Seamus Coleman

Which team has 2 top fullbacks fighting for a place?
Considering Smalling has been covering Rafael for a large part of the season, I'm not sure how much fighting will actually take place.
Put it this way, would you rather have two very good full backs fighting for their place or another Buttner as backup for Rafael. One if the many problems we have at the moment is there is little to no competition for places, to compete at the highest level we need healthy competition and to be able to cope with injuries, at the moment we cant.
 
Coleman only had one season where he actually played right back consistently before this one. In the others he was deployed on the wings.
The last two seasons he has consistently played right back. You'd have to go back to the 2011/12 season when he was deployed a lot more on the wing.
 
I don't think you can criticise him or use the "only played a limited time at RB" as something to fault him for either, as the two seasons he's been allowed to play there he's been excellent.
 
This right wing thing is an absolute myth, it really is. The lad has probably played 80% of his entire career as a right back and has been consistently excellent in that position for nearly two seasons now.
 
Considering Smalling has been covering Rafael for a large part of the season, I'm not sure how much fighting will actually take place.
Put it this way, would you rather have two very good full backs fighting for their place or another Buttner as backup for Rafael. One if the many problems we have at the moment is there is little to no competition for places, to compete at the highest level we need healthy competition and to be able to cope with injuries, at the moment we cant.

As I said in my post earlier, Coleman missed more games due to injury than Rafael last season. Yes, he has suffered more this season but that isnt reason enough to get a new full back. Regarding your question, I dont see any way how either of Rafael or Coleman would be willing to fight it out for one spot. It doesnt happen at any club in the world, wont happen here either. There always is a middle ground though which is why I dont understand why it either has to be 2 top RBs or a buttner as backup.

How far off is Varela from being good enough to deputize?
 
Haven't Real had Coentrao and Marcelo for the LB position for a while?

I like Rafael but he isn't so good that he couldn't do with competition. If he doesn't have the stomach or quality to fight it out with Coleman...
 
Coleman looks great this year but there is no reason why Rafael can't be as consistent as him. I think United should invest elsewhere and leave Coleman to Liverpool!
 
This right wing thing is an absolute myth, it really is. The lad has probably played 80% of his entire career as a right back and has been consistently excellent in that position for nearly two seasons now.

Eh?

Coleman looks great this year but there is no reason why Rafael can't be as consistent as him. I think United should invest elsewhere and leave Coleman to Liverpool!

Would take him at Liverpool for £15m or so, but no chance of it happening.
 
Eh?



Would take him at Liverpool for £15m or so, but no chance of it happening.
Yeah but I don't think everton would sell him to us for that. I think he would really suit the style of football we are playing though.
 
What's mythical about it? He did play right wing in his first season at Everton. No one says he plays there now.

No he didn't. Admit it, you don't know much about his career, do you?

He was a right back for Sligo Rovers, then his first half season at Everton he was on loan at Blackpool playing as a right back; he came back and again played right back. He played most of the 10/11 season as a right back and it was the 11/12 season his form dipped when he was mostly deployed in an advanced right wing role. He played all the 12/13 and 13/14 seasons as a right back and has been excellent.

I never disputed he played right wing (I have posts in this thread about that particular issue). My issue is, the RedCafe myth - according to some posters anyway - that think he played any significant amount of his career in that position. He didn't, end of really.

Re-read my post you randomly replied to, I said he has played around 80% of his career at right back. So I obviously never said he didn't play as a right winger during his career.
 
No he didn't. Admit it, you don't know much about his career, do you?

He was a right back for Sligo Rovers, then his first half season at Everton he was on loan at Blackpool playing as a right back; he came back and again played right back. He played most of the 10/11 season as a right back and it was the 11/12 season his form dipped when he was mostly deployed in an advanced right wing role. He played all the 12/13 and 13/14 seasons as a right back and has been excellent.

I never disputed he played right wing (I have posts in this thread about that particular issue). My issue is, the RedCafe myth - according to some posters anyway - that think he played any significant amount of his career in that position. He didn't, end of really.

Re-read my post you randomly replied to, I said he has played around 80% of his career at right back. So I obviously never said he didn't play as a right winger during his career.

He joined Everton, played right back, went to Blackpool and then came back and played on the wing.

If he's played 80% at RB , then he has played a significant amount of time on the wing.
 
