We've been linked but your guess is as good as mine mate, but if we don't get a LB or RB then Williams is our only fullback cover/rotation option.
What do we still need? Aka The never ending story
- Thread starter Devil may care
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We've been linked but your guess is as good as mine mate, but if we don't get a LB or RB then Williams is our only fullback cover/rotation option.
Very true but after seeing him at LB when Shaw got injured I am worried to say the least
There is more to it -
1) Our defense was good because we played most of the time with with 2 holding midfielders, sometimes a back 3. How will we cope with Pogba + Fernandes and not 2 holding midfielders?
2) Can we press without the fear of players running in behind? No. Because our CB's have no pace.
3) Can our RB/LB push up and contribute to attack? - Not the best
4) Do we have a keeper thats comfortable playing more of a sweeper role. Im not saying Neuer level. But at least have the ability with their feet and come out of the box when needed. Not the best
5) Is our defence balanced? No. There is a serious shortage of left footers and too many players that are similar. RB/LB are better at defending than attacking. CB's both have no pace.
6) Do we have good cover? No. Yes we have a million defenders but cover for LB is Williams - A right footed player that is very young. He is alos not the best at attacking. RB? Who? Williams again? Out of the CB's - Jones, Bailly, Tuanzebe - always injured. Smalling + Rojo want out. That leaves who?
There is a big plus though - I think great attacking can actually help the defense. Defending will be much easier if the other team is being pounded on by Fernandes, Pogba, Martial, Pogba, Greenwood and Sancho
Agreed. Cloning Pogba would make us title challengers in my opinion.
Yeah, I think the plan is for Williams to compete for RB as he's predominantly right footed, so a cheap LB buy like Telles makes a lot of sense.
What do we need? New owners and a new CEO. Nothing else.
We need to not finish in the top 4 for a few years and flirt with relegation long enough for glazers to sell.
My bargain bin summer transfers:
LB Owen Wijndal (19 | AZ ALKMAAR)
CB Abdou Diallo (24 | PSG)
RW Raphinha (23 | Stade Rennais)
65M euros.
LB Owen Wijndal (19 | AZ ALKMAAR)
CB Abdou Diallo (24 | PSG)
RW Raphinha (23 | Stade Rennais)
65M euros.
We need a lot. Tonight shows that.
Gasoline and Zippo
Sancho, LB and a CB.
We need a backup striker too.
We need a backup striker too.
We have needed the same positions since we lost our last good starters like Vidic, Ferdinand, Evra, Nani and Ronaldo but season after season we fail to get decent players in for what we lost years ago.
Clubs will see coming a mile off now.
If we aren't already desperate, we are now. We'll get barebacked on any deal we do.
If we aren't already desperate, we are now. We'll get barebacked on any deal we do.
I’ve kind of been on the fence about the CB thing and thought we could maybe give them one more chance and see how they do but after tonight one of them needs to make way for a defender who can defend, has pace and can cover because that was shocking and their weaknesses were on full display tonight.
Problem is I’m not sure really which one out of the two of them is worse.
Problem is I’m not sure really which one out of the two of them is worse.
Yeah. The rot stems from back when SAF was manager. Quality players was replaced by mediocrity or simply never replaced.
Good point. The plan to leave it all to the last minute is going to bite us in the arse. Classic Woodward/Judge/Glazer management.
Yeah it's terrifying that we are probably only going to get a RW & LB this window out of those four positions. You can also add a Matic replacement to that as well which makes it FIVE jesus.
New owners, that’s what we need
someone that actually cares about the club, not the profits
someone that actually cares about the club, not the profits
Where do we get someone who is utterly minted but not have any kind of serious human rights issues
James Ratcliffe?
He has flat out denied any interest in buying us I think,that is the trouble with these rich royal families there are underlying issues
We definitely need a center back if Ole thinks Bailly/Axel or any of our other million center options in the club are not good enough to displace Lindelof who quite simply is a liability.
