Wait... he was playing tonight?
31
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 36
- Goals
- 0
- Assists
- 1
- Yellow cards
- 4
- Status
How this guy constantly escapes scrutiny is beyond me. Whatever he supposedly brings in build up play and 'stability' is entirely cancelled and dominated by his lack of mobility and standing off players that spreads panic throughout the defence, as the player on the ball can shoot, pass or move at will. Not to mention that his build up play involves mostly paying it safe and failing to reposition into any progressive position
One of the most baffling things the club did was give a new contract after 3 good games in two years.
Even more baffling was the smooth brained goldfishes in our fan base acting like it was brilliant news.
Even more baffling was the smooth brained goldfishes in our fan base acting like it was brilliant news.
Matic gona Matic. We never should have signed him. He's generally been poor here but then he'll have a few good games and the revisonisnmn will start. Giving him a 3 year deal last season was idiotic. Squad player at best.
mental. We were literally dragging the last few good performances from him while he was totally fresh and we could have let him go and freed up wages for someone younger and potentially better. Totally fair. Thanks very much. 3 year deal. Typical!
He can't run, we put him alongside another midfielder who can't run, then have a captain at CB who can't run behind them. Predictably we are incredibly open through midfield.
Every time Fred/Mctominay play poorly the fans want their head on a stick and Ole drops them to bring back the experience of Matic. The issue with that is I don't think you can get very far with a midfield that can't run..
We'll revert back to playing a deep block and the likes of Matic and Maguire will become great again.
Any midfield consisting of Matic needs to have runners around. Can't do it with Pogba and Bruno.
Either play Fred anongside Matic, or just use him as a sub and in minor games when opposition sits deep.
Isn't his fault, and still a very good midfielder. But at this age, he needs to be used correctly.
Either play Fred anongside Matic, or just use him as a sub and in minor games when opposition sits deep.
Isn't his fault, and still a very good midfielder. But at this age, he needs to be used correctly.
How good is Denis Zakaria? He plays as DM for Borussia Monchengladbach and seems to be good? If good he can replace Matic?
Yes he can more than replace Matic and is ideal for a team that wants to apply high pressure because he can enforce and resist pressure to a high level. He's also someone that can dominate defensive zones which allows the team to flood the opponents half and create overloads.
He's been out injured for a while though after colliding with his his own goalkeeper.
Him and Kalvin Phillips are the players I'm looking at.
Our tactics now under Ole or in the future with a managers like Poch or Nagelsmann or Rose is going to need a CDM that can drop in to CB to make a back 2 in to a temporary back 3 like how dier does it at spurs.
Zakaria has good passing abilities, very good tackling abilities but what impresses me the most is his ability to be quick on the dribble when he has the ball in deep areas and he makes a marauding run from defence all the way to AM positions.
Kalvin Phillips on the other hand, I see him do less running but moves the ball out much more through his passing as a CB/CDM player than runs that Zakaria makes.
We probably have no choice but to do so given we idiotically decided that a new, mobile DM was not necessary this summer.
I agree and we'll see the stats come out telling us how great our defense is stastically and why Maguire is better than Van Dijk.We probably have no choice but to do so given we idiotically decided that a new, mobile DM was not necessary this summer.
That’s not how Nagelsmann plays his CDM to be honest. His midfield or CDM are more box to box with high work rate and press. Someone who likes to cover lot of ground and press. His centre back tends to moves further up, he relies lot on his centre back to build up the play from the back and push his midfield up.
Man Utd 5:0 RB Leipzig
Gotta watch those elbows, he looked fit enough but to me him in front of two slow CB's saw us getting deeper and deeper, when we switched to McTominay we looked more in control.
Thought he was the weakest link, we had far more control the second McTominay came one. Against low block teams, he's an option but against a team like RBL, not so much.
I think we are seeing the passing of the torch. Matic is still a class player, but doesn’t have the fitness and mobility of McT which in this day and age is far more important.
Fred and McTominay just make it so difficult for opposition midfielders.
I must be the only one who thought Matic was a least a level above McT today, the latter had an average game when he came on, still a useful squad player but not at that level compared to the other two.
I'd like to see more of Matic and Fred in midfield.
I'd like to see more of Matic and Fred in midfield.
I'm not sure what game you were watching then. I was surprised at how off the pace Matic looked on the ball and with his passing. He still provided a nice shield defensively, but he's traditionally been our best "on-ball" DM and tonight he our worst. McT provided much more mobility and energy while also being more assured on the ball, which was a pleasant surprise.
I think it has to be noted that Leipzig had run themselves into the ground for 65 minutes and had changed to what was probably a fairly suicidal system at that point.
Personally I do think McTominay might be the better option in some games (like PSG and maybe even today he might have been), but I'd prefer Matic in games where we expect to have more ball. Either way they should be competing to partner Fred who should be first choice.
Couldn't keep up with the youth on the field so resorted to swinging his arms around, understandable. He'd probably get off with a few warnings in the PL but clearly this european ref wasn't having any of it.
The only poor United player today. Lucky to not get a red card.
Agreed on almost everything, especially Fred being first choice.
I thought he was our weakest player today, he didn't seem to be on the wavelength of his team mates who were trying to keep the ball on the floor and play out from the back, when it came to Matic he just hoofed it. He would've made more sense as a sub after Liepzig had basically run themselves into the ground, I still think there's value to him but you can see his time here is slowly coming to its end.
His pairing, again, with Fred was really good. Allowed Pogba to do his thing on the left. It was a very hairy and compact first half. He, Fred, McTominay, and Maguire were very physical with RBL tonight. The ref allowed play to go on and I enjoyed the physicality of the match as it was in good intentions trying to fight for possession or open balls. Retaining defensive shape and discipline when playing with the shape United started out with is easier said than done and he did it well.
He was good defensively but quite poor on the ball. Most of the team were before Leipzig forgot you have to defend.
Poor on the ball which was expected against a team who are good at closing space. He's not a player that will help us play a more expansive game but will be fine as a squad player in a compact setup.
I was expecting the worst after the 2nd elbow , European refs usually are more stricter on these kind of incidents but he just spoke to him. Ole knew it was time to sub him off after that one .
Thought he would have come off earlier with the yellow and looking off pace. Just a late tackle waiting to happen. He needs more game time to raise his form. He looked too sluggish and beat but still tried really hard. For me, the weak link yesterday, but also a lot happened around him.
Thought he was good defensively when we needed it under that initial pressure, had a “meh” game on the ball though. McT had a great cameo but it was a completely different game after they utterly gave up after 2-0.
Man Utd 0:1 Arsenal
Thought he was good when he came on. Looked for the ball, moved to receive it and joined in our attacks
Shame the shot fell on his right foot
Shame the shot fell on his right foot
He was a vast improvement on Fred and he helped us change the game a little bit, but unsurprisingly he wasnt the key to finding a way through the Arsenal defence. Just much better on the ball than Fred was
It’s a shame he can’t really run because he’s the only midfielder we have who actually knows how to play in midfield.
Definitely improved us when he came on, I think Ole is wary of overusing him as he runs out of gas so easily, plus he doesn't want to start Axel so he feels we need Fred and McTominay to protect Maglof in the PL.
I give him bonus points for actually looking like he gave a crap when he came on.
Should have started over Mctominnay.
Meh. He was average. Can't believe we gave him a three year contract instead of actually buy a proper CDM like Partey.
Weird that he's actually better at dribbling past players than Pogba.
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