[CM]

Maybe we should have kept Sabitzer, who was far more impressive than what we have seen so far from Mount.

Sabitzer would've been a terrible signing. He was afraid of the ball and all his best play happened in the final third.

The problem is every player Ten Hag has wanted to play this position does their best work in the attacking third of the pitch. Eriksen, Fred, Sabitzer, Mount. It's abundantly clear what we need but I don't think we're going to get it. Even if we sign a new midfielder Ten Hag will continue to shoehorn Mount into his side because that's what he wants.

 

[sullydnl]

Generally, the Caf is wildly optimistic about any new signings. When was the last time there was so little enthusiasm over signing someone as Mount and they went on to be a success?

Carrick is the closest comparison that comes to mind.

Having previously looked through some of the posts on here from that time, complaints included things like "what does he do?", "would be fine for £5m but we're massively overpaying", "overpriced because he's English", "not a leader", "Scholes/Carrick midfield isn't balanced", "not a box to box player, which is obviously what we need", etc. And of course people asking why we hadn't signed obviously-better-random-player X instead (I saw Didier Zokora mentioned) or arguing Cartick wasn't even better than Fletcher. One poster even said he wasn't a better actual DM than John O'Shea.

 

[Pronewbie]

Carrick is the closest comparison that comes to mind.

Having previously looked through some of the posts on here from that time, complaints included things like "what does he do?", "would be fine for £5m but we're massively overpaying", "overpriced because he's English", "not a leader", "Scholes/Carrick midfield isn't balanced", "not a box to box player, which is obviously what we need", etc. And of course people asking why we hadn't signed obviously-better-random-player X instead (I saw Didier Zokora mentioned) or arguing Cartick wasn't even better than Fletcher. One poster even said he wasn't a better actual DM than John O'Shea.

There were initial doubts because Carrick was a completely different profile but he quickly changed many opinions after a couple of games. Mount on the other hand..

 

[Ronaldinho's snakebite]

Does his family even rate him?

I'm all for criticizing players, but don't go overboard by mentioning his family

 

[Borys]

I refuse to believe he's such an awful player. It seems to be that we just don't know how to utilize those players. The problem is because of the runs he makes in the box, effectively we are a man short in midfield. ETH got it completely wrong so far.

He has to be pushed deeper, or we replace Antony with Eriksen and move Bruno to the right.

 

[Leethal]

I'm all for criticizing players, but don't go overboard by mentioning his family

To be fair, his brother is all out on social media defending Mount's performances. If his family wants to put themselves out there - in the social media driven world we live in - people are going to fire back. And frankly, from a footballing perspective, Mount is currently indefensible.

 

[Jacky Quacky]

Biggest issue is he lacks aggression so he drifts a lot more in and out of games than he should. Compare that to citys number 10 come 8 midfielders who are constantly in the game and aggressive which can make up for their out of position deficiency’s

 

[Godfather]

Sabitzer would've been a terrible signing. He was afraid of the ball and all his best play happened in the final third.

The problem is every player Ten Hag has wanted to play this position does their best work in the attacking third of the pitch. Eriksen, Fred, Sabitzer, Mount. It's abundantly clear what we need but I don't think we're going to get it. Even if we sign a new midfielder Ten Hag will continue to shoehorn Mount into his side because that's what he wants.

Sabitzer is a better footballer than Mount but his fitness issues made this a no go

 

[RedBanker]

Sabitzer would've been a terrible signing. He was afraid of the ball and all his best play happened in the final third.

The problem is every player Ten Hag has wanted to play this position does their best work in the attacking third of the pitch. Eriksen, Fred, Sabitzer, Mount. It's abundantly clear what we need but I don't think we're going to get it. Even if we sign a new midfielder Ten Hag will continue to shoehorn Mount into his side because that's what he wants.

Don't think Mount is the hill on which ETH....

 

[IrishRedDevil]

I’m confused even if we do get a deep midfielder to sit beside Casemiro.

Which of the attack players drops out?

So we are struggling to score already, but we will play with one less attacker?

 

[sullydnl]

There were initial doubts because Carrick was a completely different profile but he quickly changed many opinions after a couple of games. Mount on the other hand..

Hmmmm.

Posts from a thread created September 18th, 2006:

Whats the point of spending £18m on a player if he cant get in the team ahead of John O'shea?

He was being rested

Carrick and Scholes would not have worked in this paticular match.

