I don't rate Dalot, he is just a average player. He can a bench option but never a starter. I have not seen him putting great cross consistently. Even we play a high line, he could get behind the defence he couldn't pass to an open player or score with keeper to beat. Insufficient overlapping run. Dorgu is just with us a few months, you can see his willingness to get forward.
Ruben Amorim - Manchester United Head Coach | Thread locked during matches
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Nik (@Rood) and Imran (@Annihilate Now!) discuss United's fantastic win away against Athletic Club in the semi-final of the Europa League.
They also pick out the positives of United's 4-3 loss away at Brentford, and Nik reviews a day out at Old Trafford watching Manchester United Women qualify for the Champions League.
Why? What have you seen that I haven’t?
He’s played over 200 games for this club and that itself is a felony.
He offers nothing going forward, his passing is hideous and he has quietly cost us some unforgivable goals (like the one against Spurs where VDV did that run and Dalot just lazily let Johnson jog past him for a tap in 2 minutes into the game).
Don’t get me started on his theatrics, Man thinks showing passion is throwing his arms in the air and hugging and kissing his teammates when he concedes a corner. But it’s actually just doing the basic, silent work… like, actually sprinting back when you are tired or just bothering to look over your shoulder when a cross is coming in.
I agree. I think Dalot’s biggest weakness is his positional awareness during open play. It has contributed to the fragility of our backline.
He’s also a player we might actually be able to sell and get some money, so I hope he’s on the chopping block this summer.
For some reason Dalot seems to be a player that doesn’t pass the eye test but a lot of our managers (bar Solskjear) highly rate.
Somehow thinking about if Amorim was in charge of England's squad under Capello. Just being able to fit in Lampard and Gerrard, and that squad would look ten times better.
--------------------- Rooney
-------- Lampard -------- Gerrard
A. Cole* -- G. Barry ---Carrick --- G. Johnson**
----------Lescott---Terry --- Rio
*Probably Baines.
** Probably Shaun Wright-Phillips/Milner.
--------------------- Rooney
-------- Lampard -------- Gerrard
A. Cole* -- G. Barry ---Carrick --- G. Johnson**
----------Lescott---Terry --- Rio
*Probably Baines.
** Probably Shaun Wright-Phillips/Milner.
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Dalot has been poor this season, but he was quite good for most of the last two seasons (and had a strong end to the season before that as well).
If we were still playing him as a fullback I'd have no interest in selling him as I'd expect that he would ultimately get back into form. But as a wingback I do think he has limitations beyond just form, so if we can get a good fee for him and replace him with someone more suited it could be a good idea. He's certainly not as bad as you are making out though, even this season.
He is rapid, great work rate, great availability. Has played in different positions. Chips in with a goal or assist now or then. Just not great output.
I don't think it's about the eye-test so much - which, for me, is a bad indicator in most cases because "passing" it usually means that a player does the flashy things - as it is about performing several tasks at a basic level in a team where the usual tradeoff of sacrificing some balance to maximize attacking talent creates more problems than the ones it solves (because the players who are supposed to come up with the goods are either too streaky or piss poor at everything else... or both). In other words, he's not so much of a headache. The risk with that, of course, is that at the age of 26 (and considering that he seemed to be destined for greatness as a teenager) he risks being labelled as a perennial talent.
Yup, he will be playing a lot next season as well. We should not expect him to be a winger or playmaker, just a solid defender who can fill the roles of wingback and rcb/lcb and is fit.
Yep, he will play alot because he has good attitude in training as well. What we need to learn as fans is we wont have a team of 11 world beaters. Every team that wins big trophies needs utility players, Dalot if one of them.
For me (and I suspect for a lot of fans as well) “passing eye test” for a wingback doesn’t mean doing flashy stuff - I don’t think anyone is expecting anything flashy from Dalot.
What we want to see is that he is defensively dependable, whilst being a solid support option in attack and generally making the right decisions more often than not.
What we can see is that, yes, he’s an athletic player who runs a lot and have good work rate, but there is always a mistake in him. I’ll even take someone like Rafael over Dalot. Hell, I’ll take an aging Gary Neville over Dalot.
