He is not judged on 1 appearance and then judged on the preseason game. He is not a decent defender, he is very good one.
Milan Skriniar
- Thread starter devilish
- Start date
He is not judged on 1 appearance and then judged on the preseason game. He is not a decent defender, he is very good one.
Lets sign Koulibaly so that we won't have to argue about who's better, Maguire or Skriniar.
I'm not arguing that reading into a pre-season game is a fools errand, only hinting that Skriniar is perhaps not the player some on here might claim him to be. More that his legend on the CAF is born out of a thorough lack of scrutiny.
Plenty of posts stating he's been judged on 1 pre season game. I'm yet to see any very good performances by him, he's not even the best defender in a poor Inter Milan side.
Who is the best defender in that Inter side?
Skriniar has that presence you love in your CBs. I’d have him over any of our CB options.
Seriously?? Could have easily been 5/6-0...
Off top of my head, Matic hit the post, Greenwood the bar, Lingard shot cleared off the the line and James missed one on one with the keeper.
They defended well to only keep it to 21 shots?
We were very dominant. They did well to keep it to 1-0.
How many times do the people who call him brilliant etc actually watch him play?
Godin and it's not even close.
He didn't even play for Inter. Skriniar was the best defender in that Inter team and arguably second best CB in Serie A.
If we are talking about their careers or Godin at Atletico then it's not a shame to be second best to Godin. That guy shits on all the CBs in PL except one or two.
Got pulled to pieces by Chong and Greenwood.
Would also be curious to know how often he'd played in a 3 prior to this.
You can’t defend that performance, it was Terrible. Got absolutely roasted by all our players.
You can say what you like about preseason and they are behind in fitness or whatever but a REALLY good defender doesn’t make the amateur mistakes he was making all over the pitch.
As someone else said, if that was one of ours, you lot would be ripping him to pieces.
You can say what you like about preseason and they are behind in fitness or whatever but a REALLY good defender doesn’t make the amateur mistakes he was making all over the pitch.
As someone else said, if that was one of ours, you lot would be ripping him to pieces.
Part of the issue here is how we talk about our own CB options as if they are bumbling oafs and as if it would be easy to replace them with greater quality.
They aren't and it isn't.
The hype around guys like Koulibaly, Skriniar and co is absurd, leading to the inevitable disappointment when watching brings home the reality that they are good players with flaws and not the panacea we want them to be.
Defensive structure needs to improve massively this season, front to back, just as important as signing a top class CB.
They aren't and it isn't.
The hype around guys like Koulibaly, Skriniar and co is absurd, leading to the inevitable disappointment when watching brings home the reality that they are good players with flaws and not the panacea we want them to be.
Defensive structure needs to improve massively this season, front to back, just as important as signing a top class CB.
There is no CB that will pass the caf's test for a CB. No CB is perfect, they all make mistakes. When they don't watch full games and only read some stats, or clips posted on twitter/reddit they start to build up the player to mythical heights. No player will live up to the expectations.
I agree with your point on defensive structure. Attack, defend, control the game as a team.
I agree, I think smalling and lindelof are very good but just both need a new partner but happy for either to be in our defence alongside a new one. Tuanzebe is an incredibly exciting prospect that if we were linked with as a purchase many would be right behind.
Jones Bailly and Rojo are subs. They are good enough to step in in some games but not reliable enough to have meaningful roles in a top side.bailly has potential.
So overall our cb options are good but we need a new one and will then likely let 1 or 2 leave over the next 2 windows
Not this again. We always start the season like that and then end the season asking for a CB
However while one needs to take things with a pinch of salt there's a lesson to be learned in this game ie even rookies can make be lethal if they have the right dose of pace. Which makes me wonder what's the point of signing Maguire when football is moving towards pace and technique
I think we need a new CB. I think it should be the number 1 priority
I think its a top priority. However, I don't like the way we're tackling it tbh.
Defence is not something you just put a player in and he sorts the entire system by himself. Throughout SAF's reign, I could think of one person (Rio) who took a mediocre defence and turned it into a decent one and even that defence was supported with more signings (Heinze, Evra, VDS, Carrick etc). I assure you there's no one like Rio in today's football (Skriniar, Koulibaly, Maguire, Varane, Romagnoli etc....no one is of that level)
So what clubs usually do is to analyse the entire defensive department (GK, Defence, DM) and make sure that a player's weakness is covered by someone else's strength. Take Juventus defence of the 90s. There was no one who was really WC in it, and yet, as a unit it was nearly impregnable (apart when they encountered Giggs).
