Just a brilliant player, its such a shame about his fitness. Hes only 30! You look at the likes of evans and thiago silva still performing and Varane should be reliable for another 3-4 years, its very frustrating as he is excellent.
19
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 32
- Clean sheets
- 12
- Goals
- 1
- Assists
- 0
- Yellow cards
- 2
- Status
Maguire. Varane and Martinez were excellent last season
True, but those results were against inferior opposition. Liverpool were in top form into this match and overrun ran us in midfield at Anfield, but Varane put in a truly sensational performance that we haven’t seen from a United CB in quite some time. At least not against an elite club.
When he is playing at his best, he is a level above all the other United CBs (defensively, in possession is another story). It’s just that he hasn’t shown much of his best this season. Let’s hope we see more from that from now on!
What. Massive performance after injury and being frozen out it seems….
hope he stays and provides cover for our CBs… feels he’s the right attitude and professionalism
hope he stays and provides cover for our CBs… feels he’s the right attitude and professionalism
Let us so hope!
once again hope the club is smart with this situation. Would love to see us cash in and get someone in like todibo or whatever who fits what we are looking for moving forward. Varane just cant be counted on to play week in and week out-makes no sense to keep him around and not get any value for selling him when we arent challenging for the league or anything with him.
I think we’re going to get along just fine
If the club was smart it would boot out everyone who has been responsible for signing players in the last couple of seasons, before going on a spending spree again. Whoever's signed off on the transfers and fees for Antony, Mount, Hojlund, Onana etc. it's best for them to accept that this job isn't for them and move on.
While they are still here I'd rather keep Varane, thanks. Don't want the Varane money being spent on some completely overpriced, utterly inept footballer.
And he's retired from France NT. So he'll get plenty of rest to prolong his career.
We wanted to keep him though, the same with Casemiro.
He's back. I'm glad.
Glad we got the garage queen out on the highway again. He was great.
I want to see him finishing his career at United. One of the best CBs in the world, absolutely amazing footballer and an exemplary professional.
No idea wtf is Ten Hag's problem with him, but there's no way in hell I want Varane gone from United.
No idea wtf is Ten Hag's problem with him, but there's no way in hell I want Varane gone from United.
So, he can play on the left? Shocker!
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Don’t know why many are so surprised. He was part of what many (including me) were calling the best cb pairing since Rio/Vida.
from outside looking in, it appeared he was just out of form at the beginning of the season…not that he’d just collapsed as a player.
now, if only we can get Casemiro and Martinez back to form and fitness for the second half of the season…I’m certain we can push for top 4. more so being out of Europe.
throw Shaw, Mainoo and bruno in there and it’s a decent starting line up.
from outside looking in, it appeared he was just out of form at the beginning of the season…not that he’d just collapsed as a player.
now, if only we can get Casemiro and Martinez back to form and fitness for the second half of the season…I’m certain we can push for top 4. more so being out of Europe.
throw Shaw, Mainoo and bruno in there and it’s a decent starting line up.
Our best CB and it’s not remotely close
I don’t think anybody was surprised that he could defend the way he did against Liverpool. After all, he is by far the highest paid defender in the PL and should have the ability to clear the box in a very low sitting compact defence. It was more surprising how poor he has been in the other games. Or to me it was surprising that he didn’t really seem to make full effort. That was a new side of him. Maybe putting him on the bench was the motivation he needed, just like we’ve seen with Shaw at times.
Personally thought it did the exact opposite with Shaw, with his worst United form by far coming under a manager who constantly tried motivating him in that way.
His recent performances raise serious questions about Ten Hag's decision to have him sitting on the bench for 2 months when we've been conceding all sorts of goals. 1 goal conceded vs Bayern and Liverpool with him back in the side.
His performances also make a complete farce of the idea that he's been left out because he can't play on the left.
His performances also make a complete farce of the idea that he's been left out because he can't play on the left.
I think looking back we have seen improvements when Telles was signed as example. However could also be just coincidences. Not sure which time period you are referring to? He’s been very much up and down in his career.
More you have to think of the type of game we’ve played in. Low line, risk adverse, not opening up too much - it allows him to play to his strengths. I still think his pace has massively dropped off and we should sell him but in that kind of game, you could pair him and Maguire and sit in and be extremely difficult to break down against even the best teams.
As opposed to the lightning quick Evans and Lindelof who were a better options for our swashbuckling attacking football we've played for most of this season?
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Think to much is being contrived as to why he hasn’t played and the left side of the pitch issue. Clearly he can and has played both sides in defence but ideally with Martinez playing he is first choice on the right.
When he is fit and on form he is first choice but like all players in the squad he needs to produce. Ideally with his current fitness issues this is the type of game he would have been rotated into anyway if we didn’t have the crisis at the seasons start. Hopefully him Onana and Martinez can form a successful core.
When he is fit and on form he is first choice but like all players in the squad he needs to produce. Ideally with his current fitness issues this is the type of game he would have been rotated into anyway if we didn’t have the crisis at the seasons start. Hopefully him Onana and Martinez can form a successful core.
Strange reply, not really sure how to relates to the point I made.
Ditto to your reply to my post mate. My point was about him not being selected when we've been shipping goals and Ten Hag preferring Evans/Lindelof at LCB. To which you replied our recent defensive tactics suited him and he's lost pace.
