Matthijs de Ligt image 4

Matthijs de Ligt Netherlands flag

2024-25 Performances


View full 2024-25 profile

5.8 Season Average Rating
Appearances
14
Clean sheets
5
Goals
1
Assists
0
Yellow cards
2
He generally only has these brainfarts for the national team. So don't get an orange away kit.
Or.maybe his mistakes or average performances are blown out of proportion. VVD makes mistakes but you don't hear any news. Not saying de ligt has not made mistakes but Ake was equally bad today but you won't hear that. Timber was hardly good but you won't hear much.

Not targeting you but this sudden idea that De ligt is some average defender is laughable.
 
Or.maybe his mistakes or average performances are blown out of proportion. VVD makes mistakes but you don't hear any news. Not saying de ligt has not made mistakes but Ake was equally bad today but you won't hear that. Timber was hardly good but you won't hear much.

Not targeting you but this sudden idea that De ligt is some average defender is laughable.
Nah, he's had quite a few howlers as an international.

I honestly think Danny Blind just broke him mentally for the national team at his debut. He started him aged 16 then subs him off before halftime after a big mistake leading to us losing the deciding qualifyer match.

Then in 2021 he has the idiotic red card in the round of 16 leading to us losing and now he has two huge mistakes again in 2 starts.

He's a very good player, not average at all, but him and the national team... we had the same with Seedorf.
 
Or.maybe his mistakes or average performances are blown out of proportion. VVD makes mistakes but you don't hear any news. Not saying de ligt has not made mistakes but Ake was equally bad today but you won't hear that. Timber was hardly good but you won't hear much.

Not targeting you but this sudden idea that De ligt is some average defender is laughable.
Every player makes mistakes and they are often blown out of proportion. Usually you have team mates that help you make up for the mistakes but for CBs and goalkeepers they are less forgiving.
 
Welcome to Manchester United, where you are under constant scrutiny and everyone waiting for/hoping that you fail.
 
I got a load of abuse for asking what this meant when he signed. I've seen two in the last two games.

Well, the tweet is about league games and these games for the national team (even though they're in the Nations League ;)) aren't that. He's had a couple of brain farts for the national team and they've been punished by the enemy teams whereas the mistakes his fellow Dutch CBs have made haven't. VVD seems to be able to get away with anything for example. You could also see today that the team relied pretty heavily on De Ligt in playing out from the back (which he's generally pretty good at) and his mistake came from one of many moments where he had to do that. When Van Hecke replaced him it was immediately apparent to me that he wasn't going to be fulfilling that same role. He looked less comfortable on the ball, always chose the safe pass. Maybe that was because it was his debut, I don't know. Haven't watched him enough to say for sure, but looked a different type of CB to De Ligt. More of a classic CB than a ball playing one.
 
So the curse of United has begin. Even on this crappy pause we can't have a nice rest from shameful performances, injuries etc...
 
I’m sure I only read up last week that he’s never made a mistake leading to a goal in his career. Signs for us and a week later what happens…
 
I’m sure I only read up last week that he’s never made a mistake leading to a goal in his career. Signs for us and a week later what happens…
It’s for the club. He’s been bad for the NT since his debut really.

It happens. Carrick and Scholes for us for instance, never really found their groove with England (although not down solely to them, but this Dutch NT generation is hardly stellar)
 
I got a load of abuse for asking what this meant when he signed. I've seen two in the last two games.


Don’t be this guy, this posting is exactly what you’ve hated people doing with Maguire.

feck me I wish we’d all give our players a fecking break, we make the entire place toxic as feck. The club where a good international cb was turned into a meme, so much so that some believed he was a Championship defender. Now we have posters and fans angry because Anthony didn’t do his touchline warm up how they would prefer. It’s all so tiresome.

They’ll all make mistakes, every last one, just like WC, CA winner & FA cup difference maker Martinez v Liverpool. Don’t spend so much time on the microanalysis people.
 
I'm not concerned about him, every defender makes mistakes regularly, but to me it's clear that Martínez is not the ideal partner for him. That's a bigger issue for me, than some momentary lapses in judgment from de Ligt.

