If we're parting ways with Casemiro, we are left with on DM at all. We need two, and since we already payed half the fee, he could be the backup. But yes, we need someone else to be a starter - unless, of course, he steps up his game on a general basis. In fairness to him though, he never had a run a games to get used to the pace in the PL, so who knows what he could do.
Sofyan Amrabat | 2023/24 Performances
- Thread starter MyOnlySolskjaer
- Start date
- Status
Feel like I'm taking crazy pills reading through these threads sometimes.
One good result and suddenly the manager is "The One" and all the players who we've been slagging off all season are now "good squad options".
Exactly.
Indeed. That performance was a one off. He's constantly shown he isn't up to standard, not even as a squad player
ho So please enlighten us stupid fans then, and let us know w
10 starts in the PL. 3 of them as a LB, good in one of them (his first game). As a DM, he was good in 2 out of 7, decent in 1, terrible in 2 and just bad in 2.
So, good in 4 out of 10, then. If he played every week and didn't get injured, he would have done better. Probably.
And not to forget, very good in the FA cup final.
And look who is on Nr. 2 on this list... I guess, the equasion of "big money" = "big success" doesn't really add up. Theres no debate about what brought City to where they are, but thats not some free "get out of jail" -card for debates. We are where we are because we made many many many bad decisions. And judging players on the base of one good game, the only game that brought some joy to a fanbase in a long and disappointing season, is the first step to bad decisions.Not sure anyone has spent more than 2 seconds wondering why City win a lot...and then you add in some of their charges are about hiding this info so the number might be much higher.
Mate, if that way of arguing counts, I'll quicky chip in with this: if he played every week and didn't get injured, he would have done the same, or worse. Probably.
There is no point in bringing made up scenarios in here. The player looks good for one reason: because he is compared to Eriksen, Bruno (as CM), Casemiro (in bad form) and McTominay. That isn't a valid benchmark because it is a group of players that isn't good as midfield players (CMs). Compare Amrabat to Mainoo and most would say, damn Mainoo was way more impressive. And thats an 18 year old in his first season. Amrabat has never been a DM. Never. And his tackle against Mbappe doesn't change that. He looked defensively good for Morocco in a very defensive setup (a bit like Saturday), thats it. At Fiorentina he looked good because of his passing. Nothing to be seen for us unfortunately. Give Donny, Hannibal and/or Gore the minutes Amrabat got this season, I am pretty sure a few people would find ways to praise them as well, just like some people find ways for Amrabat now.
Don't get me wrong, I like Amrabat and I'd take him in the squad right now, but I know for sure that we shouldn't waste funds for him as long as there are so many gaping holes in our first team.
I probably wouldn't keep him but, a bit like Weghorst last year, he did have a part to play in a cup final win which is something we'll remember. I never saw that performance coming, so massive respect to him.
I personally think we should keep him, it would be foolish not to when his price is so cheap and we are short of players for the number 6 role.
Interesting that he actually had to beg the manager to play him in the right role
Interesting that he actually had to beg the manager to play him in the right role
I think he's very average and would be slightly underwhelming even as a squad option.
Bar those first couple of games when he was used as an emergency leftback, all of his matches have been in the #6. So not sure about that report.
The difference in the last four games was that he actually had help in there instead of ETH expecting the #6 to single-handedly cover half the pitch.
Are we really going to fall for it every time a player does 3 good games while they've been anonymous for an entire season?
So even by your very generous appraisal, he was poor in 6 out of 10 starts. How convincing.
Isn’t that the point of a defensive midfielder? Also what extra help did he get for that game that was different to how we’d set up previously? Other than us camping the entire team on the edge of the penalty box for near 90 minutes. If that’s what’s needed to get the best out of Amrabat, why would we want him?
Is it not more likely that in reality he’s an average/poor midfielder who churns out the odd ok performance every now and then.
Thinking on it, was he even that good in the final, or was it a case of he was much less noticeably shit than usual, which has led to people overestimating him? His cup final performance seems to have since morphed into Keane in Turin in 99 in the cafs collective mind.
I like Amrabat too, and his cup final was heroic in the old 70/80’s FA cup final heroics mould: He willed through the City players, he was never gone even when he was well gone.
