Thomas A.Anderson
Full Member
Oh, Christ. Fred was likeable but he was so limited as a player.
Amrabat and Mount are a few levels above.
Amrabat and Mount are a few levels above.
Nah mate. McTominay never lost 5-6 balls near his own box.
I swear our fan base has these moments whereby they reminisce/cry out for the return of most players we’ve sold at one point or another - even if said player was proven not to be good enough. “Could have done a job as a squad player….blah blah”. Now it’s Fred’s time I guess. Let him have his moment/thread.
Be careful what you wish forI'm shocked I couldn't find a 'releasing Tuanzebe was a mistake' thread tbh
And is stronger in duels, in the air and has better movement without the ball (which can described as your nose for goal granted)Fred made colossal mistakes, no question, but he was never as persistently poor as McTominay. Fred's various managers were playing with fire by having Fred sit back as though he were a CDM, which he clearly is not. But further up the pitch, Fred's passing is galaxies better than McTominay's. What McTominay has is a nose for goal from distance and that's it.
The one that got away?
He was sold because Ten Hag didn't fancy him clearly. He has a number of good appearances, good numbers in terms of goal contributions, never injured and could play 90' every game. Our peak period last season was with Fred in the team partnering Casemiro.He was probably sold because he was one of the only midfield assets we could get money for, plus his contract was expiring. If we’d have offered an extension, people would be slamming the club for doing so.
The main issue is that his replacement in Mount hasn’t worked so far, and Amrabat is probably even worse.
Its exactly this. Its ok to get rid of anyone but you need to replace with a better player. Hence the De Gea threads and the Greenwood threads and the Ronaldo threads etc. All of them should have gone but we just never replaced them with quality.It wouldn't have been a mistake if we had improved on him. It's clearly looking at the moment that we haven't and he would once again have been our best midfielder this season (something that he was in a couple other seasons which people forget), so it's definitely looking like a mistake.
I think it's telling he was the only one we could move on.
He was never a great player but he was an average player with a fantastic work rate and attitude which sometimes is more valuable than a fantastic player with an average work rate.
I would say De Gea and Ronaldo needed to go when they did, so even if their replacements ended up not being the right move I still wouldn't say it was a mistake. Fred is different, in that I don't think he 'needed' to go. He was a good player to have in the squad and was one of our better players in his position (not necessarily in the starting 11, but arguably our best back-up option). Ultimately we want to continue improving so he would have dropped further down the pecking order, but selling him is only right if that is definitely happening. As it turns out, it didn't.Its exactly this. Its ok to get rid of anyone but you need to replace with a better player. Hence the De Gea threads and the Greenwood threads and the Ronaldo threads etc. All of them should have gone but we just never replaced them with quality.
To be fair, I think the difference was more that both wanted to leave once they were told they were being dropped down the pecking order. We 'could' have sold other players (such as McTominay this season) but those players didn't want to leave so we just ended up doing the 'easy' deal.Just like with Smalling, Fred was first out the door as teams actually wanted him. Selling him was totally the correct decision, it’s the simple and obvious failure to replace him appropriately which has once again shown how woefully run we are.
Selling Fred was a mistake....because we have't replaced him appropriately. Because he has not been properly replaced, we miss his running and pressing ability for sure. I think we'd be better off this season if we stilll had those abilities in midfield.
First month or so of the season maybe, and even then it'd be debatable. I certainly wouldn't say it was the entire first half of the season.Not to say that he was a great replacement or is a million times better but the player who did replace him in Mount has been injured and unavailable a lot. If we had signed Rice for example and he'd played the same 4 starts and 4 sub appearances that Mount has had (3 more starts in league cup and champions league) it still wouldnt have been that good. Thats the same amount of starts as Luke Shaw who again hasnt played enough this season.
Amrabat would be the 2nd replacement and he's not been that much worse than Fred was last season. He lacks the mobility, but is far stronger. Fred was terrible in the first half of the season, worse than Amrabat is now.