Unless a true game changer becomes available à la Pogba, this squad is very difficult to improve on and Mourinho is absolutely right to prioritize some continuity to improve coherence and fluidity over marginal, if any improvement of personnel.
Victor Lindelöf
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Does anyone think it's likely we'll try again for him in the summer or is this it now?
I think there is some substance to this transfer. No one could ever have predicted the form of these two CB's and should things have been as 'normal' we would be extremely light given Eric's injury and potentially being away for a month, equally Smalling injury and having not played for a month. With Shaw also being out meant Blind potentially having to also cover both CB and LB.
The worlds a bit different now though but that said, I have a strange feeling this ones might still happen next month once his club stops playing games for more money.
Could it be that we've agreed a deal in principle for the summer for him and Semedo, and the new contract is simply to ward off other clubs from buying him?
That sounds plain silly, conspiracy theory lunatic rantings.
Agent using United to get a new deal for his client. Or just yet another Benfica player linked to us with zero interest on our behalf.
Maybe, bar Eric I think the jury is out on all our CB's for different reasons. I suspect Smalling will be sold this summer as I'm not convinced Jose thinks he's good enough.
Hmm, who to believe... Portuguese press... or the BBC
Hmm, who to believe... Portuguese press... or the BBC
I don't think either know really, BBC are always late on the scene with everything and just copy and paste from what they've seen on another website.
So we have one of the best managers in the world and a squad that can hardly be improved on.
Yet we are only nr 6 in the league.
Something does not add up for me.
That's not true. It's not difficult to improve on players like Depay, Fellaini, Young, Lingard, Darmian, and Schneiderlin. And if we want to compare our squad to the very best teams in the world then there's huge room for improvement across the board.
The spine of our team were playing in a new league and we had a new manager this year.
We were always going to need to settle.
Not true.
BBC will only report on something once they have a verifiable source.So this is likely to be directly from the club.
The Portuguese rags seem to run pure nonsense from previous history.
Chelsea had a new manager and a new squad and are strolling to the title this season. Pep is also new to the league and City has a comfortable lead over United. Ranieri was new to the league last year and won the title with Leicester City.
I'am fecking tired of the this guy is new, he needs atleast 2 years probably 3 before we can expect to see results. It is the biggest bullshit argument in the world.
Well if Benfica say we're in for him then it must be true, coming from the club who linked us to Nico Gaitan for 5+ years running.
The bad results in the first few months were down to the consistently poor team selection accompanied with a formation that didn't work with the players that were played (Fellaini and Pogba in a midfield 2). Once Mourinho brought Carrick back into the mix, look at the results. We have a very strong squad that is arguably the strongest in the league, but not necessarily the strongest starting line up (especially the line ups at the start of the season.)
He had to get rid of the old mentality and style that we had. He rebuilt core of the team too. Now that team is settling down and we are winning, major attacking contributions are coming from the players Mourinho bought. With City for example, or Chelsea they already had the players settled and used to the league. Pep benefitted from Aguero, Bruyne, Silva etc already being there. He didn't have to get a new striker and creative players to settle in.
Mourinho needed to get Ibra, Pogba, Bailly, Mkhytaryan used to the league and systems. Who knows, if Mkhytaryan was already here from previous season(s) and settled we might have won the few games that we drew. Additionally, you could say if we were lucky with finishing against Burnley and the ball did not hit the post against Stoke, we could've been in the top 4 and closer to chelsea. Ranieri, the same, he played his tactics but the players were settled and used to the league and one another's presence on the pitch and it just kept clicking.
Only Lingard and Darmian still gets playing time out of the players mentioned. And they usually only start when there is injuries.
Doesn't matter, the rest are all still part of the squad. No doubt we have a strong foundation and the makings of a great team, but there's still a lot of work to be done. To say our squad is very difficult to improve on is nonsense.
knew you'd come out with that. Conte's star men (Hazard/Costa) have been in the league for a while, playing in a system that suits them. Only Luiz and Alonso are 'new'. Its also reasonable to assume they've had more luck in certain games than we have.Pep isn't that much ahead of us and still has Liverpool next. The gap is just 4 points if he loses that so you're talking about narrow margins.
And feck Leicester, their achievement last season is never a measuring stick for the norm. You should know that.
Just go for Laporte - he is worth the release clause !
I have a feeling this is games being played by both clubs.
I think United were interested. I feel that they had an agreed fee with Benfica, then for some reason they wanted Lindelof to renew to drive up the price and try to make us shell out more than already agreed. As a result, we've said we aren't interested to try and make Benfica think twice. I think the clubs will come to an agreement and we'll sign him still.
Although, I could be entirely wrong and It could be we weren't interested and the Portuguese papers were doing their usual thing, or the above stands but we actually have ended our interest to pursue different players, maybe Gimenez?
It's all a bit weird really.
I think United were interested. I feel that they had an agreed fee with Benfica, then for some reason they wanted Lindelof to renew to drive up the price and try to make us shell out more than already agreed. As a result, we've said we aren't interested to try and make Benfica think twice. I think the clubs will come to an agreement and we'll sign him still.
Although, I could be entirely wrong and It could be we weren't interested and the Portuguese papers were doing their usual thing, or the above stands but we actually have ended our interest to pursue different players, maybe Gimenez?
It's all a bit weird really.
