All his defenders out in force today I see. I’m outta here til his next mistake which I presume won’t be very long based on his history
2
Season Average Rating
- Appearances
- 45
- Clean sheets
- 17
- Goals
- 1
- Assists
- 2
- Yellow cards
- 4
- Status
We also only scored 49 goals in the league that season, so we were set up a lot more defensively then than we are now.
-
In regards to the current discussion - he absolutely could have done better clearing the ball for the goal, and 9 times out of ten he would have put that ball out for a throw in. 'Tough break, do better next time' is what you would expect to be the takeaway here. But some people's negativity bias is so strong that they can only see the mistakes, can't put them into their proper context and see the bigger picture, and if he has a good game they say "Fine, but next time I'm sure he'll cock up and I'll be right!" and then jump on to the smallest crumb of a mistake and say "See! I fecking told you he's useless!" no matter what the "mistake" led to.
Lindelöf has been good or great for us for a few years, even before Ole. People didn't seem to want to see it as that would collide with how they had conceived him.
That doesn't mean he's free from mistakes, and of course we shouldn't disregard them. But to use every little perceieved mistake as fuel for the narrative isn't healthy and won't lead to any proper discussions either. Vidic was put on his arse more than a few times, cost us penalties and goals against players whose names we probably can't even remember, same with Ferdinand. It happens. However, we can see past those mistakes because we could see what they provided - we saw the bigger picture.
Sometimes I wonder if he can be converted to a DM since he has great passing ability.
Is there anyone in recent times who was converted from a CB to a DM?
Is there anyone in recent times who was converted from a CB to a DM?
It wasn't that we set up more defensively (we actually played a very high line at the back). The issue we had was the that we moved the ball very slowly and had an attack of an ageing Rooney, 18 year old Martial and Rashford, Lingard and Mata. We'd score 49 goals with that set up in this team.
If Lindelof was remotely on the level of Ferdinand and Vidic then you could tolerate the odd mistake. Lindelof is a 6 or 7 out of 10 player - good at defending space, average in the air, average against physical players, not a particularly great man marker. That's the issue.
I don't think that's about Mings getting too tight, it's just poor defending - he completely forgets Greenwood has a left foot. Look at how much space is between them when Greenwood strikes the ball, it's because he's gone way too far over anticipating Greenwood trying to get a shot off on his right foot. Going tight in this scenario is essential.
Issue for Lindelof isn't really last game, it's just that he has made a few errors like this over the season and then the reaction snowballs on here to him being a solid if non elite PL CB to a Championship player.
Disagree. They usually find it easy to criticize a non-English/British player, who is not in the big league.
I'd say moving the ball slowly was a defensive method, we could probably have scored more with at least some one-touch passing but LVG wouldn't have that. Think Depay could have had a career here if we played the way we do now.
I'd probably rate him a bit higher than that. Good passing ability, both long range and how he circulates the ball. Positions himself well when we're in and out of possession, rarely breaks the offside line (can't even remember the last time he was at direct fault for a goal due to that - does anyone know?), and can sniff out trouble and block shots very well.
His passing is a tad overrated I'd say. Not to say he's not played some very good long balls, but he's done those with zero pressure on him (ie actually not that demanding technically). When he's pressed/playing out the back I think he defers responsibility a bit too much and has a tendency to hot potato it to AWB rather than using his ability to pass through the press.
He's good at defending space that is true. But when was the last time you remember him clearing a corner or set piece into our box (bearing in mind our awful track record on those)? How often does he lose routine physical battles?
When has he put in a truly dominant performance? His man to man marking is also not great.
I think 6 or 7 out of 10 is fair. Although to his credit there have been more 7s and fewer 3 or 4s than previous seasons.
Great post, Lindelof should have toe poked it away but I felt like he was maybe trying to pass it to AWB. It happens.
It happens and I’d rather say the striker did really well for Villa.
You must be new here.
I don't think he was trying to pass it to AWB. I have seen it many times. I really think he was stretched and could not get anything more on it. We have to remember that it was inside the box too and if he gets anything of the player it could be a penalty too. It is easy to sit here and say he should have been more strong etc but it was a good turn and really it was a very good goal.