I don’t think he’s the quality we need as a DM back up. Even vs City he showed that while his passing is precise when given time, he takes too long to find passes and will easily lose or misplace the ball in the PL tempo. Also defensively, his positional reading and speed, while sufficient in a 4/5 man midfield, is not enough in more transitional defending 2v2 or 3v3 for instance.
I think it’s clear we loanad him because we lacked back up of his profile, but also the economic freedom to purchase one of sufficient quality.
No single player is capable of covering the amount of space that we were expecting our #6 to do for most of this season. We could have had a player that had the energy of Kante and the positioning of Makelele and they still wouldn't have been able to do it. Obviously a better player could have done a better job than the players we did have, but they still wouldn't have succeeded. ETH's midfield setup was the single biggest reason for how bad we were this season and how ridiculous easy it was for opposition to cut through us.
In the last four games we played more compactly, with less space both between the attackers and defenders and also between our #6 and our other midfielder. Obviously the City game was an extreme of that, but the previous couple of games were better examples were our midfield setup was more normal instead of the gaping hole that we'd used previously. That doesn't mean we necessarily played well in those games (Amrabat himself obviously had a shocker against Brighton), but we gave ourselves a much better chance than normal because we weren't expecting one player to cover an unrealistic amount of space. As such we held Arsenal to a 1-0 then beat Newcastle and Brighton, despite having more injuries in those games than at any other point of the season.
Palace at home in the Carabao and the FA cup final - can’t think of any other good games to warrant signing permanently.
Would be a poor decision to keep him on - how fickle are we?!
Can anyone please list me some no 6 we can buy realistically for under £50m without paying big wages?
I seriously can’t think one at the moment, hence why I have this idea that it seems the market of no 6 this summer isn’t as good as CB. I think Amrabat for £17m is a good value for short term signing because if it doesn’t work out then we can still sell him for small profit as long as we set his wages for 65k-75k pw. £17m and low wages isn’t going to harm us, at least improving the squad depth. I’m considering Amrabat £17m short term signing plus signing young prospect for £15m - £30m max from South America or unknown no 6 in Europe to develop for long term partnership with Mainoo.
I thought he has shown 2 good performance in his last 3 league games vs Arsenal and Newcastle. Then follow by the top class performance vs City in the final when it matters the most. He’s a no 6 who can keep things tidy, offer some defensive works and aggressiveness in midfield to win the ball back, and can keep possession (87% passing completion). His presence in midfield had improved our midfield in the last 4 games and also fits in playing alongside Mainoo.
Amrabat vs Man city
I seriously can’t think one at the moment, hence why I have this idea that it seems the market of no 6 this summer isn’t as good as CB. I think Amrabat for £17m is a good value for short term signing because if it doesn’t work out then we can still sell him for small profit as long as we set his wages for 65k-75k pw. £17m and low wages isn’t going to harm us, at least improving the squad depth. I’m considering Amrabat £17m short term signing plus signing young prospect for £15m - £30m max from South America or unknown no 6 in Europe to develop for long term partnership with Mainoo.
I thought he has shown 2 good performance in his last 3 league games vs Arsenal and Newcastle. Then follow by the top class performance vs City in the final when it matters the most. He’s a no 6 who can keep things tidy, offer some defensive works and aggressiveness in midfield to win the ball back, and can keep possession (87% passing completion). His presence in midfield had improved our midfield in the last 4 games and also fits in playing alongside Mainoo.
Amrabat vs Man city
Its funny, he was rubbish the season with a few good performances. He played well in the final, definitely did not do enough to earn a transfer.
What players who are as good or better are available for us to sign without having to massively over-pay?
Even if we were interested, his brother sealed his faith now with going in public with something which was our internal stuff.
Don't you think this is why we have scouts?
But anyway I could name a few.
Youssouf Fofana
Morten Hjulmand
Both of those will cost 3 or 4 times as much and considering its been reported our priority this summer is a left back and INEOS have set a budget of 20m to sign one I doubt we could afford either of the above.
We would be foolish to not sign Amrabat permanently when we cant afford a replacement.
I’m not a scout in the club, but I’m sure the people who’s job it is should have some potential targets lined up.
Thanks for the cup final, but it’s more than fair to say he isn’t good enough for United.
As a backup number 6 he would be useful squad option - now it comes down to the financial part of the deal, how much is his wages and all and if he pleased to be a backup squad player? We would definitely need a starting dominant nr 6 also.
