Matthijs de Ligt image 4

Matthijs de Ligt Netherlands flag

2024-25 Performances


View full 2024-25 profile

5.9 Season Average Rating
Appearances
22
Clean sheets
7
Goals
1
Assists
0
Yellow cards
3
it just smells chaos when the manager who spent big bucks on two players he worked with before benches both of them
The manager is lost. And has no fecking idea what he is doing to be honest. He drops certain players for bad performances and than keeps on playing players like Bruno, Onana, Rashford when they have been stinking up the place for much longer.
 
The manager is lost. And has no fecking idea what he is doing to be honest. He drops certain players for bad performances and than keeps on playing players like Bruno, Onana, Rashford when they have been stinking up the place for much longer.
Onana's been good this season
 
Captaincy is the poisoned chalice , Bruno has been terrible as captain
Absolutely. On the other hand, is there a more difficult captaincy role in global football than post SAF ManUtd?

I hope MdL will take the role and finally bring back leadership and stability. I do not see many more suited players character-wise tbh. An other strong contender would have been Harry Kane but that ship has sailed.
 
It's funny reading how our supporters went from viewing Maguire as a meme and a liability to this new and reinvented CB that is a Vidic regen.

The reason Maguire appears to have turned a leaf is because he doesn't play as much. You can't make many mistakes when you aren't playing.

Let's not get carried away, he is a decent option, but using him as some kind of barometer of success or to take a dump on De Ligt, feels very weird considering every time he had an extended run of games he eventually gets benched due to poor performances.

Saw someone suggest Maguire and Evans should be the starting CB pair.....

Yes.. that's Leicester's CB pairing from feck knows how long ago.

De Ligt and Martinez need games and time to develop and build their relationship and understanding of each other.
 
Not the best start - but I’ll wait for the team to have a semblance of structure before writing him off completely.

In his recent games there was next to no midfield, so he has opposition attackers running freely 1v1 at him every single time - which is not his strength.

He would’ve looked good in the low block yesterday as that plays to his strengths.

Useful squad player at worst - at least the fee was fairly reasonable
 
Maguire had people meme him because at one point he was doing 'meme-able' stuff on a weekly base.

Maguire was never good enough for Manchester United. Too clumsy, not enough acceleration, often takes himself out of play with a bad tackle/lunge and he takes way too long on the ball.

He is good at putting his head in the path of the ball (not at heading itself since he cant aim his headers very well) and he has a pretty good long pass from RCB to the left wing.

So why are other defenders with "not enough acceleration" etc. excelling at other clubs and are considered to be top defenders?

It's just an agenda based on casuals thinking you need to be fast in order to play in a high defensive line in today's game.

And sorry but no, Maguire was always abused and memed even before the nightmare season of 21/22.
 
It really is peak RedCafe.

I've never changed my opinion on him. He's always been elite and I never claimed otherwise.

I don't think the people who think he was Championship quality are the ones saying he's our best defender now.
 
So you did not see the headed goal against Porto to get the team out of trouble...I know it was ages ago :lol:

So you rate a player on what he does in one match? What he does in other matches doesnt matter anymore?

Harry Maguire has scored headers and not all his defensive headers end up at opponents. That doesnt mean that a large part of his headers wont trouble the goalkeeper or wont end up in opponents their feet.
 
Since Maguire gave the captaincy to Bruno he has been a much better player for United. However, if we want to play football as we did during the first half against Crystal Palace, we clearly need De Ligt. His biggest advantage compared to Harry is his ability to play higher up the pitch in a higher standing back4.

I am certain Matthijs will be a fine defender for us as soon he fully settles to the intensity of the PL.
This is actually a myth, by the way. Our line was higher under Ole than at any point under Ten Hag. And under Ten Hag, the player with whom our line is highest is also Maguire.
 
This is actually a myth, by the way. Our line was higher under Ole than at any point under Ten Hag. And under Ten Hag, the player with whom our line is highest is also Maguire.

And with Varane, we always played one of the deepest lines in the league under ETH. But but but Varane has pace and Maguire doesn't
 
The manager is lost. And has no fecking idea what he is doing to be honest. He drops certain players for bad performances and than keeps on playing players like Bruno, Onana, Rashford when they have been stinking up the place for much longer.
This.
Dropped Rashford on Thursday? For what ?
If you feel your players are not playing good .. give them cover .. like we did against Villa .. play defensive..
There are so many games that City/ Arsenal win 1-0..
Change tactics so teams do not follow the same template to beat us ..
Every team can beat us .. so we have to change tactics ..
 