In my opinion, we should have Yoro - De Ligt, and Yoro - Maguire as our two best CB pairings, with Martínez at LB, and then add Branthwaite next season. Lindelöf and Evans are fine as 4th and 5th choice for this season, as well as Martínez at LCB sporadically. And when Shaw is fit, he shouldn't really play more than 1 game a week, so it's not like one of Martínez/Shaw would be pushed out of the team permanently. Same with Yoro, he could, and really should be rotated in his first two seasons. I just hope ten Hag isn't planning for Martínez and de Ligt next to each other as the primary CB partnership.
 
He generally only has these brainfarts for the national team. So don't get an orange away kit.
It’s probably as you imply elsewhere related to negative pressure/negative focus starting already at debut, aggravated by being hyped beyond reason, and not helped by NT football having too few games to ‘get over’ stuff laike that so easily.

It’s a challenge for him and anyone playing for Utd that a combo of the media and parts of the fans make a louder negative pressure/focus than for almost any other team.
 
On his performance yesterday, I think he played a fairly decent half mostly, he was very good apart from the two bad passes. Good positioning, good shielding, broke the ball once making a dangerous German attack into a Dutch counter, one very good counter pass at another time, and he was much more disciplined than Van Dijk, who fecked up at the second goal.

It’s really only the two bad passes to hold against him, which are of course serious negatives. 9 out of 10 times such mistakes doesn’t lead directly to goals, so he was unlucky in that sense. If other players did their best, it wouldn’t have been a goal, he would have played the second half and likely wood have gotten a decent rating. The most serious aspect of it to me, is that it was the type of Maguiresque mistake that happens when nerves about making a mistake make you uncertain about your instincts, which is dangerous when passing out from the back.
 
Don’t be this guy, this posting is exactly what you’ve hated people doing with Maguire.

feck me I wish we’d all give our players a fecking break, we make the entire place toxic as feck. The club where a good international cb was turned into a meme, so much so that some believed he was a Championship defender. Now we have posters and fans angry because Anthony didn’t do his touchline warm up how they would prefer. It’s all so tiresome.

They’ll all make mistakes, every last one, just like WC, CA winner & FA cup difference maker Martinez v Liverpool. Don’t spend so much time on the microanalysis people.
I know, just helping people see their double standards.
 
Don’t care what he does on the international stage, lads a quality player and he’s going to be our next captain, in my opinion. Media can get fecked with their love in with Van Dyke.
 
I know, just helping people see their double standards.

'I don't like the way the fanbase treats one of our players so I'm gonna do the exact same thing to a different one of our players to highlight that.'

Flawless logic.
 
Make no mistake, he will be the first in this thread after a De Ligt error because he wants to be right on the internet.
He made an error and I wasn't.

Thanks for confirming I was right though after all the mocking I took.
 
You’re right of course, but everyone gets excited at a new signing and it won’t take United fans long to completely turn on De Ligt and make him a meme also, we certainly don’t need to fuel that.
Yeah I don't know why there was the need to be posting clips.
 
I’d rather ban people who struggle to contextualise stats. An infinitely better solution for redcafe.
Would be a rather quiet place then. Maybe you can offer a course in using stats? udemy? Webinar? Might be worth a shot. I am sure, many on here look up to some posters and strive to be like them. Hell, even me from time to time.
 
De Ligt was really REALLY great at Ajax.

But i think the media hyped him up too much. At such an early age.
The pressure must have been unbearable.
After Ajax it only went downhill.

Don't think he's any better than Maquire at the moment.
But lets hope ETH can get the best out of him.
 
De Ligt was really REALLY great at Ajax.

But i think the media hyped him up too much. At such an early age.
The pressure must have been unbearable.
After Ajax it only went downhill.

Don't think he's any better than Maquire at the moment.
But lets hope ETH can get the best out of him.

He doesn't need to be better than Maguire.
 
He probably could’ve done better, but there were plenty of other defensive errors evident in that goal he’s being ridiculed for.

That was like a United goal. Van Dijk doing a great Martinez impression with the full back and winger fast asleep.
 
He probably could’ve done better, but there were plenty of other defensive errors evident in that goal he’s being ridiculed for.

That was like a United goal. Van Dijk doing a great Martinez impression with the full back and winger fast asleep.

