Unpopular (AKA fickle) opinion time on AWB.....

Part of why I was staunchly against the British thing Ole was trying to force. He and Maguire arent bad signings but let's wisen up about this policy while we're still ahead. Skillset over nationality. I also don't know where AWB fits in an expansive passing team.
 
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The Bloody-Nine said:
It's never been a big issue with me with regards to Young and Valencia. You are correct that a lot of our fans have had an issue with it.
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Valencia and Young played really well under LVG even if we barely did much. Good under Mourinho too for his first two years. We needed to replace them though and I am not sure we have done it well.
 
People didn't appreciate how good we had it with Valencia 14-17.

AWB needs to improve going forward but he's the least of our worries. There's never anyone in the box to aim at anyway.
 
Unpopular opinion——- He would make a fantastic centerback in Sheffield United overlapping centerback gameplan. I m not particularly sure yet if he will make a better center back or right back. If Joe Gomez can make such a transition, I don’t see why AWB can’t.
 
Manchester United needs a more attacking able right back. That said, AWB is still a kid. He can get there though I'm much more impressed with the likes of Max Aarons the couple times I've seen him
 
I don’t think he’s as bad on the ball as he’s made out to be.
 
His main flaw is his inability to deal with the aerial ball. Too often he misjudges the flight off crosses and gets done on his blindside. He has a tendency to get tight to our centre half when the ball comes in. However, that sometimes means two reds are going for the same ball or neither go for it thinking they are covered. It also leaves space that good players can utilize. As Grealish did today. Needs better positioning on crosses.
 
#07 said:
His main flaw is his inability to deal with the aerial ball. Too often he misjudges the flight off crosses and gets done on his blindside. He has a tendency to get tight to our centre half when the ball comes in. However, that sometimes means two reds are going for the same ball or neither go for it thinking they are covered. It also leaves space that good players can utilize. As Grealish did today. Needs better positioning on crosses.
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It's probably because our entire back four has not played with each other prior to this season.
 
He's no Marcelo that's for sure and it doesn't matter if he would be TAA going forward, the crossing wouldn't find anyone in the box anyway with the way our movement is going forward. It's hard for him to play 1-2's because we usually have a limited #10 in Lingard, Pereira in midfield and James in front of him who is also a very limited player when he doesn't get a runway in front of him.

As for defending AWB is a monster. He's only 22 but is one of the best 1v1 defenders I've seen at United. Teams hardly want to attack down our right because it's so much stronger defensively than our left.

I think you're far off not considering him one of the top 10 right backs in the league. Who do you rate better? TAA and what? I rate Doherty quite a bit. Walker is ok although personally I'm not a fan. I don't think you thought this claim through.
 
Here's an actually unpopular opinion - he's not that good defensively either. Yes he's a vast improvement over what we had, not given his non existing attacking threat, I think he should be far better defensively. At the moment he just seems a highlights reel defender.
 
#07 said:
His main flaw is his inability to deal with the aerial ball. Too often he misjudges the flight off crosses and gets done on his blindside. He has a tendency to get tight to our centre half when the ball comes in. However, that sometimes means two reds are going for the same ball or neither go for it thinking they are covered. It also leaves space that good players can utilize. As Grealish did today. Needs better positioning on crosses.
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See this is criticism that I can get on board with. Based on games, not hypotheticals about what the modern role of a fullback is supposed to be. He is far from the finished article defensively. He has loads to work on both offensively and defensively but he is a really good young RB in both sides of the pitch. If there isn't many great defensive fullbacks anymore, shouldn't we be happy we're the one that has got one of those?

It is always trendy to hype up players like TAA until they make a huge mistake. Do we really need to wait and see until we realise the game is still the same? Like... Everybody looks to Liverpool as some sort of modern formula that everyone has to emulate to be successful. Like it's no other way. We apparently have room for McTominay because he is a workhorse and guess what a player like Henderson plays for Liverpool.. however Liverpool using fullbacks that are good offensively, quite successfully in their system.. so again, that means we will never have room for any other type of player than a offensive fullback. How can a team possibly be successful if it is not the exact replica copy of the formula of some another team.
 
Bwuk said:
I said that in his thread after one of his first games here.

Hes far too limited on the ball to be a long term option at full back.

At a top team the only position I could ever see him playing at is as a ball winner in midfield.
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Are you one those who see Bailly as a DM too?

What in the world makes AWB a dm?
 
