Mcfredinay

If there is anything constant about Manchester United post-Fergie, is that we continuously get rid of players widely slated by our fans as not being good enough, and then regret it years later when we realise they were better than their immediate replacements.
 
Mike Smalling said:
Getting rid of Fred was always a mistake, in my opinion. Yes, he had wild inconsistency on the ball, but he at least knew how to play the position in terms of closing down and covering, and he had the athleticism needed to do it. Casemiro, Eriksen, Mainoo (and McTominay for that matter) all either lack the physicality, positional awareness, or both. With Ugarte missing, he would have been dead certain to start a game like yesterday, in my opinion.

There was 2-3 seasons of semi-useful midfield play left in Fred when we let him go. Letting go of McTominay was fine however.
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Fred was a very useful midfielder who only really was used correctly once Ragnick came in as a more advanced CM (he had that amazing stat for scoring or assisting a quarter of all of our goals in that period), ironically that is also where McT ended up being best used under ETH. So we had two more offensively minded 8's trying to play 6. Neither was good enough for those roles and we needed some kind of fee for Fred given his age, McT was a good sale in my opinion.

We just need to be wiser with incoming players, if the caf can see the need for athleticism it's amazing the club can't - that said, you have to give Ineos time because half the issues we have in the middle are because Case/Eriksen are still here. So far their only signing there is Ugarte and he looks legitimately very good for that specific role.
 
Either of Herrera or Fred would have been great in our midfield 2. Heck Telles would have been a good fit for us for LWB.
 
Martial said:
If there is anything constant about Manchester United post-Fergie, is that we continuously get rid of players widely slated by our fans as not being good enough, and then regret it years later when we realise they were better than their immediate replacements.
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Or maybe playing for Manchester united is much harder than people realize. All the players we have let go since Saf retired, I would say none of them should have stayed.
 
Martial said:
If there is anything constant about Manchester United post-Fergie, is that we continuously get rid of players widely slated by our fans as not being good enough, and then regret it years later when we realise they were better than their immediate replacements.
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I can't think of any.
 
Both were shit, Cas & Eriksen who replaced them in 2022-2023 gave us 1 decent season and then their legs were gone, so we back to shit, Mainoo was good last season & now he is suffering, Ugarte is giving it his best but it's too early for us to consider him quality, Bruno is terrible in anh CM role, so, yeah I don't miss them, not because the replacements are better but simply because they were totally shit with us.
 
AndySmith1990 said:
You know things are bad when people miss players who were deemed nowhere near good enough in the past
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Well that's the point isn't it? We've managed to downgrade on two players who weren't good enough.

Both Fred and McT would quite obviously improve us at the moment.
 
Annihilate Now! said:
Well that's the point isn't it? We've managed to downgrade on two players who weren't good enough.

Both Fred and McT would quite obviously improve us at the moment.
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Collyear could do a job that either could do. We need to trust him. Hopefully when Case goes he will get his chance
 
Fred is the most misunderstood player I think we’ve had in my time as a supporter on here. As a pressing midfielder he was elite but we played him at 6 because he could pass off either foot and there was nobody else and by the time we changed him to 8 the majorly of fans had made their mind up about him and wouldn’t change no matter how well he played.

Deadly little dynamo who always gave 100% which is more than most of this shower over the last 5 years
 
Herrera/Carrick from LVG's first season... damn we could only dream of a midfield that good at the moment.
 
Sadly, I think McT's presence in the squad is a huge miss. Just his professionalism alone would have likely raised our performances.
 
Martial said:
If there is anything constant about Manchester United post-Fergie, is that we continuously get rid of players widely slated by our fans as not being good enough, and then regret it years later when we realise they were better than their immediate replacements.
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Mc Fred were not good enough for this club. Their replacements are even worse. We should not be accepting mediocrity just because our board are unable to source adequate players.
 
Martial said:
If there is anything constant about Manchester United post-Fergie, is that we continuously get rid of players widely slated by our fans as not being good enough, and then regret it years later when we realise they were better than their immediate replacements.
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Please list them because I couldn’t agree less. Replacing shit players with shit players doesn’t make those shit players who were replaced less shit. They’re still shit.
 
Amrabat was brilliant last few games of last season at DM. Would have been decent cover at the very least.
 
Ali Dia said:
Fred is the most misunderstood player I think we’ve had in my time as a supporter on here. As a pressing midfielder he was elite but we played him at 6 because he could pass off either foot and there was nobody else and by the time we changed him to 8 the majorly of fans had made their mind up about him and wouldn’t change no matter how well he played.

Deadly little dynamo who always gave 100% which is more than most of this shower over the last 5 years
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Agreed. It was a mistake to let him go, he played hard, was a good dressing room presence, and he had more quality than he was given credit for. Not his fault that he was played in the wrong position most of his time here.
 
