The Casemiro/Mount/Bruno midfield

The idea is for Mount and Bruno to push high and one of the defenders to tuck in beside Casemiro to create a box midfield. The same set up Arsenal and Liverpool are using.

However, while Liverpool have their own problems (namely no DM), the player they will have tucking in beside that DM whenever they get him is TAA, who is obviously excellent in possession.

Meanwhile Arsenal don't just have Timber (excellent on the ball) and Zinchenko (regularly played as a midfielder) in their inverted role, but even used Partey (an actual midfielder) as their nominal RB in their last game.

In our case Bruno and Mount are doing what they're supposed to do and pushing high into attacking positions, but I don't see how they get sufficient quality of support behind them. Unless that gets addressed it will be very difficult for this to work. We need whoever is stepping in to take up those central positions to be very good on the ball, because they're basically playing as an auxillary midfielder.
 
Valencia Shin Crosses said:
Exactly. People point to Arsenal/City/Liverpool as evidence that two advanced 8's can work, but Bruno has never been good as a positionally disciplined player, and neither has Mount. Both prefer to run around like madmen, but the adverse is that you stick Casemiro on an absolute island if you are getting beat in the first phase like they did today.

It also doesn't help going forward when both Case and Bruno are pretty terrible in carrying the ball. Makes us much easier to defend structurally if they aren't playing brilliant killer balls. Either Mount will have to be told to play as more of a connector, or we need Amrabat in ASAP. It's the same issue I had when we were first linked to Mount, and why I wanted Caicedo so bad.

It also doesn't help that both starting wingers offered basically nothing when we DID get into space and won the ball back high up the pitch.
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I think the bigger issue is that our midfield isn't set up to keep the ball well. City have Rodri, Kovacic and KDB, a much more suited trio to keep possession. The profiles of their midfielders had players who are better at keeping the ball and generally less loose or risky in their passes.

As much as Bruno and Mount are an issue, I don't think Casemiro is a good fit for them either as I think he's quite reckless in his passing at times too.
 
Balance is wrong. We made the wrong signing. Did not want Mount as soon as the links to him began. The very early performances are backing up my fears. We have 3 chaos ballers and 2 players that want to play in similar areas of the pitch. Casemiro is also looking old. How ETH fixes this is gonna be interesting.
 
It is shite and average.
Casemiro is not at it anymore and I'm not been knee jack.
Bruno does not respect possession and Mount is is not good at anything
 
But I do prefer a thread for the three of them...nice idea.

Losing the midfield battle tonight was collectively their fault...be interesting to see what a week's training can do.
 
Bruno roaming around doing what he wants won’t mean that signing Amrabat will magically make the midfield better. The same problems will remain
 
People bigging up Mount before we signed him were saying he was a managers dream, because he's so intelligent and flexible and can carry out tactics brilliantly. That clearly wasn't the case today

Obviously he deserves time, but it wasn't a good start
 
Malone_Post said:
Genuine question…do you think it will work? And if so, why?
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Not who you quoted, but I think it can work.

They didn't perform well tonight, but there looked to be potential there for an effective unit, both on and off the ball, the main issue I saw is that the players weren't operating in tandem - often one or two would press, while others stood watching or reacted too slowly. It was the same story on the ball most of the time, players not expecting a pass they received, reacting too slowly to loose or 50/50 balls, and generally not being on the same wavelength with each other. We were a half stride away from shutting down a lot of the counter attacks before they really started, so hopefully that's something we can work on in training so players are more coherent with the counter press.

We were also giving the ball away while the team was unbalanced, either due to a poor ball or a receiving player not anticipating the pass, and those patterns can be drilled, so that we're losing the ball in safer areas or when we're set to take a risk. Which, again, would give us a lot more control.
 
It won't surprise me when few months into the season we drop Mount for good.

He's just a bang average player and he's disturbing our midfield if he's useless in the attack. This midfield is way too weak defensively and its offensive output isn't worth it to sacrifice stability.

And looking at those 3 players, it's clear Mount is the worst out of them.
 
We need at least one ball carrier in midfield, I don’t see how Bruno and Mount partnership will be a success IMO, particularly when we have Casemiro and Bruno who struggle to keep hold of the ball when pressed
 
Reckon the whole team will need a few proper games to better understand what EtH wants from them in this tweak to formation. Personally I'll wait to see Rasmus up top before making a judgement because at the moment we are basically playing with a striker who doesnt press or challenge. The three will need games together and mount will need games to better understand the switch to playing as an 8.

Mounts not my ideal signing but I think by the international break we will have a clearer idea whether this is something that can potentially work or ends up a dud.
 
This is exactly why I don't understand the Mount signing.

Casemiro is glacially slow, he has lost even more pace. We needed to sign a destroyer to help him, not an attacking mid to help Bruno.

Last season's worst attacking team in the league created countless chances against us and walked through our midfield time and time again. Imagine what a decent side will do against this midfield.
 