From the site being used to measure our defensive line the other day. Compared to United under Ole -
Varane was playing in a defensive line with a similar height at Madrid.
De Ligt played in a higher defensive line at both Juve and Bayern.
 
From the site being used to measure our defensive line the other day. Compared to United under Ole -
Varane was playing in a defensive line with a similar height at Madrid.
De Ligt played in a higher defensive line at both Juve and Bayern.
Which actually proves the point. High lines come from manager set up, not players.

It will be interesting to see who starts under our next manager. Whether it's Martinez, Yoro, De Ligt or Maguire I do think we have a decent selection of CBs. The much bigger worry is midfield. No legs whatsoever. I wonder if Tuchel (if it is him) compensates with a back 3.
 
Harry was the most abused footballer since Jones, almost no player can survive it mentally. Nevertheless, he played superb before and after that time. I come from politics, it was an obvious shot at Harry by someone with funds. After few mistakes it got larger and larger untill the player loses all confident and with that loses touch and then it's easy to feed him to the sharks. De Ligt isn't batter then Harry. In his first few games he did as many mistakes as possible, lacks positioning, isn't focused, he gives you the felling that he's gonna let a goal in. He outshining or at least equaled Harry's underperformance at the time and in a very short time. He was brought because ETH losing control and favor in the dressing room.
 
And with Varane, we always played one of the deepest lines in the league under ETH. But but but Varane has pace and Maguire doesn't
so are you suggesting that Varane is as slow as Maguire or Maguire is as quick as Varane? Because neither is true.
 
so are you suggesting that Varane is as slow as Maguire or Maguire is as quick as Varane? Because neither is true.

No, I'm suggesting that pace is far from the only thing you need in order to be able to play in a high defensive line. As we've seen in several cases, it's not even that important when you have the correct profiles around you.

I'm saying that despite having decent recovery pace, Varane struggled in the high line.

On the other hand, despite being slower than your average defender, Maguire has been excellent in the high line, and has actually been one of the players that enabled United under Ole, to play in a high line.
 
Thus far he's had 2/3 solid games and two back to back poor games...You can understand why he was dropped for Maguire/Evans yesterday.

When he came on he was decent alongside Evans albeit in a much deeper defensive line.

Jury is still out for me. It's still early days though, once he adjusts to the intensity of the Premier League hopefully he'll then fulfill his potential and become the dominant CB he has always prmoised to be
 
Which actually proves the point. High lines come from manager set up, not players.

It will be interesting to see who starts under our next manager. Whether it's Martinez, Yoro, De Ligt or Maguire I do think we have a decent selection of CBs. The much bigger worry is midfield. No legs whatsoever. I wonder if Tuchel (if it is him) compensates with a back 3.
Indeed, it's not always about the individual player.
On paper yeah, but it's been a while since I felt we translated well from that to on the pitch :lol:
 
He is a threat in corners, freekicks .. .just for that reason I would have him in the team...
 
So you rate a player on what he does in one match? What he does in other matches doesnt matter anymore?

Harry Maguire has scored headers and not all his defensive headers end up at opponents. That doesnt mean that a large part of his headers wont trouble the goalkeeper or wont end up in opponents their feet.
Now I presume you either do not have access to international matches or you just do not watch England so have a look at this;


If that is not enough then just google Harry Maguire goals for Utd and then hopefully it will sink in that he knows what he is doing with his melon.
 
This is actually a myth, by the way. Our line was higher under Ole than at any point under Ten Hag. And under Ten Hag, the player with whom our line is highest is also Maguire.

Can you let me know where you have this data from?

I genuinely cannot remember a game with Maguire starting in which we successfully played a highline - if, it must have been with Varane or more likely Licha that had playmaking role. De Ligt has impressed during his first appearances and then his level dropped, but I truly think he is tactically much more versatile than Maguire. I do really rate Harry with a lower line though.
 
Thought he had a very good game today, very aggressive in getting tackles in and made some good interceptions.
Did also headbutt someone in the knee :lol:
 
Majestic second half. This guy is going to be epic for us. I really believe that.
 
Excellent today and real captain material for me, still needs to settle with a preferred partner weather that is Yoro or Martinez we’ll have to wait and see. I think it might be Yoro with Martinez first choice back up CB and getting plenty of games at LB.
 
Solid today. There's a good player in there somewhere. Just needs to cut out the silly mistakes. Hopefully, he can build a partnership with the quicker more agile Yoro when he comes back.
 
It'll cost us sometimes, but in general I like his aggression.
 
Headbutting peoples knees doesn't do much for the Dutch Harry Maguire comparisons.

In the most loving and respectful way possible I think hes more the Dutch good Phil Jones from 14/15 where he was fit and dominant. Looked fairly quick across the ground today