So we didn't sign a central midfielder
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) and Imran (@Annihilate Now!) are here to discuss three 1-1 draws.
The first got us knocked out of the FA Cup, the next puts us in a good position in our Round of 16 Europa League game, and the latest was an actual decent performance against Arsenal at Old Trafford.
All hopes for the season now rest on the Europa League - does Amorim have the squad to win it?
Our midfield was ripped apart at times, and sometimes it frustrates me why we continue to play Giggs in CM, and to make it worse it is against Yaya. I fully expected Jones to play but not Giggs!!!
His history isn't exactly great when it comes to signing midfielders. It's almost like he's frightened to go into the market in that area.
Starting a half fit Rooney, and a 39 year old Giggs vs City's 3 man midfield is a damning indictment on our midfield.
Realistically looking at our midfield, players that can adequately play there are Cleverley, Carrick and Anderson. Giggs is shite there against every team apart from maybe 2 or third league teams, and Scholes will probably retire. Jones can play there occasionally be we shouldn't want to use him there. Anderson is injured for 2/3 of a season every year as well. IMO we need at least 2 midfielders, but probably 3 more. And not 3 just to be cover, but 2 that can be first choice midfielders because right now it's just bad, especially when you compare it to teams across Europe.
If Fergie doesn't but a couple of midfielders this summer then it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out we will struggle to win PL!!
Because he is not Mancini and won't openly say how shit his midfield is.
And of course because he somehow still thinks Anderson and Fletcher will be real starter options again, someday, maybe, who knows...
Our midfield problems are down to the system we employ as much as they are the personnel. We could have xavi and iniesta in there and we still wouldn't control possession against high quality teams like City because of the style we play. The understanding and movement between eachother isn't good enough, mainly because we don't set-up tactically to play like that. We're far too direct and prefer to get the ball into the space in behind quickly.
Rightly or wrongly that's just the way Fergie likes his teams to play and I cant see that changing anytime soon either no matter who we buy.
Rightly or wrongly that's just the way Fergie likes his teams to play and I cant see that changing anytime soon either no matter who we buy.
I don't think Fergie himself knows exactly what our strongest CM partnership is atm. Everyone apart from Carrick looks a bit lost there in recent weeks.
So why the feck don't we like buy a freaking CM?
So why the feck don't we like buy a freaking CM?
2 more strikers will solve this problem.
Yes, we need to buy a central midfielder. But why was Cleverley completely overlooked today? Our continuing reliance on Giggs is bordering on embarrassing. I'm not having a pop at Giggs; aside from his pathetic backheel in the run up to their opener, I thought he was okay. But good enough to justify keeping Cleverley out completely? Nah.
All of a sudden. Pogba's decision to leave looks more and more understandable.
All of a sudden. Pogba's decision to leave looks more and more understandable.
Yeah I agree, I still think a midfielder would help but the style of play is a massive factor. Look how many players city or chelsea have in close proximity to each other, or Barca. Being closer allows for greater control as you can deal with pressing easier and makes you tighter as you can close up quicker and regain possession quicker. Look at the difference when we play the diamond, it's not like we suddenly learn how to deal with pressure/really dominate. The sacrifice though is you're open out wide.
That's how we play, we allow ourselves to be more open in order to exploit the wings and push our strikers up higher, similarly to Real, however at the moment with our wingers either being out of form (Nani and Valencia), not particularly creative (Welbeck, Young) it means we're a bit prone. What's really disappointing for me though is still how rigid we are. We can play wide but it doesn't mean we can't have any movement between the wingers across the pitch. That would really help us when we're struggling for crosses/penetration as it would just give us an extra dimension.
Clev was a bit wank as well the last few weeks and obviously he doesnt look all that good in training neither or Fergie would pick him. Simple as
The last time we bought a ready made midfileder was 6 years ago...shocking
Can we just buy an extra ball winning midfielder to put on when we're trying to keep the game tight.
It's like saying "Lets all stand outside in civs and defend this impenetrable fortress..."
It's like saying "Lets all stand outside in civs and defend this impenetrable fortress..."
It's an utter disgrace that Ferguson places the burden entirely on Carrick. In the most important matches, Carrick is on his own in central midfield. Like today, he usually performs admirably, but it is absolutely absurd that he must do it on his own. Carrick must be getting fed up with Ferguson's persistent use of him as a one-man army.
Even if all of that is true, he'd still give us better balance in my opinion. We were so easy to play through, and we didn't keep the ball.
How about we buy one finally? Fans have been crying out for one for last freaking 4 years.