All of England's problems throughout the 00's and early 10's would have been solved with a back 3. I have been banging this drum for years.
Not won a single game this week. Awful stuff.
Hopefully all the players came back from international duty ok and Amorim's had a week or so to recharge the batteries. Amad, Mount, Mainoo, Maguire and Shaw back soon.
Please don't feck it up against Lyon!
Please don't feck it up against Lyon!
I wasn't referring to him when i mentioned the flashy stuff, although there's a lot more patience on the island (from fans and pundits alike) for players that "look busy". And Dalot does. I actually agree with your assessment. Being athletic and running a lot doesn't make up for bad positioning and lack of concentration (unless you're Kyle Walker fast). If you watch his passing map after a game - and he sees a lot of the ball under Amorim - you won't be able to tell which side United were attacking on the graph. There's also this notion that he could be an answer to our ball-carrying issues, but he's bang average in that area, too. Finally, in the final third, he's good in the way most of our attacking outlets are: Getting in a good position to receive the ball for a final shot/pass, not so much helping our play to get in these situations. What makes him serviceable in this team (and makes managers pick him) is his availability and his ability to play on either side without requiring the whole team to accommodate him. He's been surviving on that during the whole of his United career, when he should be "forced" to improve several aspects of his game.
Hard work isn’t wanting to be a hero, bombing up and down the line like a mad man, in hope can either provide an assist or make a slide tackle. It’s doing the hard yards and busting a gut to get back in position even when you are tired.
Dalot has a huge tendency to just amble back at his own speed when opposition breakaway on the opposite side.
Nothing but laziness on his part and it’s lead to us conceding goals.
City’s second goal at OT last season was a prime example of this. As was spurs’s first goal this season.
Bernardo and Johnson were both his men and he let them run past him. (one Assisted, one scored in these scenarios)
Yeah. England was pretty weak on CM and width, but had many good CBs and (mostly central) attackers.
But can’t defend. Not bad going forward but awful at defending and he’s sometimes makes dumb decisions.
This seems quite a weird thing to see. Despite Rafael never being a world beater, he was a far, far better RB than Dalot.
Rafael was defensively suspect at times, and prone to getting carded.
He gets a lot of love from most United fans and he was very good in that 12/13 season but you only have to see what happened to his career next to know he wasn't a world class full back (and that applies to a lot of that 12-13 title winning side because Sir Alex was a fecking genius).
It's great to give examples, I appreciate that over people making sweeping statements to back it.
I disagree re City's goal, Dalot's man would be Grealish, Bernardo causes an overlap. This one is not on him. Spurs one is 100% him switching off but it's at LB in fairness.
For Dalot to be effective as a RWB we need to ask all our future opponents if we can have the goals 50 feet wide by 20 feet high and then he might just get one shot on target.
That would work actually - it would capture some of his shots and some of his crosses.
Why are shots on target the main thing you are focused on for a RWB?Thats a very reasonable take but I'd still keep my awareness high. Our team is quite a lot of players away from a team of 11 world beaters. At this point, becoming a functional team is the first waypoint to pass. Dalot has a decent reputation right now and if there might be an offer, we should definitely consider it. Now is not the time to sit on players just for the bench. We just aren't in a position to afford that. But overall, I think, we'd have the same approach, I wouldn't offer him around, but if a very good offer comes in, we definitely should consider it.
I don't think he's that bad. I think he would be a good player for rotating but shouldn't be relying him as a starter. We all love Gary, but an aging Gary was bad! ha. I would say he is probably around the same level as Rafael.
To be fair, If you watch back the city goal it’s actually hard to find a shot of him getting back, it’s pathetically slow, you see him basically walking into shot at the last second if you rewatch them on YouTube with the classic TV view, Either way, Grealish was being picked up by someone covering for Dalot. So the least he could have done was sprint back in to help his teammate out or pick up the spare man (Bernardo).