Axel is good enough, but he hasn't been able to stay fit. We need someone to come in and put his body on the line for the club week in week out. Maguire is decent, and Lindelof is fine if he has a quick, dominant defender beside him, but as a pair I don't think they're good enough.
I hope Ole is having words with Smalling, presuming we don't have a new arrival coming in.
I hope Ole is having words with Smalling, presuming we don't have a new arrival coming in.
The shopping centre owners have been made aware there was a game of soccer played in Manchester and they still have no fricken idea what is going on.
Teflon Ed remains the favoured son after telling the owners and the media that the dividends and associated financial rewards will not be endangered by unnecessary and wasteful expenditure on foolish and silly things like player signings and upgrades to the stadium. Joel leant back in his comfy leather chair, looked out the wIndow and lit a fat cigar and thought, at least by not going to Manchester I can avoid direct scrutiny, Woodward can smile and bank his own cheque and get criticised and that saves me a headache.
get used to it, won’t stop soon , that’s for sure.
Teflon Ed remains the favoured son after telling the owners and the media that the dividends and associated financial rewards will not be endangered by unnecessary and wasteful expenditure on foolish and silly things like player signings and upgrades to the stadium. Joel leant back in his comfy leather chair, looked out the wIndow and lit a fat cigar and thought, at least by not going to Manchester I can avoid direct scrutiny, Woodward can smile and bank his own cheque and get criticised and that saves me a headache.
get used to it, won’t stop soon , that’s for sure.
New owners would be ideal because the Glazers just don't get top level football at all and they are just parasites. Compound that with Woodward's incompetence you have a perfect storm.
However the Glazers are going nowhere because the only rich family that would be open to buying us for a valuation that the Glazers would deem acceptable is anathema to us fans and the league in general.
But given what we have seen since Fergie retired I think that a more competent structure would have done better even under the financial constraints that they have imposed on the club. Last year, for example, we spent £130m on Maguire and AWB, I don't think there is another club of our stature that would have done the same for those two and it's the same with the £30m that we spent on Shaw six seasons ago or the £50m we spent on Fred.
With the benefit of hindsight one can see where we went wrong but truly speaking our errors in judgement as a club are just basic. It just doesn't make sense that we want to persist with this system where Woodward and the manager play a major role in recruitment despite it costing us.
Looking at Liverpool you can see what having a great coach and a competent structure can do for a club. They went from laughing stock to Champions in a relatively short period. We seemingly can't get one thing right and we waste money making basic judgement errors.
Our flaws are so painstakingly obvious im really starting to think we are doomed until we have radical change throughout the club.
The obvious is transfers. Our team is decent, our squad is pretty lame.
We still need to sell.
Jones, Rojo, Smalling, Lingard, Periera.
With recent selections i dont see much of a future for:
Dalot
Mata and Matic are on last legs.
We have two insane wages for keepers too.
How many years have we been without a RW? Criminal we cant address this.
Holes in the squad:
No LB cover
No ST cover (sorry Ighalo im not having you long term)
No RW at all.
To boot, the areas we are "well covered" we arent really oozing with top tier quality.
Rashford is either amazing or pathetic. Sadly, of late he's been a real burden.
Mctominey/Lindelof/ are decent but all have flaws.
Tfm/James/Greenwood/Williams are all good players who are learning but they are all so raw still
We are relying on raw youth and average pros to be established solid performers consistently.
I dont know why we also play players out of position. James is a good LW and a very poor RW. So we only ever try him RW and he is quickly becoming a scapegoat. TFM is decent at FB but you can see hes not a natural
Our board and owners are inept. We are in danger of being left behind. Again
The obvious is transfers. Our team is decent, our squad is pretty lame.
We still need to sell.
Jones, Rojo, Smalling, Lingard, Periera.
With recent selections i dont see much of a future for:
Dalot
Mata and Matic are on last legs.
We have two insane wages for keepers too.
How many years have we been without a RW? Criminal we cant address this.
Holes in the squad:
No LB cover
No ST cover (sorry Ighalo im not having you long term)
No RW at all.