I don't disagree. But, for tonight, we had a player on the bench who would have given us greater balance, and we overlooked him for Giggs, who didn't really justify his inclusion.
On reflection, I'm astonished at how poorly balanced our side were today. The forwards were disconnected from the rest of the side.
Midfielder ? What the hell is a midfielder ?
Every summer I think we're bound to sign a midfielder, surely, but we don't.
I just don't know what we're going to do with our midfield.
I just don't know what we're going to do with our midfield.
We need at least 2 midfielders IMO, but I ain't holding out much hope in getting any.
That huge amount of space between our midfield and our attack is nothing new though. Noods mentioned it very early in the season already. It's funny at times just how isolated they are up front.
I just don't think you can fully blame Giggs though, no doubt he was a bit risky and wasn't great but to me the team set up to play a risky style or either quick counters or killer passes. There wasn't an option to really slow the game down as everyone was too far apart. It's the same story. When you set up as wide as we do, against such a strong narrow team, retaining the ball and passing it around slow is really difficult. Like I said it's not beyond the players, we've seen them do it really well in the diamond but todays formation with everyone constantly moving away from the midfielders only really gave them the option to play it forward.
Dont know what you lot are complaining about.
Giggs v Toure is a fair midfield contest surely?
Giggs v Toure is a fair midfield contest surely?
If we don't buy at least one midfielder this summer I'll probably cry. We probably need two with Scholes once again retiring and questions about Fletcher. Then you have to questionable fitness and form of Anderson as well and it's implausible not to buy one, right? Right?
Wouldnt be surprised if we didnt. Although it would be madness. Really need to change to 4-3-3 as well asap.
Yep your right. Our style depends heavily on the wide players making space and producing quality and when they don't our whole team suffers, especially the two midfielders.
I'm being careful here not to sound like i'm saying 'why cant we play like Barca....etc' because I do enjoy watching us counter-attack with pace in wide areas and its a system that has been so successful for us. When it clicks it's a joy to watch.
However, now again it comes up against sides which play the other way....more controlled and patient teams who pack the midfield with highly technical players. When those technical players are as high quality, organised and determined as this City side are then at some point they are going to out-play our system, as we saw tonight and twice last season. When this happens it makes our midfielders look very average, as they spend most of the game chasing shadows and wasting possession when they do get it.
Even if we'd have swapped Yaya and Barry for Giggs and Carrick tonight, the pattern of play would have been no different, probably even less in our favour, purely down to the way the two teams had been set-up to play and what their focus was tactically.
The midfield threads are kinda like wartime shelters after defeats, and I agree we have big issues there, but the wings are bland and lack invention, both of our strikers looked off the pace and in general the team just looks shagged out. No matter who we'd paired with Carrick tonight I don't think it would have changed much as we looked just as poor in the last 2 games without Giggs in CM.
Exactly. Neither do we have much class to replace Giggs with nor do we have any in form wingers atm. Take that plus an out off form Rooney and an RvP that doesnt score anymore well and no wonder you look disjointed
Don't think it's that much down to style. Look at Bayern, they arguably play a very similar way to us, using wingers always, although they usually play a 4-2-3-1. However, the difference between us is that they have great players in midfield, and we have one very good player in our midfield, and then either young players or a 39 year old winger who plays there. Really just not good enough.
It's amazing how poor our midfield is for a big club.
Cleverley is the only player other than Carrick who could be a starter at another decent PL side and he's been really inconsistent, forever really. Other than those two we don't have a single midfielder who would get a look at another top half PL side. And we rely on Carrick way too much, he's been wonderful this season but if he gets injured for a longer period of time - say 3 or 4 months - next season we'll be screwed.
We should really sign two in the Summer. And please don't feed me all the crap about no value in the market and struggling to find new Keane or Scholes - at this point any half decent midfielder who could pass or win the ball would be an improvement. I know we've done well this season all things considered but our inability to control games is always going to cost us big long term, and it also reduces the entertainment value of our performances because we are frankly incapable of playing good football when under pressure.
Cleverley is the only player other than Carrick who could be a starter at another decent PL side and he's been really inconsistent, forever really. Other than those two we don't have a single midfielder who would get a look at another top half PL side. And we rely on Carrick way too much, he's been wonderful this season but if he gets injured for a longer period of time - say 3 or 4 months - next season we'll be screwed.
We should really sign two in the Summer. And please don't feed me all the crap about no value in the market and struggling to find new Keane or Scholes - at this point any half decent midfielder who could pass or win the ball would be an improvement. I know we've done well this season all things considered but our inability to control games is always going to cost us big long term, and it also reduces the entertainment value of our performances because we are frankly incapable of playing good football when under pressure.
