Stop derailing the thread with your obsession on Stones
Victor Lindelöf
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Stop derailing the thread with your obsession on Stones
Perhaps it would be better to get say the next Van Dijk type signing before they move to the PL. Historically United didn't really have to do that and could just pay for the best after they proved it in the league, but with the new TV deal, lesser teams in the league can ask for ridiculous fees for their best players. We need to broaden our scouting to get good value for money. Just look at how Monaco's scouting and buying top, young players led to them winning their league and getting to the semis of the champions league. They then progress to sell these players for a massive markup. Of course United have an entirely different business model with a lot more money, but the point is that perhaps it would be wiser to buy a younger, cheaper player with massive potential then spending £50m+ on a CB, given that we have the second best defensive record in the league over the past 2 seasons.
We are not Real Madrid. This mentality does not thrive much.
Exactly.
I didn't name any of those players in my post so I don't understand how you came to that conclusion.
I was just saying that as the richest club we don't need to go bargain hunting in smaller leagues, we can and should look for the best available players whatever league they are playing in.
Derailing the thread? Weren't you the one that the 'derailed the thread' by making a stones vs van dijk comparison? Seems you have nothing to substantiate your claims.
35m is a good deal for a player with as much potential and as young as Lindelof. It is less than we paid for Bailly. At 23, he is a starter for benfica and already has CL exposure. If it works out, that could yield almost 10yrs of partnership with Bailly.
No we're not Real but we are in the same division as them when it comes to financial muscles.
I am pretty sure Stones was your idea. I never said it was a bad deal, i just said the other one is for me a better deal
Those two PL players cost more but Bailly cost less and is an example of a better value being found from outside the PL.
Getting better value doesnt mean compromising quality. I dont see why we should pay 50m for Van Dijk when we can get players of similar quality for much less from outside the PL
I agree with your point, but the margin for error between United and Monaco because of the stature and expectations of the club makes it an uneven comparison.
United need to buy dead certain quality to strengthen the starting XI and some critical areas of depth right now. We aren't in a position to take some educated gambles on young talents plucked from the edges of obscurity because of the lack of quality we have all throughout our squad. Objectively we could say we need to improve at ST, LW, RW, DM and LB in our starting XI. Additionally we could use a more reliable CB depth option than Jones who is too often injured, a youngish prospect to groom behind Valencia and a depth CB to step in for Herrera and Pogba when required.
Realistically there is no way we accomplish all of this in just this transfer window. Mourinho did well to bring in 3 players in Pogba, Bailly and Mkhi that improved our starting XI and the quality in our squad, though the jury is still out to a degree on Mkhi. Zlatan was a stop gap, albeit a high quality one, which we knew at the time, but the time period to address that long term is now accelerated because of his injury.
All this is to say that we need to get our ducks in a row as far as building a strong starting XI and some critical and necessary depth pieces before we start taking punts on more obscure players that our scouts feel have the potential to become Manchester United starting XI players in time although they're not the finished articles yet. We must progress and begin challenging at the top of the league, while establishing ourselves as a competitive force in Europe before we start adding in young talents that can be protected by a strong squad around them and grow into the finished article.
Monaco simply doesn't have this kind of pressure. If they finished 3rd this year far behind PSG there would be no great furor over their failure to challenge for the title. Mourinho, Woodward and United do not, will not and should never have that luxury.
Spending 100 m in lukaku for example does not make him a better player than a non epl experienced striker scoring the same amount of goals in other league. Lindelof is no inferior to others in epl, we must keep faith in our judgements as well.
I brought up stones as an example of where your logic lead. A few seasons ago he was the most promising PL CB with even Mourinho wanting him at Chelsea. Eventually City paid 56m to get him.
To me, Van Dijk is this summer's Stones, with everyone raving about him and when he fails to live up to the price tag, will call him useless
Exactly.
How good is this guy aerially?
Off topic. My ocd is really making me not to click on this thread.
Can someone please put a space between 'lindelof' and '|' in the title?
Can someone please put a space between 'lindelof' and '|' in the title?
I'm more than happy to get Lindelof. People really can't make their mind up about value, age, talent, experience, etc.
If Jose wants this guy for his defense over other CBs, then we should trust Jose and his coaches. The club has been attached to Lindelof for more than 7 months now.
If our CBs to go into next season are Bailly, Smalling, Blind, Rojo, Lindelof and Tuanzebe...I'd be happy as shit. Jones is a nothing player to me and he has the worst dependability (i.e. injury record) I just listed. Jose even singled out Smalling (who has consistently been a stand-in captain this year and last year) after the Europa Cup final by saying Smalling was well ahead of Jones to start and feature in the Final because he recovered from his injury first and was able to play matches to show his fitness...and then look at the performance he and Blind put in the Final.
If Jose wants this guy for his defense over other CBs, then we should trust Jose and his coaches. The club has been attached to Lindelof for more than 7 months now.