Ok, so what was your point?
He's still faster than both Lindelof and definitely Evans, and we've not exactly been playing progressive football with a very high line all season with Maguire in the line up anyway.
A Bayern team in first gear and us hardly attacking and then parking the bus against Liverpool are hardly good indicators that its the CB's have been the problem for conceding.
The reason he was left out is because he cant stay fit. How are we ever going to plan and build a defense with him when you cant rely on him. And his injuries are different. Its not like he had one long injury. He misses around one game for every 2. in out, in out. Shake it all about. If we had a settled defense i.e Martinez and Shaw were ok then maybe we could cope. But one thing Maguire has is that he plays most of the time. Ironically not now. But you can see why ETH just wanted one constant in the defense. Varane is the superior player but he's fkd physically
Because he's literally been worse than both of them? You're point seems to have been, "look how good he is he should start every game", and you aren't factoring in who/how we're playing and are ignoring how poor he's been previously. Bayern game was a training game for them and Pool we just sat in and defended. All the games we've played Varane in before this, for the most part, he's been appalling this season. Then he got dropped, rightly, and now he's back in the team with Maguire's injury. That's how it should be.
He seems a great guy and in his pomp was immense but you can't have watched us this season, seen his performances and then watched the Bayern/Pool games and forgotten the rest?
You say he's been worse than both Evans and Lindelof, based on which games exactly? Between the Palace game in September and the Bayern game he played a grand total of about 18 minutes in the league over three late sub appearances.
No my point was why hasn't he been getting any game time, like at all for the last few months while every other fit defender in the squad including a left back has been getting rotated in and out at Centreback.
Have all of Maguire, Lindelof, Evans and Shaw at CB been so outstanding in their performances that Varane didn't deserve any sort of a decent run out at RCB or LCB for 3 months? Was Varane so poor over a few games early in the season that he didn't deserve the odd start here and there to see if his form had returned?
Yes... that's literally the point.
That makes zero sense mate, 1 just never play a player incase he gets injured? And 2 if Ten Hag felt that way did it just occur to him around September or why didn't he sell him in the summer if that was the case before then?
All of Evans, Lindelof and Even Shaw have been injured more than once this season. Ten Hag had no problem rotating those 3 at LCB but wouldn't play Varane incase he got injured? Did he need to keep him fit for take up a place on the bench?
If that's your point mate it's bullshit. He wasn't that bad, plus all of Evans, Lindelof and even Maguire early season have all been absolute dogshit in games this season. None of them got froze out for 3 months, they kept getting regular opportunities.
You don't just freeze out a player of Varanes quality for months on end based on a run of poor form because you think it's impossible for him to regain his form. All the while playing Lindelof, a 35 year old emergency sigining and a left back in place of him. Utter nonsense.
The mental gymnastics being employed here to explain Varanes absense from the team for 3 months is something else.
''He was too shite to ever play again'' ''You can't play him incase he get's injured'' and of course before last week another one was ''He can't play at LCB''
The thing is we haven’t been shipping goals with Lindelof and Evans as CBs.
Here are the goals conceded when Lindelof played CB this PL season:
1-0-0-1-0-3-1-0-0
(In 3 of those matches he only played 45 min)
I would argue that it is our good defence that allowed us to still fight for a CL spot.
We've also had some poor results with those combinations 3 vs Galatasary Maguire Lindelof, 3 vs Newcastle Maguire Lindelof, 3 vs City Maguire Evans
And I'm not saying they've been woeful all I'm saying is we haven't been great with those combinations and none of the players at LCB have been particularly good either. Certainly not good enough to warrant Varane not getting the odd start for 3 months.
With Varane in the side earlier in the season in the 4-5 games he started before Ten Hag fell out with him, we had a couple of clean sheets as well.
Real wants varane
Weirdly long post. I just think he was abysmal until his return - whether he was unfit or there was something behind the scenes we don’t know - but I feel you’re just going off his name versus how he actually played.
Spot on.
It's incredible in a Varane thread, somebody can still somehow manage to sneak in a 'Lindelof has been good and helped us this season', when the Swede has been massively inconsistent and in most games been carried by Maguire.
Yes it’s true, we’ve been very bad defensively in the cups as well as we have managed to score a lot of goals. Opposite of the league.
Anyway I totally agree with your main point. I thought he played badly and fair enough he had to hit the bench, and then we got good results with the other CBs. But this was something beyond that. He was totally out in the cold. That could not be performance based.
Should be said however that there were talks about a back injury that was never really confirmed but it made him miss I think it was Chelsea. He also missed Brentford because of a smaller injury. Those small injuries are rarely picked up in stats like the those on transfer market. But of course it could also be fake injuries to avoid talk in the press.
Maybe it was what he needed. Either way, nobody should have been suprised. I've watched Varane for years and he's been consistently excellent and, to use that rather well-worn phrase, appears to be a real 'Rolls Royce of a defender'. Just a sheer pleasure to watch the guy play. If his health holds out- and as others have remarked on here, he's only 30 years old- we should be comfortable for the next couple of years. What worries me equally is whether he and Erik can maintain a good relationship; I wonder if it's true that the manager is a difficult man to get along with? He seems pretty reasonable and likeable for the most part, at least in his public face, but who knows what goes on behind the club's tighly shut portals?
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