MDFC Manager said:
Here's an actually unpopular opinion - he's not that good defensively either. Yes he's a vast improvement over what we had, not given his non existing attacking threat, I think he should be far better defensively. At the moment he just seems a highlights reel defender.
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Alot of the time he’s either going to ground unnecessarily or making a last ditch tackle because his initial positioning is questionable.

I actually really like him but £50mil in that window on an FB whos attacking game makes Luke bloody Shaw look like Roberto Carlos was again proof of a terrible transfer window.

He has a lot of improvement to male, that’s for sure.
 
How is he in the air ? With that timing and insane recovery tackle nack he has. Hes worth a shot at cb. At the very least in a 3 like azpilicueta did for us under conte when we won the league.
 
AWB’s performances have dropped. But then again it’s not possible to play like Cafu when you got clown teammates like Pereira and Fred. All in all, keep the faith in AWB. has all the basics to be a top right back whereas Pereira and Fred ain’t even championship level.
 
It's fair to want more from him. He cost 50 million and while he excellent defensively he can't as little responsibility in attack as he does. I watch him, and it's very evident that his first thought when in attack is how can I not screw up/retain possession/give it to someone else to do something. We need our RB to take more onus on himself and start thinking about HE can hurt teams and find the key pass/cross.

I still feel he's a real talent. But at the same time, at a huge club you have to expand your game. And he does have technical qualities so it's hardly as if he's completely limited. He needs to work on his passing and cross and most importantly intent in the attacking third. Everything isn't the RWs responsibility.
 
Bwuk said:
I said that in his thread after one of his first games here.

Hes far too limited on the ball to be a long term option at full back.

At a top team the only position I could ever see him playing at is as a ball winner in midfield.
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Too limited as a DM IMO.

Seems ideal for a three man defence. But we shouldn't lose hope already as a RB. Teams like Barcelona have had Abidal as their LB who wasn't spectacular but a good all round footballer who didn't shirk responsibility. AWB has to try to emulate that. Also given he is what he is, we need an attacking LB next season with a genuine threat
 
Nou_Camp99 said:
I have stuck to my guns from the off on this. He's a very good tackler with his spider like legs but on the ball I don't even think he's in the top 10 right backs in the league let alone Europe. £50m seems like a hell of a lot of money for someone who can tackle.

What else is he offering? Looks petrified when the ball comes his way. I heard someone on a fan cam call him the best right back in the league earlier today. Can we stop this nonsense right now? He's not even close. You have to be able to play football too and he can't quite frankly.
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Unpopular would be to say the contrary. I think among general football fans outside United they would find it a bit tough to place him as being any better than the below names.

Arnold-Alexander, Pavard, Hakimi, Hysaj, Kimmich, Azpilicueta, Carvajal, Walker, R. Pereira, Cancelo or Cuadrado. Not saying he's a bad player, I think he's pretty talented and his style is fun to watch but I don't think he's as good as people make out.
 
He‘s the least of your problems. Not amazing on the ball but good defensively. Regardless of his price tag, he’s a decent enough right back and the real issue is the lack of quality in midfield. He’d be good as a right-sided centre half but you probably need even more in midfield then.
 
I think he's fine, he's demonstrated an ability to improve. He's less hesitant when attacking than earlier in the season. Something he was criticised about, is fair to say he's developing his attacking game.

The issue though is that we are currently tenth best, you'll see top drawer ability from him on occasion, but he's as good as the players around him. They will affect his confidence in trying things.
 
Rozay said:
This was evident, and voiced, before he signed. That said, there is a bit of glass half empty/full analogy here - given that as poor as he is technically and offensively, he is uniquely good at defending. That does count for something, especially in a game where you can come up against Mané’s and Sane’s who most simply can’t deal with. It’s an asset to have.

That said, I would have preferred Cancelo in the summer, and a right back who is comfortable as a traditional winger is key. It’s compounded by the fact that we get no threat from LB either. Our entire full-back area is a concern. Young is rubbish going either way, Shaw is not a great deal better, and Brandon Williams isn’t that good in my opinion, at least not yet. There are many question marks over Dalot, especially defensively, and AWB offensively. It’s a dire situation.

I do think Ethan Laird will eventually overtake the rest at RB though.
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Apart from being really good at tackling on the ground, his defending isn't unique for me. Just like Maguire, we overpaid for a decent player and once he became a Utd, we (me included) started to overrate him at first. Now we're about to see the uglier turn from the fans
 
Can we get some midfielders who are good on the ball before worrying about the right back?
 
Least of our problems, his weakness is he doesn't try too many crosses, he gets into good positions and then squares the ball to the midfielder who is in good position instead of being proactive in the attack. This can be worked on by good coaches who encourages him to try more crosses. He was getting into very good positions yesterday but was hesitant to cross the ball.