Now lets analyse our defence. In my opinion, last season it was bombarded by 3 main weaknesses
a- DDG's lack of concentration
b- a non existent RB
c- a slow DM
We tackled B with AWB and hopefully we'll sort A very soon by handling DDG a great contract. If you ask me, if we add a mobile DM then most of the job will be done. Don't take me wrong, we would still need someone to partner Lindelof (ie Lindelof weaknesses are lack of pace and weakness in air duel) but do we really need to spend 80m on that? Also is Maguire the right guy to partner Lindelof considering his lack of pace?
So I wonder if rather then spending 90m-100m on Maguire or Koulibaly we would be better off buying Konate for lets say 50m and Partey for 40m.
You make good points. The sad and obvious reality though is that we should have signed a DM and CB in the first week after the season ended. Or any time in the last 3 years
Remember last season. Set pieces. Crosses. Aerial dominance. Physical strengths.
Remember Jones and Smalling when dealing with high intensive pressure.
Remember a hesitant goal keeper standing on the goal line. Remember his ball distribution when the opponents put pressure on all our defensive players.
Remember our build ups when Smalling and Jones passed the ball side either back to the goalie or side ways and then later turned their back against the ball holder who then panic and hoofed the ball to no-mans land.
Remember Smalling holding shirts and his wrestling abilities inside the penalty area. VAR....just a saying.
Remember Jones being Jones. (That part alone is reasons enough)
Remember when half of the team down tooled and looked liked zombies.
Every players comes with pros and cons. Harry Maguire has his limitations but O’boy he has his strengths also.
We are in no position to turn our noses up in the air against a player of his caliber. Pure madness. He solves more or less all our weakest defensive spots and his character and fighting spirit is top notch. On top of it he’s English and in his prime years.
I am not saying that Maguire is shit. All I am saying is that having a painfully slow defender in today's football is not the ideal especially when you partner him with Lindelof and Matic who are hardly runners. Therefore I wonder if someone like Konate (6ft4 btw) would be better. He's cheaper then Maguire, he's quite good in air (maybe not as good as Maguire is but he's still great in it) and is quite pacey. If you look at the EPL 5 top scorers last season 4 out of 5 were known more for their pace and/or trickery then for their physical attributes. That is were football is heading too.
This. You can buy the best CB in the world and if the defensive tactics are stupid, any CB would look amateurish.
Not so good as you think
Wait this guy was being rated highly? He looked like he was playing out of retirement. He looked like a Sunday league player that won a one-off opportunity to play a professional football match...
arguably he would be lucky to be in the top 10. Chiellini, Koulibaly, Manolas, Acerbi, Romagnoli, Andersen are all way better than Skriniar
This is the problem, you’re now saying that Maguire is painfully slow. He’s not you’re just saying that to prove your point, he’s not the quickest but he’s not the slowest. Nobody watches him and thinks he’s painfully slow at all. I’m wondering if you’ve ever seen him play?
Romangoli is better than Skriniar
I said arguably, you can make case for either. For me Skriniar is 2nd best.
I've never noticed that he's particularly slow whenever I've seen him play tbh. The first I knew of it was on here!
Remember Koulibaly vs Arsenal. He got ripped apart.
He is slow on the turn and in accelerating. Once he gets going he has decent pace, but the first part is more problematic.
I am worried about his defensive reading of the game and awareness of danger, and hoping that so many of the good qualities that are ascribed to him are not just based on overvaluing his ability on the ball.
Inter fan here. Thought I would chime in because some of the posts here about Skriniar are borderline absurd. I consider myself a fairly objective fan and will be the first person to criticize my team and/or players, if needed.
Skriniar is one of the three best CBs in Serie A, along with Chiellini and Koulibaly. I'm not going to include Godin in these rankings considering he's never played a minute of Serie A football before. Comparing Romagnoli to any of these players is borderline hysterical, and Milan fans will tell you as much. I'm not going to give Acerbi, Manolas, or Andersen comparsions the dignity of a response.
As you all know, Serie A football is significantly different than EPL football. Serie A teams play in one of two styles: they hog possession and slowly/methodically try to break down opponents, or they sit back and spring fast counter attacks. We have very few teams who play "English" style football, but the two teams who do are Napoli and Atalanta. Obviously being a CB in the two leagues requires different skill sets. You need to generally be strong, and more tactical in Serie A while you need to be faster, and better passing in the EPL.
Skriniar's game lacks weaknesses. He's not the quickest CB in the league (Manolas, Koulibaly are quicker) but he is quite fast and has the ability to close down players. Our RB/LBs at Inter are mediocre at best, and Skriniar routinely has to make phenomenal plays on the flanks that demonstrate his recovery ability. Skriniar almost never gets beat 1 on 1, even by the best dribblers in the league (Insigne, Ronaldo, Gomez). Skriniar's passing is also tremendous. He plays as a CDM frequently when he plays for Slovakia, which should tell you how good his distribution skills are. The only real "holes" in his game is that he's not much of an aerial threat on set pieces and he likes to commit hard fouls, which are fine in Italy but harder to get away with in Europe/England. I think he would succeed in England given that he does possess a decent amount of speed, is a good passer, and is a very smart player.