Can tell it won’t work. We don’t have any technicians in the team and haven’t for years. Our passing has been atrocious since that 4 month period Scholes came back. What I don’t understand is ETH goes in for De Jong one Summer then decides on Mount the next.
 
Matheus Cunha ran through the middle so many times.

I think the issue is that Mount and Bruno are up trying to press and we dont have our press organized well enough, so its getting bypassed too easy.

The forwards need to be starting the press. Not Mount and Bruno. It leaves Casemiro exposed.
 
Doesn't look very promising. Casemiro looks a bit slow these days and Mount seems a bit of a nothing footballer. Let's see. Early days
 
Borys said:
Mount as an "individual" isn't a problem but I am still not convinced how Casemiro-Mount-Bruno is better than Casemiro-Fred-Bruno. The balance is completely off, Bruno is dropping too deep and Casemiro after todays game probably needs 2 weeks rest.
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I said this in the match thread. 3 good players,.don't see how they work together.
 
saivet said:
Replacing Casemiro, I think he does too. Paired with Casemiro and think it would be fine.
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They are both too slow and we’ll still get run over. I think thats why hes looking at Onana
 
Almost all of us saw this coming. I was at least interested (while being pretty pessimistic) to see if Mount could adapt into a deeper player, but it doesn’t even seem like he’s trying/being instructed to play like an 8 alongside Case.
 
I watched about 23 mins of our pre season games before the Lens game then watched the Lens game in full at Old Trafford and it was very obvious very quickly that that midfield is going to be fecking shite. I didn’t mind the Mount signing but I thought the tactical set up would be different to what it has been:
if we continue like this through the season we’re going to finish mid table.
The amount of times Lens and Wolves players would just run through our midfield unchallenged with so much space is actually shocking. And how we have a football manager who thinks this is okay going forward is extremely worrying.
 
sullydnl said:
The idea is for Mount and Bruno to push high and one of the defenders to tuck in beside Casemiro to create a box midfield. The same set up Arsenal and Liverpool are using.

However, while Liverpool have their own problems (namely no DM), the player they will have tucking in beside that DM whenever they get him is TAA, who is obviously excellent in possession.

Meanwhile Arsenal don't just have Timber (excellent on the ball) and Zinchenko (regularly played as a midfielder) in their inverted role, but even used Partey (an actual midfielder) as their nominal RB in their last game.

In our case Bruno and Mount are doing what they're supposed to do and pushing high into attacking positions, but I don't see how they get sufficient quality of support behind them. Unless that gets addressed it will be very difficult for this to work. We need whoever is stepping in to take up those central positions to be very good on the ball, because they're basically playing as an auxillary midfielder.
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It needs to be martinez I think. It nullifies all Shaw strengths playing him narrow.
 
Big Ben Foster said:
We don't do proactive squad planning. We will wait until Casemiro is on his last legs with little to offer before even thinking about a long-term replacement.
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This has been our issue for years. We neglect to sort out the squad and get ahead every summer and are always playing catch-up.
 
Not going to work. Think we will be on end of a hammering soon if we continue.
 
Borys said:
Mount as an "individual" isn't a problem but I am still not convinced how Casemiro-Mount-Bruno is better than Casemiro-Fred-Bruno. The balance is completely off, Bruno is dropping too deep and Casemiro after todays game probably needs 2 weeks rest.
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Completely agree. I don't know how you could look at Bruno and his wildness on and off the ball and think 'need another attacking player in there'. The profile of Fred was actually perfect for the balance of that midfield - we just needed a better player. Not a player who has spent most of his career in AM or the wing.
 
Ibi Dreams said:
People bigging up Mount before we signed him were saying he was a managers dream, because he's so intelligent and flexible and can carry out tactics brilliantly. That clearly wasn't the case today

Obviously he deserves time, but it wasn't a good start
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He did though..listen to brunos interview. Eth wants them pressing high. It's whatever is happening behind it is the problem. There's no way he has it set up for them to press high and someone from defense to not slide in beside casemiro.
 
I get the feeling one of the centrebacks is meant to step in with Casemiro as a bit of a proxy midfield partner as Mount and Bruno push up. I’m interested to see whether Pavard is going to be another potential candidate for that if we were to buy him, because at the moment it’s Martinez as the current best option with Lindelof filling in.
 
KeanoMagicHat said:
Completely agree. I don't know how you could look at Bruno and his wildness on and off the ball and think 'need another attacking player in there'. The profile of Fred was actually perfect for the balance of that midfield - we just needed a better player. Not a player who has spent most of his career in AM or the wing.
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Caicedo then..
 
Needed two new midfielders in June. Still need two new midfielders.

Mount is a decent enough player in an advanced role, but is not really relevant to the midfield discussion.
 
Is exactly what I thought it would be, with exactly the same issues. Sometimes it makes you wonder if these managers are actually as clever as they make out vs us mere mortals.

The football is somehow looking worse than last season and we now look extremely vulnerable.
 
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