He joined Everton, played right back, went to Blackpool and then came back and played on the wing.

If he's played 80% at RB , then he has played a significant amount of time on the wing.

Again, no he didn't. He came back after a short loan spell and played as a right back. He played a-few games in the 10/11 season there and again the 11/12 season. He also played a-few games for Sligo in that position (right wing). I have no issue that he played right wing. You have some odd issue here. If you actually read this thread, some mis-informed posters think he played the 'majority' of his career or an extremely significant potion there.
 
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I'd be inclined to say yes to this transfer if it didn't affect our first priority signings like a left back and central midfielder(s).

I don't see the necessity to improve on Rafael, as he is a very good player in his own right and will continue to improve, but an alternative right back is probably another position we should be looking at with Rafael's recurring injury problems and non-fullbacks Valencia, Smalling and Jones his only viable first team squad replacements.

As another poster said, Vidic and Ferdinand are likely to leave at the end of the season, which should hopefully result in our squad being more refined and balanced with Smalling and Jones reverting to centre back on a full-time basis and a right back to compete with Rafael - possibly Varela if he develops at a fast rate and two competent left backs which we lack.

That's been one of our problems in recent seasons, plugging holes in the team with out of position players that have stunted their development and subsequently meant they aren't excelling in a position. Coleman and Rafael would be excellent competition at right back, but would Coleman be worth the outlay if Varela can step up and Rafael overcomes his injury troubles? I'm not sure.
 
Again, no he didn't. He came back after a short loan spell and played as a right back. He played a-few games in the 10/11 season there and again the 11/12 season. He also played a-few games for Sligo in that position (right wing). I have no issue that he played right wing. You have some odd issue here. If you actually read this thread, some mis-informed posters think he played the 'majority' of his career or an extremely significant potion there.

No one has said he's played the majority of his career at right wing have they? I can't comment on his Sligo days, I don't watch Irish football. You said you estimate that he's played 20% there - that's a significant portion of his career whichever way you spin it. I'm not going to carry further into this argument as it's a bit pedantic.
 
No one has said he's played the majority of his career at right wing have they? I can't comment on his Sligo days, I don't watch Irish football. You said you estimate that he's played 20% there - that's a significant portion of his career whichever way you spin it. I'm not going to carry further into this argument as it's a bit pedantic.

Aye. You are pedantic for pulling me up on this and trying to call me out. I've never disputed him playing right wing, never once.

As I said, if you read through the thread, it's blatantly obvious that some on here haven't followed his career very closely at all. Some have insinuated that he has played at right wing a hell of a lot more than in reality. Others have claimed that Rafael was the far better player last season; again, simply not true. This would all lead me to believe that some people choose to talk rubbish and make wild claims that are simply false.

A poster somewhere in this thread said something along the lines of 'before last season he played mostly at right wing' - others have said similar things.
 
Considering Smalling has been covering Rafael for a large part of the season, I'm not sure how much fighting will actually take place.
Put it this way, would you rather have two very good full backs fighting for their place or another Buttner as backup for Rafael. One if the many problems we have at the moment is there is little to no competition for places, to compete at the highest level we need healthy competition and to be able to cope with injuries, at the moment we cant.
I don't think that it makes much sense to have two very good full backs for the same position. The closest I can think of is Madrid with Marcelo and Coentrao and apprently Coentrao wants out. We also should not forget that Varela looks very promising and can be a good backup starting from next season (if Moyes gives him the chance). Having two great players for every position looks good in theory but in practice one of them would be unhappy.

Add to that, Coleman's price which will be at-least 20m and the fact that Rafael is more than 2 years younger (and IMO with higher potential, while last season he was as good as Coleman this season) and this possible transfer doesn't make sense for me. If we go for him, I hope that they'll ask for 50m and we will refuse to pay that much.
 
I don't think that it makes much sense to have two very good full backs for the same position. The closest I can think of is Madrid with Marcelo and Coentrao and apprently Coentrao wants out. We also should not forget that Varela looks very promising and can be a good backup starting from next season (if Moyes gives him the chance). Having two great players for every position looks good in theory but in practice one of them would be unhappy.

Add to that, Coleman's price which will be at-least 20m and the fact that Rafael is more than 2 years younger (and IMO with higher potential, while last season he was as good as Coleman this season) and this possible transfer doesn't make sense for me. If we go for him, I hope that they'll ask for 50m and we will refuse to pay that much.