If you truly want to sign him, you only have two hopes:
1) Agree to a contract with Skriniar on very high wages. Have him tell Inter management he plans on leaving and cannot be convinced otherwise. We have extremely wealthy owners, but they're new to football and we're unsure how committed they are financially to the club right now.
2) Hope our new coach Conte convinces management to swap him for Lukaku (at which point I would probably have a stroke).
I think it can be done, but probably not this summer. Give him another year or two of struggling to compete for titles in Italy and he might be convinced to struggle to compete for titles in England
You can't judge players based on preseason friendlies. That was his first ever game playing in a back three under Conte. I'm not sure if you noticed, but the entire Inter team was dreadful yesterday. While we're nothing special, we're definitely not that bad.
Skriniar is one of the three best CBs in Serie A, along with Chiellini and Koulibaly. I'm not going to include Godin in these rankings considering he's never played a minute of Serie A football before. Comparing Romagnoli to any of these players is borderline hysterical, and Milan fans will tell you as much. I'm not going to give Acerbi, Manolas, or Andersen comparsions the dignity of a response.
As you all know, Serie A football is significantly different than EPL football. Serie A teams play in one of two styles: they hog possession and slowly/methodically try to break down opponents, or they sit back and spring fast counter attacks. We have very few teams who play "English" style football, but the two teams who do are Napoli and Atalanta. Obviously being a CB in the two leagues requires different skill sets. You need to generally be strong, and more tactical in Serie A while you need to be faster, and better passing in the EPL.
Skriniar's game lacks weaknesses. He's not the quickest CB in the league (Manolas, Koulibaly are quicker) but he is quite fast and has the ability to close down players. Our RB/LBs at Inter are mediocre at best, and Skriniar routinely has to make phenomenal plays on the flanks that demonstrate his recovery ability. Skriniar almost never gets beat 1 on 1, even by the best dribblers in the league (Insigne, Ronaldo, Gomez). Skriniar's passing is also tremendous. He plays as a CDM frequently when he plays for Slovakia, which should tell you how good his distribution skills are. The only real "holes" in his game is that he's not much of an aerial threat on set pieces and he likes to commit hard fouls, which are fine in Italy but harder to get away with in Europe/England. I think he would succeed in England given that he does possess a decent amount of speed, is a good passer, and is a very smart player.
If you truly want to sign him, you only have two hopes:
1) Agree to a contract with Skriniar on very high wages. Have him tell Inter management he plans on leaving and cannot be convinced otherwise. We have extremely wealthy owners, but they're new to football and we're unsure how committed they are financially to the club right now.
2) Hope our new coach Conte convinces management to swap him for Lukaku (at which point I would probably have a stroke).
I think it can be done, but probably not this summer. Give him another year or two of struggling to compete for titles in Italy and he might be convinced to struggle to compete for titles in England
You can't judge players based on preseason friendlies. That was his first ever game playing in a back three under Conte. I'm not sure if you noticed, but the entire Inter team was dreadful yesterday. While we're nothing special, we're definitely not that bad.
Inter fan here. Thought I would chime in because some of the posts here about Skriniar are borderline absurd. I consider myself a fairly objective fan and will be the first person to criticize my team and/or players, if needed.
Skriniar is one of the three best CBs in Serie A, along with Chiellini and Koulibaly. I'm not going to include Godin in these rankings considering he's never played a minute of Serie A football before. Comparing Romagnoli to any of these players is borderline hysterical, and Milan fans will tell you as much. I'm not going to give Acerbi, Manolas, or Andersen comparsions the dignity of a response.
As you all know, Serie A football is significantly different than EPL football. Serie A teams play in one of two styles: they hog possession and slowly/methodically try to break down opponents, or they sit back and spring fast counter attacks. We have very few teams who play "English" style football, but the two teams who do are Napoli and Atalanta. Obviously being a CB in the two leagues requires different skill sets. You need to generally be strong, and more tactical in Serie A while you need to be faster, and better passing in the EPL.