To boot, the areas we are "well covered" we arent really oozing with top tier quality.
Rashford is either amazing or pathetic. Sadly, of late he's been a real burden.
Mctominey/Lindelof/ are decent but all have flaws.
Tfm/James/Greenwood/Williams are all good players who are learning but they are all so raw still
We are relying on raw youth and average pros to be established solid performers consistently.
I dont know why we also play players out of position. James is a good LW and a very poor RW. So we only ever try him RW and he is quickly becoming a scapegoat. TFM is decent at FB but you can see hes not a natural
Our board and owners are inept. We are in danger of being left behind. Again
Most importantly, a director of football or whatever you wanna call him.
Just keep Woodward away.
Yeah expect another story on that which won't go anywhere
I don't get why we, as a club, have a blind spot to press resistant players.
Back after being schooled by Barcelona yet again in 2011, we should've brought in players good on the ball under pressure in tight spaces. Instead, we go on to sign more lightweights in Young and, later, Kagawa, whilst City took note and got press resistant players like Silva, Nasri and Toure, which helped them overtake us. Their general play as a result elevated to another level and left our zombie football in the dust.
We're still suffering from the same problems to this day. We haven't learnt at all. We still sign lightweights in Bruno and Donny instead of players who can excel in any setup, under an out-of-his-depth manager, due to their abilty to play under pressure - which helped City when they had underperforming managers. It wouldn't be as big a problem if we had a world class manager who could get his team to play cohesive football, but we don't, and haven't for a very long time.
Back after being schooled by Barcelona yet again in 2011, we should've brought in players good on the ball under pressure in tight spaces. Instead, we go on to sign more lightweights in Young and, later, Kagawa, whilst City took note and got press resistant players like Silva, Nasri and Toure, which helped them overtake us. Their general play as a result elevated to another level and left our zombie football in the dust.
We're still suffering from the same problems to this day. We haven't learnt at all. We still sign lightweights in Bruno and Donny instead of players who can excel in any setup, under an out-of-his-depth manager, due to their abilty to play under pressure - which helped City when they had underperforming managers. It wouldn't be as big a problem if we had a world class manager who could get his team to play cohesive football, but we don't, and haven't for a very long time.
Seeing as the Sancho deal has scuppered our transfer window I would consider looking elsewhere for now. For the price Dortmund are asking (120 million) we could maybe sign BOTH Grealish (70 million) and Traoré (50 million).
Use Grealish in rotation with Rashford at LF and also with Fernandes/Pogba/VDB for our two CAM spots.
Use Traoré in rotation with Greenwood at RF.
We'd have two pacy wide forwards in Rashford and Traoré and two technical ones in Grealish and Greenwood.
Loan out James to somewhere where he can regain his confidence. I still very much believe in him, but he needs more game time.
Switch from 4-2-3-1 to 4-1-2-3. In other words, play with one DM instead of two. Our front five would then look like this:
Grealish Martial Traoré
---Pogba Fernandes---
or
Rashford Martial Greenwood
--------Grealish VDB------------
We can still sign Sancho in January or next summer if needed.
As for the CDM/DLP, CB and LB positions we need more depth there as well, but perhaps we could resolve that by getting some players in on the cheap or on loan. I would think players like Koopmeiners or Normann could be good and cheap options for CDM/DLP. I thought Magalhães for CB and Reguilón for LB should have been signed but maybe there are other options for those positions.
But first of all I think Rojo, Smalling, Jones, Pereira and Lingard should all be allowed to leave in order to free up wages and squad places plus to get some money in. Maybe consider lowering the asking price if there are no takers right now, as it would at least generate some funds as opposed to nothing.
Use Grealish in rotation with Rashford at LF and also with Fernandes/Pogba/VDB for our two CAM spots.
Use Traoré in rotation with Greenwood at RF.
We'd have two pacy wide forwards in Rashford and Traoré and two technical ones in Grealish and Greenwood.