I don’t just wanna hammer our players constantly but the basics and the bare minimum is, if you run forward, you’ve gotta get back even quicker.
Garnacho is another one who’s clever at acting ‘busy’, it’s easy to see through when you know what they are doing.
Similar to how McTominay was a phenomenal hider away from home against the top 6.
Something that Dalot did do a lot last season. He actually saved our arses countless times by being the one to get back and put in the last second tackle after the opposition broke through our otherwise slow and porous backline. This despite Dalot also being the one who was asked to move forward either out wide or into the midfield, so the amount of work he was doing last season was extremely impressive (almost certainly the most in the team by some distance). Realistically every player will have moments where they tune out; for instance I can think of times that Amad, Mazraoui and Dorgu already have done similar. Evra certainly did it as well (especially in his last three or four seasons it happened a lot).
Right from the start of this season though it was noticeable that Dalot did seem a bit lazier at getting back and was getting caught out more, so it's a fair criticism this season. However I don't like the trend where a lot of people are making out that his current form is how he's always been.
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Agreed. In my opinion, there is no one in the Manutd squad that if a reasonable offer came, I would lose any sleep over. So say a Milam or Juve said, £40m, I am taking that all day long for Dalot. Like you said, I don't think the club will go out its way to find a buyer, only if one came.
I think Garnacho does put a shift in generally defensively, for a forward he's better than most. I will disagree there.
McT I agree but it wasn't his choice, I don't think he shied away from responsibility he just wasn't good enough. I remember a few years ago on here there was a discussion on this specifically (him hiding from passes/going missing) and the thought process was that he was a great example of the lag you see in academy tactics/training. All our guys of that kind of age coming through the academy grew up in a much more direct, counter attacking system - whenever we tried to play more passing heavy games he struggled massively with positioning, he'd always be asking for the ball in places it was so unlikely to reach him - the opposite to someone like Donny who would come and show for all kinds of little inside passes that seemed pointless and our players would often go more direct or just move the ball back to other way.
He won't do that.
Why?
Because if he goes youth mode, we could finish really low down the table. That plan might see him get fired in the Summer, which wouldn't be good for anybody.
Any manager who works for this club is expected to finish as high up the table as possible.
Dalot is United's most underappreciated player right now and has been for at least a season or two. Guy plays a million matches in numerous positions. He inverts, he overlaps, he presses high, he's last man back. He has brainless moments no doubt, but he's immensely valuable to our squad and probably represents one of our best transfers post Fergie.
Ugh. If he’s one of our best transfers post SAF, kill me now…
He barely played his first couple years, was sent out on loan. He came back and was abysmal defensively when he played. Ten Hag’s one decent achievement was turning him into a decent FB the season we came 3rd. There are at least 8 RBs in the league I’d rather have than Dalot. That said, he’s never injured…
He’s kind of the poster child for Man Utd mediocrity in my opinion. He fills a need, but that’s about it.
But despite that he still lacks quality.
Are you for real? One of our best transfers post Fergie? How low can we go.
He is a nice utility player to have in the squad to fill some gaps if players are injured or suspended. He’s always available because he’s never injured, that’s also nice and makes him a reliable player. I don’t believe for one minute he will ever be a good starting player in a team that hopefully some day will play for prizes again. That doesn’t mean he’s a bad player but he’s also not the right wingback for this system. Right wingback is a big priority this summer to make the system of Amorim really work.
No wonder we are where we are with Dalot being one of our best transfers post Fergie.
He has one exceptional quality, and that is availability. Can't drible, can't cross, and often has concentration lapses that cost us. In a title winning team, he would be a squad player.
He has one exceptional quality, and that is availability. Can't drible, can't cross, and often has concentration lapses that cost us. In a title winning team, he would be a squad player.
I don’t disagree with that. But tittle winning team do need those squad players with great availability and versatility who can fill gaps in the squad. We can use him as a backup RWB, LWB, LCB, RCB. That makes him almost a very valuable squad player imo.
Ye this didn’t make sense. Bruno is by far the best signing since Fergie and he offers us availability every single week and puts in the performances every single week.