Skriniar's game lacks weaknesses. He's not the quickest CB in the league (Manolas, Koulibaly are quicker) but he is quite fast and has the ability to close down players. Our RB/LBs at Inter are mediocre at best, and Skriniar routinely has to make phenomenal plays on the flanks that demonstrate his recovery ability. Skriniar almost never gets beat 1 on 1, even by the best dribblers in the league (Insigne, Ronaldo, Gomez). Skriniar's passing is also tremendous. He plays as a CDM frequently when he plays for Slovakia, which should tell you how good his distribution skills are. The only real "holes" in his game is that he's not much of an aerial threat on set pieces and he likes to commit hard fouls, which are fine in Italy but harder to get away with in Europe/England. I think he would succeed in England given that he does possess a decent amount of speed, is a good passer, and is a very smart player.
If you truly want to sign him, you only have two hopes:
1) Agree to a contract with Skriniar on very high wages. Have him tell Inter management he plans on leaving and cannot be convinced otherwise. We have extremely wealthy owners, but they're new to football and we're unsure how committed they are financially to the club right now.
2) Hope our new coach Conte convinces management to swap him for Lukaku (at which point I would probably have a stroke).
I think it can be done, but probably not this summer. Give him another year or two of struggling to compete for titles in Italy and he might be convinced to struggle to compete for titles in England
You can't judge players based on preseason friendlies. That was his first ever game playing in a back three under Conte. I'm not sure if you noticed, but the entire Inter team was dreadful yesterday. While we're nothing special, we're definitely not that bad.
Appreciate your post.
Love to hear if any of these guys compare to Skriniar & if you think they could cut it in the EPL with United?:
- Izzo, Pezzella, Djimsiti, Mancini, Milenkovic
Agree with most of what you wrote but not this. He is a good passer but not as good as he plays to be, he takes big risks and often passes straight to the opponent in dangerous positions. The other defenders always scramble to get into covering positions when he gets the ball but it would get punished much more in England than it does in Italy.
Inter fan here. Thought I would chime in because some of the posts here about Skriniar are borderline absurd. I consider myself a fairly objective fan and will be the first person to criticize my team and/or players, if needed.
Skriniar is one of the three best CBs in Serie A, along with Chiellini and Koulibaly. I'm not going to include Godin in these rankings considering he's never played a minute of Serie A football before. Comparing Romagnoli to any of these players is borderline hysterical, and Milan fans will tell you as much. I'm not going to give Acerbi, Manolas, or Andersen comparsions the dignity of a response.
As you all know, Serie A football is significantly different than EPL football. Serie A teams play in one of two styles: they hog possession and slowly/methodically try to break down opponents, or they sit back and spring fast counter attacks. We have very few teams who play "English" style football, but the two teams who do are Napoli and Atalanta. Obviously being a CB in the two leagues requires different skill sets. You need to generally be strong, and more tactical in Serie A while you need to be faster, and better passing in the EPL.
Skriniar's game lacks weaknesses. He's not the quickest CB in the league (Manolas, Koulibaly are quicker) but he is quite fast and has the ability to close down players. Our RB/LBs at Inter are mediocre at best, and Skriniar routinely has to make phenomenal plays on the flanks that demonstrate his recovery ability. Skriniar almost never gets beat 1 on 1, even by the best dribblers in the league (Insigne, Ronaldo, Gomez). Skriniar's passing is also tremendous. He plays as a CDM frequently when he plays for Slovakia, which should tell you how good his distribution skills are. The only real "holes" in his game is that he's not much of an aerial threat on set pieces and he likes to commit hard fouls, which are fine in Italy but harder to get away with in Europe/England. I think he would succeed in England given that he does possess a decent amount of speed, is a good passer, and is a very smart player.
If you truly want to sign him, you only have two hopes:
1) Agree to a contract with Skriniar on very high wages. Have him tell Inter management he plans on leaving and cannot be convinced otherwise. We have extremely wealthy owners, but they're new to football and we're unsure how committed they are financially to the club right now.
2) Hope our new coach Conte convinces management to swap him for Lukaku (at which point I would probably have a stroke).
I think it can be done, but probably not this summer. Give him another year or two of struggling to compete for titles in Italy and he might be convinced to struggle to compete for titles in England
You can't judge players based on preseason friendlies. That was his first ever game playing in a back three under Conte. I'm not sure if you noticed, but the entire Inter team was dreadful yesterday. While we're nothing special, we're definitely not that bad.
The point is Skriniar is a good player but he’s overrated by people on here. Just because he’s overrated doesn’t mean he’s not a good player.
Most people hyping him up haven’t actually seen him play. Personally I think Maguire is a better player than Skriniar, I have watched them both play a lot.
He had an off day against us and people go over the top and call him shit, which is football on the internet now days.
I think it can be done, but probably not this summer. Give him another year or two of struggling to compete for titles in Italy and he might be convinced to struggle to compete for titles in England
No chance mate, if we have any sort of ambition there's no way that Skriniar will leave in the future.