So if they can't perform against good side, then what was the point of spending almost 20 million to pair two players that will never beat a good side?

Or maybe we should've begun our summer chase with Senna's or Hargreaves' capture and then thought about bringing Carrick as a partner for one of them?

So Carrick isn't good enough to play against a pretty mediocre Arsenal team? £18m seems a lot of money for that quality a player.

I think that was the plan all along.To get one DM and then Carrick.Just hope we have something planned for the January window.But i'm not holding my breath.

if he ain't settled not playing him is settling him in how? and if he ain't up for it he's a 14m john o'shea. sorry , fergie fecked it up and compounded the feck up by fecking up again.

Carrick is not our answer in midfield!

Carrick won't make a major difference to our team i reckon, i felt that the moment we signed him. It's almost like playing 2 Scholes' in the same team. I reckon if he were a Spanish version for example, it would have been more apparent to many on the caf that Carrick was not the answer. If we were linked with De la Pena as our main target, people would have said we don't need him, we should go fro Senna if we want anyone from La Liga etc. Carrick is not the type of player that was ever going to offer THE solution to our midfield, despite being a lot better than O'Shea and Fletch.

And all this stuff about giving him a chance to settle, i find it ironic because it was exactly this 'settling factor' that caused many to be outrightly against us signing a continental or South American player, so why do the same people turn around and wait for Carrick to settle?

Don't get me wrong, again, i think he's got qualities, just not required as long as Scholes is around. Senna or Hargreaves would have served us better. Hopefully i'll be proven wrong of course.

O'Shit > Carrick

And some more from another Carrick-related thread, created a few days later on September 23rd 2006:

was he playing today?

18 million quid genius

Overpriced waste of space. Sure it works for Tottenham to make only back-passes and put through balls from time to time because teams do not defend against Tottenham. Ffs, even Rio moved more forward when we needed the goal. Vds was just behind Carrick. Yet people here can't understand why Lampard plays for England and not Carrick. I thought when he was bought that he was an upgrade of Fletcher. Sorry to say, I have not seen anything that says that he's even that. He has lot of talent, great passer, when he wants to try. Good tackler, when he wants to try. Also has a solid presence, when he feels for it. But Fletcher has more passion in his little finger compared to Carrick. That's one of the things you can't teach or train.

DM? he has no physical presence.

And what the hell is he? I have never in my life seen a more defensive and shy midfielder. He will never fit in a 4-4-2. If we are going to change our traditional formation for the sake of one player we could as well bought a star.

For him to work in our line up we need a holding player and that would change the whole system. Without that then Carrick seems like the most pointless signing of the summer.

Fletcher>Carrick

So Carrick's the latest player we are writing off after a few starts.

Well done, this seems to be the new trend for our supporters.

you cant compare the Evra signing with that of Carrick. Nobodys expecting miracles from our 18 million pound megastar but at the moment he doesnt offer anything tha we didnt already have before.

Name one clear cut chance that Scholes / Carrick created ?
Our midfield was shit today....the supposedly great passers didn't put anyone through on goal or do anything special.

Unless we get a ball winner (Carrick is a joke as a DM) in the middle who allows our other CM to support the strikers, we will struggle. We are simply not good enough to play a passing game like Arsenal and cut the opposition open centrally.

Carrick will never exist without DM playing next to him, that's all. As long as we don't have Hargreaves or some other hard-working player, Carrick won't fulfil his apparent potential.

Lets have it right, he's average.

Why the hell did we feck up the Senna deal

When we spent 18 million on an 'English' midfielder everyone was going on about how he would fit readily into the team. Now that he has a few poor games, out come the excuses about settling in.

Makelele runs around a lot, that's why he is so useful. Carrick just stands on the grass and waits for the ball to come.

This is very similar to the Evra situation we had last season. Without seeing him really play for United many people on here shamelessly slated him and then after a few matches this season they were calling him brilliant. Now I can't say whether Carrick is going to be a hit or not but at least give him the time to settle in and play before you completely judge him. Also factor in the overall team was quite poor, it wasn't like he stuck out as bad because many of the players were average/below average out there. The only problem with Redcafe is we have too many people basing their opinions on players after a couple games or a couple bad/average performances, its just knee jerk reactions. Same with Ronaldo, people were saying he should leave and he is a traitor just last month, now he is our best player and everybody is following him. And the same thing is happening with Rooney, people seem to forget what he did for us last season and now he hasn't started that great people are over exaggerating his performances and creating unneccesary talk about him.

