Probably asked to be bcc'd. The crafty son of a gun.
Sofyan Amrabat | signs for United on loan
- Thread starter TheReligion
- Start date
- Status
Probably asked to be bcc'd. The crafty son of a gun.
None of them players you mentioned except maybe Lavia will accept a bench role though and nor should he if he cost 50m. He’ll want to start at his next team. We only need a back up to Cas but someone at a decent standard so it’s not much of a drop of in quality when Cas is unavailable.
I knew what you meant but I read this as bbc’d, my mind is in the gutter.
It's a fair point about taking stats like that at face value. And that you expect dominant teams to perform less defensive actions. But by that measure, you'd expect Amrabat playing for a far less dominant team (City won the league and finished top of possession charts with 65%, while Fiorentina finished 9 on the table and only had 56.4% possession) to have more defensive actions than Rodri. Right? Wrong.
By the way United finished 3th with 53.8% possession and Fiorentina 9th with with 56.4% possession. Fiorentina are not that much more dominant, not enough that it justifies such low number of defensive actions. They are closer to United than City and their league position betrays a team with frailties.
You might argue that these are league differences. Football is more fast & furious in the EPL, so more actions. So if we look across to the Serie A, the most dominant team is Napoli. Who won the league and dominated possession charts with 62% average. Better than Fiorentina in every way. They were the Serie A's Man City. So if we look at their DM, Lobotka, he should have less defensive actions than Amrabat. Right? Wrong.
Lobotka has more challenges, in every area of the pitch and with higher % of success. Lobotka's numbers are close to Rodri's and he plays a very crucial part in playmaking for Napoli too.
You can go and check the same against Barca and Busquets. Barca won the league, most dominant team (61.4% possession) so Amrabat must have more defensive actions per 90 than a 34yo Sergio Busquets. Right? Wrong.
Worse in every defensive category again.
Finally, this isn't just me throwing stats and hope they stick. I'm throwing stats to back up something I see with my own eyes. Amrabat is indeed a pretty good deep playmaker and a big part of why Fiorentina dominate possession against most teams. We saw that in the UConL final too.
However he suffers on the defensive side of the game. Which is also why Fiorentina play another DM next to him. And again we saw a bit of that on the UConL final where Fiorentina dominated but on the occasions when West Ham attacked, Fiorentina and Amrabat failed to cope including in the second goal. And it's worth remembering that we don't plan to play with 2 DMs here. We'll play with Mount and Fernandes, without a doubt. Which means only 1 DM to do all the defensive work, which Amrabat is not cut out for.
Last edited:
You could do that with Sabitzer… it didn’t work out too well though did it.
We don’t need an average bench player.
What's worse was my autocorrect changed it to BBC.
They’ll be rotated not on the bench. Unless these players want to play for West Ham or Chelsea they’ll have to expect that wherever they move next.
So who's your choice?
They’d start at West Ham surely
They have no proper competition but with us being a big club we should have competition so should be able to rotate but when we currently rotate the standards drop massively.Well enough people on here wanted Caicedo.
I don’t see why we have to divert from that quality.
I’m sticking to Tchouameni
. Realistically I don’t know but I do know if we are signing a second midfielder it’s not happening until August and that why I’m sticking to him, as I can see him being available later on in the window.Well enough people on here wanted Caicedo.
I don’t see why we have to divert from that quality.
I’m sticking to Tchouameni
Well Caicedo is going to Chelsea and we can't afford him anyway and Tchouameni is a loan if it happens. Rumour is that we have 25m for a second midfielder which isn't much in this market.
What about a ST and Gk? What part does that play before we splash another 25m?
100%. Those are definitely the priorities. Just what I read about a 2nd midfielder in the case of McT leaving.
Sabitzer can‘t do that, he needs to play higher up the field. Amrabat excels at it.
I'd prefer a younger backup to Casemiro. But this transfer window there don't seem to be young DMs that are ready enough, except Lavia who is likely joining another team. If he is cheap Amrabat seems like a decent option.
Think Ambarat would be a good signing to replace either fred or mcT.
Maybe Dirk Kuyt can give an opinion. He played a couple of seasons by Feyenoord. He was energetic but didn't really good at anything, but I maybe wrong
He would have made more sense before we signed Mount, not now. I thought we were looking for a DLP which is why we were looking at FDJ. Then suddenly Mount became a priority. Now we're looking at a DLP again. I don't understand our transfer strategy some times. Amrabat could have been decent cheap punt as an alternative to FDJ. If that was the type of player we were aiming for.
Case being the enforcer who does the the ball-winning, Amrabat providing the ball retention/circulation and Fernandes the creativity. Then when you need more speed and chaos over control, you can throw in Fred for Amrabat.
But now with Mount, it doesn't make any sense. Amrabat cannot play at the base of a 3-man midfield where the other 2 are picked from Fernandes, Mount or Eriksen. He doesn't have the speed, defensive nous or ability to cover that midfield on his own. It's not what he does either for Fiorentina or for Morocco.
