Maguire and Lindelof Partnership

Leftback99 said:
We play them because they are better than the alternatives we currently have.
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Better at what though? Winning the ball back and having the mobility to stop counter attacks. Both the CMs do a very good job of getting back into the channels so Maguire and Lindelof can defend zonally. Other top teams are happier to leave their CBs in potential 1vs1 scenarios with ultra high lines or playing an extra attacking player.

With all respect to Fred and McT, the pairing is probably the equivalent of Fletcher/Hargreaves or Butt/P Neville in bygone eras.
 
We need a better CB than Lindelof in the summer, if we don't get one, we will still be 10 points off winning the EPL.
 
They've been playing well, are consistent and durable, which is a very underrated aspect. However, I don't like these stats like 'Lindelof has x amount of clean sheets in y games', which massively ignore the fact that we are a strong defensive team, period.

The work rate of McFred, Bruno, the aerial dominant/ever present Maguire, the rock solid full backs Shaw/AWB and then Ole's tactics are more important factors to our 'defence' than the centre back partnership.

Wildly out of context but a simply analogy is looking at Simone's Atletico teams. Regardless of the personnel, their style is always going be very strong defensively but no one would realistically Lindelof be hailing as some consistent beast like Godin even if the outcome is similar.

For what its worth, Maguire is by far the stronger defender out of the two. That's not to say he is carrying Lindelof but I expect more from the Swede. It's a consistent partnership born from the sheer amount of experience and games playing together but I don't think they compliment each other to a high enough standard.
 
criticalanalysis said:
The work rate of McFred, Bruno, the aerial dominant/ever present Maguire, the rock solid full backs Shaw/AWB and then Ole's tactics are more important factors to our 'defence' than the centre back partnership.
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Would be interesting to know how you came to that conclusion. That basically everybody except the CBs are important in our defence.
 
A-man said:
Would be interesting to know how you came to that conclusion. That basically everybody except the CBs are important in our defence.
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That was worded poorly on my part. Of course the centre back partnership is important but it's also heavily protected by other players in the team and the tactics of Ole.

We should celebrate the Lindelof/Maguire pair for their longetivity but from a critical POV I don't think we should alluding too much emphasis on their longetivity/consistency as a major reason (or proportionally higher 'credit) for our defensive performances. I wouldn't say they have outperformed their roles. To be fair you couldn't say that about much of our team but individually I would argue Shaw, AWB and McFred have displayed a higher range of dominant ability/performances, which have contributed 'more' to our clean sheets than say someone like Lindelof.
 
criticalanalysis said:
That was worded poorly on my part. Of course the centre back partnership is important but it's also heavily protected by other players in the team and the tactics of Ole.

We should celebrate the Lindelof/Maguire pair for their longetivity but from a critical POV I don't think we should alluding too much emphasis on their longetivity/consistency as a major reason (or proportionally higher 'credit) for our defensive performances. I wouldn't say they have outperformed their roles. To be fair you couldn't say that about much of our team but individually I would argue Shaw, AWB and McFred have displayed a higher range of dominant ability/performances, which have contributed 'more' to our clean sheets than say someone like Lindelof.
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I think the stability we’ve seen lately is not better than its weakest points, and that lowest level /weakest point has been raised for the whole back line, goalkeeper and defensive midfield. At the same time out full backs have improved going forward. Our attacking players also press better now, at least against the better teams like Chelsea, which has been very effective to protect us from crosses. A lot of the chances we concede now are from losing the ball in dangerous areas. If this plus defending setpieces improve, we look pretty decent defensively.

There are some benefits with having the same four at the back play basically every game for the last two years.
 
Anyone claiming Lindelof + Maguire are great partnership, has a very short memory. Just because we are #2, doesn't mean we are doing great in any season. Look at our points, and how many goals did we concede on set piece and low placed clubs, should tell you why. They are the best that we have available, doesn't mean they are great. I would say a fit and in-form Bailly should be a better partnership than Lindelof.

After getting rid of Rojo, and hopefully Jones, we should definitely search for another CB, whether an experienced one or young prospects is another question, but a new one to challenge existing partnership.

I read another BS about having the same back 4 throughout the season. How many players can play 50 games a season? You need a 3rd choice CB to rotate, possibly pick up 20+ games a season even without injury or suspension. You need another backup pair of fullback, picking up 20 games a season as well. This is to ensure you have you best 11 in big games. How to get your back 10 players to fully understand each other - TRAINING.
 