. Lindelof’s weakness against physically strong players hasn’t been explored really, can’t really remember us losing many points because of that. It’s also a confirmation bias. When Lindelof lost an aerial so Vestergaard could score it was because he was weak in the air. When Tarkowski scored a carbon copy goal nobody thought Maguire was weak. People need to understand that more or less every goal conceded could have been avoided if a CB did better. If we looked at all goals we have scored, I’m sure an opponent CB could have done better for most of them. That’s the nature of the game.
I don’t see any connection here. How would season 15/16 make it possible for us to be PL second best team, if our defensive midfield plus one CB were useless? We haven’t lost in six months with Lindelof:Maguire at the back. They now have 10 straight PL matches where have conceded 0 or 1 goals. People crying for upgrade because we concede 1 goal every now and then can not be watching much football.
They cannot accept that our midfield is a bigger problem because one of them is the local boy McTominay. Upgrade our midfield as it is the weakest link. We need ONE player who can play as good if not better than the combination of Fred and McTominay and that is our biggest priority and not our CBs.
Yep, every goal can be blamed on the CB, we are the only club that actually criticise the CB after every goal.
In respects to your reply to the other poster, I find it weird when people compare seasons like that. I mean there was clearly a different philosophy of football then.
How is it comparable when you are playing not to concede and scoring 49 PL goals? This season we have 67 PL goals
His extended family are on here, I'm convinced.
I am pretty convinced some of the lot here think Lindelof killed their pet or something. The unrealistic ask for Lindelof to make zero mistakes is unreal. While other defenders get a free pass.
Just to reply to this one. Irrespective of Lindelof, we still need a priority Cb. Maguire is injured. We don’t know how badly or how it might niggle in future. His backup is Bailly (injury prone), Tuanzebe (injury prone) and Lindelof. We need a CB
Incorrect. It’s just that he’s doing them more often which is why people are on him. AWB for example gets regularly slagged off on here. It’s not Lindelof the person, it’s his erratic defending
Awful game from him, the goal and the other moment in the second half were perfect examples of everything that’s wrong with him.
Maybe it's a major one like his shoelace comes undone!
No. It is just confirmation bias. If you look closely, all our defenders make mistakes. They are not the same kind of mistakes, that's all.
Everytime I come to this thread there's a chance of a heated debate about his lack of aggression or spatial awareness...almost every game, there's a controversy. That one thing tells me there's something wrong in this lad's game.
Smalling in his time got his dose of criticism, so Lindelof got his.
Smalling in his time got his dose of criticism, so Lindelof got his.
No Lindelof is not awful. Its the same thing when he plays one of his better games people come in and say he's great. He's not that either. He's just under what you want from a solid starting player who can still be improved on. Not that many personal errors in the grand scheme of things, but you're skating by with him not having the physical or mental abilities and getting away with it plenty of the time. And then sometimes like this week it catches up to you because the opposition are able to capitalize on the weaknesses.
He's a 6.5/10 normally and a 7/10 on a good day. And what we need to improve is a 7/10 every week with an 8/10 on a good day
As long as he can play to that 6.5-7 level when he comes into the team not having played for 6 weeks then he's fine as a backup and starting matches to allow for rotation and tactics. In a game where we think we can get by with less defending and his balls over the top of the defence can cause the team to attack better, then he's an option. But a lot of players are nowhere near as good without a run of games, or need to be playing almost weekly to play well. If he's one of those he isnt good enough and wouldnt be good enough as a backup. And because he's almost always been in the team regardless of how he plays, I dont think we know how he does coming in from the cold.
And thats a factor because he constantly gets compared to players who do come in from the cold, when he doesnt. Bailly, Tuanzabe and the rest of our CBs in the past. Because Lindelof started each week no matter what, they all came in for 1 or 2 matches and were immediately compared to Lindelof. But Lindelof was always playing a lot so had a better understanding with the team and sharper with his fitness. When hes a backup in the same situation as they are he may well be a worse option than they are too.
No one is saying anyone is useless - that is a strawman. But as I pointed out, we have good defensively records in prior seasons with a rotating (LvG and early Jose) ensemble class of defenders, converted wingers and questionable CM in front of them. Therefore using overall team defensive record to deflect individual player criticisms doesn't make sense.
