor one on one defenders so drop off far too early.

There was a spell in the 2nd half when United had Bournemouth under pressure. They hit a long hopeful clearance upfield and Lindelof cleared it over the touchline rather than back to De Gea to start another attack. Momentum gone.

 

[Isotope]

We hardly give up chances anymore and he's a huge factor as to why. This, with us selling our best defensive midfielder and not replacing him either. Our expected goals against stat thingamajig is very good, and he's the main reason why, imo.

Even if we had Rijkaard and Matthaus in midfield today, they couldn't prevent that goal from corner. Also most of their chances were by bypassing midfield with long ball to strikers. Do you want your DM stay in line with centerbacks?

 

[DVG7]

The combination of Maguire and Lindelof is essentially Virgil Van Dijk. In a central defender these days, you want;

• Pace (Lindelof)
• Strength (Maguire)
• Bravery (Maguire)
• Excellent on the ball (Both)
• Good reading of the game (Maguire)
• Difficult to go past (Both, to some extent)
• Excellent in the air (Maguire)
• Great Leadership (Maguire)
• Great tackler (Maguire)

I'm not sure the current partnership will ever work, and the above probably highlights the need for a 3rd central defender beside them. Having seen Tuanzebe's performance as a left sided defender, i'd like to see him given an extended run beside those two, with Maguire in the middle. This way, the only pre-requisite on that list that Maguire is undoubtedly last place on (pace) is masked by the pace of the other two players.

 

[Bastian]

The combination of Maguire and Lindelof is essentially Virgil Van Dijk. In a central defender these days, you want;

• Pace (Lindelof)
• Strength (Maguire)
• Bravery (Maguire)
• Excellent on the ball (Both)
• Good reading of the game (Maguire)
• Difficult to go past (Both, to some extent)
• Excellent in the air (Maguire)
• Great Leadership (Maguire)
• Great tackler (Maguire)

I'm not sure the current partnership will ever work, and the above probably highlights the need for a 3rd central defender beside them. Having seen Tuanzebe's performance as a left sided defender, i'd like to see him given an extended run beside those two, with Maguire in the middle. This way, the only pre-requisite on that list that Maguire is undoubtedly last place on (pace) is masked by the pace of the other two players.

Wow. I wish this were true. But let me just nitpick a little.

Pace: Neither has it.
Aerial ability: Maguire.
Positional awareness: Not with Lindelof, tbc with Maguire.
Playing out from the back: Maguire. Lindelof has the quality of "not being terrible" there, compared with our other defenders. Not to be confused with good standards.
Difficult to go past: see Joshua King.

I could go on, but the point is Maguire has his weaknesses but also strengths, Lindelof has weakness and average traits alongside those. I wish he was better, but I just don't see anything in him.

 

[AFC NimbleThumb]

The combination of Maguire and Lindelof is essentially Virgil Van Dijk. In a central defender these days, you want;

• Pace (Lindelof)
• Strength (Maguire)
• Bravery (Maguire)
• Excellent on the ball (Both)
• Good reading of the game (Maguire)
• Difficult to go past (Both, to some extent)
• Excellent in the air (Maguire)
• Great Leadership (Maguire)
• Great tackler (Maguire)

I'm not sure the current partnership will ever work, and the above probably highlights the need for a 3rd central defender beside them. Having seen Tuanzebe's performance as a left sided defender, i'd like to see him given an extended run beside those two, with Maguire in the middle. This way, the only pre-requisite on that list that Maguire is undoubtedly last place on (pace) is masked by the pace of the other two players.

I must be watching a different team.

Lindelof Pace & Difficult to go past? I saw King strip him for pace a few times yesterday alone.

 

[DVG7]

Wow. I wish this were true. But let me just nitpick a little.

Pace: Neither has it.
Aerial ability: Maguire.
Positional awareness: Not with Lindelof, tbc with Maguire.
Playing out from the back: Maguire. Lindelof has the quality of "not being terrible" there, compared with our other defenders. Not to be confused with good standards.
Difficult to go past: see Joshua King.

I could go on, but the point is Maguire has his weaknesses but also strengths, Lindelof has weakness and average traits alongside those. I wish he was better, but I just don't see anything in him.