Martial said:
If there is anything constant about Manchester United post-Fergie, is that we continuously get rid of players widely slated by our fans as not being good enough, and then regret it years later when we realise they were better than their immediate replacements.
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nobody misses them.
Apart from the player fc fans.
 
Back when they were here, I said they’d be excellent squad players to keep around. Fast forward a season or two, and instead of having Fred and McTominay as backups for Ugarte and Mainoo, we found ourselves relying on Casemiro and Eriksen.

Now, to be clear, this wasn’t the sole reason we lost, but it’s hard to ignore how Fred and McTominay could have provided the energy and dynamism needed to match Newcastle’s relentless midfield.
 
Fred was a baffling sale at the time and when McTominay went it was obvious we had sold a chunk of our goal threat without replacing it.
 
I rated Fred as a backup/squad player. He could press well and knew how to get around the pitch. Scottie had to go, however.
 
Judas said:
Please list them because I couldn’t agree less. Replacing shit players with shit players doesn’t make those shit players who were replaced less shit. They’re still shit.
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I think the nuance that gets lost in these discussions is that squad building is not always about having the best and second-best player in the world at every position. You need squad depth and occasionally something a little different. Park, for example, was never really first choice for any extended period of time, but there were loads of games we won simply because he was in the squad and could do a job when called upon. Players like Fred, Dan James, Elanga, Andreas, McTominay, Evans, and even Smalling & Welbeck may not have been good enough to push the first XI forward on their own, but they have all proven in their careers since leaving that they offer things the squad has lacked in the wilderness years.

Watching Casemiro and Eriksen covering midfield last night like they had bowling balls for feet must surely make you realize that the energy & character Fred brought to the team would have been at least a marginal upgrade. Sure, his passing wasn't fantastic - but neither have been Casemiro or Eriksen's. If we had to shed a midfield player's wages, Eriksen seemed a much better candidate.

This is probably an unpopular one, but I'm not sure Dan James hasn't put in more respectable shifts in a United shirt than Antony and Sancho combined - players who cost a combined €185m. He's still the 5th highest transfer fee we've ever received, I think? For that matter, Anthony Elanga is probably also proving each week now to be a more useful player than either of Antony/Sancho.

Andreas is the closest thing we've had to a true alternative/backup for Bruno and he's come on leaps and bounds at Fulham. I'm not suggesting we should've had the foresight to see Amorim's system coming, but he'd be more useful in the squad now than loads of players.

We haven't replaced McTominay's goals and losing players who live and breathe Manchester United like he did surely contributes to an overall decline in the culture of the first team.

We've seen since his return that Jonny Evans never should've been sold - we persisted with the likes of Fosu-Mensah, Rojo, Lindelof, Bailly, and even Maguire who've rarely reached the level Jonny did.

It's not always that fans are pining for mediocre players - it's part of the larger recruitment issue where we're forced to sell a 5/10 and keep a 3/10 because of wages or resale value. Especially in the age of PSR/FFP, we've seen United move on some of these homegrown players just to sign mediocre players from other leagues who have made the club worse and hamstrung us financially so we're deeper into the hole we've got to dig out of. If we're going to be shit, I'd rather be shit with an academy player on the wing not doing enough than €100 mil Antony who's the 2nd or 3rd highest earner at the club who does even less while also keeping us from making any further signings until he comes off the books (likely for free or a pittance compared to what we paid).
 
Fred gave us some fantastic performances as a #8. Our misuse of him under Mourinho and Ole was the biggest problem. Rangnick and Ten Hag got much better performances out of him, because they actually used him properly. If Fred was still here, he would have played yesterday, and almost certainly put in a much better performance than either Eriksen or Casemiro.

McTominay was a nice bench option when we needed a goal, but he was rarely ever a good starting midfielder. Having him would still have been nice, but he put in so many completely anonymous performances for us.
 
Walters_19_MuFc said:
Back when they were here, I said they’d be excellent squad players to keep around. Fast forward a season or two, and instead of having Fred and McTominay as backups for Ugarte and Mainoo, we found ourselves relying on Casemiro and Eriksen.

Now, to be clear, this wasn’t the sole reason we lost, but it’s hard to ignore how Fred and McTominay could have provided the energy and dynamism needed to match Newcastle’s relentless midfield.
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Joelinton bullied Mctominay last season, and we saw time and time again those two getting completely out played and outrun in midfield. Obviously at this stage of their careers Eriksen and Casemiro are worse but I’ve no doubt they’d have been out the door already if we could get rid of them.

Giving new contracts to likes of Mctominay and Fred which we’d have to have done would have made them unsellable and just left us with more players to get rid of. Unfortunately most of
the players we are desperate to offload will only go as their contracts expire.
 
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