If we look at the PL points we have lost in the games with Lindelof- Maguire, we can see:

1. Losing matches is not a problem. We lost the first match of the season and another one a few weeks later. Since then it has been six months without losing.
2. The draws are the problem. We have 8 draws with Lindelof - Maguire. However, 6 of the 8 draws were clean sheets.

It was our inability to score goals that cost us points in those matches. Not mistakes in defence.

One can always argue a better defence would make us play more offensive football, but to some extent the offensive players must take most of the responsibility for this.

cyril C said:
Anyone claiming Lindelof + Maguire are great partnership, has a very short memory. Just because we are #2, doesn't mean we are doing great in any season. Look at our points, and how many goals did we concede on set piece and low placed clubs, should tell you why. They are the best that we have available, doesn't mean they are great. I would say a fit and in-form Bailly should be a better partnership than Lindelof.

After getting rid of Rojo, and hopefully Jones, we should definitely search for another CB, whether an experienced one or young prospects is another question, but a new one to challenge existing partnership.

I read another BS about having the same back 4 throughout the season. How many players can play 50 games a season? You need a 3rd choice CB to rotate, possibly pick up 20+ games a season even without injury or suspension. You need another backup pair of fullback, picking up 20 games a season as well. This is to ensure you have you best 11 in big games. How to get your back 10 players to fully understand each other - TRAINING.
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Defensively they are more than decent. People complain about the CM bailing them out always. I have always seen our midfield getting overrun.
I would like to see the defence one v one most of the time. We rarely get beaten because of our defense being one v one against the opposing forwards.
Offensively they are horrible. Simply because we don't have variation on our corners and Maguire can't hit a barn door.
If we get more variations for sure we will score more.
 
A-man said:
I think the stability we’ve seen lately is not better than its weakest points, and that lowest level /weakest point has been raised for the whole back line, goalkeeper and defensive midfield. At the same time out full backs have improved going forward. Our attacking players also press better now, at least against the better teams like Chelsea, which has been very effective to protect us from crosses. A lot of the chances we concede now are from losing the ball in dangerous areas. If this plus defending setpieces improve, we look pretty decent defensively.

There are some benefits with having the same four at the back play basically every game for the last two years.
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Yeah I'd agree in general that our bottom level is higher and we're reached a 'better' consistency as a whole unit.

A-man said:
If we look at the PL points we have lost in the games with Lindelof- Maguire, we can see:

1. Losing matches is not a problem. We lost the first match of the season and another one a few weeks later. Since then it has been six months without losing.
2. The draws are the problem. We have 8 draws with Lindelof - Maguire. However, 6 of the 8 draws were clean sheets.

It was our inability to score goals that cost us points in those matches. Not mistakes in defence.

One can always argue a better defence would make us play more offensive football, but to some extent the offensive players must take most of the responsibility for this.
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I'd say most of responsibility falls on Ole and his tactics. It's not an issue of our defenders being particular bad or not performing at base level, it's more an issue that they are over protected with McFred and Ole's inability to dominate teams without needing such gung-ho back and forth hard running.

That aside though, individually they can all do better. From the forwards making better final third decisions, to the midfielders progressing the ball better to our defenders playing a higher line and being more uptempo.

Our defenders deserve the same amount of praise and criticism when it comes to defence and 'offense' imo. It's disingenuous to imply 'they're doing their job, everyone else needs to do more' because it's not like our defence is playing a super high line and aggresively pressing whilst the rest of the players are attacking the opposition into oblivion. Our midfielders and attackers are never 10-20 yards away from the rest of the defenders and by default it makes their job easier.

It's why on the flip side, it's consistently suggested that 'we need better defenders, who have qualities that can defend 1 vs 1/be more aggressive'. People say Lindelof or Maguire rarely get beaten individually, get outpaced or outmuscled but largely ignore the context that our line is generally deeper in our own half as opposed to the half way line, where you're more exposed. It's 'easier' to contain the opposition when you have team mates in your close vicinity. It's much more difficult when you're isolated.

We simply don't play an expansive enough football style to allow our defenders to get isolated and because we'd be wary of putting them in vulnerable positions, which is ultimately due to a lack of quality.
 