They also never sit as deep as we do. And Ribery actually likes to cut in quite a lot. Also they are pressing so much more than we do. They pressed the feck out of Juventus. We just sit back and look what happens at times.
Apart from that you are right, yeah they rely on their wingers almost as much as we do. Just that they got the best freaking winger there is atm on their left side with Ribery and with Müller or Robben or Shaqiri a pretty great and in form collection of players as well on the right side
Dembele for £15m, let's get him. He's everything we need and will improve our midfield 10 times over. Oh shit, that was last summer and we are too late now. £35m now? No thanks Mr Levy. No value in that.
I think Bayern do play a different style to us as their Wingers are much more creative and better at picking the ball up in space on the inside and linking play. Their build up is more patient and intricate with better movement and chemistry between their midfield two and the creative player ahead of them. Not to mention Robben and Ribery are both world class matchwinners.
EDIT: What Godfather said.
Also, Rooney is a number 10 who comes deep on occasions, not someone like Silva or Kroos who constantly look for that pocket of space. A lot of the time Rooney will be right up next to Van persie and our formation will be a pure 442, therefore leaving the two in the middle more isolated and at times exposed.
Signing one or even two midfielders is not going to help us control games like tonight though. We don't set up to control these games. Fergie's sides have always played to stretch teams and exploit the space they leave in behind on the break, not control possession in the midfield.
BS. We've had Carrick and Cleverley on big games before, and they worked really fine until Cleverley run out of gas at the end.
You would expect that Xavi or Iniesta would perform better than Cleverley, wouldn't you? Carrick and younger fit Scholes could dominate any midfield in the past. Now Carrick is much more mature. What he needs is the like of (in-form) Cleverley, or (whisper it) Wilshere, energetic skilful midfielder; and we will dominate again.
It is not just Barcelona, though. I think, that there is a clear trend in today´s football away from the classic winger setup to a more compact and concentrated style. Barca may have been somewhat of a trend setter for that, but right now a lot of elite teams (Chelsea, Dortmund, Bayern, Juventus to name a few) play that way.
This does not mean, that United´s winger style is not effective, alone for the fact, that the now somewhat unique characteristics by them makes them hard to defend, because you don´t encounter such teams a lot. However, it brings up some problems:
1. Classic wingers are becoming a rare breed. There are not a lot of wingers coming up, because the common systems don´t require such players a lot. On the other hand, you have a lot of offensive midfielders, who drift a lot either inside or outside and are often also able to play the AM position aswell. In many teams, a lot of the former duties of wingers are now actually done by offensive minded full backs. Bayern´s Alaba, Dortmund´s Piszczek and Barcelona´s Alves are examples of that.
2. The pressure on the central midfield: The logic behind a winger setup is basically to stretch the opposing defense and create spaces using the full width of the pitch. This also increases the area the CM´s have to cover defensively, though. To have real stability in such a system, you need two CM´s in good form, because one alone can not cover that. Right now, the only CM of United, who is showing good form is Carrick, which causes the team troubles in defending.
So, how do you solve this? Well, you either adapt your system away from the classic winger setup to decrease the pressure on the CM (United has the players for that IMO) or you strengthen the squad with transfers in the CM and probably also on the wings (not easy, because of the before mentioned shortage of players there).
The good thing is, that Carrick is a well rounded CM, efficient in both offense and defense. This gives SAF the freedom to either go for a defensive destroyer like Dortmund´s Bender or Bayern´s Martinez (both not available, though) to take away some of Carrick´s defensive duties or go for a creative CM, who splits up the work with Carrick. The latter option is probably more likely, because the player pool is slightly bigger there. Moutinho from Porto or Amsterdam´s Eriksen would be potential candidates.
EDIT:
Munich is not using a winger setup right now. The only real clear cut winger in their squad is Robben. Ribery and Müller (the usual starters for them on the flanks) have more traits of offensive midfielders and drift / move a lot on the field. Especially Müller is also an option for the AM role for them. They do have with Alaba and Lahm two very efficient fullback´s, though, who make numerous crosses in a game.
Depends who against. We have played our best football in big games this season with them two yes, but only when we have been afforded the space to implement our style. Only for the first half hour against Chelsea, on two occasions, did it really work. As soon as Chelsea packed the middle we couldn't get a grip on the game any longer in both matches.
Having a Xavi or Iniesta next to Carrick would have improved us but not solved our problems. They may be the best passers in the world but if they have no options and a lack of movement/angles around them they will eventually struggle.