I know of hardly anyone who think's Evra's brilliang (sic). Give it a couple of months, first impressions are right with this lad. He's bobbins.

Etc, etc.

 

[arthurka]

In before the great movement brigade comes in. If that was the point we should have kept Lingard.

 

[Godfather]

I’m confused even if we do get a deep midfielder to sit beside Casemiro.

Which of the attack players drops out?

So we are struggling to score already, but we will play with one less attacker?

Your confusion is justified. It would mean he'd have to bench his shiny new 60 mill toy

 

[predator]

Sabitzer would've been a terrible signing. He was afraid of the ball and all his best play happened in the final third.

The problem is every player Ten Hag has wanted to play this position does their best work in the attacking third of the pitch. Eriksen, Fred, Sabitzer, Mount. It's abundantly clear what we need but I don't think we're going to get it. Even if we sign a new midfielder Ten Hag will continue to shoehorn Mount into his side because that's what he wants.

I literally just posted the same thing in another thread hadn't seen it on here in a while.

I don't think I've ever used that word in a non football conversation.

So true though. I do like Mount but ETH seems determined to play him even though he isn't cut out for that deeper role

 

[JeffFromHK]

So you would have sold Vidic and Evra?

Poor analogy.

I am never saying that "a player needs to be sold because he has two first bad games". I am actually replying to his opposite say "We have no right to determine that a player does not fit just because he has two bad games", according to this logic, James Garner should be given a full season before he is sold? When you know someone doesn't fit and know WHY someone doesn't fit, you don't need 50 games make a decision that he doesn't fit.

It is plain and obvious that the Mount-Bruno-Casemiro never works and I had that thought before the first game started, knowing their respective shortcomings and limitations, just like I know Maguire will never be a good winger even though I have never watched him play on the wing once.

 

[sullydnl]

I’m confused even if we do get a deep midfielder to sit beside Casemiro.

Which of the attack players drops out?

So we are struggling to score already, but we will play with one less attacker?

We would use that other midfielder sometimes. In the way Arsenal used Partey in CM against City, for example. They also actually used him at RB in their last game, because he was going to spend so much of it inverting into midfield.

But just as you will also see Arsenal regularly used a Rice/Havertz/Odegaard midfield, you're going to see us keep using this Casemiro/Bruno/Mount midfield too. So regardless of who else we sign to give us more options, this will still be our Plan A in most games so it needs to get better in itself anyway.

 

[Walters_19_MuFc]

I’m confused even if we do get a deep midfielder to sit beside Casemiro.

Which of the attack players drops out?

So we are struggling to score already, but we will play with one less attacker?

No need to be confused. ten Hag doesn't want a midfielder to ''sit beside'' Casemiro and never has. The Amrabat links have merely come due to McTominay wanting out, hence why we won't sign him until we sell McTominay.

The issue is, whether Mount is the right profile of playing to play as the deeper 8. Is he the ideal player to stitch everything together in our midfielder? My initial thoughts were no, and I remain of that opinion. However, that doesn't mean he can't be a success. As said before, I'd like ten Hag to allow Bruno to be the roaming 8, with Mount pushed further forward.

 

[Cassidy]

No need to be confused. ten Hag doesn't want a midfielder to ''sit beside'' Casemiro and never has. The Amrabat links have merely come due to McTominay wanting out, hence why we won't sign him until we sell McTominay.

Amrabat link has nothing do with McTominay. Fred and VDB leaving was supposed to cover the Amrabat fee.

McTominay leaving links are Goreztka, Onana etc

 

[renatosanches85]

Great. We bought a cm to play him as a winger.

Except he’s not a CM, anyone can tell you that. He is a no.10, but not better than Fernandes, or a pressing winger. He never played as a CM for Chelsea he was between the lines.

 

[Smithy89]

We really do make confusing signings, he's a good player but just an odd move.

 

[Annihilate Now!]

I imagine it won't be long before we go full Juan Mata and he's on the RW.

 

[Lecland07]

If we are looking to play a more possession game, Mount is far more suited to it than Fernandes.

 

[Walters_19_MuFc]

Amrabat link has nothing do with McTominay. Fred and VDB leaving was supposed to cover the Amrabat fee.

McTominay leaving links are Goreztka, Onana etc

So why haven't we signed him yet?