A-man said:
If we look at the PL points we have lost in the games with Lindelof- Maguire, we can see:

1. Losing matches is not a problem. We lost the first match of the season and another one a few weeks later. Since then it has been six months without losing.
2. The draws are the problem. We have 8 draws with Lindelof - Maguire. However, 6 of the 8 draws were clean sheets.

It was our inability to score goals that cost us points in those matches. Not mistakes in defence.

One can always argue a better defence would make us play more offensive football, but to some extent the offensive players must take most of the responsibility for this.
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Let's focus on EPL only.

We scored 64 goals in the league, 2nd best in the league, can't say we are poor in offence. The fact that we made so many elementary error in defence, only to be rescued by the attacking power. Agree that unreliability of Martial and James, and relying too much on Rashford and Bruno, is a problem, and they should share part of the responsibility of us being 2nd, but our topic of discussion is on CB.

As for defence, ignoring the 1st 2 loss, in fact I would ignore the Arsenal loss, so let's talk about
LC-MU, MU-EV, WBA-MU - Draw
MU-SH Loss

These are 9 points dropped, points that should not have dropped. Adding 9 points to our table, where will we be? OK we are still no. 2, but breathing down the neck of City.
 
cyril C said:
Let's focus on EPL only.

We scored 64 goals in the league, 2nd best in the league, can't say we are poor in offence. The fact that we made so many elementary error in defence, only to be rescued by the attacking power. Agree that unreliability of Martial and James, and relying too much on Rashford and Bruno, is a problem, and they should share part of the responsibility of us being 2nd, but our topic of discussion is on CB.

As for defence, ignoring the 1st 2 loss, in fact I would ignore the Arsenal loss, so let's talk about
LC-MU, MU-EV, WBA-MU - Draw
MU-SH Loss

These are 9 points dropped, points that should not have dropped. Adding 9 points to our table, where will we be? OK we are still no. 2, but breathing down the neck of City.
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In some matches the attack saves the defence, and in some matches the defence saves the attack, so to say. The average goal scoring is good, but there are several matches where we didn’t score at all or only scored one goal. Luckily the defence have kept clean sheets in most of those so we have gotten away with it. But to improve one more step we need to score goals in many of those matches, plus improve some parts of the defending such as setpieces.

Looking at the 9 points lost you talk about, I very much agree. Those are the biggest disappointments of this season. However the pair Lindelof -Maguire only played in two of those matches (Everton 3-3 and WBA 1-1 draws) and I would say that’s not much if we look after the season as a whole.
 
A-man said:
In some matches the attack saves the defence, and in some matches the defence saves the attack, so to say. The average goal scoring is good, but there are several matches where we didn’t score at all or only scored one goal. Luckily the defence have kept clean sheets in most of those so we have gotten away with it. But to improve one more step we need to score goals in many of those matches, plus improve some parts of the defending such as setpieces.

Looking at the 9 points lost you talk about, I very much agree. Those are the biggest disappointments of this season. However the pair Lindelof -Maguire only played in two of those matches (Everton 3-3 and WBA 1-1 draws) and I would say that’s not much if we look after the season as a whole.
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If better coaching (on set piece) is able to save us 9 points a season, so be it. The Roma game was another example on how attack save our defence, which can work some of the time, but not all the time, particularly against able opponents. if you want to do well in CL, you can't afford too many 2nd chances. You can get away in EPL, mathematically speaking by beating all the REST and lose all to the Top 6.

Is Lindelof a bad player, NO. He has saved us a few matches, although not as often as Maguire. Again, if it is all down to set piece coaching, then fine. If not, finding a capable CB is essential. Whether this 4th choice CB is able to dislodge Lindelof and Bailly is another debate, hopefully yes. Get rid of Rojo and Jones, and find the space for another CB, as I have no confidence on Tuanzebe being able to step in on big games.
 
cyril C said:
The Roma game was another example on how attack save our defence
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Not really. The first goal came because no one covered the space left by Lindelöf, who was busy pressuring an attacker. That's an error by the team, not the the defense specifically. The second goal was a harsh penalty conceded by a midfielder.
 
They are the best partnership we have at the club, always have been.

Varane is the best defender at the club, but he doesn't work with Maguire nor with Lindelgod.
 
Lindelof is our best defender so both Varane and Maguire look better when playing next to him.
 
Champ said:
They are the best partnership we have at the club, always have been.