The only point in signing him is if a club wanted to sign him and pay us more than we have left to pay.
Fully agree.
This is the receipe to make sure the deadwood level stays high. You don't just buy somebody because apparently you are too lazy to do some scouting. Just look at Amrabats fecking fbref. Then think it through, is that the level you'd want a defensive midfielder to have? And what is that talk about a backup? We haven't even one for the starting lineup but some fans apparently don't see how our match against City (the one with 26% possession) was any different to all the other matches this season and are ready to use a share of the limited budget to bring in somebody we know doesn't have the right profile.
If Amrabat wants to come here, he and his brother are welcome to put their money together to collect the rest of the fee. I'll stop resisting it when United doesn't have to pay more than 4 million. Everything above isn't a good idea because the money would be better invested into players who at least have the potential to become starters at some point. If we continue this "two free 8's and a DM" thing, Amrabat is not the right player. If we intend to switch to a double pivot, things change slightly because it would still mean we have to bring in the defensive midfielder which is more important than Amrabat because we already have Mainoo who can do most things and more that Amrabat can.
This - it's like Groundhog Day in here with some of the same arguments made every summer
It would be idiotic to buy Amrabat and just a continuation of the incompetence we’ve seen for the last decade. There really isn’t much point having a scouting department if you can’t find a better option for a similar price. He is exactly type of player who will be deadwood in a year but earning too much a week to get rid of.
He's been so much worse than Mainoo and Casemiro, and ETH has been bailed out by McTom's goals so it makes perfect sense that he'd need to beg to be picked as a DM. He was rubbish in that Arsenal game too
Would be good business if we can get him for less than the agreed fee... e.g.£15M rather than the reported £21M. He can do a job, and we will need numbers whilst we are in the Europa League. I think there is a decent player in there as we saw in the final, just not one we need week in week out.
Yes, not convincing at all, but with an upgoing tendency. We already paid half the transfer, so unless we can effort two qualify CMs, he is the cheap option.
No, thank you.
“He can do a job and we need numbers”
how standards have dropped.
He’s fecking terrible end of and we shouldn’t go near him. A decent enough performance v City won’t cut it . He’s been caught in possession thinking he’s back in the Italian league more times than he’s had starts .
Great player, won us an FA cup. Hope we buy him twice
It'd be bad business to buy him for any amount. We simply need a better quality of player if we have any ambitions of actually getting near to the major trophies again
At this stage I’d settle for a midfielder who doesn’t look in danger of being dispossessed within milliseconds each and every time he takes a first touch.
I will of course be happier is we can get a better player but there is a lot to fix.
Not sure he was given enough of a chance and in certain games as we have seen he can do a good defensive job.
We are not buying multiple Rice, Neves and de Jong standard players so some will need to reset their standards.
Didn't get off to a great start and then felt like he barely got picked until the last couple of weeks and then he did quite well all things considered
I do wonder if he'd have been much better overall for us if he'd been given a longer run to get up to speed earlier in the season
He'll never be much more than a squad player though and he feels a bit pricey for that
I do wonder if he'd have been much better overall for us if he'd been given a longer run to get up to speed earlier in the season
He'll never be much more than a squad player though and he feels a bit pricey for that
We've downgraded on Fred, could also have signed Sabitzer who's a much better player for a lot cheaper. It was always a stupid idea to sell Fred & loan an inferior player like Amrabat for the same amont of money. He shouldn't have been here in the first place.
He's so slow & cumbersome and technicaly not good enough either. And there are still people who want him signed permanently, keep Maguire, Lindelöf, give another chance to X, Y & Z etc.
How do you exactly expect us to improve and compete when we keep shit players like those? What's the point of rebuilding when you don't get rid players who are not good enough? This summer is the perfect opportunity to overhaul the squad and we should be ruthless with a lot of underperforming/not good enough players.
He's so slow & cumbersome and technicaly not good enough either. And there are still people who want him signed permanently, keep Maguire, Lindelöf, give another chance to X, Y & Z etc.
How do you exactly expect us to improve and compete when we keep shit players like those? What's the point of rebuilding when you don't get rid players who are not good enough? This summer is the perfect opportunity to overhaul the squad and we should be ruthless with a lot of underperforming/not good enough players.
Nobody has been worse than Casemiro
- Status