Piss-poor defending for Fulham's goal. That was horrible, complacent, lazy defending. Joyce will be really annoyed at that.
U21s: Fulham vs Manchester United
- Thread starter RedMachine03
- Start date
Our defending for Fulham's goal 
Blackett going to sleep like this is a huge concern. Him becoming this lazy is a worrying sign.
Pereira just oozes class, he's just been gliding about the pitch effortlessly all game.
Blackett suddenly just decide to throw away his concentration in the last few minutes.
FT: 4-1.
FT: 4-1.
Good win for us in that tight league table and most of our players had a good match.
Couldn't understand a word Grimshaw was saying there 
Couldn't understand a word Grimshaw was saying there
Proper Lancashire accent that!
He has a lot of quality but doesn't seem to have a natural position. He always looks like a spare wheel to me.
Joe Rothwheel. Now off to the Aaron Lemon thread!
That's probably where it came from.
Like Reginald Perrin imagining his mother-in-law as a hippopotamus. Or something.
Like Reginald Perrin imagining his mother-in-law as a hippopotamus. Or something.
RVP, Peirera, Rothwell and Januzaj all with strong games today. Nice to see.
Yep. How people think dribbling is his best asset is beyond me. His passing and vision is what makes him dangerous. Everything else is just bonus.
Couldn't understand a word Grimshaw was saying there
He actually played well recently.Limited player but execute his role well so I never understand the negativity on him.
Hence the negativity. The youth system is not an end in itself - it only exists to source players for the first team. If a young player has no realistic chance of making that progression, he's just taking up space.
I have to disagree on that. Not everyone can be a future first teamer and it is just ridiculous to think they all can. The u21s are still a team and need players to play for the team and balance the squad. Sometimes you need someone like Grimshaw or even loaning in Kellett, neither of who have any chance of making it here but if they can both benefit the side then they are worth having. You need these players to make the team tick and perform well and consistently well. Players like them can benefit the side which in turn will benefit the star players like Adnan or Andreas.
Agreed
Grimshaw is unlucky in a way. He hit a nice looking volley early on in the game that may have troubled the goalkeeper if it hadn't got blocked. I've seen him and thought 'limited' but he's not a midfielder and that's the problem. He's not the classic United midfielder. Even players that have not 'made it' for various reasons - we've seen some great talent down the years. Lots of people watch the reserves for the kids but some also watch it for the entertainment. We've had some great games down the years.
I tend to see him as a central midfielder for sure. Whether he's a box-to-box midfielder or a goalscoring attacking midfielder is up to Joyce, van Gaal, and co. to see, but from what I've seen, he definitely cannot play a deeper midfield role. However, he does get into good positions at the right time, and he does have good energy levels as well, so I do think he can make a handy box-to-box midfielder for a team in the Championship or possibly the Premier League. His passing, as shown yesterday, is very good, so there's no doubt that he's a central midfielder.
Hence why van Gaal has played him several times in central midfield. I think van Gaal himself knows that Januzaj isn't a winger, but he's currently not sure about whether to play him as a wide creator or a midfield playmaker.
I think that he can eventually undergo a Modric-like transformation and become a midfield playmaker, but I'm not sure what will currently happen with Januzaj. The way Joyce uses him tells me that he's still seen as a wide attacking player, and van Gaal seems to use him like that as well.
Full match replay:
Modric made that move because he didn't have the pace to be dangerous in the wide attacking role. Januzaj is most dangerous cutting inside from a wide position precisely because he can do both things - the vision/passing and the pace and dribbling. It means that cutting inside and going down the outside are both genuine options for him, and it leaves his defender with no way to stop him. How many times have we seen him isolate his man out wide and skin him effortlessly? If you play him centrally, you lose that whole aspect of his game, and he becomes much more one-dimensional.
Yes, in the past, he has shown that he could go past players effortlessly, but pace wasn't one of his main attributes in that. In that respect, he's almost like Nedved, though Nedved was a more hardworking player (pre-Real-Madrid Ozil's probably a better example). Januzaj does possess the dribbling skills and close control to allow him to beat the opposition, but as demonstrated this season, he's struggled to beat his markers through pace.
In order to be effective as a wide attacker, he needs to learn to rely less on his pace and more on his dribbling and trickery. That's what made Januzaj so dangerous when he first broke out, and whilst he does possess some pace to be able to run past some markers, he's not fast and/or quick enough to beat them consistently through pace like Depay, Sanchez, or Hazard. If he works as hard as Nedved or transforms himself like Ozil, then I believe that he can be useful as a wide player. Otherwise, as van Gaal tried at the beginning of the season, we may possibly see him more often in central midfield.
Becoming? He's always been like that.
His problem this season has nothing to do with a lack of pace or an over-reliance on it, it's been to do with his new tendency to stop on the ball, slow things down and overthink, where before his best quality was that he was direct, instinctive and never stood still. That's something he needs to cut out, but it also probably has a lot to do with the fact that far too often this season our football has moved very slowly with no momentum or urgency. Hard to expect a young winger to be explosive when you've laboriously passed the ball through every other player on the pitch, slowly pressing the entire opposition 11 into the last third of the pitch, before he actually gets the ball.
When he's taken people on this season he's been just as successful as he was last season. The problem is he hasn't been trying it as much.
Not true. He was far more successful last year taking players on. This year his success rate is 39% compared to 53% last year. He's struggling this year because he's relying on dribbling when it's clear he hasn't been as successful this year with that portion of his game.
I know that this is natural of him, but I was talking about this with the contract extension in mind and how it will be even unlikelier for him to make it here. I have no idea why van Gaal decided to sign him up to a lengthy extension because he is naturally a full back rather than a central defender.
When I compared Januzaj dribbling this season to last season, it was clear for me to see that he knocked the ball past the marker more often this season. Last srason, he frequently kept the ball close to his feet, and it helped him with his higher dribbling success and fouls inflicted on him. Also, he was a more efficient user of the football, unlike this season, where he has shown more naivety in his game.
Part of that reason is what you, Brightonian, highlighted: he has been more thoughtful and less instinctive, and as a result, he has been more ponderous and sluggish in his game. However, I am sure that he will come out well from this like how Kroos and Ribery came out well, eventually.