Separately, I think the fact we rely on the McFred pairing shows a) either the defence can't be fully trusted when exposed and/or b) neither are good enough to the job of 1 specialist DM.
Every time they talk about penalties in PL, they talk about United getting many penalties. So it must be true that United get undeserved penalties all the time.
We have two positions that badly need strengthening, they're both priorities.
I agree, he is a solid CB nothing special. Bailly is just too aggressive and clumsy for my liking, he needs to know when to dive in and when to back off.
If we upgrade on Lindelof, we need someone who is very calm and will deal with everything without fuss.
I can see Lindelof starting alot of games even if we do sign a CB, his game is perfectly suited to certain oppositions. He would probably start all European games, his game is suited to that and games against Palace or someone he would be on the bench.
United get a lot of penalties because they're on attack, Lindelof gets criticism because he's bit shit. Making a forced victim out of Lindelof doesn't help much in his case, especially if you had much harder criticsm of Bailly the glass psycho, Shaw the fatman, clumsy Bissaka, Slabhead 80m fridge or Phil Jones who's basically a meme.
I was just talking about the absurdity of your logic. If you have seen Lindelof week in and week out and think he is crap, then that's a fair opinion, though I disagree with it.
Just don't frame your opinions based on the amount of shouting you see on various threads.
He will be allowed more leeway for mistakes if he brings elite qualities to the table. That is the crux of the issue.
I would say it is the latter. Get a good DM and the midfield won't make those mistakes that led to the goal. It was a midfield mistake that led to it.
I base my judgement on 3 years of Lindelof in United, not on one patch of good form. He's not for the title challenge in England, but he still got time to improve a lot, since so far there's no fit defenders in current United setup, which hopefully will change.
I'm gonna frame my opinion just like you use analogy comparing Lindelof to United getting penalties which sounds bit absurd. Amount of shouting in another threads can also be a form of opinion expressed differently.
I think it is more that he doesn’t fit the classic old school PL CB mould. People prefer tackles and diving shot blocks.
I just find itnunlikelynthat we would be placed second on the most competitive league in the world with some poor defensive players. That would mean defence isn’t so important. Also if we look at all matches where we have lost points, there are hardly any of those where we lost points because of Lindelof.
When it comes to McFred, I think a lot of people make the assumption poor ball control, therefore they must be good defensively. They have a huge work capacity that the whole team benefit from but a lot of chances we concede come from their poor abilities with the ball and it makes it hard to play out from the back.
If we had replaced Lindelof with a better CB this season and didn’t play McFred, who would you play instead? Bruno, Pogba and...? Matic and Donny?
Or perhaps the entire country of Sweden. I’ll never understand why people constantly defend this guy. He’s never been a stand-out performer for us, he’s always been just a guy out there, which is fine, not everyone can be world class or be a leader, but I don’t get the hardcore fandom for this dude.
Also, he's been here years! Definitely long enough to establish a fairly definitive opinion of him as a player. He's not a bad player, but you're not going to challenge for major trophies if he is a starting centre-back, simple as.
A valuable squad option if we want to be competitive in all competitions. Not his fault that the rest of our squad CBs cannot take his place.
Well said. There are some serious flaky fans on here. His last loss was 6 months ago and yet some on here think he can't defend.
Serious amount of clean sheets in the big games too.
But yeah, he makes a mistake so he must be awful.
Some people need to see the bigger picture.
The fact that our fans think he's been our 4th best player must stand for something.
He suits a deep defensive line where space is tight. He's very similar to Jonny Evans in that sense, looks great when he can concentrate on just cutting space but anything down the sides or behind him he struggles.
If we want to be on the front foot and higher up the pitch we need a defender who can deal with that threat better.
If we want to be on the front foot and higher up the pitch we need a defender who can deal with that threat better.
Say we decided to sell him, how much do you think we would get for him after this season?
Whilst I'm not saying we should sell him as he has been good enough for a squad role here; I feel we don't do this as a club as much as we should.
Whilst I'm not saying we should sell him as he has been good enough for a squad role here; I feel we don't do this as a club as much as we should.
Last edited:
I liken him to Liverpool who had Agger, not gonna win the league with him in the team
Which is why we need a starting cb now
This.
- Status