What is even wrong with Shaw this time? He lumped off after a couple minutes towards last season, and all of a sudden he's out for 5-6 months? What a glasscannon he is, on par with Jones when it comes to injuries?
Mourinho Presser
- Thread starter Raoul
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What is even wrong with Shaw this time? He lumped off after a couple minutes towards last season, and all of a sudden he's out for 5-6 months? What a glasscannon he is, on par with Jones when it comes to injuries?
Darmian? Blind? Plenty of options already.
Mitchell is superb at attacking. Maybe Jose has decided the kid is ready. I sure hope so because I am a big fan of that lad. I see him becoming a great player.
Not likely if you ask me. I just don't see Jose playing 3-5-2 throughout a season. I think he might be thinking that we have enough cover in the LB position. Dermien, Blind and Mitchelle.
Am I the only one excited about Mitchelle? I think he is ready and I think he's a really talented attacking LB player. If Jose shares my opinion, then we have enough cover for that position. Darmien, Blind and the kid.
We cannot keep signing players. If we do that, it will be disaster. LB is not a top priority position when you can get Darmien, Blind and Mitchell to improve and tweak their games to fit your plan. Part of a manager's job is to get his players to perform at their best and improve their quality rather than just buying to fix positional problems. We need a winger, a DM (and maybe even another striker) much more than we need a LB. You don't want to add more than four new players to a team and remember that players like Pereira and Mitchell (if they end up in the first team) can even be counted as 'new'.
Lukaku may be inferior overall but he also provides pace through the middle which we lacked a bit last season. He's much deadlier on Zlatan on the counter.
There's nothing like that. Last 2 teams who won the PL had Fuchs, Simpson, Moses and Alonso as their full backs. None of them were 'title winning fullbacks before that season'
I feel you mate but I think the real answer is for Jose to get Miki, Mata, Martial, Rashford and Pogba firing on all cylinders. We know that those guys are good enough but last season was poor for them by their own standards. I have always argued that they let us down a lot.
I am convinced we don't need to buy much and we don't need to buy big. I will be happy with Lukaku, Perisic and Pereira coming in. A good DM will also give us balance and allow Pogba and Herrera to attack better.
It was largely the same Chelsea players that came tenth in the league two reasons ago that went on to win it last season. Conte simply added a few players, have the team belief and tweaked their playing strategy.
If Miki, Mata, Martial, Rashford, Pogba, Herrera and Lingard, step up their games significantly, the new boys adapt quickly and the team has better balance, my money will be on them fighting seriously for the title next season.
Looking through that, I actually don't think that Rooney would have scored a single one of those chances
I don't disagree with you and I also think many people tend to have a simplistic view (transfers = improvements, which is not necessarily the case) and put too much emphasis on form. One year ago we regarded Martial as possibly the biggest talent in Europe and now many are ready to replace him with the next big thing out of the very same club he came from.
Still, I can't help but feel that we simply don't have that world-class creative player that all our rivals have. Coutinho at Liverpool, Hazard at Chelsea, Silva and KDB at City, Alexis and arguably Özil at Arsenal, Ronaldo/Bale/Isco at Real, Messi/Neymar at Barcelona. Do we have that one attacking player that we can rely on to be our consistent dangerman and make the difference when we're struggling to break down our opponents, like we did so often last season? I guess it could be Pogba if the plan is to free him up offensively by bringing in Matic but other than that, I don't see it. I'm a big fan of Mata but unlike the players mentioned he can't do it on his own, he needs good movement and a team operating as a unit. Henrikh and Martial have shown it in glimpses but none of them have that special flair and x factor that our rivals' best players have. And I believe that today, with all teams so well-organised, if you want to be a top-5 team in the world, you need a top-5 player in that position.
Absolutely. In fact, our team did quite well last season game performance wise, only they left their scoring boots back in the locker.
Yeah, that will be a big advantage. But then on the other hand, he's not nearly as good a link-up player which could hamper us when we're playing a team that's defending deep, like we most often are.
Tough to disagree with you mate. Good points. But I'm thinking Germany at the last World Cup. It was a team full of efficient, stars rather than one with stand out dangermen in the mould of Messi, Ronaldo, Neymar or Hazard. Ozil does not fall into that category for me. Don't get me wrong, Germany had great players but they didn't have that type of X-factor, defence splitting, dangerman in their squad. Going back in history, Germany has mostly been like that.
Leicester City was also like that two reasons ago. I am not saying we do not need those types of players you describe (I absolutely love them in teams). Just saying that you can build a winning team despite not having such. Admittedly, it's a bit harder doing so.
Having said that, I think Martial, Pogba, Miki, Rashford and to an extent, Pereira, have the potential to become X-factor types (of course not at the Messi, Ronaldo levels).
Alexander Büttner
He lost his dad not long ago. His hair has gone almost white too but that might be the sun.
It's a fair point but I would argue that the knockout format of the World Cup (as well as other cup competitions) makes it a bit of a special case, in that being tough to beat and break down becomes more important, as evidenced by our Europa League win and some of the underdogs that have won the Euros or the World Cup like Denmark and Greece. Leicester was, for me, a freak occurrence that will never be replicated, and even then they almost certainly wouldn't have won without their flair player Mahrez who transformed many draws into wins.