Last edited:
I know. My underlying point was the level wasn’t good enough to spend money on him. The same should be for this guy. Just buy a better player. The profile is fine.
But Casemiro won't be that guy either. I don't think this Mount+Bruno+1 Has enough balance, unless "the 1" is someone like Caicedo (defensively sound, good under pressure and can run all day). I also don't get what we're aiming for or maybe I just find this very naive.He would have made more sense before we signed Mount, not now. I thought we were looking for a DLP which is why we were looking at FDJ. Then suddenly Mount became a priority. Now we're looking at a DLP again. I don't understand our transfer strategy some times. Amrabat could have been decent cheap punt as an alternative to FDJ. If that was the type of player we were aiming for.
Case being the enforcer who does the the ball-winning, Amrabat providing the ball retention/circulation and Fernandes the creativity. Then when you need more speed and chaos over control, you can throw in Fred for Amrabat.
But now with Mount, it doesn't make any sense. Amrabat cannot play at the base of a 3-man midfield where the other 2 are picked from Fernandes, Mount or Eriksen. He doesn't have the speed, defensive nous or ability to cover that midfield on his own. It's not what he does either for Fiorentina or for Morocco.
I see what your saying, im wondering if ETH wants different options available to him. Mount though most likely to play as a 8 can play as a 10 and a 11/7.He would have made more sense before we signed Mount, not now. I thought we were looking for a DLP which is why we were looking at FDJ. Then suddenly Mount became a priority. Now we're looking at a DLP again. I don't understand our transfer strategy some times. Amrabat could have been decent cheap punt as an alternative to FDJ. If that was the type of player we were aiming for.
Case being the enforcer who does the the ball-winning, Amrabat providing the ball retention/circulation and Fernandes the creativity. Then when you need more speed and chaos over control, you can throw in Fred for Amrabat.
But now with Mount, it doesn't make any sense. Amrabat cannot play at the base of a 3-man midfield where the other 2 are picked from Fernandes, Mount or Eriksen. He doesn't have the speed, defensive nous or ability to cover that midfield on his own. It's not what he does either for Fiorentina or for Morocco.
Maybe some games ETH would want a double pivot of casemiro and amrabat? Who knows. Then again we have been linked with lavia who's defensive side of his game is really poor but has the raw materials to be a two footed DLP.
Case already did it this year though. Eriksen might be better in possession than Mount but he doesn't offer defensive cover, he's entirely pedestrian without the ball and has the worst defensive stats out of all our midfielders. Mount over Eriksen would reduce the defensive workload of Casemiro.
If Casemiro isn't that guy, then Caicedo isn't that guy either. Brighton played with 1 DM (Pascal Gross) 1 box-to-box CM (Caicedo) and another workhorse 8/10 in Mac Allister. Caicedo didn't have to do anywhere near as much defensive work as Case and wasn't remotely as exposed. He's younger and has more energy, no doubt, but he doesn't have the experience and reading of the defensive game that Casemiro has.
Me too. Though nowhere near as naive as people thinking Amrabat could replace Case in this line up. But anyway, I think ETH has earned some trust for now. So let's see how he tries to make it work.
We're like the thoughts and prayers of the transfer market. Lots of sentiment, expression and rhetoric, but little proactivity.
Just discovered that amrabat played for ETH in 2007 at Utrecht. Seriously? Are we only signing players in the majority of cases that ETH has managed before?
That's 16 years ago, just how old is Armabat?
Same for everyone, we just get reported on/rumours made up about more than anyone because of transfer psychos like us give easy clicks.
We're getting these kinds of posts with Onana too - what was he like in the Dutch league? Doesn't matter. What counts is how good they are now a few years on. Players improve.
Moyes used to get a lot of stick for only trying to sign players he had before. It is bizarre how a lot the links are to ex players of ETH
My bad stupid phone 2017 not 2007
42 appearances between 2014-2017
That autocorrect is very annoying.Really hope that Westham won't go for him with the money from the Rice deal
Would take him for a similar type deal to the Kovacic City one of £25m plus £5m addons
Sabitzer is advanced 8 or 10. Mount is his replacement.
McTominnay or Fred are closer to Sofyan playing wise
Yeah he would definitely replace one of them
Fred played the 8/10 role for us under Ten Hag when he came in for Eriksen. He played noticeably higher up than Eriksen.
I really like his style of play - no nonsense, old-fashioned defensive midfielder. I'm all for this.
Erik maybe wanted someone Casemiro could mentor in Lavia,however looks like others are ahead of us. This may well explain our interest in someone older like this guy
Lavia would be brilliant, but yeah - looks like we're not going to win that race.
Yeah seems Chelsea/scousers/Arsenal all look to be ahead of us in the race for him
- Status