I could be wrong but the first four have not been bought as rotational players and the 2 others weren't particularly expensive for a club like Barcelona and they were starters.
Sergej Milinkovic Savic
- Thread starter R'hllor
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I could be wrong but the first four have not been bought as rotational players and the 2 others weren't particularly expensive for a club like Barcelona and they were starters.
Erm, I will give you Dembele (and it was more about potential). All others were bought as first 11 players. Some of them were moved to the bench because they didn't perform well. What could happen to Pogba for example.
Whilst what you say is true about his time at Juve I have yet to see the same work ethic at united. Particularly this season. Whether it’s down to him or instructions is another matter
It's not about being defensively aware, that's too reductive - it's about both Pogba and Milinković-Savić having their greatest impact in attacking roles - in terms of their movement and assists and direct goal-threat, and delivering their best performances in system where they have a great degree of freedom to threaten the opposition's box - facilitated by the likes of Parolo and Vidal and Leiva and Marchisio. Contrast that with Modrić - who's the archetypal assister to the assister in terms of creative passing from central midfield and an expert needle midfielder in terms of linking with Madrid's attack - and Kroos: who's emerged as one of the finest deep-set playmakers in recent years - behind one of the most threatening attacks in recent years, and the difference between their respective approaches and overall remit withing the broader framework is as stark as can be.
Because Pogba and Milinković-Savić (to a lesser degree) have very, very broad skill sets, folks presume that they'll work out together by making subtle changes in their games and being more disciplined when everything about their respective careers points to the contrary. Both of them would both excel with either a high-octane grafter who sets the stage for them or a Scholes-esque midfielder - who can control the momentum of United's game and synchronize his passes with their movement to open up the field and maximize their impact in the final third, so to speak. And while people do forget that Kroos and Modrić had to up their defensive game at Madrid, their individual games were never as expansive as Pogba's or Milinković-Savić's and they aren't as vertically oriented - and both of them were more disciplined than the latter duo as regards positioning - so the transition was considerably easier.
This rumor has all the hallmarks of Griezmann's proposed transfer last season - a clearly excellent player, but perhaps one that's not the ideal fit for United in terms of his role - though that didn't stop folks from sticking him into a myriad setups (mostly in a winger's role or as an attacking midfielder in a 4-2-3-1 ahead of Pogba) where he would be asked to make unnecessary sacrifices - instead of being thrust into his best role for Atlético as a striker-forward in front of a robust midfield base - where he's frequently devastating. United would be better served pursuing someone with the skill set of Pjanić, Verratti, Kovacić to extract the best out of Pogba - or even a more disciplined box-to-box midfielder (like Saúl).
If you allow me, you are basically asking the question, who is in charge of the transition both from attack to defense and defense to attack which is probably our biggest weakness? Neither Milinko-Savic nor Pogba are transition players.
Its a complete myth he hasn't performed well this season
You can laugh all you want. He hasn't been bad, but the truth is he hasn't lived up to expectations and there are still question marks about his game. If you think he doesn't have to step up next year and would be fine if he keeps this level you might end up surprised.
Really like Savic but I also like Fred who is a workhorse.
I'm laughing because his performance levels over the season don't warrant the bench. In fact we were utter trash when he got injured.
Yes he needs to carry his early season form over the course of the season, but ending up on the bench when he provides the assists and chances he does I can not see happening. Not unless we sign 2 top class CMs in the summer
We can buy both
That would be the Icing on the cake for me.@Cassidy
We can buy both
I think we'll try. Fred can cover any role in the midfield 3 as he a good all-rounder that works hard and has the quality to back it up.
Still, he got benched and substituted in the second half of the season. I am just saying if we are buying a player like Savic who is proven to be the best in the exact same position as Pogba meant to operate it is not so unlikely scenario.
I would feel more confident in Jose thinking about Pogba if we are after players in the mould of Kroos, Thiago, Verratti, Pjanic. Or Saul Niguez for example. As Invictus said in his post.
Sold maybe, benched never.