Loan out James to somewhere where he can regain his confidence. I still very much believe in him, but he needs more game time.
Switch from 4-2-3-1 to 4-1-2-3. In other words, play with one DM instead of two. Our front five would then look like this:
Grealish Martial Traoré
---Pogba Fernandes---
or
Rashford Martial Greenwood
--------Grealish VDB------------
We can still sign Sancho in January or next summer if needed.
As for the CDM/DLP, CB and LB positions we need more depth there as well, but perhaps we could resolve that by getting some players in on the cheap or on loan. I would think players like Koopmeiners or Normann could be good and cheap options for CDM/DLP. I thought Magalhães for CB and Reguilón for LB should have been signed but maybe there are other options for those positions.
But first of all I think Rojo, Smalling, Jones, Pereira and Lingard should all be allowed to leave in order to free up wages and squad places plus to get some money in. Maybe consider lowering the asking price if there are no takers right now, as it would at least generate some funds as opposed to nothing.
- Starting RW, make Greenwood first backup/competition for all 3 starting spots
- Starting LB, Shaw backup or LCB in a 3
- Starting CB to partner Maguire, Lindelof backup
- Starting holding mid to replace Matic
- Replace Pogba in the squad (van de beek starter with Bruno and new deep lying playmaker)
- All the things we ignored from top list.
- Top manager to step up from top 4 competitors to title challengers
I would be delighted if we got a RW and a LB at this point. We've done feck all for 2 months, 0 faith that we can fix it all in 2 weeks.
I think the most realistic prospect for those positions is probably Sarr & Telles
Alaba
R Sessegnon (swap for j lingz)
Sancho
R Sessegnon (swap for j lingz)
Sancho
We have 9 players who are truly good enough to be starting for a club like United right now. 3 of them are keepers so we have just 6 outfield players (De Gea, Henderson, Romero, Pogba, Bruno, Van de Beek, Greenwood, Rashford and Martial).
Then there are a handful of players who are either good squad players (Shaw, Maguire, Lindelof, Matic, Fred, Mata) or players who can become good enough (Wan-Bissaka, Williams, Tuanzebe, McTominay).
That leaves Grant, Dalot, Smalling, Jones, Rojo, Bailly, Pereira, Lingard, James and Ighalo who aren't good enough and are unlikely to ever be.
I think we need top class options at left back, centre back, defensive midfield and right wing to be able to field a starting 11 that could realistically challenge at the top. Then, if you say Henderson, Williams, Tuanzebe, Lindelof, Shaw, Matic, Fred, McTominay, Van de Beek and Greenwood offer decent cover, we still need better cover for both wing or wide attacking positions.
We're 6 signings and 10 outgoings away from having a squad capable of mounting a title challenge.
Then there are a handful of players who are either good squad players (Shaw, Maguire, Lindelof, Matic, Fred, Mata) or players who can become good enough (Wan-Bissaka, Williams, Tuanzebe, McTominay).
That leaves Grant, Dalot, Smalling, Jones, Rojo, Bailly, Pereira, Lingard, James and Ighalo who aren't good enough and are unlikely to ever be.
I think we need top class options at left back, centre back, defensive midfield and right wing to be able to field a starting 11 that could realistically challenge at the top. Then, if you say Henderson, Williams, Tuanzebe, Lindelof, Shaw, Matic, Fred, McTominay, Van de Beek and Greenwood offer decent cover, we still need better cover for both wing or wide attacking positions.
We're 6 signings and 10 outgoings away from having a squad capable of mounting a title challenge.
Swap Pogba for Sandro, Costa and Rabiot. Job done, a stingy one..
I like your thinking.
We need 3 players for the first 11, RW, CB and a LB.
This should have been sorted this window but instead we spent the whole summer chasing a player that we won't pay the money for.
This should have been sorted this window but instead we spent the whole summer chasing a player that we won't pay the money for.
Are you having a laugh? A left back that's average and is 29 , a injury prone right winger and a fruit cake of a midfielder.