As Portugal showed last summer, you can actually win an international cup by drawing. But as evidence by our last season, you don't win league titles by drawing, but by winning games. Without improvements to our batch of creative players, I don't see why we should be confident that we'll be able to turn all those draws into wins. Let's not forget that despite ending the season on a very positive note with the Europa League win, our attacking play actually deteriorated throughout the season and was extremely poor during the last few months. We saw zero signs of the team starting to click and becoming a more coherent attacking unit, rather the contrary.
Completely agree. The amount of chances Ibra missed and the times Pogba hit the post, plus with all the draws, we weren't that far off from having a really good season. If we had the Rashford and Martial from the previous season and Mkhi/Pogba contributing a bit more we would have won the league. I'm not really fussed about new signings, I'm more concerned as to whether our current crop will step up.
Great point that Jose made that even though we finished 6th, we were still the 2nd most successful team in the league last season behind Chelsea.
Two players aren't enough.
Well good luck to them but mediocre fullbacks have helped us finish 5th and 6th.
That isn't because of our full backs.
We can obviously hope that Martial finds his 15/16 form, Mkhitaryan starts scoring on his chances, Pogba starts scoring, Rashford and Lingard improves further, Fellaini has a good season and so forth. A lot of the mentioned has to happen if we're going to compete for the title next season.
Right now we look weaker on paper than we did last season. Lukaku in for Ibra is par more or less, Lindelöf for Rojo isn't an improvement given Rojos form last season. Also Shaw is out but he didn't play much last season anyway.
I reckon we're going to struggle with scoring goals next season just as we did last season unless some of the attacking players step up their game a few notches.
It'd be easier to for instance sign a goal scoring right winger like Bale, then we'd know for certain that we are going to improve.
They play a big part in it. We don't get any crosses in from the left at all last season, every time the ball went left we'd lazily pass it back to the middle and try to work it through the middle or go right. On the right we'd have Valencia tear past players but barely put in decent crosses.
The fullbacks were not the only deficiency but they were not up to standard.
We created a lot of chances. More than Chelsea did. Yet our goals scored is less than Chelsea. That's got nothing to do with full backs but our forwards
I think that what some of you are reading in Jose's comments and seeing as a negative Jose and I see as a positive. From his statement I read that the reason he brought Lukaku is because he wants a player to lead the line hold the ball up and run off the shoulder of the defenders. That he wants Lukaku to be a genuine old fashioned Number 9.
There were a load of times last season when we got hold of the ball looked up and thought right so where's the out ball? We'd play the ball aimlessly up field only to see it come straight back at us. Other times we would get into a great position to play the ball into the box only to recycle it because there was no one in the box to pick out.
There were a load of times last season when we got hold of the ball looked up and thought right so where's the out ball? We'd play the ball aimlessly up field only to see it come straight back at us. Other times we would get into a great position to play the ball into the box only to recycle it because there was no one in the box to pick out.
That's why we are hoping to get another 2 in.
Very good points.
One has to agree that 'flair' or 'creative' players are indispensable for teams that want to break down oppositions on a consistent basis.
Even though we can do with more natural ones, I think we have sleeping giants in that regard. Martial, Miki, Mata, Pogba, Pereira and Rashford can offer combined creativity capable of breaking down teams if they get into full flow.
Mean another two aren't enough imo.
We paid more for Lukaku? Real were asking 90m for Morata and we paid 75m for Lukaku.
They were asking for 90m euros. We are also going to end up paying all of Lukaku's add ons because they are easily achievable. We paid far more for Lukaku. He was first choice.
Although, to be fair, he did bring in 8 in 2003 (not counting Miller, Martin and Dong).
Of course its was Lukaku. Jose said, what i ecpected, that Lukaku is a proven EPL striker who would not need time to bed in. Morata might be a better player, but he is also a bigger gamble.
I haven't watched or read anything United related for the last week or so, glancing at the tweets it seems he sees Lukaku as I feared, and I'm surprised he's settling for just 4 signings, I wonder if it would hasve been 5 had Griezmann came. Shame that Shaw wont play for most of the year, I thought he'd gone on the tour.
Luke, Rojo and Young are on tour, but are not training with the squad. Just so they feel part of things rather than being on their own in Manchester.
All three of Shaw, Young and Rojo have travelled. Shaw and Young are training away from the squad, whereas I think Rojo might still be a bit away. Young and Shaw should be back in about a month.
did we also not bring in 5 in 96 or so? Solskjaer, Poborksy, Cruyff, van der Gouw and Johnsen?
Or am I mis-remembering?
"chances created" doesn't say anything about the quality of the chances created.
I wager a lot of those chances left your forwards with a lot to do to convert.
Not really. Lots of very easy chances.
Actually no. We had sitters that unbelievably we didn't score from. We had the highest number of 'clear chances missed' stat too. Around 50 I think.
I still find the comments about Shaw and Young really weird... hopefully Shaw shows his value this season. It would be extremely appreciated.