Yep, that's certainly part of the conundrum. I wouldn't even say that Pogba or Milinković-Savić aren't transition players — they just transition in very similar ways from midfield to attack and operated in similar ways at Juventus/Lazio — which will create much of a muchness and redundancies in terms of the overall midfield composition when you consider their individual characteristics. Can't quite fathom why we would want players with convergent expertise when the best midfield units have a wide variety in terms of the overall scope as well as clever demarcation of primary remit (from Platini/Giresse/Tigana/Fernández to Beckham/Keane/Butt/Giggs to Lampard/Essien/Makelélé to Pirlo/Seedorf/Gattudo to Xavi/Iniesta/Busquets, etc).
Benching goes before selling. Unless we sell him this summer. Which I wouldn't like at all.
This is my point, if we buy Savic and its to replace Pogba, then he will be sold. Otherwise if he is not sold, it won't be with the intention to replace but for them to p[lay together.
I also feel it would be weird, but I don't believe there is one way to setup a midfield. I think two Mazella type midfielders like Pogba and Savic could work drifting to opposite flanks as long as the rest of the setup is there to support it. Transition doesn't have to necessarily come from the CMs either.
I'm interested to see what happens, although I am worried since Jose hasn't got this right since he has been here IMO
At Juve a Pogba played on the left flank of a diamond covering defensively for Pirlo behind him and a player in the hole ahead of him. Directly opposite another player with the same duty on the other flank. At United he is rarely given that. This season He was either forced to play ahead of two holders which doesn't suit him or play more restricted in a 2 to ensure Matic rarely gets over run.
With a SMS in tow it would be different. Pogba will finally have a player able to replicate what he had at Juve. A player on the opposite flank pressing high up the pitch but able to alternate with him who attacks the box. Allowing him to play his preffered box to box 8 role. The need for a 'ball controller' for players like them is overrated. Especially under a boss like Mourinho. His 2005 Chelsea side never had a controller. But it never stopped it being effective. Right now United suffer in midfield because Pogba Is the ONLY creative passer we have in there. At Chelsea both Essien and Lampard were crrative passers with out being controllers. So instead of fixating on a controller, why can't we instead add a second creative passer? Its not like we are possession based team. Mourinho's aim is to make us masters of transition play and IMO adding a second Pogba like player to midfield will get us much closer to that.
I think its instructions. Plus the fact his return to United is the first time in his senior career he has been tasked to operate in a deep lying 2 man midfield partnership. Plus in the hole behind a lon striker. It does take some adjusting to.
I dont see it happening. But if we do bring in Savic, maybe we will try a similar system to Lazio?
de Gea
Bailly - Toby - Jones
Valencia - Savic - Matic - Pogba - Sandro
Sanchez - Lukaku
Miss a bit of pace and a penetration (lack of better wording). We could solve it if we get a more attacking option than Valencia, and give that player a bit more freedom than the left back. A set up do not have to be symmetrical, and Bailly is well suited to cover a lot of space. I always felt that was the case for the Man Utd midfield in the 90s. Giggs was a bit more attacking than Beckham, and played a bit higher up the pitch.
Could explain our interest for Cancelo too.
de Gea
Bailly - Toby - Jones
Valencia - Savic - Matic - Pogba - Sandro
Sanchez - Lukaku
Miss a bit of pace and a penetration (lack of better wording). We could solve it if we get a more attacking option than Valencia, and give that player a bit more freedom than the left back. A set up do not have to be symmetrical, and Bailly is well suited to cover a lot of space. I always felt that was the case for the Man Utd midfield in the 90s. Giggs was a bit more attacking than Beckham, and played a bit higher up the pitch.
Could explain our interest for Cancelo too.
Isnt amyth, hasnt performed well consistently anywhere near to the level he should already be at and can reach.....saying that you could almost changfe the name Pogba for any other of our talented players bar DeGea and Matic.
Same token you are right, when he was injured he was sorely missed and even at the level he has performed still one of our most important players and wouldnt put any current player in ahead of him in midfield
If he did he wouldn't have performed well, but would have performed outstandingly well. It is a myth, the bar for him is just set extremely high.
Haha i'm Serbian too so I understand where your coming from.
The starting XI should be
------------------Stojkovic
Rukavina--Ivanovic--Nastasic--Kolarov
-------------Milivojevic--Matic
--------------------SMS
Tadic/Zivkovic----------------Ljajic/Kostic
--------------------Mitrovic
On paper should get second in the group but like you say they could be in vacation mode....