We nearly always had good cover for players and when we didnt had that we got into trouble. Our 4 quality forwards + the fact that we brought a winger who was good enough to give Giggs a breather were the main reason why we were able to win the treble.

Rafael is injury prone and Valencia/Smalling are horrible as full backs. I disagree in spending 25m on Seamus but bringing some quality cover for rb is needed
 
I'm all for signing Coleman to bring some real competition into the team.

However, what I am unsure of is whether we will continue the tradition of dropping Rafael when Stoke come to town, or any big side. There's just no point signing a player of Colemans quality to compete with Rafael to shun them both for a tall guy who offers nothing going forward.

I can't actually think of any teams that change their fullback to accomodate a tall team. It doesn't particulary work as it actually causes the opposition more pressure on the fullbacks due to them not being scared of going forward as there is no threat going the other way
 
I don't think that it makes much sense to have two very good full backs for the same position. The closest I can think of is Madrid with Marcelo and Coentrao and apprently Coentrao wants out. We also should not forget that Varela looks very promising and can be a good backup starting from next season (if Moyes gives him the chance). Having two great players for every position looks good in theory but in practice one of them would be unhappy.

Add to that, Coleman's price which will be at-least 20m and the fact that Rafael is more than 2 years younger (and IMO with higher potential, while last season he was as good as Coleman this season) and this possible transfer doesn't make sense for me. If we go for him, I hope that they'll ask for 50m and we will refuse to pay that much.
We are in desperate need to add competition to places, especially at full back positions. Currently we have Smalling and Buttner as cover, it's simply not good enough.
Yes Varela looks a good prospect, but is he ready? I'm not so sure.
 
Our old friend Scholesy certainly doesn't think United buying Coleman would work out.
Didnt coleman and Phil Neville have a very public spat when they were at everton together. Scholes could be responding to that if he is good mates with Phil.
 
If we ended up lashing 15-20m on Coleman, I for one would be utterly flabbergasted.
 
We are in desperate need to add competition to places, especially at full back positions. Currently we have Smalling and Buttner as cover, it's simply not good enough.
Yes Varela looks a good prospect, but is he ready? I'm not so sure.

Still can't make my mind up about Buttner but right now he's nowhere near good enough to be our first choice left back. Smalling's just a fill-in at right back and will never be good enough to make the position his own. I still don't get why we sold Fabio when there's such a dearth of talent to cover for Evra and Rafael.
 
Why? He's worth that!

Right back can't be any higher than 4th on the priority list to fix.


Centre mid
Wings
Left back


In theory we have Mata and Januzaj for the wings. But we all know neither is best there.
 
Still can't make my mind up about Buttner but right now he's nowhere near good enough to be our first choice left back. Smalling's just a fill-in at right back and will never be good enough to make the position his own. I still don't get why we sold Fabio when there's such a dearth of talent to cover for Evra and Rafael.
I reckon Fabio wanted to go to get playing time, I wouldn't blame him, he wasn't going to get much under Moyes for some reason.
We are in desperate need of competition in so many areas across the pitch.
 
I reckon Fabio wanted to go to get playing time, I wouldn't blame him, he wasn't going to get much under Moyes for some reason.
We are in desperate need of competition in so many areas across the pitch.

If you believe the papers, Paddy is on his way out at season's end which means there's no first-choice left back. Maybe Moyes thinks Jonny Evans can be converted.
 
If you believe the papers, Paddy is on his way out at season's end which means there's no first-choice left back. Maybe Moyes thinks Jonny Evans can be converted.
He has played there for Northern Ireland in the past, and in fairness to him played quite well, but I seriously hope the thought never enters Moyes head :lol:
 
He has played there for Northern Ireland in the past, and in fairness to him played quite well, but I seriously hope the thought never enters Moyes head :lol:

I know and that's what made me think about it. He's covered for us at left back too when needed but I wouldn't fancy him there full-time. Besides, the system we play requires our full backs to play as wing backs and that's something Jonny wouldn't be that great at.
 
Didnt coleman and Phil Neville have a very public spat when they were at everton together. Scholes could be responding to that if he is good mates with Phil.

Oh sorry, I meant ex-poster Scholesy. He said if United replaced Rafael with Coleman they deserved to get relegated.