Varane is the best defender at the club, but he doesn't work with Maguire nor with Lindelgod.
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Dont think Varane and Lindelof have played much together at all? Would like to see it.
 
Champ said:
They are the best partnership we have at the club, always have been.

Varane is the best defender at the club, but he doesn't work with Maguire nor with Lindelgod.
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Varane and Lindelof will be excellent partnership IF new manager will have balls and drop captain
 
Lowkey said:
i think it is our best CB partnership. Lindelof is under rated imo
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I agree, very underrated.

He doesnt fit the English ideal defender requirements, not enough 'crunching' tackles and not enough aerial duels where heads smash together. He is 'soft', wore a dress once and wanted to be with his family after their house was robbed. He must be shit...
 
Our two worst performances since Ralf took over came with Varane and Lindelof at centre back. We were outplayed by both Villa and Brentford and conceded 4.3 xGA over the two games 2.1 & 2.2 xGA. With Maguire in Ralf's team the average xGA has been 0.9 and never over 1.1 xGA. I think this is why you don't see Lindelof and Varane together.
 
Champ said:
They are the best partnership we have at the club, always have been.

Varane is the best defender at the club, but he doesn't work with Maguire nor with Lindelgod.
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Ha, this based on a single game, in which Maguire came close to giving a pen away, no less? Some fans!
 
NewGlory said:
Ha, this based on a single game, in which Maguire came close to giving a pen away, no less? Some fans!
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No, this is based on Varane and Lindelgod being similar players,

Also Varane doesn't cover the space well when his partner goes wandering, which Lindelgod and Maguire do often, we saw this for the goal against Burnley.
Yet Maguire and Lindelgod do cover better.

Lindelgod and Maguire complement each other much better.
Which is strange as Varane is no doubt the better defender.

Some fans eh!?
 
Champ said:
No, this is based on Varane and Lindelgod being similar players,

Also Varane doesn't cover the space well when his partner goes wandering, which Lindelgod and Maguire do often, we saw this for the goal against Burnley.
Yet Maguire and Lindelgod do cover better.

Lindelgod and Maguire complement each other much better.
Which is strange as Varane is no doubt the better defender.

Some fans eh!?
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Maguire is trash, Lindelof is way too inconsistent and tends to shit his pants enough throughout the season to cost you valuable points.

Varane is supposed to be great, but I haven't been impressed by him playing for us. Not sure why he isn't called out more. Either way, praising Maguire-Lindelof "partnership" is laughable.
 
NewGlory said:
Maguire is trash, Lindelof is way too inconsistent and tends to shit his pants enough throughout the season to cost you valuable points.

Varane is supposed to be great, but I haven't been impressed by him playing for us. Not sure why he isn't called out more. Either way, praising Maguire-Lindelof "partnership" is laughable.
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What's laughable is calling Maguire trash.
But each to their own I guess.
 
Champ said:
What's laughable is calling Maguire trash.
But each to their own I guess.
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Do you live on a different planet or you haven't watched Maguire at all this season? How are you possibly defending him?
 
Classical Mechanic said:
Our two worst performances since Ralf took over came with Varane and Lindelof at centre back. We were outplayed by both Villa and Brentford and conceded 4.3 xGA over the two games 2.1 & 2.2 xGA. With Maguire in Ralf's team the average xGA has been 0.9 and never over 1.1 xGA. I think this is why you don't see Lindelof and Varane together.
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But but but but this can't be right because people on an internet forum who don't know the first thing about football think Maguire is "trash".
 
Classical Mechanic said:
Our two worst performances since Ralf took over came with Varane and Lindelof at centre back. We were outplayed by both Villa and Brentford and conceded 4.3 xGA over the two games 2.1 & 2.2 xGA. With Maguire in Ralf's team the average xGA has been 0.9 and never over 1.1 xGA. I think this is why you don't see Lindelof and Varane together.
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JB7 said:
But but but but this can't be right because people on an internet forum who don't know the first thing about football think Maguire is "trash".
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Sure, because xGA is what football is all about. Why not. Pick two games out of two dozen, ignore the fact that being unable to score was a much bigger problem in those games than defense, and make some wild conclusions.

For the record, I think Varane hasn't been good for us, maybe he is still adjusting–I don't know, but none of that changes the fact that Maguire is trash. Maguire is the #2 reason (after Ole) why we are in this horrible situation, this season. He has been absolutely horrible all season, but keep talking how he is fantastic. The only thing Maguire has going for him is that he is English. Other than that, Maguire is barely good enough to play in Championship, let alone for United. At least Varane was great once, elsewhere.
 