It is a fair point and tbf I have same worries as the one you mentioned.
Don't quite see how it's being conflated with Juventus' setup. The players on the opposite flank were typically Marchisio (much more disciplined than Milinković-Savić):
Or Vidal - who wasn't just someone who mirrored Pogba in terms of his attacking prowess as a box-to-box, but one of the most energetic and combative players for the era (as opposed to Milinković-Savić - who's more Ballack than Keane):
Not to mention the player in the hole ahead of him had great workrate, too (including Tévez)...and while Pirlo didn't dive into tackles, for most of Pogba's Juventus career - he was the glue that brought the whole setup together in terms of organisation on the field.
In comparison with those, Milinković-Savić + Pogba seems eminently flawed and vertically oriented - unless Milinković-Savić plays as the enganche in a diamond and you put a tactically astute central midfielder on the right.
To be honest, I don't really care about what Mourinho did more than a decade ago, especially considering the elite teams started putting greater emphasis on comfort on the ball towards the late 2000s and early 2010s as we witnessed a paradigm shift with the advent of you-know-who. Every single top, top Champions League team over the last half-decade had at least one “ball controller” — a player you so readily discount because Mourinho didn't have one in 2005 - from Alonso to Xavi to Pirlo to Modrić + Kroos to Thiago to Verratti to Pjanić, and so forth. The only outlier is Atlético - who play a fairly agricultural brand of football - something a club of United's stature and considerable finances shouldn't aspire to. Even our last great European team had a superlative “ball controller” in Scholes. Even if Mourinho doesn't want one, you could argue someone with the skill set of Kanté or perhaps Saúl would be a better complement to Pogba than Milinković-Savić in terms of approximating to Essien/Vidal.
I have a massive pet peeve with this insistence on using bollocks descriptions of midfielders like 'trequarista' or whatever. Stop being pretentious, just say a deep-lying playmaker, a defensive mid, a box to box or whatever.
I can't think of a single CM less suited to what we need, he gives the ball away more than Pogba, is as defensively poor as Pogba and lacks mobility, one of our biggest issues is how easily ran on our midfield is as it's lacking in mobility, agility and ground covering speed. Savic is a decent player with one really good season in Serie A under his belt, the fee Lazio want is laughable and he'd only make sense for us if Pogba goes, and if that is the case then we'd be smarter to buy a proper #10 for Mourino's preferred 4-2-3-1 than another awkward to accomodate giant CM.
They aren't bollocks, they are words commonly used in another culture that speak a different first language than English, and this is a very multi-cultural board so who knows where the person using them comes from.
hahah that word started being used all over after they put it in one of the FM games
I am not an expert, but I don't know how to translate 'trequartista' with traditional position. You can say he goes into attacking midfielder category, but that would still be too general.
It's easier to conceptualize things using idiosyncratic terms from schools of football that produced somewhat storied players that fall into that specialized category. e.g. when someone says Trequarista — you immediately think of Italians like Baggio or Del Piero or Totti - not just a random forward, or when someone says Volante in an evocative way — you think of great South American midfielders like Falcão as a reference point - not just a generic central or defensive midfielder, but more of an evolved half-back. Even in the English game, classifications like box-to-box or central midfielder are too broad. e.g. both Yaya Touré and Roy Keane were box-to-box midfielders, but their styles were very varied - and conveying that calls for a degree of specificity.
You are conflating me saying their roles were mirrored with me sating they were similar type of players. That isn't the case. The roles on either flank were exactly the same. The only difference being the one on the right (usually Vidal/Marchisio) was occupied by a player with superior defensive awareness than Pogba.
That is true but irrelevant to the fact both flanks of the diamond did all the defending and ball winning for him. Hence I do not understand where the myth that Pogba would be better off free of ANY defensive duties comes from.
That is where you and I wont agree. Having a controller is only essential for team oriented to possession based football. Not to any team that is oriented to transition football.
Teams oriented to transition football do it best using one of two methods. Either they are a counter pressing side like Klopp's Liverpool. Or they are a team that has more than one creative passer in the center of midfield.
United and Pogba looked better when Carrick was still able to play regularly BECAUSE he was a second creative passer in midfield. People keep over looking that fact and conflating it with that only being possible because he was a controller.