 

[RuudTom83]

If Wolves was a 1/10 then Spurs was a 3/10 first half 1/10 second half.

Progress

 

[sullydnl]

No need to be confused. ten Hag doesn't want a midfielder to ''sit beside'' Casemiro and never has. The Amrabat links have merely come due to McTominay wanting out, hence why we won't sign him until we sell McTominay.

The issue is, whether Mount is the right profile of playing to play as the deeper 8. Is he the ideal player to stitch everything together in our midfielder? My initial thoughts were no, and I remain of that opinion. However, that doesn't mean he can't be a success. As said before, I'd like ten Hag to allow Bruno to be the roaming 8, with Mount pushed further forward.

I'm not sure I'd phrase it quite that strongly.

ETH certainly doesn't want a midfielder to sit beside Casemiro as part of his Plan A. But that doesn't mean he wouldn't like that Amrabat profile player to sometimes mix things up in certain games or circumstances with a Casemiro/Amrabat pairing. Be it as a part of the starting side or as a tactical change in the second half of games. Not hard to imagine him using a Casemiro/Amrabat midfield to see out games, for example.

 

[Cassidy]

So why haven't we signed him yet?

Read the post. Pretty sure VDB has not left yet

 

[House Mkhitaryan]

Oh I can count. It's been two in case you got lost.

He was crap in preseason as well. I've always thought he was vastly overrated. And more than anything, it's just not what we needed. Absolute waste of our summer budget.

 

[podurban2]

We took a squad player from Chelsea, turned him into our marquee midfield signing, gave him the #7 shirt and paid them £60 million towards funding their new look midfield of Lavia & Caicedo. Masterclass.

Such a poor signing.

 

[Andycoleno9]

Yeah, we wasted money on him. He will be ok for us (as Mata was), he will have some decent numbers (because he IS a good player) but he will not solve our problems in midfield. Classic example of luxury signing.
Buying a good player for big money to play him on wrong position. United way.

Meanwhile classic mc Kovacic is running the show for City. For only 30 mil.

 

[ForeverRed1]

Both him and Bruno are being played out of position and people are shocked it’s not working?

 

[Walters_19_MuFc]

We would use that other midfielder sometimes. In the way Arsenal used Partey in CM against City, for example. They also actually used him at RB in their last game, because he was going to spend so much of it inverting into midfield.

But just as you will also see Arsenal regularly used a Rice/Havertz/Odegaard midfield, you're going to see us keep using this Casemiro/Bruno/Mount midfield too. So regardless of who else we sign to give us more options, this will still be our Plan A in most games so it needs to get better in itself anyway.

Exactly this!

Actually, I was bit confused when Arteta replaced Xhaka with Havertz. I get that the latter will potentially pose more of a goal threat, but Xhaka was more all rounded, in my opinion, and they had a nice balance with him and Odegaard as the 8s.

Like Mount, we have someone like Havertz, who will potentially pose more of a goal threat, but I don't know if he compliments Bruno and Casemiro that well.

I remember watching a video (think it was a Tifo vid that I can't seem to find) looking at the kind of attributes Bruno and Casemiro lack and the type of midfielder that would make up for the lack of those attributes. Essentially, it said we needed a player who excels in progressive carries, which I guess is why ten Hag wanted De Jong so much.

ten Hag has settled with Mount and I really hope he can make it work, but in terms of complimenting the players we currently have, I'm not sure I see it. At least not yet anyway!

 

[ElDiabloRojo]

We took a squad player from Chelsea, turned him into our marquee midfield signing, gave him the #7 shirt and paid them £60 million towards funding their new look midfield of Lavia & Caicedo. Masterclass.

Sabotage.

Seems the manager picks a player and no one at the club challenges him on where what why, surely not the case!!!

Mount is a awful signing, not what we needed at all. Hopefully I'm wrong.

 

[bond19821982]

He was better but he isn't a Fred replacement by any means. ETH needs to fecking figure this out.

 

[ScholesyTheWise]

Carrick is the closest comparison that comes to mind.

Having previously looked through some of the posts on here from that time, complaints included things like "what does he do?", "would be fine for £5m but we're massively overpaying", "overpriced because he's English", "not a leader", "Scholes/Carrick midfield isn't balanced", "not a box to box player, which is obviously what we need", etc. And of course people asking why we hadn't signed obviously-better-random-player X instead (I saw Didier Zokora mentioned) or arguing Cartick wasn't even better than Fletcher. One poster even said he wasn't a better actual DM than John O'Shea.