NewGlory said:
Sure, because xGA is what football is all about. Why not. Pick two games out of two dozen, ignore the fact that being unable to score was our main problem in those games, and make some wild conclusions.

For the record, I think Varane hasn't been good for us, maybe he is still adjusting–I don't know, but none of that changes the fact that Maguire is trash. Maguire is the #2 reason (after Ole) why we are in this horrible situation, this season. He has been absolutely horrible all season, but keep talking how he is fantastic. The only thing Maguire has going for him is that he is English. Other than that, Maguire is barely good enough to play in Championship, let alone for United. At least Varane was great once, elsewhere.
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Who has said he's been fantastic? It's pretty much universally agreed he's not having a good season (correctly so IMO because he isn't having a good season overall), however that doesn't mean that we are a better team without him because we aren't. Lindelof and Varane both sit off too much which is why we conceded more chances with them in the team as the gap between defence & midfield was increased and also why both function better alongside Maguire because he is usually the one to press first. It's not a wild conclusion, it's what anyone should be able to see because it's pretty damn simple. Hark back to when we had genuinely world class defenders in Rio and Vidic, if we'd had two Rio's it wouldn't have been half the pairing and two Vidic's wouldn't have been half the pairing. You need both for it to work properly and it's pretty clear RR can see that.

As for "barely good enough to play in the Championship" , I presume you're trying to tell us you watch next to no other Premier League games without telling us you watch no other Premier League games because frankly that comment is absolutely ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as Maguire being the main on-field reason we're having a bad season. There are lot of reasons we're having a bad season but you put it all on one player which tells me all I really need to know about your agenda.
 
Lidelof is good with the ball at his feet, has good passing range, and can make a tackle. It all seems almost too obvioius to me where he should be...

Dalot------------------Verane------------Maguire----------------Shaw
--------------------------------------Lindelof---------------------------------
--------------------Pogba-------------------------Bruno--------------------
 
JB7 said:
Who has said he's been fantastic? It's pretty much universally agreed he's not having a good season (correctly so IMO because he isn't having a good season overall), however that doesn't mean that we are a better team without him because we aren't. Lindelof and Varane both sit off too much which is why we conceded more chances with them in the team as the gap between defence & midfield was increased and also why both function better alongside Maguire because he is usually the one to press first. It's not a wild conclusion, it's what anyone should be able to see because it's pretty damn simple. Hark back to when we had genuinely world class defenders in Rio and Vidic, if we'd had two Rio's it wouldn't have been half the pairing and two Vidic's wouldn't have been half the pairing. You need both for it to work properly and it's pretty clear RR can see that.

As for "barely good enough to play in the Championship" , I presume you're trying to tell us you watch next to no other Premier League games without telling us you watch no other Premier League games because frankly that comment is absolutely ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as Maguire being the main on-field reason we're having a bad season. There are lot of reasons we're having a bad season but you put it all on one player which tells me all I really need to know about your agenda.
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"agenda" :lol:

The only agenda I have is to see United winning. Maguire was never good enough for us, this season him and Rashford have been the ones hurting us the most. So if i don't ever see Maguire play for us, that would be too soon. Because I hate to see us lose, that's why. As for Rashford, there's a good player in him, but if he keeps being as bad as he's been - he needs to go as well.
 
NewGlory said:
"agenda" :lol:

The only agenda I have is to see United winning. Maguire was never good enough for us, this season him and Rashford have been the ones hurting us the most. So if i don't ever see Maguire play for us, that would be too soon. Because I hate to see us lose, that's why. As for Rashford, there's a good player in him, but if he keeps being as bad as he's been - he needs to go as well.
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Yeah agenda, if you've watched us this season and think all our on-field problems are down to one player then I hate to break it to you but you're either completely insane or have an agenda.

So just to be clear that I'm understanding your post, your issue is that you hate to see us lose so much that you never want Maguire to play for us again. Even though that would mean we field a central defensive pairing that was statistically considerably worse and also stylistically not best suited to playing together? Talk me through the logic behind that one because that doesn't sound like someone who's main interest is Manchester United winning football matches it sounds like someone who wants rid of Harry Maguire regardless of the consequences, which brings me back to that little 6 letter word beginning with A.
 
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