Even in the second half of last season, when we settled for a double 8, 4-3-3 type system, it worked well because
Herrera was able to be the second creative passer in the middle of the park.
Currently Pogba has seemed to struggle because 1) He has the vast majority of the season been the sole creative passer in midfield expected to a) be the creative brain of the team b) be the link to the forwards since the likes of Lingard play 10 as forward recyclers of possession rather than play makers and c) still be disciplined enough to hold his position so that Matic doesn't get over loaded when United lose the ball. All this for a who had spent his entire senior career playing in a midfield with at least 2 creative passers, on top of having never consistently operated in a double pivot at senior level before returning to OT.
To back my argument further, in the later part of the season, whenever Herrera has played to his true ability, Pogba has looked infinitely better. All because of having a second creative passer in the middle of the team. This is why I have no
doubt if we added a second player similar to him, especially one like SMS who can also put in a defensive shit, and unlike Pogba who is actually comfortable as a 10, we would still be able to get the best out of Pogba. Even sans having a midfield controller. For we'd have two creative channels for our transition moves.
Right now the fact we have only one creative passer in center midfield, and no true width due to the attacking poverty we have caused be having an unambitious right full back and and inside out left back, coupled with inside out wingers is creating the illusion that we are in dire need of a midfield controller.
He's pretty slow. Won't be a good fit I'm afraid. But he's so good and skillful on the ball I would love him here.
Both Pogba and SMS can help a bit. Right now, we're over burdened Pogba for this task, and when he's not in the right mind making poor positioning decision we have to go long to Lukaku, as the midfield bridge is weak. Herrera can win the ball back plenty time, even early but he just ore often than not make safe pass instead of caught th either team out. Martial, Rashford and Lingard lack that know how to consistently turn the flow over. Mata is not ideal for quick transition. Alexis has helped a bit but not enough as he is never tidy with his possession and he's not a long distance runner. So basically, we're having problem to quick transit to final third catching opposition out, and over relies on Lukaku aerial ability (which is not the best).
Not getting a dedicated player for this role may sound not ideal, but sharing can be sufficient enough as already pointed out, SMS possesses great aerial ability (needs to test more in PL, but I rate it's higher than Lukaku's aerial ability in back to he goal situation). What Fellaini shows us is that the area where defensive midfielder stationed is prone to aerial capable players. A player who can dominate that area and pair with ability to make use of the ball he brings down can be deadly.
Edit: and Pogba without the ball can quickly run higher up the pitch into good position waiting for someone who has ability to pick him out. SMS has this ability to hold on the the ball (like Pogba) and ability to pick that pass. It's meant to help Pogba out. So it's not just the only way to solve our problem is a dedicated midfield controller.
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For midfielder who'd be the brain of the team, I'd like to have a bit "mature" player. I am sick of inconsistency Pogba or young players. If Pogba stays, then we should be looking a complimentary creative midfielder who is more mature in age. I'd say around 25-26 y.o.
He's been good but disappears after a few years, last seen 2000 years ago, bit like Ozil
Jesus
Pogba doesn't have his greatest impact in an attacking role. At least not in England. He's got a weird kind of press resistance. When you press him, he's brilliant at keeping the ball at his feet, but he become totally shit at passing. It's like he gets nervous about releasing the ball when someone is on his back. He's far better at passing from deep or being the out-ball from defence.
Play Pogba deeper and Savic higher. It would work beautifully. Getting wrapped up in previous paradigms doesn't help.
He's a great player but a lot of his dominance in Italy stems from his physicality and aerial prowess, not sure how that would translate in England
Pogba also relied a lot on those things and simply hasn't been able to leverage them into the same level of dominance in the PL
Probably the teams also play a big role in that, and Mourinho seems to have a good handle on using Fellaini so Milinkovic(who's basically a smaller but more skilled, complete and talented Fellaini) might be a good fit for Mou
Pogba also relied a lot on those things and simply hasn't been able to leverage them into the same level of dominance in the PL
Probably the teams also play a big role in that, and Mourinho seems to have a good handle on using Fellaini so Milinkovic(who's basically a smaller but more skilled, complete and talented Fellaini) might be a good fit for Mou