I'd say that the average fan (and so, by default the average forum) gets it right/wrong in the same percentages as clubs' signings are hit/miss.

for every thread of old times that looks funny because top players like Carrick, Vidic, Evra and Ronaldo were given up on,

you're gonna have threads in which Antony, Sancho, Van De Beek, Schneiderlin, Schweinsteiger, Falcao, Fellaini etc were written off from the get-go, and they were indeed car crashes of signings.

Football fans tend to be wildly impatient but they're not always far off in their initial judgement. they're sometimes quite accurate.

All of us posters here have watched thousands of hours of football. While that doesn't qualify us to become managers,
it does make recognizing someone who's out of his depth rather possible.

with Mount, I've no idea what to think.
I haven't watched him enough for Chelsea or England.
And I only saw him in United matches where we were crap so I won't expect him to shine above the collective awfulness.

I'm quite convinced that this Mount-Bruno-Casemiro thing is a really bad idea,
but I can't seem to form an opinion on him as a player just yet.

He's a weird one to digest. Jack of many trades it seems, but master of which exactly?

 

[Walters_19_MuFc]

Read the post. Pretty sure VDB has not left yet

I read your post and it still doesn't make sense.

Fred and VDB, with the latter hardly featuring, played as a 8/10. They came in to replace Eriksen (8) and Bruno (10).

When McTominay played last season, it was as a 6, and more often than not, he stepped in for Casemiro. Therefore, if we were to sign Amrabat, we'd essentially have three number 6s, which is a further squad imbalance.

As it stands, we have:

Casemiro/McTominay
Mount/Eriksen
Bruno/Vdb?

Assuming we keep McTominay and sign Amrabat, it will mean pushing McTominay into a more attacking position, which he can play, but if you watched us last season, he mainly only played in place of Casemiro.

 

[Cassidy]

I read your post and it still doesn't make sense.

Fred and VDB, with the latter hardly featuring, played as a 8/10. They came in to replace Eriksen (8) and Bruno (10).

When McTominay played last season, it was as a 6, and more often than not, he stepped in for Casemiro. Therefore, if we were to sign Amrabat, we'd essentially have three number 6s, which is a further squad imbalance.

As it stands, we have:

Casemiro/McTominay
Mount/Eriksen
Bruno/Vdb?

Assuming we keep McTominay and sign Amrabat, it will mean pushing McTominay into a more attacking position, which he can play, but if you watched us last season, he mainly only played in place of Casemiro.

Regardless of your opinion facts are facts
Its has been reported multiple times. Amrabat would be signed once Fred and VDB leave.

If McTominay leaves United want another midfielder

 

[Walters_19_MuFc]

I'm not sure I'd phrase it quite that strongly.

ETH certainly doesn't want a midfielder to sit beside Casemiro as part of his Plan A. But that doesn't mean he wouldn't like that Amrabat profile player to sometimes mix things up in certain games or circumstances with a Casemiro/Amrabat pairing. Be it as a part of the starting side or as a tactical change in the second half of games. Not hard to imagine him using a Casemiro/Amrabat midfield to see out games, for example.

Do you think he would play those two as a pivot?

I know he went with Fred in the so called tougher games, and against Madrid during pre-season, he went Mainoo, but the aforementioned players are more all rounded players, who can go forward, too. I don't really get that when watching Amrabat.

 

[IhabX7]

I’m as puzzled as anyone as to why we prioritized signing him this window, but before people write him off he should be tried instead of Fernandes and not alongside him. Bruno has been horrific in possession, but he still makes a contribution to goal scoring opportunities, so it’s really tough to drop him. But it needs to be tried soon.

 

[Lentwood]

I really feel for Mason Mount at the moment. Our fanbase is so spoiled and entitled sometimes.

The blokes been here two games. Isn't it at least fair to give him a season before we decide to completely write him off?

Some people care more about being right than actually supporting the club. "If I get in early and say he's a waste of money, I'll look clever on the Internet"

Give the lad a break. He's not the reason we haven't started well and he deserves time in any case

 

[Walters_19_MuFc]

Regardless of your opinion facts are facts
Its has been reported multiple times. Amrabat would be signed once Fred and VDB leave.

If McTominay leaves United want another midfielder

Oh, those accurate reports linking us with every man and his dog.