Stop playing Eriksen in a 2 man midfield!

Kag said:
How can you watch United every week and not realise why Eriksen plays where he does? Come on.

Just look at the positions he takes up when collecting the ball deep between Martinez and Shaw, or when he moves to the touchline so that Shaw can tuck inside. Ten Hag plays Eriksen in that role because he is (by far) the most suitable to do those things in midfield for him.

Ten Hag is not going to play Eriksen at #10, at least not until he has somebody else to do the exact thing he is asking of Eriksen in the longer term.
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This is all well said. He's performing the role ten Hag wants from him to a t at this moment. He's not by any stretch a perfect player in a two-man midfield pairing but he's doing fine. The thing that disappointed me against Bournemouth was how safe Eriksen's passing was, it was Casemiro playing it forwards at speed when we won it back while the man we think of as the better creator was playing it sidewards and backwards.

To be fair he could have been asked to do that by the coach, as I've said I agree he's performing the role just fine in most matches.
 
Glorio said:
I don't think we can do that yet, for me it looks like a game for Fred, however, if we did that and got the 2/10 version of Fred, we're in all sorts of trouble
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Knowing Fred and city pressing, that's really the likely outcome
 
Are people not rating Eriksen? I think he's probably been our best signing of the season after Casemiro. Has a huge impact on how we control possession/transition through phases - so much better than last season!
 
FrantikChicken said:
Am I the only one that is finding this Eriksen criticism quite random?
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There have been matches like City and Villa where we struggled in midfield. Eriksen was not solely to blame but it's fair to say he played a role in us losing the midfield battle. He's not a perfect CM and has weaknesses that can be exploited but he's playing the role in a much more tactically astute fashion than McTominay or Fred usually do, and in most games with a firing Casemiro alongside him he'll do fine (better than Sancho would I suspect!).
 
Sassy Colin said:
Yup, me too.

We're in the top, won our last 4 games after the WC easily and people are still fecking moaning.
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People were moaning when United were winning title after title, played 3 CL finals in 4 seasons and when we were "Champions of England, Champions of Europe, Champions of the World"
 
12OunceEpilogue said:
There have been matches like City and Villa where we struggled in midfield. Eriksen was not solely to blame but it's fair to say he played a role in us losing the midfield battle. He's not a perfect CM and has weaknesses that can be exploited but he's playing the role in a much more tactically astute fashion than McTominay or Fred usually do, and in most games with a firing Casemiro alongside him he'll do fine (better than Sancho would I suspect!).
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blaming the city loss on him seems rather odd to me. The whole team was simply not ready for that game and it showed.

villa I just don’t remember.

either way ok he has had 2 less than perfect games but he has been fantastic for the majority of the season. To suggest he needs to be replaced, by Sancho of all people, just seems crazy to me.

Also don’t really understand the criticism of his age or fitness. He’s 30 and his past health problem is clearly not an issue now whatsoever, seeing as how he can play premier league football on a weekly basis without much problem.
 
FrantikChicken said:
blaming the city loss on him seems rather odd to me. The whole team was simply not ready for that game and it showed.

villa I just don’t remember.

either way ok he has had 2 less than perfect games but he has been fantastic for the majority of the season. To suggest he needs to be replaced, by Sancho of all people, just seems crazy to me.

Also don’t really understand the criticism of his age or fitness. He’s 30 and his past health problem is clearly not an issue now whatsoever, seeing as how he can play premier league football on a weekly basis without much problem.
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"Eriksen was not solely to blame but it's fair to say he played a role in us losing the midfield battle." is not blaming Eriksen for the City loss, it's pointing out he was in a midfield that got trampled.The team was abysmal in all areas and Eriksen takes his share of criticism for that.

Villa was Lindelof going walkabout, a set piece and a midfield runner, not tracked, finishing from just inside the 18 yard box. Eriksen is by no means solely responsible for any goals but the first and third have hallmarks of an overrun/caught cold midfield. The majority of that game I remember them spreading it wide at pace and us having no answers, so it's not a smoking gun, but Eriksen certainly didn't cover himself in glory as a CM.

On the whole I agree that Eriksen has been good all season, including in midfield twos, but he has his limitations that can be exposed in that position (probably the very toughest on a football pitch). There's no shame in acknowledging that, though sending for Sancho seems a bit OTT :lol:
 
It's a valid question whether he should start against City. We need to be smarter about such games, against pressing sides and be humble about our limitations amidst our good form
 
12OunceEpilogue said:
"Eriksen was not solely to blame but it's fair to say he played a role in us losing the midfield battle." is not blaming Eriksen for the City loss, it's pointing out he was in a midfield that got trampled.The team was abysmal in all areas and Eriksen takes his share of criticism for that.

Villa was Lindelof going walkabout, a set piece and a midfield runner, not tracked, finishing from just inside the 18 yard box. Eriksen is by no means solely responsible for any goals but the first and third have hallmarks of an overrun/caught cold midfield. The majority of that game I remember them spreading it wide at pace and us having no answers, so it's not a smoking gun, but Eriksen certainly didn't cover himself in glory as a CM.