De Ligt's mistake wasn't even a defensive one for Germany's first goal. It was just a misplaced pass in the build-up that led to Germany gaining possession and then scoring, if I'm not mistaken?

For the second goal, which is the one I think you are talking about, there's absolutely no way you can blame him, at all. He didn't make a mistake there. Arguably, maybe van Dijk could've been a bit more aware of his surroundings, but that goal is mostly on Timber and especially the player next to him that just let the German player roam free into the box and didn't even try to close him down.
 
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Another one they’ll try to memeify. We need to bounce back in the league and change the narrative.
 
De Ligt's mistake wasn't even a defensive one for Germany's first goal. It was just a misplaced pass in the build-up that led to Germany gaining possession and then scoring, if I'm not mistaken?

For the second goal, which is the one I think you are talking about, there's absolutely no way you can blame him, at all. He didn't make a mistake there. Arguably, maybe van Dijk could've been a bit more aware of his surroundings, but that goal is mostly on Timber and especially the player next to him that just let the German player roam free into the box and didn't even try to close him down.
I’m not saying he made a mistake as such, but a dominant defender probably does sweep up the initial ball in.

But after that, as you say Timber is probably the culprit but I’d expect the best defender in the world to have some awareness that the ball could roll into the danger zone.
 
De Ligt’s passing was poor, even before the mistake. He can do much better. In his Ajax days he would dribble with the ball a lot more, which suited him.

Tah on the other side, his replacement at Bayern, had an absolute nightmare and is lucky not to be red carded.
 
One thing’s for sure, Koeman’s man management of De Ligt over this break has been diabolical. Calls him out in public over a mistake in the first match then hooks him at half time in the second match and tells the world’s media he did this to protect him from himself. We’ll be getting back damaged goods. What a twat.
 
De Ligt’s passing was poor, even before the mistake. He can do much better. In his Ajax days he would dribble with the ball a lot more, which suited him.

Tah on the other side, his replacement at Bayern, had an absolute nightmare and is lucky not to be red carded.
I only partly agree. He had two howlers, eerily similar passes of the type that Maguire had regularily when he was down on confidence. Apart from that, his passing was tidy and precise. He also had some very good passes through the lines, a couple of which led to very good counters.
 
In the first half he played well doing several bits of defending well. However before the first goal he had another pass into midfield that was short and gave the ball away. Then on the first goal he plays a pass that allowed an opponent to get a foot on it leading to a turnover. So not just the first goal but a time before that where he could have been punished.

2nd goal he doesnt deal with the cross as his attempt just leaves the ball trickling to the attacker to score. Its a tough one and perhaps unlucky but it is a piece of defending to do and he doesnt cleanly win the ball and deal with it. Its Dumfries who makes the first mistake and doesnt clear before De Ligt's involvement. But after Dumfries mistake, De Ligt isnt able to cut it out.
 
He had had a poor run of games to the point that Koeman felt he had to take him off after 45 min for his own sake and the sake of the team. We can give out about Koeman's treatment of him all we like but his only concern is doing best for the Dutch national team and he obviously felt that was best served by benching De Ligt.

Another big decision for ETH on Saturday , does he start him over Maguire. If he does and De Ligt puts in another poor performance , ETH gets in the neck for starting a player who was obviously out of sorts all week.
 
He's lucky he's got his hipster cloak of protection, if that's Maguire he's getting pelters.
 
He's lucky he's got his hipster cloak of protection, if that's Maguire he's getting pelters.
While I don’t want to trash him, as he’s a good yet not great player, I agree with the general notion. If he wasn’t that player that once was so promising at Ajax and hadn’t this likeable attitude towards the game, he’d be under much more scrutiny. At least I think that’s what happened at Bayern. His performances never merited his status.
 
He had had a poor run of games to the point that Koeman felt he had to take him off after 45 min for his own sake and the sake of the team. We can give out about Koeman's treatment of him all we like but his only concern is doing best for the Dutch national team and he obviously felt that was best served by benching De Ligt.

Another big decision for ETH on Saturday , does he start him over Maguire. If he does and De Ligt puts in another poor performance , ETH gets in the neck for starting a player who was obviously out of sorts all week.
But Maguire makes plenty of mistakes as well so I'd start De Ligt and see how he goes after a run of games in the team.