I must be watching a different team.

Lindelof Pace & Difficult to go past? I saw King strip him for pace a few times yesterday alone.

Yeah this is fair, and admittedly i am basing this on the good games they've had, which in lindelof's case in particular arent many. I do think Lindelof has a bit of pace about him, he can keep up with most players. When I refer to him being difficult to go past, it's in the sense that he can't recover i.e. consistently gets absolutely skinned. Of course there's recency bias in that Josh King had a great game, but I don't think my opinions are too wide of the mark, though obviously opinions differ.

 

[A-man]

In fairness to Lindelof, he was very good on the ball at Bournemouth. He played through the lines really well on a number of occasions. But he has been poor defensively this season and was awful again yesterday.

The decision was made that United needed ball playing defenders so they sacrificed a better defender in Smalling for players who could play from the back. They are better playing out but it's not having any tangible impact on results.

The thing is that we have no clue if the the defensive result would have been better it Ole hadn’t “sacrificed defence to be able to play from the back”. Most people seem to miss that 11 goals conceded is not that bad, it is 1 behind City and 2 behind Liverpool. I am not so sure any other constellation would have been better. Today was a bad effort, but it has looked good most matches and the defensive result is not bad.

 

[Red_toad]

Not happy with Lindelof, why did he cover some imaginary run when the striker had the ball on the six yard line. Get between attacker and the goal, not rocket science. I know Bassaka didn't cover himself in glory either trying to pinch the ball there but with a centre half that close to him he must have expected said CB to be closing down the striker too. If he made the rational cover movement that flick would have gone right to him to put in row Z!

He seems to lack the ability to man mark and looks to pass on players to other defenders. Really needs to step his game, he is capable of far better performances, but he does seem to be a regular below par performer.

 

[Camilo]

Maguire came to United for a chance to play alongside Jones. It's fecking criminal Ole hasn't sorted this yet.

 

[Ekeke]

The combination of Maguire and Lindelof is essentially Virgil Van Dijk. In a central defender these days, you want;

I'm not sure the current partnership will ever work, and the above probably highlights the need for a 3rd central defender beside them. Having seen Tuanzebe's performance as a left sided defender, i'd like to see him given an extended run beside those two, with Maguire in the middle. This way, the only pre-requisite on that list that Maguire is undoubtedly last place on (pace) is masked by the pace of the other two players.

wat

More like

• Pace (Nobody)
• Strength (Maguire)
• Bravery (Nobody)
• Excellent on the ball (Maguire)
• Good reading of the game (Nobody)
• Difficult to go past (Neither)
• Excellent in the air (Maguire)
• Great Leadership (Neither)
• Great tackler (Neither but Lindelof closest)

 

[Ekeke]

He seems to lack the ability to man mark and looks to pass on players to other defenders. Really needs to step his game, he is capable of far better performances, but he does seem to be a regular below par performer.

He's a CB who doesnt look like he enjoys defending. He looks like he enjoys getting on the ball and playing simple passes like a defensive midfielder

 

[MikeKing]

Maguire is not a super human, he's a top defender. He cannot play for the entire team. We certainly over-payed for him, and he's not #1 defender in the world, but we payed what we had to because we are in shite position. We are lucky to have him and let's stop pointing finger at him. Maguire is certainly not our main problem.

And no - Smalling is not even close to Maguire. That is factually incorrect. Every time Smalling played we had a hole in our defense. Maguire is 100x better.

Do you mean the sort of hole that you get from constantly having to change between Rojo, Jones, Bailly and Lindelof as your partner? The same sort of holes you'll still find watching United right now with those guys still here, but weirdly enough not that many holes to find in that Roma defence at the moment.

As players there isn't much between Smalling and Maguire, I rate them quite similarly but Smalling is quicker, better 1vs1 and Maguire has the simple edge of playing great passes at times. Defensively from an individual point of view I'd rate Smalling as better, but jury is still out on Maguire's ability to lead the defence at a top club. He has not proved it yet. I think a partnership consisting of the two would be amazingly balanced, and I would expect good consistency from that partnership as well because of that.