On the whole I agree that Eriksen has been good all season, including in midfield twos, but he has his limitations that can be exposed in that position (probably the very toughest on a football pitch). There's no shame in acknowledging that, though sending for Sancho seems a bit OTT :lol:
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Ah yes sorry, that wasn’t a direct statement to you but rather what I’ve been seeing in this thread over the last couple of pages, just found it odd that he was being singled out for the city loss
 
Dr Foo said:
It's a valid question whether he should start against City. We need to be smarter about such games, against pressing sides and be humble about our limitations amidst our good form
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It's either we start with Fred to try to counter press more at the beginning or we bring him at the end to try to get something when the City team is a bit more "tired". We have to think carefully. Casemiro is much more in sync with the team now so he might help more Eriksen and Bruno and if Varane and Lisandro don't get injured, we can actually be a bit more physical on the duels without sacrificing Eriksen and cover for him. Very very tough choice because we actually don't know how we will perform. Last time against City, the team completely blanked out out of nowhere and all automatism were lost. We have to hope that this time, they will keep remembering what to do to get out of the City press. Once Chelsea did it, they could have killed City multiple times.
 
I really like how ETH is limiting his playing time. It's very important that Eriksen doesn't get leggy. Now the question is how do we keep Bruno and Casimero fresh.
 
Dr Foo said:
It's a valid question whether he should start against City. We need to be smarter about such games, against pressing sides and be humble about our limitations amidst our good form
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I would never even have guessed anyone thought it was a bad question, not after the first meeting. In the first game City committed a lot of late runs and it was obvious our players love a stand and stare. Eriksen is one of several that didn't exactly shine at tracking City's ridiculous movement.

Basically I won't be surprised if Casemiro's partner is someone with legs. It's just unfortunate even those ones have poor concentration. Mctominay and Fred are the masters of losing runners. Come to think of it low defensive concentration is a teamwide problem.
 
FrantikChicken said:
Am I the only one that is finding this Eriksen criticism quite random?
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It's not random, in fact I'd say it's the opposite. He's been a net positive to the team but he's had more than a fair share of games where he's not offered much and these performances get swept under the rug.

Then when he has a great performance its almost implied like he's been that way all season when he hasn't.

Games where we control he's usually good but if a team is taking the game to us he can look quite bad. He's still by far the best option we have in midfield after Casemiro but I do understand the criticism he's received at points.
 
gerdm07 said:
I really like how ETH is limiting his playing time. It's very important that Eriksen doesn't get leggy. Now the question is how do we keep Bruno and Casimero fresh.
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feel like bruno is one of those that probably works best playing him almost every game that "resting " him . Man has unreal stamina
 
Odd take...the Eriksen/Caseimro duo is the no.1 reason for United's improvement this season.

But its all about opinions I guess.
 
Samid said:
Once Dalot is back we can finally move AWB to where he belongs, in the double pivot with Case. One in the best midfielder in the league, the other is the best 1v1 defender in the league. Could this be the most frightening midfield 2 the PL has ever seen?
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It would frighten me that's for sure.

As for actually frightening it might be Viera and Petit, fortunately we didn't seem to play against both together very often.
 
groovyalbert said:
Are people not rating Eriksen? I think he's probably been our best signing of the season after Casemiro. Has a huge impact on how we control possession/transition through phases - so much better than last season!
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Yup

though I can’t wait to see butland start there
 
Let’s play him in a 4-man midfield! The Diamond is the blond’s best friend.
 
He's perfectly fine against the likes of Forest, Bournemouth and probably most the bottom 10. I don't like the look of Casemiro and Eriksen against City in like 10 days time, but I also don't like the look of Fred in there.

In the bigger games, I'd like to see Bruno play closer to them in a 433 role. I think Fred brings great energy from the bench, but it's clear we need a top level operator beside Casemiro.
 
Another game where once it becomes stretched he neither has the legs to keep up with opposing midfielders and more importantly doesn't have the ability to calm the game and get a bunch of short passing moves going to dictate the tempo.

Casemiro was shite today and our midfield fell apart. Eriksen only looks good in midfield when we have full control of a game.

The top CMs can grab a hold of the game, Eriksen is not capable of this. I think he gets rated much higher than he actually should because if we had to play a string of games without Casemiro people would finally start calling out some of his poorer games.

That said he's by far the best option we have in the role.
 
Eriksen has done well this season, I didn't expected him to play as much as he has but sometimes you need more from a combative point of view from a CM. Anytime we don't have full control of a game he's absolutely lost. Which is anytime we play against an opponent capable of having a go at us. The best in this position assert themselves and become the heartbeat of their team dominance.
He's good when the opponent sit deeper, he has time on the ball then to use his passing and game intelligence. I'm sure ETH would seek an upgrade in the summer maybe Enzo and Frenkie. His position and center forward and the two position if we get the quality right we'll challenge for the league.
 
Technically he is our best midfielder including Bruno. But he just doesnt have the ENGINE for the english game and with his heart issues he is never going to impose himself in that way.
That being said he has been brilliant in a lot of stuff he has done and Garanchos winner against Fulham was down to him as well. His football IQ is out of this world and he is capable of creating stuff his team mates can not even conceive.
 
matherto said:
Can we just play a 3 man midfield and get it over with.
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We will, next season. After DDG gets replaced with a ball playing GK and Eriksen with another #8 that can pick up the ball and immediately transition play into the final third.
 
I'll Rather have him there than watch Fred stink up the place with erratic passes.
 
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