Progressive CM or Striker

croadyman

Full Member
Joined
Mar 9, 2018
Messages
39,118
Which do we need most before Thursday, know the answer is both but that isn't happening
 
Goalkeeper to replace de Gea should be #1.

And then a striker who can rotate with Martial just capable of some hold up play. Memphis would be fine. Morata would be grand. Elanga and Ronaldo shouldn't be getting gametime and don't help in any way, and Rashford isn't a striker.

We can rotate Eriksen and Fred as the partner for Casemiro and both partnerships could be a very high level. Even Van de Beek an option. Its a next year problem IMO.

Basically, you can't play quality possession football if you have to tell your goalkeeper to hoof it up, and then if he's holding it, if you have nobody to hoof it to.
 
If Antony is across the line already, I suspect reinforcements in midfield are more likely than another forward. I’d rather see Ronaldo leave with Osimhen coming in to replace him with a DLP than Antony coming in, keeping Ronaldo and a DLP.
 
I'm not sure anymore.

Liverpool dominated the ball against us with a midfield of Milner, Henderson and Elliot partly because their forwards were so good at pinning our team back. We'll struggle to impose ourselves, until we get attackers who can genuinely stretch the pitch and pin the back lines.
 
Striker. We need someone who can hold the ball up so the rest of the team can move up the pitch. Eriksen and one of the youngsters (Iqbal/Mejbri) can cover on the progressive midfield parts until maybe January.
 
Striker. We need someone who can hold the ball up so the rest of the team can move up the pitch. Eriksen and one of the youngsters (Iqbal/Mejbri) can cover on the progressive midfield parts until maybe January.

Yeah think you are bang on
 
We need both.

CF we need more purely because of quantity, especially with Ronaldo likely leaving. I don't hope or expect for a Haaland or Nunez level player because its not realistic, we just need a decent alternative/rotation option for Martial. Depay or similiar would be fine. There's plenty of players who I'd be happy with, but understandably the club wouldn't want to pay too much for a rotation/backup player. I would even have been fine with Arnautovic if he wasn't a knobhead. A top youngster with a high ceiling would be ideal like Sesko, but they're not numerous and may prefer to move to a club on a lower level to get more playing time.

CM we are more in need of quality, but it needs to be top quality as we have numerous options who are okay/decent partners for Casemiro. However this limits the options quite a lot, as such players are expensive and often not available. De Jong would be ideal, but given we've signed Casemiro I don't think players like Rabiot would be the level we need anymore, it would have to be someone on a similiar level to De Jong. I suspect we need or will look to offload one of our current CMs off the books first for this to happen though. Haven't seen any speculation about outgoings other than Garner at the moment, but I wouldn't be surprised if Van de Beek is sold. His move to Everton last season came out of the blue, we have Bruno and Eriksen clearly ahead of him, and actually have some decent young options for the 10 position, whilst we don't have any young options to play as a 9. Mejbri, Shoretire and maybe even Diallo could play as a 10 in the Mickey Mouse Europa games if they stay, or Iqbal could come in if we want to play with two 8s, and I'd rather Garner stay than VDB.
 
I’m probably going to fall in to the trap again of Martial will stay fit and Martial will have one of his seasons of good form. So ideally if DeJong is gettable then the priority has to be DeJong. Muddle through with what we have upfront till next season.
If DeJong isn’t and there is money for a suitable striker then bring them in. But no point just buying any striker.

DDG
Dalot-Varane-Martinez-Malacia
Casemiro-DeJong
Antony-Bruno-Sancho
Martial​
 
I’m probably going to fall in to the trap again of Martial will stay fit and Martial will have one of his seasons of good form. So ideally if DeJong is gettable then the priority has to be DeJong. Muddle through with what we have upfront till next season.
If DeJong isn’t and there is money for a suitable striker then bring them in. But no point just buying any striker.

DDG
Dalot-Varane-Martinez-Malacia
Casemiro-DeJong
Antony-Bruno-Sancho
Martial​

Moussa Dembele is suitable
 
CM. There is nothing in football more valuable than a midfield that can control games. We have been playing without one for more than 10 years.
 
We need someone to be able to hold the ball up and bring the midfield and wide players into the play. Martial is very good at that but need another option.
 
CM, easily.

We didn't control a single 5 minute phase yesterday. We desperately need a CM to move the ball from Phase 1 to Phase 2 and help us control Phase 2 as well.

Need to go all out for De Jong.

I still feel we can get a tune out of Ronaldo. Martial and Ronaldo are healthy #9 options.
 
With Antony coming in we need a CM. Martial and Rashford can play as strikers for a season, even if Ronaldo leaves. Depay as backup is nice and all, but we need a proper dominant striker up top and we don't seem to be able to get that in this window. It would also be far easier to get one with CL football.

A progressive midfielder would help us turn posession into meaningful chances. That would give us a better chance at getting results against the teams that defend deep, and in turn improve our chances of getting top 4.
 