We are finally making progress on the field:- therefore time to start playing hard ball rather than £££ all the time.
I think that Lindelof was persuaded to sign a new contract by promising him that by doing so his former club will get its fair share. Unfortunately with such high minimum fee clause, United are suffering from cold feet. At that price we can actually attract people like Gimenez and Laporte rather then some kid whose playing in a league were Mangala and Rojo were absolute beasts.
Sounds like the most logical scenario. I don't believe that we weren't interested. If we have given up, then I completely trust Mourinho on this, he has his sights set on another centre back, and whoever it is, if he's good enough for Mourinho he's good enough for me.
His name sounds like something I'll order at an indian restaurant.
What league was he in when he managed Chelsea?
Chelsea don't have a new squad.
City had been preparing for Pep's arrival for a full season.
Just picking all the major issues with your I demand instant success as someone else who I don't really have a clue about did post.
Oh and just to point out, nothing is won in December.
Because what you are describing is football manager. In the real world, there are more factors than simply assembling top players with a top manager. Factors such as structure, mentality, cohesiveness than can only come from time and familiarity. The idea that players have a fixed level regardless of those factors around them is beyond ludicrous.
What you are talking about are squad players and in that case, I would also say it is difficult to improve on. Depay and Schneiderlin are actually not needed as they don't feature and therefore surplus to requirements in terms of numbers. The rest are indeed hard to improve on if you are looking at squad players. Barcelona's squad personnel includes world beaters like Denis Suarez, André Gomes, Paco Alcácer, Lucas Digne and Samuel Umtiti. Real's are the likes Fabio Coantrao, Danilo and Marco Asensio. The point is some time along the lines, fans started to get this idea that teams need 2 top players in each position to compete when looking back at history, that's not the case really. There is a good reason for that, top players start for their teams, they are not happy rotating. The majority of the top teams past and present had a core 14/15 players with the rest providing cover in case of a crisis.
Your second point is correct, although I would disagree with the term "huge" as I think it is the usual hyperboles when it comes to these discussion. Anyway, this was my point anyway, the difference between us and those teams is indeed those grade A players, game changers. The likes of Modric, Bale, Ronaldo, Neymar, Messi, Suarez and co. This is why I said unless those players become available, we are just marginally improving and that margin is not worth pursuing when you take into consideration that the improvement we might get out of continuity and therefore more coherence of personnel can be of a higher margin.
This. I would add we need luck as well. With luck we would have about 40 points and be right in the mix.
I agree with the first paragraph but, the bolded part is a bit extreme.
Fair enough, impossible to prove anyway so it is all about margins. I do however think that people greatly underestimate how much improvement can come out of familiarity and continuity of personnel and style. People say Fergie was amazing to get so much success without buying right, left and centre in his later years while conveninently forgetting the improvement he got year in year out out of simply keeping those players together, getting used to each other with each season. This applies to plenty of other teams where you see the same combinations and core every year. I do also think that people greatly exaggerate the levels of players. Apart from the undisputed greats, I really don't think there is much between players once you reach the levels of the top clubs. It is simply a case of players are influenced by outside factors and they can perform higher or lower than their level depending on those factors.
Wenger-esque, even
I generally agree with all of this. The part I responded to seemed like the "only Messi and Ronaldo can improve us" type stuff we sometimes see here. I do think we are two to three good signings away.
Messi and Ronaldo kind of make discussing players level annoying because if you call them top players implies that their level is normal. Let's put it this way, I think there are those two followed by maybe a dozen or so of top talent. After that I honestly don't think that there players who can improve a team on their own. I don't mean they're not top players, just not influential enough.
Sometimes the right signing can improve the club even if they are not top players. Who thought adding Carrick in 06 would take us to a different level? Or Bayern adding Dante, Javi Martinez and Mario Mandžukić would take them to another level?
I perfectly agree but in that case, my point is we at fans have absolutely no clue about that. From a distance, I am not buying any fan can actually tell that Dante would improve that team more than at least 2 dozens of defenders at the time. Only a manager and a team of experts know exactly the qualities needed for the way he wants to play and have the tools to evaluate whether said player has them. This is why I feel as fans apart from those obviously great players, we are just really guessing because we are either too frustrated at the level of the team or the simple usual fans muppetry.
P.S: Carrick is very different I thought at the time. We had no one in midfield bar Scholes who was even remotely considered a maybe first team player + he was clearly good player. I think now we clearly have about 15 players who can be considered first teamers and it is hard to believe that there is a piece missing with the wide range of different players we have.
Lindelof has been completely left out for their last game of the year against Pacos Ferreira tonight.
I don't think this deal is over, just the urgency isn't there to get it done so soon which probably suits all parties. I'm guessing like most but take Rojo's consistently poor performances, Jones serious injury and consistently being a sick note for some time, no one could have predicted the improvement in the form of these two players. Add to the uncertainty of Smalling and I'm not sure Jose sees Blind as a CB anyway....add to the fact that Eric is away for max of a month and even before that he was injured anyway, I can see why the timing of this signing made sense.
The worlds turned a few times since and signing him would potentially disrupt the team spirt as besides from anything else, it would signal the end of one of the CB's IMO.
The worlds turned a few times since and signing him would potentially disrupt the team spirt as besides from anything else, it would signal the end of one of the CB's IMO.
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