If our CBs to go into next season are Bailly, Smalling, Blind, Rojo, Lindelof and Tuanzebe...I'd be happy as shit. Jones is a nothing player to me and he has the worst dependability (i.e. injury record) I just listed. Jose even singled out Smalling (who has consistently been a stand-in captain this year and last year) after the Europa Cup final by saying Smalling was well ahead of Jones to start and feature in the Final because he recovered from his injury first and was able to play matches to show his fitness...and then look at the performance he and Blind put in the Final.
He's got a nice round head. Good surface area to volume ratio, for maximum contact
http://www.squawka.com/news/victor-...-manchester-united-great-rio-ferdinand/857465
He's adequate aerially according to this article, but neither is Blind and whenever Blind has played Lukaku, Lukaku is in his pocket.
Wins 59% of his aerial duels per Squawka. 69/117. About the same as Bailly's it seems. Bailly is 58%; 38/66. Could be an issue playing the two together in the league, Bailly's glaring weakness probably is his heading ability. He has a great leap but his technique is, well, bizarre. Contrasted; Smalling and Jones are 69% and 67% respectively.
Smalling and Jones have probably had more practice. Other leagues dont seem to put the ball in the air as often as the PL does.
And yet welbeck leaped better than both than jones and smalling to plant in a header in the arsenal game .
Notice that neither won 100% of aerial duels?
He was in-between the two, they weren't beaten to the ball in an aerial duel. It was more positional sense than anything else, which makes sense considering it was literally their first game back from injury. In any case, having a higher aerial duel percentage doesn't make you infallible to being beaten.
That's true, but Lindelof has actually competed in more duels than any of the four. His total duels tallies to 186, Smalling and Jones were around 120~.
This. Well said
This was I was referring to .
Lindelöf is nowhere near as good as Van Dijk.
Lindelöf is not really good in the air, not really quick and not really good with the ball at his feet...
he is a good all-round defender, but I ll take Keane any day of the week over him.
he is a good all-round defender, but I ll take Keane any day of the week over him.
The higher it is, generally speaking, the better you are in the air. It's somewhat adverse to go into a season with your two CBs being rather mediocre aerially in a league where physicality and longball is so effective.
I agree, and I am a Swede.
It really depends on indiduals judgements really, and we have some of the best of them.
Some players have qualities which mesmerises a scout or a coach and they would crave to have that in the team. In lindelofs case it's his his clean tacking abilities which has earned him the name iceman. A no nonsense ball playing defender who can defend and his fitness record is better than the other more expensive player on the market.
Disagree.
I agree with a lot of what you're saying. Like you said, we'll need several transfer windows of good recruitment before we can fill a lot of the holes in our squad. But the problem is, as rich as we are, we don't have unlimited funds. We have a lot more urgent areas to look at (especially up front due to our lack of goals-which is only made worse with Zlatan's injury, genuine pace out wide and a CDM that can take over Carrick's role). I'd much rather we sorted out those areas first and then if we wanted to spend £50m+ on a CB, fair play. But with the prices quoted for some of the players up front, we'd surely have to make some compromises with how much can be spent in other areas. I said this before, but we are very solid defensively, but very poor offensively. Even if we were to buy no CB's this summer, we likely won't have any problems next season there, as our oldest CB is only 27, so they'll surely only get better. I think we're lacking in the LCB department, which is why buying Lindelof and saving around £20m from buying Van Dijk, may as a whole be the better move, if that meant we could buy a better player in more urgent areas.
Keane is not a ball playing cb which is crucial in a modern game. He's an upgrade on Jones and possibly smalling( jury is out on that one) but lindelof is an ideal partner to Bailly than Keane.
Stats is not a true measuring stick of a player who's is just 22 yet. Concentration and awareness is a quality which makes a better defender totally than just heading stats.
Sorry, my rambling may have been a bit confusing, but I don't necessarily disagree with you there. I was speaking more to our overall transfer strategy rather than specific to the Lindelof/Van Dijk debate (my personal preference is actually Lindelof though I admittedly am not some seasoned expert on either). I don't view Lindelof as somebody plucked from obscurity if we do buy him. He's played for one of the top clubs in Portugal and been a standout player for them from what I can gather. We also seem to have done our due diligence as far as extensive scouting and in this crazy era, 35m euros isn't really a major fee.
For sure. My post was more about the overall strategy regarding us taking a bunch of youngsters on like Monaco. From what little I've seen of Lindelof, I like and CB is one of the few positions in the squad we are positioned to buy the unfinished article and look to grow him ourselves.
That's because their second touch is a header
Yeah fair enough. When I was making the Lindelof/Van Dijk comparison and relating to the transfers Monaco have done, I was more pointing out that we don't necessarily have to pay top dollar to get an established player in order to perform at the highest level, though as you pointed out Lindelof isn't exactly unknown or cheap. There are also many cases of average players performing at a very high level, due to perfectly fitting a particular system, so it's difficult to know if a player will adapt to a new team. Either way, I'm sure our scouts will know a lot about which players fit the system Mourinho wants than me.
How has he been this season at Benfica? Is he a better player than compared to say last year when we were first linked to him or about the same?
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