Which do we need most before Thursday, know the answer is both but that isn't happening
Yeah, you're right that we need both. I don't see us signing another midfielder this window. Think we will bring in a cheap striker, but perhaps only in the event that Ronaldo leaves. Need to go big on a top striker next summer.
 
Even if we buy into Marrial consistently playing well which is a big if, he is highly unlikely to stay healthy.

We badly need a striker, years of signing stop gaps has not worked out
 
If Martial stays fit for the whole season then CM should be our priority, otherwise it has to be a striker as our backup is almost non existent and laughably bad, which IMO is more damaging than Fred in midfield who I think will improve this season alongside.a proper DM

So I would say striker.
 
Yeah, you're right that we need both. I don't see us signing another midfielder this window. Think we will bring in a cheap striker, but perhaps only in the event that Ronaldo leaves. Need to go big on a top striker next summer.

Osmihen/Schick when back in Champions League, could also throw Nkunku's name in there as well
 
Moussa Dembele is suitable
Not really a fan but if he’s available for say 25 mil guess it makes sense but then a Johnathan David for 50 if there is cash might be a better option. Neither really to me are that inspiring or better options than what we have so I’d still go CM is more important especially if that guy is DeJong.

Next summer all out for a RB and striker. If Martial obviously doesn’t win the Balon Dor
 
CM please. We’ve already lost all 4 midfield battles this season. We won last night but some 18 year old called Romeo Latvia was probably the best CM on the field. We can’t keep losing these battles if we want to progress.
 
World class cm, if we can control matches and the tempo in the middle of the park along with varane and martinez being a formidable defence then we can strangle teams to team and squeeze out comfortable wins, we see so many sides coping without a striker like man City and Chelsea in the past few seasons but still score enough because of the amount of chances they create in a matches, there is no point having a great striker if we lack the quality to create clear chances for the attackers.
 
World class cm, if we can control matches and the tempo in the middle of the park along with varane and martinez being a formidable defence then we can strangle teams to team and squeeze out comfortable wins, we see so many sides coping without a striker like man City and Chelsea in the past few seasons but still score enough because of the amount of chances they create in a matches, there is no point having a great striker if we lack the quality to create clear chances for the attackers.

Well it's simple go and blow some of next summers budget on you know who then
 
CM. There is nothing in football more valuable than a midfield that can control games. We have been playing without one for more than 10 years.
100 percent this. I'm not bothered about a striker right now because we won't do anything without controlling the midfield, something we have not done yet this season.
 
Great thread mostly because at this point it is a genuine question of either CM or CF before the deadline.

If you watched ETH's post-match interview yesterday, he wants to control games through possession but he is very well aware it will take time for the squad to adapt and you have no time for a club this big - you need to win games in the process. This is why he makes FDJ his primary target, players with that kind of quality (f.e. Kovačić is also one of them) who can easily break the press due to great dribbling and passing ability are very rare but can make an immideate impact on team performance while you coaching others into playing out of press effectively by movement as a team.

Having said that, it's obvious to me that ETH can be pragmatic to win games and with two losses in the first two games and obviously not getting an FDJ, I think he choose to play around the opponent press through target man up front for now, which is why Martial is essential to this squad and why we were linked with players like Morata and Arnautović in this summer. To summarise: if you have a player(s) like Kovačić or/and FDJ you don't necessarily need a target up front, but if you don't have that kind of midfielder then you must have one.

I think that we need both, but yet I wouldn't be against Depay or Morata to give us more options up front and then go for CF, CM, GK and RB in summer 2023.
 
We’ve already spent a shit load I doubt we’ll get anyone now unless Ronny leaves

are people expecting more?
 
If we could pick anyone, I'd go for FDJ at CM. If we can't pick anyone and have to make do, I'd get a striker in and start planning in advance for next summer.

I don't think we'll get anything after Antony + Reserve GK, personally.
 
If there was a good striker available I’d prefer that.

But there isn’t really anyone great so I’m still stuck on Frenkie De Jong.
 
If we could pick anyone, I'd go for FDJ at CM. If we can't pick anyone and have to make do, I'd get a striker in and start planning in advance for next summer.

I don't think we'll get anything after Antony + Reserve GK, personally.

Do you mean squad ST
 
I would be pretty surprised if anything else got done after Antony. A lot has been spent. We may be able to wrangle a second keeper at best.
 
If we could get de jong then it's a no Brainer, there really ain't that many high level strikers that we could get as of now.
 
I'd take midfield. We have problems through our core: GK, CM and striker, but if we don't control midfield, the team is going to be massively fatigued sooner rather than later.

A top class hold-up striker would be invaluable, but I don't believe any are available (unless this Napoli kid is ticking that box?)

The issue at keeper is a big one in itself, but the most tolerable of our current issues.

A top class RB would also do this team wonders in hemming teams in their own half and giving restbite to both our midfield and backline as well as making our wide forwards multiple times more deadly, so that, for me would be equally acceptable to a midfielder or striker.
 
Both,

Get De Jong or an alternative CM in, then, send Ronaldo to Napoli and take Osimhen on season long loan with obligation to buy so his transfer fee goes into next years books.