Our biggest problem is midfield, if we solve that then half of our problems on the pitch will be gone. Well apart from Ole, who should be replaced with betters ones too.
 
I think he's the least of our concerns. And he has time to develop his offensive game. I guess in the Gary Neville mold or so, as in he's never gonna be a skilled offensive weapon, but he can learn to improve into crossing better from the byline and running overlaps.

I think he would be terrible at CB as he is constantly out of position and depends on his fantastic athleticism to recover. At CB that would be horrendous.
 
MikeKing said:
A negative opinion on one of our players wouldn't be the unpopular opinion. Not on here. Not currently. Now if a new player that Ole -the man of the hour- bought isn't being criticised for his price tag? That would surprise me.

Spinning this thing out of proportion about a certain players weakness after coming to United has always been the popular thing to do. Pundits and papers do it all the time, so much we've started doing it ourselves. We just reinforce the misery at every opportunity, fans have collective self pity up the ass. It's like Rawk. And people even get upset about haircuts of our players etc.. never mind any actual relevant discussion about football.
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Very much so and he has enormous potential to improve, especially once his role is properly defined and he has a midfield in front of him he can trust.
 
I never said anything extremley positive about him but he does look promising. Calling him out like this is really uncalled for giving we have been pretty shit in general. But yesterday was frustrating and since we gave up 6 points in the last two games (from going down) I can see this place flooding with thread's like this. And let's be honest: The "Rashy's bubble thread" is pathetic to say the least and its not on the menu because the lad scored against Sheffield United and pretty much scored yesterday (but it was ruled as an own goal).
 
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I am more worried about our midfield which is so bad that it's been bossed by two newly promoted sides in back to back games, the amount of work our defence has to do because we are being dominated in the middle is ridiculous.
 
Fecking hell. It's his first season with us, he's 22 and it's only his 3rd season in the prem. Any danger of some fecking perspective on these threads.
 
AWB is doing exactly what we knew he would. He is a great tackler, one of the very best.

Attacking wise he is going to improve better when there is an attacking structure to work on, currently we have none. Its difficult to even know what our players are trying to do, makes it more difficult for him to contribute to the attack.

Secondly playing on the same flank with James means he doesn't have to do too much going forward as James always has his flank in his pockets.

With a good attacking structure and strategy he will definitely improve.
 
Lash said:
Fecking hell. It's his first season with us, he's 22 and it's only his 3rd season in the prem. Any danger of some fecking perspective on these threads.
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No actually, Liverpool’s fullbacks have 11 assists between them so he should have at least 6 by himself for the money Utd paid. Ole (and everyone else) out. Or something.
 
He seems a bit clumsy on the ball. Even in our own half which can be a bit dangerous.

Offensively, he is quite shit though. He might improve in the future but no point denying it when its right in front of you.

He clearly isn't our biggest problem but by no means is he an example of outstanding recruitment just yet.
 
peridigm said:
He’s better than any of the garbage we’ve had on that side in the last decade. £50m was a bargain in this market. Who do you think we should have bought for more or less?
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Disagree. He is a good way off being as good as Rafael of 2012/13 who was genuinely one of the best in the league if not europe. We should never have sold him. At the moment he isn't as good as even the 'born again' valencia of 2015 who provided quite a bit more going forward.
 
A top 1990s-standard full back that is a good defender, a really good defender. Full backs have moved on since then and have an advanced skill-set including a few tricks and being decent at crossing. The latter is what he lacks. At least the RHS is solid defensively.
 
We are attacking well, scoring goals now. Just fecking defend. Forget attacking, start defending leads ffs
 
I knew he was limited in attack, but he's actually a lot more limited than I thought. Still very early days, and I'm sure he can improve in time.

But to be honest he's looked less and less confident as the season has progressed, same with Maguire. It's like a disease at our club.
 
Eric's Seagull said:
He is a lot better than we had in that area for years and hopefully his attacking contribution will improve.
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Hardly saying a lot is it? We've been league 2 standard at right back since Rafael left us.

I'd say he's well behind Rafael Da Silva so far though. He just isn't a good footballer. Great tackler and that's it. Been a poor signing for me. We need some creativity especially when we aren't creating much in the middle of the park. Liverpool don't creat much in the middle either but have world class fullbacks. We don't.
 
I do like him but I don't think we've seen the player we all thought we would when we signed him. He was hyped alongside TAA as the best full back in the league last season and he hasn't looked anywhere close to that for us. Hopefully he improves.
 
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